The Athlete Graph-X (The Base of The Excel Performance Model)

Hello everyone and thanks for tuning in to today’s blog! Today I am going to be talking about the Excel Performance Model, a Model I created that drove the creation of this business.

It boils down to this, performance potential and individual performances are based on a combination of the Four Facets of Performance: Training, Mindset, Recovery, and Nutrition. In order for an athlete to reach their ultimate potential, they need to balance these four facets. It simply doesn’t matter how hard you train; if your body isn’t recovering, your mind is in a negative space, and you fuel your body with crap, you will never be able to reach your potential. Similarly, a great mindset and excellent recovery skills doesn’t guarantee success, you also need proper training and fuel.

Now I won’t go into excruciating detail of this today (for another blog) but each of these Four Facets of Performance breaks down into Four Factors:

Training: Power, Technique, Coordination, Metabolic Conditioning

Mindset: Motivation, Attention, Emotion, Confidence

Recovery: Mind, Body, Sleep, Fuel

Nutrition: Fats, Carbs, Proteins, Hydration

To increase skill level in each facet, the athlete must learn how to properly balance each factor within that specific facet. But what I want to go into depth about today is what I call an athlete’s Graph-X, a graphic visual that describes an athlete’s performance potential and highlights strengths and weaknesses. An empty graph is shown below.

Every athlete is different and therefore have their own individualized Graph-X. Below you will see a many examples of athlete Graph-X’s.

For starters, let’s talk about the size of the graph. The larger the area of the graph, the more potential the swimmer has to give a great performance, which makes sense! If you are incredibly powerful and have great technique and conditioning (a high skill level in Training), mentally strong and positive with great psychological skills (a high skill level in Mindset), recover the mind and body well and prioritize sleep (a high skill level in Recovery), and properly fuel your body (a high skill level in Nutrition), it’s clear that you are setting yourself up to have amazing performances. But, lower skill levels in each facet lead to a smaller graph area, which depicts lower potential for high performance.

Secondly, a balanced graph (closer to a perfect square) sets yourself up for efficient performances. A high skill level in Training is great but might not be available to use in a race without adequate Recovery and Nutrition. Similarly, a positive Mindset is pivotal in performance, but without great Training and proper Nutrition the body won’t be able to perform at its peak. In a later blog I’ll be talking about how to balance the four facets and depict how working weaknesses leads to larger performance gains over focusing on your strengths.

The last part about the Graph-X I want to talk about is the difference between Performance Potential (the Graph-X) and the Performance itself. Below you will see an athlete Graph-X with a Performance Graph laying on top. The larger dark shape is the athlete’s Graph-X, or their Performance Potential (this is what we’ve been talking about so far, this is their highest skill level in each category) while the lighter shape is their Performance Graph (this is a depiction of how they approached/performed a specific race). In a Performance Graph, very similar to the Graph-X, the larger the area the better the performance. Any variation between the Graph-X and the Performance Graph is lost potential, showing where the athlete could have done better. For example, maybe the athlete normally sticks to a healthy sleeping schedule but the night before the race their nerves got to them and they had trouble sleeping, this leads to a lower Recovery score used during the race than what their Recovery score normally lies at. Other examples could be that the athlete missed some workouts the week of the race thus lowering their Training score, or they got too nervous before their race and that lowered their Mindset score, or they forgot to eat breakfast and haven’t been drinking enough water which lowers their Nutrition score. In later blogs you’ll see that this same tool can be used within each Facet of Performance as well. What’s great about this overlay of graphs is you can easily see where the race went wrong and how to ensure better success at the next performance opportunity.

This can be a confusing concept to grasp, but simply put, the Graph-X is a way to visually depict strengths and weaknesses and assess overall performance potential. This, combined with an overlay of a Performance Graph, shows the athlete where they can improve for the next performance opportunity.

Stay tuned for the next few blogs that will dive deeper into this Graph-X Philosophy. The next blog will discuss strengthening your weaknesses, and ways to balance an athlete’s Graph-X while looking specifically at the Training Model.