Dan Tecce was telling a group of players a story last Friday after their last lift of the week.
The workout was an ab circuit. Hard. The guys had done something similar the week before and a few of them had bullshitted through it. Dan walked them through the math out loud before they started.
“This is the last thing you have for the week. The weekend is yours, sleep in, do whatever. But this ab circuit is going to hurt for two or three minutes. After that you are fine.”
That is the whole pitch.
The hurt is short. The regret is long.
Dan does a lot of CrossFit now and he says the same thing about every workout. The physical part is real, but the part that decides what you finish with is mental.
You are in the middle of a circuit. You can finish it. It just hurts. Your brain starts negotiating. Sometimes you push through and you are proud. Sometimes you bullshit your way out and you get in the car and the drive home is the worst part of the day.
You always could have gone harder. You always know it on the way home.
Skill is still the first thing.
Dan is clear on this and so am I. The reps in the cage. The work off the tee. The bullpens. The fielding drills. That is the foundation. Nothing on top of it matters if the bottom is empty.
You should be very good at your craft and you should be working on it more than the kid next to you.
Outside the sport is where the gap actually opens.
A LITTLE bit of effort outside the sport, over four years, is the entire game.
The weight room is the easiest place to win that gap. You do not have to be the strongest kid in the program. You have to be the kid who is in there with a plan and who finishes the set the coach wrote.
Diet is the second place. Sleep is the third. Dan said the quiet part out loud. Even as an athlete, you are going to go out. You are going to have fun. Fine. If you can manage that stuff a little bit better than the rest of the team, the gap compounds in a way you do not notice until you are a junior and you are still in the lineup.
A little bit of effort in three places. Four years. Compound interest.
If you want the playbook for what to do in those three places, Athora Lab's training and recruiting resources are written by guys who have been in that exact weight room. Dan included.
The hurt is two or three minutes. The version of you who pushed through gets to spend the next four years playing.