This is article 4 in the SP100 list, highlighting elite athletes' and coaches' achievements, philosophies and methodologies. These articles highlight stories and careers that have potentially been missed or gone under the radar by the mainstream media.
Mat Fraser is one of the most dominant athletes in the modern era. For any athlete, winning an individual world championship is a huge accomplishment. To win two back-to-back is an extremely rare feat. Mat won 5 back to back CrossFit games championships between 2016-2020. He was considered untouchable and unbeatable until his retirement in 2020. He walked away from the sport in his prime with far more in the tank. It beggars the question - how did he achieve such dominance?
Control the controllable
Mat has become synonymous with success. Images of him standing on Podiums and winning workouts are plastered over the internet. However, many forget that he competed in the CrossFit games multiple times before his first victory. In 2015, Mat believed he was destined to win his first title. The previous multi-time champion Rich Froning had retired, and the title laid vacant. However, things did not go to plan. Mat came runner-up to long-time competitor Ben Smith, leaving him in shock. He considered making excuses and walking away from the sport entirely. But he pulled himself up from the disappointment and went to work to stop that from happening again.
In a training session, a coach once told him, 'You are not special. You do not train harder than others. At the elite level, that is not the differentiating factor. Everyone in the gym does squats; everyone does row intervals.' Mat took this onboard and started breaking down his lifestyle outside the gym. He realised he could not control what any of his competitors were doing and that his only responsibility was to turn up on competition day in peak condition. He set about creating an optimal lifestyle and environment to facilitate his training. He was relentless, from minimising UV light in the evening to the timing of his meals. He left no stone unturned by building an optimal schedule, calculating his ideal caloric intake and setting his house temperature to an exact 69 degrees.
He maintained this for a full year, even during competition trips. Mat took it to such an extreme that he would take his own mattress to hotels to ensure his sleep was not adversely affected by his location. This relentlessness paid off big time. He destroyed the competition in 2016 and never looked back. He transformed himself from a strong competitor to an unstoppable champion while hardly changing his actual training.
While this level of obsession is not required for most of the population to achieve their goals, the lesson remains strong. The time we spend working directly on our goals only makes up a small factor in the likelihood of success. The indirect components such as diet, sleep and hydration greatly affect your progression, no matter the goal. Poor diets can lead to heavy physical and cognitive fatigue. Poor hydration can lead to injury and illness. Numerous elements of everyday life, if not optimised, can damage your chance of success. Take a step back in your life, look around at every hour of your day and analyse if it is helping or hindering your efforts.
Be open to a sideways step
Mat Fraser's career is uncommon in that he competed at an elite level in two different sports. In his early sporting career, he was highlighted as a talented Olympic lifter and was invited to train with the USA Olympic programme. His early career ambition was an Olympic gold medal. For many athletes, this is considered the pinnacle of sporting accomplishment. Standing on the podium as your national anthem plays and a stadium applauds you is a sportsperson's dream. However, Mat took the brave step to change sport. He walked away from Olympic lifting at an elite level to compete at low-level CrossFit.
From competing at national Olympic lifting meets to beginner CrossFit competitions for a few hundred dollars in prize money. He did not complete a CrossFit competition until he was 22. Within a year, he was not only at the CrossFit games but finishing second on the podium and establishing himself as one of the sport's hottest prospects. Changing direction is always a scary transition. Once you have put years of effort and focus on a goal, it isn't easy to accept that goal will not going o come to fruition. However, taking a sideways step can open doors you previously never knew existed. Stepping sideways is not necessarily giving up. The Olympic lifts of the snatch and clean and jerk are major components of the sport of Crossfit. He was not starting from scratch and had to adapt his focus and training. The years he had previously put in were not a waste but the building of a foundation.
When looking for an example of elite performance focus in life, look no further than Mat. It is easy to put in effort for a few hours a day to achieve your goals and drive your efforts through pure motivation. To get yourself excited for a short period and put in a huge amount of work. However, it takes true dedication to embed your life goals into your way of life. To shape your day-to-day behaviour outside of work/training is where the huge leaps of progress are made, and the example he sets is the blueprint for anyone to achieve their goals through sheer commitment.
Comments