What Does It Mean to Train for Athleticism?

When you think about peak physical performance, you probably think about a player from your favorite sports team, an Olympian, an ultramarathoner, or an athlete in some form or another. For most of us, athletes are seen as the epitome of fit – and that really comes from the way they train. But what does it actually mean to “train like an athlete?” Athlete trainer and founder of Marrero Performance Training Steven A. Marrero breaks it down. 

What Does It Mean to Train for Athleticism? 

“The idea behind training like an athlete, we can call it, is moving more dynamically, and you can do that at any age,” says Coach Marrero, who has been training clients of all ages for over 10 years. 

He continues, highlighting that this style of training is “not your traditional bodybuilding style of working out, not that that’s necessarily isolation focused training is bad,” but that it’s “more about movement before strength, meaning mobility, flexibility, and range of motion through your joints. That needs to come first before all of a sudden we’re throwing loads of weight and variations to put stress on the body when you can put enough stress on the body just by moving correctly initially. Hypertrophy training is an important piece to correctly build the framework but we need learn how to move properly.” 

How to Unlock Your Athletic Potential

Now that we’ve established that training like an athlete means prioritizing dynamic, functional movements, the question becomes how to train like an athlete. According to Marrero, this begins by focusing on injury prevention. 

“Injury prevention is the first focus of anything I do, and that’s really the whole idea behind training like an athlete, as opposed to just strictly bodybuilding-style workouts,” says the Performance Enhancement Specialist. He continues with what comes next, saying “Developing core strength and core stability is always a must that needs to be involved because, without that, you don’t have your center of gravity. I always focus on stability and balance first.” 

Marrero says that he also always introduces his clients to “foundational movements like understanding how to squat.” While “that sounds generic,” the proper techniques for movements like squats are oftentimes “overlooked and not focused on,” which eventually leads to improper movements down the road, he explains. 

Apart from functional movements like squats, the trainer also focuses on “running, sprinting, and plyometric-based training,” which help to build an athlete’s power, explosivity, and strength. 

“You're actually protecting the joints by performing applied metric movement because you increase durability, tissue tolerance, and tendon elasticity,” plus a host of other long-term health benefits, he explains. 

Marrero explains that “Plyometrics is one of the number one things that are missing because people are either afraid or they’re not sure of why these movements would be beneficial, but they’re great for joint absorption,” he says, noting that many people fear these types of movements (think box jumps, skater hops, and tuck jumps) will aggravate their joints, when in fact, they end up doing the opposite. 

 “You're actually protecting the joints by performing applied metric movement because you increase durability, tissue tolerance, and tendon elasticity,” plus a host of other long-term health benefits, he explains. 

In addition to the long-term health benefits, Marrero also says that by “performing things along those lines three days a week, you’ll see a big difference and you’ll get all the results you want out of your generic, general workouts in an athletic-style based training session.” 

Stronger joints and tendons, more explosivity, and an overall better-looking physique – yes, please! 

Plus, the coolest part of training like an athlete with Marrero is every single program is completely customized to what you want to achieve. “I can tell you I’ve been training and doing the fitness industry for I don’t know how many years, and you can ask anybody – I’ve never written the same workout for somebody twice. Never.”

Want to unlock your athletic potential? Follow Steven @marreroperformance, or see how you can work together here.