It's unbelievable how much effort and how much work not just over any one day, they’re over the course of a lifetime these athletes put into. I mean, I can't imagine how they can have normal jobs and then you're talking about training six, seven, eight hours a day, sometimes longer over a year sometimes decades. Most of these athletes have started at six, seven, eight years old in whatever that sport is. So, the dedication is tremendous but you also have to remember that these are the cream of the crop. I mean, most athletes don’t get to that point. It's a combination of skill, you know having the innate ability to do whatever that sport is and then having the work ethic on top of that. Work ethic alone isn’t going to get you there. You have to be a naturally gifted athlete. So the combination of those two is really incredible.
I think it's amazing how much of an entourage has gone into professional sports, not at just the Olympic level but in all levels. Teams now travel with athletic trainers and strength and conditioning coaches really like you say usually have access to at least to a nutritionist and people like that. I think it really depends a lot of times the teams such say the US Olympic team. Each sport US, swimming USA, basketball, they’re all going to have their own trainers, their own strength and conditioning coaches, things like that. When you get to the athletes that are well-paid, the professional athletes that make a lot of money, they may have their own personal strength and conditioning coach and personal athletic trainer and massage therapist. It really just depends but at least in the United States at the national level, almost all of the sports now have a very dedicated sports medicine staff that usually travels with the team.
It's really difficult to say how much training because it's not the same for every person and it's not the same for every sport. Typically, some of these athletes especially can go six to 12 hours a day doing what it is they do. One of the problems you get into though with that long and that intense of training that if it's in the same activity, the same say butterfly swimmer doing the same motion over and over and over again for hours and hours and hours, that can start to be detrimental whereas if they vary it up a little bit maybe not so much. It really depends also in you know how good a cardiovascular shape there and how strong they are, how good their muscle strength is to support their bodies.
I think you know the professional athletes, the Olympic athletes have the benefit of having done whatever their sport is for so long. They know their bodies. They know that pain is normal I can just run through it or I can just swim through it or whatever./ they also know what’s not normal, what really hurts and they have access to the top physicians, the top trainers in the world. I think what you can take out of that is one you know, know that you can really push yourself most of the time and so great, do really well but you have to listen to your body and know when you know pain is unusual or really uncomfortable to seek advice. You don’t have your own personal orthopedic surgeon obviously but just know that this is not normal and I need to stop and reevaluate.
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