7 Training Habits Average Athletes Skip (But Elite Athletes Never Do)

5 Big Ideas, 3 Reflection Questions, 1 Takeaway

Why do elite athletes train less intensely than you think — and still get better results?

In this conversation, Ben, Cole, and Jamison break down seven training principles that separate sustainable performance from burnout: warming up with intention, lifting lighter to build strength faster, and understanding that pacing is the actual secret to getting fitter.

You’ll discover why training at 60% effort builds more capacity than going all-out every session, why rest days create the gains you’re chasing, and how discipline beats intensity every single time.

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🖐 5 BIG IDEAS

1. Your Warmup Is Practice, Not Just Preparation

Most people treat warmups like an obligation — jump on a bike for five minutes, do some arm circles, and get on with it. But elite athletes understand something different: your warmup is where you drill perfect movement patterns before the load gets heavy. As Ben puts it, when the load is lighter, your focus should be higher. That’s called practice.

A proper warmup isn’t one thing — it’s a progression. Start with general body temperature work and full range of motion. Move into activation and working through sticky points. Then get specific: do the actual movement with lighter loads, focusing obsessively on form. This is where you set the neural pathways. By the time you’re lifting heavy, your body already knows what to do. The rule of thumb? Ten minutes per decade of your life. If you’re in your forties, the majority of your gym session should actually be warming up.

2. Lift Less to Lift Better — Technique Beats Load Every Time

Here’s the paradox: you don’t need to lift the heaviest weight possible to get as strong as possible. If you lift a light load as fast as you can with perfect intention, you activate as many muscle fibers as if you were grinding through a heavy load slowly. The difference? You can train more often because your nervous system isn’t fried.

The sweet spot for strength gains is 80-90% of your max, not 95-100%. At that range, you can increase volume, frequency, and reps — which means more practice with better form. When you’re constantly maxing out, you’re competing, not training. And as Ben says, you can actually compete yourself out of shape. Cole’s overhead squat transformation is the perfect example: he didn’t keep trying to add weight. He went back to light loads, perfected his positioning, and turned one of his worst movements into a top-five strength.

3. Train Your Weaknesses — That’s Where the Gains Live

It’s a simple math problem: if you’re an 8 out of 10 in strength and you want to improve by 10%, that takes years. If you’re a 4 out of 10 in mobility and you want to improve by 10%, that might take weeks. The law of diminishing returns is real, and the smartest training strategy is to pour effort into the areas with the most room to grow.

This applies both to movement-specific weaknesses and overall fitness gaps. Inside a specific lift, identify the limiting factor — is it your low back, your glutes, your grip? Then target that with accessory work. In your overall fitness, ask yourself: where am I limited? If your goal is lifelong health and capability, chasing another five pull-ups when you’re already strong doesn’t move the needle. But spending time on the things you’ve been avoiding? That’s where freedom lives.

4. Pacing Is the Secret Sauce — Intentional Intensity Builds Capacity

The biggest mistake most people make is having only one gear: all out. But your body doesn’t improve just from going hard — it improves when you train at the right intensity for the right amount of time. Training at 60-70% effort isn’t easier, it’s smarter. It allows you to accumulate volume in specific training zones without exceeding technical failure or frying your nervous system.

Here’s what most people miss: your heart’s stroke volume maxes out around 60% of your max heart rate. Going harder doesn’t make your heart stronger — it just means you can’t train as long. The same principle applies to lactate threshold and VO2 max. Stay at the threshold, train longer, and force the adaptation. Roger Bannister didn’t run 10 x 440 meters as fast as possible. He ran them at 59 seconds — just above race pace — to spend time at his threshold. Better results, less pain, faster recovery, and better scores. That’s the power of pacing.

5. Rest Days Create the Gains You’re Chasing

Here’s the truth that’s hard to accept: when you’re training, you’re actually getting weaker. The stimulus you create during a workout puts you below homeostasis. It’s only during recovery that your body adapts and gets stronger. The bigger the stimulus, the more recovery you need — and if you don’t give your body enough time, you never hit super-compensation. You just stay tired.

Rest isn’t optional. It’s where the magic happens. Think of it this way: if Jamison squats 315 for 10 reps and you ask him to do it again immediately, he gets zero. Ten minutes later, maybe three or four reps. Two hours later, five or six. Four days later, maybe all ten again. A week later, he might get eleven. That super-compensation window is real, and rest is how you find it. As Cole says: rest is training.

🤔 3 REFLECTION QUESTIONS

1. Where are you letting ego dictate your training instead of letting intentionality drive your progress?

Think about the movements or workouts where you push too hard too soon, load the bar before you’re ready, or skip the boring fundamentals because they don’t feel impressive. What would change if you treated lighter loads as an opportunity to practice perfection instead of a sign of weakness? Where could you trade intensity for intention and actually see better results?

2. What area of your fitness have you been avoiding because it doesn’t feel good — and what’s that avoidance costing you?

Maybe it’s mobility work that feels tedious. Maybe it’s your weakest lift that never improves. Maybe it’s endurance work that doesn’t give you a pump. Identify the thing you’ve been neglecting, and ask yourself: if I spent the next six weeks focused here, where would I be? What freedom of movement, capability, or confidence am I leaving on the table?

3. Are you training with discipline or just showing up when it’s convenient or exciting?

Consider the last few weeks: did you show up consistently when no one was watching, or did you only train when motivation was high? Discipline means doing the warmup when you want to skip it. It means resting when you’d rather go hard. It means pacing a workout even when your ego wants to redline. Where can you replace intensity with consistency and let discipline do the heavy lifting?

🔑 1 KEY TAKEAWAY

Elite training isn’t about going harder — it’s about training smarter, showing up consistently, and trusting the process even when it doesn’t feel impressive.

The principles Ben, Cole, and Jamison walked through aren’t sexy. They don’t make for great Instagram posts. Warming up properly, lifting lighter loads, working on weaknesses, spending time in Zone 2, taking rest days — none of that feels like the hard-charging, no-excuses mentality we’ve been conditioned to worship. But here’s the truth: that mentality is why so many people plateau, burn out, or get injured.

Elite athletes understand something most people don’t: the goal isn’t to survive training, it’s to adapt from it. And adaptation only happens when you create the right stimulus, give your body time to recover, and show up again with intention. Pacing is the secret. Rest is where you get stronger. Discipline beats intensity every time.

This is a long game. It’s not about what you can do today when you’re fired up and motivated. It’s about what you can do consistently for the next decade, the next two decades, the next fifty years. If you want to build a body that’s capable, resilient, and ready for whatever life throws at you, stop chasing the pain cave and start chasing the fundamentals. Train when no one’s watching. Warm up like it matters. Pace your workouts. Rest like your progress depends on it — because it does.

The best athletes aren’t the ones who train the hardest. They’re the ones who train the smartest. And if you can embrace that, you’ll not only get fitter — you’ll enjoy the process a whole lot more.

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