Growing the athlete

Growing the athlete is an organic not a mechanistic process. For years I used the metaphor of building the athlete but over the past few years I have become uncomfortable with that characterization. Certainly, building is part of the process, but I find that building evokes a reductionist mechanistic image of constructing, of replacing parts as opposed to the cultivation of synergistic relationships between training means and methods and the systems of the body. The whole is much more than the sum of the parts as the athlete is nurtured and develops throughout their career. It takes time and timing of the appropriate stimuli for the level of the athlete’s stage of development.