The Best Athletes Develop In Solitude
Games are where you show what you have. Alone is where you build it.
“If you don’t join this team and you miss this tournament, you’re going to fall behind.”
Every athlete has heard some version of it. Club programs, travel teams, showcases, national camps. Different sports, same pitch.
In my experience, the opposite is true.
This is not a moral stance against the youth/high school sports industry. It already has plenty of detractors, from parents to former stars like Landon Donovan and Greg Olsen (ironic how so many chose to ignore those who actually went to the dance).
I’m fairly agnostic to whether club programs and organizations alike are good or bad. The market will do what the market does. But the pitch is a different question. Markets cater to the desires (or in this case fears) of groups. Not truths.
THE NOISE ISN’T NEW
iPhones, social media, etc. Every generation dealt with noise. Ours might have more of it. Okay, so what?
The variable was never the noise to begin with.
The variable is the authentic desire to become great. And that desire creates the ability to tune out the noise.
WHAT THE GREATS ACTUALLY DID
Jason Williams (ask Shaq). Apolo Ohno. Wayne Gretzky.
Pick whoever you want. On their way to becoming great they had: No entourage. No team of trainers. No roster of psychologists. No content plan. What they had was time alone with their craft.
Nobody standing over them approving each rep.
They built their own instrument for judging right from wrong. They knew when a rep was good and they knew when it was garbage. That internal read became their weapon. And it only gets developed in solitude.
COMPETITION IS A SCOREBOARD, NOT A GYM
Competition teaches real things. Pressure, timing, reading an opponent. Don’t skip it. But don’t think it alone is going to bring you to the promised land.
Understand what competition actually is. It’s a display of your current level. A snapshot in time. You’re primarily spending inventory, not building it.
The athlete who competes constantly and never recovers enough to train well is stuck in a cycle. All withdrawal, no deposit. Then everyone stands around wondering why they flatlined at sixteen.
WHAT HAPPENS IN SOLITUDE
No music. No phone. No coach’s voice.
Your mind wanders. You get bored, then curious, then playful. You try something you have no business trying. It fails. You try it again a little differently. Realize a different angle. Try it again.
Iterative practice: Rep, assess, learn, try it a slightly different way. Adjust, adjust, adjust, adjust.
Learning loops are the key, not reps. They occur internally, and tend to only be accessible outside the gaze of an expert. Your body actually has a discovery mechanism - the ability to communicate with itself and learn.
From the outside looking in they appear to be simple reps. But internally, on each rep you’re making micro-adjustments.
When someone is always in your ear judging every movement, criticizing, or praising, you stop developing your own read on things and start catering to theirs.
In this situation, both praise and criticism are the same. They’re interruptions.
Solitude removes these interruptions. You get to find out what you think of your own work.
Some of what you discover never shows up on the field.
Then one day it does. Fourth quarter, bad angle, no time to think, and your body already knows the answer.
It’s not magic. It’s indirect preparation.
FOMO vs JOMO
Someone once flipped FOMO into JOMO. The joy of missing out. Talk about a valuable perspective.
Solitude is free. It doesn’t care about your family’s income, your zip code, which club took you, or which camp sent the invite. It’s the one input in athlete development nobody can outspend you on.
I spent over 15 years working with elite D1 and professional athletes. Outworking their competition wasn’t their actual advantage. The willingness to say no and create time for themselves was.
Regardless of their resources or stardom level, the ones who continued to excel throughout their careers hung on to the one thing that actually got them there. The ability to disappear into their own little world.
IF YOU ACTUALLY WANT TO BECOME GREAT
Become a pro at saying no.
Do fewer things. Guard your alone time with an iron fist.
No training routine, supplement schedule, or expert can beat the athletes’ best friend.
Solitude.
Onward and upward!
—Ryan
INNO ATHLETE
Helping athletes think clearly about performance, strategy, and business.