Extreme Athletes: The Greatest Athletes in the World

Over the past few years I’ve become increasingly interested in extreme sports. Like most people I enjoy watching some of the daredevil type acrobatics that these athletes are able to achieve. Athletes such as Tony Hawk, Laird Hamilton, Travis Pastrana, and Shawn White have come along and completely redefined our perception of what is possible. Being that I rode dirt-bikes growing up and currently surf I have some vague idea of the level that guys like Pastrana and Hamilton are reaching and even though I have almost zero interest in skate or snowboarding I am still glued to my tv when Tony Hawk and Shawn White are performing. In fact watching Tony Hawk’s 900 at the ESPN X-Games or Laird Hamilton’s ride at Teahupoo ranks right up there with some of the greatest athletic moments I’ve ever seen.

So how can a guy who has no interest at all in skateboarding rank Tony Hawk’s 900 as one of his favorite all-time athletic moments? When I initially saw Tony Hawk’s 900 I was blown away by the perseverance it took to accomplish this feat. You could see the look of determination in his face, the single pointed focus he had, and what he was doing to focus his mind to accomplish what many had deemed impossible. This single even launched my fascination with the extreme athlete. As I had done to so many athletes in the past I began to study how these athletes thought, trained, and viewed their sport. The more I learned the more I gained a greater appreciation and admiration for these amazing individuals. So much so that I now believe that these athletes are the greatest and most complete athletes in the world. They have found what most major sports including baseball is lacking. The have found that in order to be successful and take their sport to higher levels that they must train their body, mind, and spirit. Why? Quite frankly because their life depends on it!

Unlike in baseball where a mechanical flaw, a cluttered mind, or an ego centered spirit will lead to a hitter striking out or a pitcher giving up a homerun, extreme athletes must deal with the reality that a mistake or lack of focus might equal death. In addition I love how these athletes are continually rewriting our perception of what’s possible. This has lead me to study their training techniques and use these techniques on myself and my athletes. I always think it’s funny how people in baseball are quick to call something impossible. They’re quick to say you can’t teach a person to hit as if mastering the physical skill of hitting is some mystical, God given ability. Yet here we have extreme athletes learning complex physical movements on a regular basis. Once someone accomplishes the “impossible” these athletes then take the impossible movement even farther. Obviously they know something we don’t. Obviously they have figured out how to get their body and mind to do what they want and then perform these skills time and time again.

So what can we learn from them? What is it that we can apply to our sport that will enable us to take our personal game to higher levels and at the same time raise the level of play of baseball across the globe?

• A lack of egoic thinking- Oh sure these athletes are driven to be the best and it can be argued that they walk around with a certain level of arrogance. However unlike most baseball players many of the world’s best extreme athletes see their performance as serving something more, something greater then themselves. Maybe it’s because they’ve been striving for so long to make their sport mainstream but it seems as though they feel a certain level of responsibility to their sport. Many of them in their interviews can be heard saying that what they just accomplished is great because it helps their sport gain more exposure. At the same time they appreciate the feats of their fellow competitors. While they are driven to be the best and genuinely want to win their event they also appreciate when their competitors take the sport to higher levels. You often see professional skateboarders applauding their opponent’s performance. Unlike in baseball where many times we are more concerned with our stats, our results, our playing time these athletes see their sport as bigger then themselves. Sometimes they even take it a step further and feel like great performance was a gift given to them by some higher power. They feel gratitude that they were able to perform at such a high level which ultimately allows them to continue to perform at this level and allows them to continually be blessed with great experiences. Many times after a great game we are quick to think that we did it, that we are the man, and it’s because we are better then everyone else that we were able to produce such an amazing result. In the movie Riding Giants Laird Hamilton was asked about his ride at Teahupoo and his response was, “I was honored to be given the opportunity to have such an amazing experience.” Clearly an absence of egoic thinking, playing for something more then yourself, can lead to higher and higher levels of performance.

• A Holistic Approach to Training- Unlike many of us in baseball or other mainstream sports these athletes have discovered that in order to reach for and beyond the impossible you must train your entire self. They understand that we are only as strong as our weakest link and physical skills are meaningless without a strong mind and spirit. They understand the power of connectivity and how everything is connected, weakness in one creates weakness in another. Many times you can find these athletes engaged in meditation to clear and strengthen their mind, visualization so they can see and mentally practice a new trick or skill (you often hear them comment that, “You must first see the trick in your mind long before you can ever do it physically”), weight training to strengthen their body and allow them to handle the pounding that they must go through, and yoga to maintain or increase the body’s flexibility so they can gain greater range of motion and more control over their limbs. They don’t leave anything out and as such are some of the most well balanced athletes on the planet.

• Detailed, Step by Step, and Progressive Approach to Skill Development- Since the skills these athletes perform are so dangerous and so complex they take the time to break their movements down in easily manageable and safe parts. They take an entire skill break it down into parts, practice and master each part individually, and then put the whole thing together. Compare that to how we tend to learn how to hit or pitch. In hitting we’ll get on a tee or off of a machine and take full swings. Then you get a coach or even yourself to tell you what adjustments to make and you then try to make that adjustment and master that part of the swing while you are engaged in performing your swing in it’s entirety. If you aren’t able to learn it you are then, “just not a born or natural hitter.” Crazy right? In the grand scheme of things a mechanically sound swing or good pitching mechanics are far easier to learn then Shawn White’s Double Front Side 1080 you just need to break the movement down and master it one step at a time. Since poor head position, or a flaw in your posture is enough in extreme sports to get you docked major points or even cause you to be unable to pull off a trick these athletes are very detail oriented and very aware of what their body is doing at all times. Unlike baseball where we have a tendency to not pay attention to what our body is doing or where our posture is in space these athletes know what their body must do in order to pull off their particular trick. Once again they see the connection between poor head position and their body’s ability to perform. Finally they are progressive. They take their time gradually increasing the difficulty of their movements and slowly pushing the limits of their sport. They don’t have a time table like we often do in baseball. We have this belief that if we aren’t so good by such and such a date then we’ll never make it. This adds unneeded stress and negativity to our game and as a result inhibits our development. When Tony Hawk pulled off the 900 he had been trying to land the trick for approximately 20 years. Laird Hamilton didn’t just wake up one day and say, “Hey let’s go surf a 60 foot wave.” He had been in the water his whole life, gradually increasing the difficulty of his skills until a 60 foot was the logical next step. In our sport when we place deadlines we create frustration, comparison, and stress, all of which will slow and prevent your overall development and performance.

• They Perform in “The Moment” and are Process Oriented- In baseball we have a tendency to focus on outcomes. We concern ourselves with our numbers, getting hits, getting strikeouts, but rarely do we take the time to focus on the steps necessary to produce the results we desire. Extreme athletes have figured out that great performance is nothing more then an accumulation of single moments strung together. Why is this? Well once again, if they don’t focus on the moment, if they allow their mind to focus on the future or the past, looking forward to an outcome, or back to a failure, they might die! When Laird Hamilton rode his wave at Teahupoo he was 100% focused on what the wave was doing at the precise moment. As a result he was able to spontaneously come up with what he needed to do in order to stay on the wave. He had to do something he had never done before or had never even practiced before but being focused on the moment allowed his mind to remain clear which allowed him to create and execute the movement. The end result of surfing one of the toughest and most dangerous waves ever ridden was just the accumulation of these singular moments. If we applied this same mentality to baseball not only would we perform at higher levels but we would perform with far greater consistency. How many at bats it’s been since your last hit wouldn’t matter, what a particular hitter has done against you in his career would be meaningless, a bad call from an umpire wouldn’t effect an at bat, and you would be focused on executing the mental skills and physical movements that produce success and wouldn’t be focused on the success itself.

These are just some of the things I have learned from watching and studying extreme athletes. In my opinion due to their approach to their training, to their sport, and by the simple fact that failure results in serious injury or death these athletes are the greatest athletes in the world. Don’t make the mistake of believing that just because they don’t play a sport that has a ball that they aren’t as athletic as we are or that we can’t learn from them and apply these lessons to our sport. I believe that if we did we would not only experience greater personal success on the field but the state of our game and how it is played would be greatly improved. If you want to take your game to higher levels begin to watch and learn from these athletes. Maybe something they do or say will enable you to play at levels you once only dreamed of.