Blog Post – Sunday July 13th, 2025
Need help? https://round1fitness.com.au/free-consultation
Let’s talk about what it really means to be an athlete.
If you’ve seen the Netflix series SPRINT, you’ve probably got an image in your head of what a “real” athlete looks like.
Think Noah Lyles, travelling the world with a personal physio, mental performance coach, and nutritionist. Or Shericka Jackson, blasting through 200m reps before heading off for ice baths and interviews. Or Zharnel Hughes, running PBs one day and relaxing in cryo chambers the next.
These are world-beating sprinters. Paid professionals. Entire teams exist just to help them go faster, jump higher, and recover quicker.
It’s inspiring.
It’s fascinating.
And it’s also… completely detached from reality for most of us.
Because here’s the truth—if you’ve got a job, a mortgage, a partner, two kids in Saturday sport – one playing footy in Roleystone and the other netball in Fremantle…both of course at the SAME TIME!! You’ve also got a dog that barks at tradies and 112 unopened emails—you’re playing a different game.
And yet, you’re still showing up. Still training. Still trying to improve.
That’s a REAL athlete.
The Athlete You Don’t See on Netflix
Here’s what a real athlete looks like in our world:
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Up at 4:35am, bleary-eyed and wondering why you thought this was a good idea.
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Gym by 5:00am. Training hard. Boxing, lifting, sweating, moving.
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Quick shower. Coffee inhaled. On the road to work by 6:30am.
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Meetings, emails, smoko, spreadsheets, tools, teaching, nursing—whatever your workday demands.
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Knock-off at 4 or 5. Straight to coach the under-11s footy team or sit in traffic praying to make it to kids’ training on time.
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Home to cook dinner. Hopefully not pasta again. (Let’s be honest, it’s probably pasta again.)
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Try to stretch while watching Netflix, but fall asleep halfway through a hamstring reach.
No cameras. No entourage. No sponsorship deals.
But a whole lot of grit, sacrifice, and consistency.
That’s what matters.
The Athlete’s Pyramid
Whether you’re racing the 100m final or racing to finish the dishes before bedtime, the foundation for better performance is the same. I like to think of it as the Athlete’s Pyramid:
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Nutrition – It starts here. Fuel the machine. You don’t need a personal chef—just make a couple of better choices. A decent dinner on Friday night can set up your entire weekend of training.
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Training – Do the work. Show up. Get it done. Not perfectly. Just consistently.
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Recovery – You might not have a cryo chamber in your laundry, but that doesn’t mean you can’t stretch, sleep, and move smartly on rest days.
And holding it all together at the top?
Mindset.
This doesn’t mean pretending you’re lining up at the Diamond League. It means choosing to show up even when you’re tired. It means not quitting when your progress stalls. It means tweaking one thing—just one—that makes everything else work a little better.
One Change = Big Results
You don’t need to change your whole life overnight. In fact, please don’t.
Sometimes the biggest difference comes from the smallest shifts:
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Tidying up your Friday dinner (less takeaway, more actual food).
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Going for a walk instead of skipping your rest day entirely.
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Drinking water instead of 14 coffees.
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Actually eating breakfast before training.
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Saying no to the third drink on Saturday night.
Not exciting. But powerful.
A Final Thought
The athletes you see on SPRINT have one job: be an athlete.
You have about 47. And you’re still doing the work.
So yes—you are a real athlete. Maybe not the kind that travels with a physio and a film crew, but the kind that shows up in the real world, over and over again, without the support crew.
That’s tougher. That’s braver. That’s more impressive.
If you want help aligning your training, nutrition, and recovery—without quitting your job or giving away your kids—we’re here. Start with a free consult:
👉 https://round1fitness.com.au/free-consultation
Let’s keep building the pyramid. One step at a time.
