You’ve seen that person at the local pickup game or the gym. They don’t just move; they glide. They jump without effort, change direction like a cat, and never seem to be "trying" as hard as everyone else. It’s frustrating. Most people assume they were just born with some magical "athlete gene" and the rest of us are stuck with the leftovers.
That’s mostly nonsense.
Sure, genetics provide the ceiling, but almost nobody is actually hitting their ceiling. If you want to learn how to become more athletic, you have to stop thinking like a bodybuilder and start thinking like a kinetic machine. Most gym routines focus on "beach muscles." They prioritize looking good in a mirror over moving well in space. If your goal is true athleticism, you need to prioritize things like rate of force development (RFD), eccentric loading, and proprioception. Basically, you need to teach your brain how to talk to your muscles faster.
The Myth of the "Slow" Athlete
We need to talk about speed. Most people think you’re either fast or you’re not. While muscle fiber type—the ratio of fast-twitch to slow-twitch fibers—is partially determined by your DNA, how you apply that power is a skill.
Think about a whip. A whip isn't strong in the way a crowbar is strong. It's effective because of the way energy transfers from the handle to the tip. Your body works the same way. This is called the kinetic chain. When you throw a ball or sprint, the power starts in your feet, moves through your hips, and finally exits through your hand or foot. If there is a "leak" in that chain—maybe your core is soft or your ankles are stiff—you lose power.
It’s Not Just About Squats
You can have a 500-pound back squat and still be "unathletic." Why? Because heavy lifting in the gym is slow. Even when you're trying to move fast, the actual velocity of the bar is low. Real athleticism happens in milliseconds.
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The University of Salford’s research on elite sprinters often highlights that what separates the best isn't just how much force they can produce, but how quickly they can produce it. This is why plyometrics are non-negotiable. If you aren't jumping, bounding, or throwing medicine balls, you aren't training to be an athlete. You’re just training to be a strong person who moves slowly.
Building the Engine: Movement Over Muscles
If you want to know how to become more athletic, you have to embrace the "messy" movements. Linear training—going up and down or forward and back—is easy. Life and sports happen in 3D.
Dr. Kelly Starrett, author of Becoming a Supple Leopard, often emphasizes that movement mechanics are the foundation of everything. If your knees cave in when you jump, you’re not just risking an ACL tear; you’re literally bleeding energy. You’re inefficient.
Instead of just doing leg extensions, try lateral bounds. Instead of sitting on a chest press machine, try a single-arm cable press while standing. These movements force your "stabilizer" muscles to wake up. They teach your body to stay rigid under tension, which is the secret sauce of every great athlete from Barry Sanders to modern-day parkour runners.
The Foot Problem
Most people treat their feet like blocks of wood. They shove them into over-cushioned shoes and forget they exist. But your feet are your only point of contact with the ground. If your feet are weak, your "spring" is broken.
Start doing some of your warm-ups barefoot. Wake up the intrinsic muscles of the foot. When you can "grip" the floor with your toes, your balance improves instantly. It sounds hippie-dippie, but elite track coaches like Tony Holler swear by foot health as a primary driver of speed.
Why Your Nervous System Is Throttling You
Your brain is a safety governor. It doesn't want you to move at 100% capacity because it's afraid you'll snap a tendon. To how to become more athletic, you have to convince your nervous system that it's safe to be explosive.
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This is where "intent" comes in. If you lift a weight casually, your brain only recruits a few motor units. If you try to move that same weight with maximum violent intent, your brain screams for reinforcements. Even if the bar moves slowly because it's heavy, the effort to move it fast trains the nervous system to fire more rapidly.
- Overtraining the Brain: High-intensity plyometrics (like depth jumps) shouldn't be done every day. They fry your Central Nervous System (CNS).
- Rest Periods: If you're training for athleticism, stop doing 30-second rest periods. You need 2-3 minutes between sets so your ATP stores can recharge. You want every rep to be high-quality, not a slog through fatigue.
Honestly, most people fail at this because they want to feel "the burn." Athleticism isn't about the burn. It's about the "pop." If you feel sluggish, stop. You're no longer training speed; you're training endurance, which is a different animal entirely.
Deceleration: The Skill of Not Breaking
Everyone wants to go fast. Nobody wants to talk about stopping. But here is the reality: you can only go as fast as you can safely stop.
Think about a Ferrari with bicycle brakes. You’d never drive it at 200 mph because you’d die at the first turn. Your brain does the same thing to your body. If your muscles can’t handle the "eccentric" load of slowing down, your brain will subconsciously limit your top speed to protect you.
To fix this, focus on the "landing" phase of your jumps. When you do a box jump, don't worry about how high the box is. Focus on how quiet you can land. A quiet landing means you are absorbing force efficiently.
Real-World Application: The Weekly Split
Don't just add "athletic stuff" to the end of a bodybuilding workout. It won't work. You’ll be too tired to be explosive. You need a dedicated approach.
Start your sessions with the fastest movements first. This usually looks like:
- Med Ball Throws or Sprints: (Pure speed/explosiveness)
- Plyometrics: (Jumping/bounding)
- Compound Lifts: (Squats/pulls for raw strength)
- Unilateral/Rotational Work: (Lunger, woodchops, single-leg RDLs)
If you’re doing 4 sets of 12 for everything, you’re doing it wrong. Try 5 sets of 3 for your jumps. Try 3 sets of 5 for your heavy lifts. Keep the volume low but the intensity through the roof.
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The Role of Reactive Training
True athleticism isn't scripted. You don't know where the defender is going to move. This is why "closed" drills (like running through cones in a set pattern) only take you so far.
You need "open" drills. Have a friend point left or right, and you have to react and sprint in 그 direction. This bridges the gap between gym strength and "game speed." It trains the OODA loop (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act), which is a concept used by fighter pilots but applies perfectly to sports.
Practical Steps to Start Today
If you’re serious about how to become more athletic, you don't need a fancy facility. You need a hill, a heavy object, and some space.
- Hill Sprints: This is the "cheat code" for speed. The incline forces you into a perfect sprinting posture and prevents you from overstriding, which reduces injury risk. Do 5-8 reps of 20 yards at 100% effort.
- The 3-Step Jump: Find a line. Take three aggressive steps and jump as far as you can. Measure it. Try to beat it next week. It's the simplest way to track your power output.
- Fix Your Sleep: You don't get more athletic in the gym; you get more athletic while you sleep. Research from Stanford’s Cheri Mah showed that basketball players who increased their sleep to 10 hours a night saw significant improvements in sprint speed and shooting accuracy.
- Isometrics: Hold the bottom of a split squat for 30 seconds. This builds "tendon stiffness." Stiff tendons act like heavy-duty rubber bands, snapping you back into place and making you more explosive.
Stop chasing a pump and start chasing performance. When you stop worrying about how your biceps look and start worrying about how fast your hips move, the aesthetics usually follow anyway. But more importantly, you’ll actually be able to use your body for what it was designed for: moving.
Don't overcomplicate it. Move fast, lift heavy things, jump often, and for heaven's sake, get out of the machines and move in every direction. That's the only way the "magic" happens.