Cheat Code: Athletics Simplified
"Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start" is a string of words many people probably don't recognize nowadays. For others, it is the most well-known and iconic cheat code in gaming history called The Konami Code. Now, finding ways to make things easier and your 3-step secrets to success have long predated what is now called the Cheat Code, which everyone is always looking for. In athletics, this looks like that secret food, pill, workout, or steroid that will make life easier. Unfortunately, this one-trick cheat code doesn't exist, and anyone who claims otherwise is often just selling you something. While this is true, there is something that does make a difference. It isn't one thing like a pill but a series of buttons to press to unlock the code.
The Konami Code
Before I go into depth, let's look at what makes a video game cheat code and how it applies to sports.
The Konami Code originated in a game called Contra. A classic 80's video game developed by Konami. It was a run-and-gun game where the main character crossed the screen and shot at their enemies. Despite the commonplace of this sort of game, it is still considered one of the most challenging video games in history. When played as it was initially designed, few could complete it, but then the Konami Code gave the player 30 extra lives, which made the game a lot easier for most people. However, some still cannot beat the game even with the code.
With that context, let's look at the anatomy of the cheat code and how it relates to sports and life.
1. The game has to be difficult. No one needs cheat codes when the task is already simple. Athletics and the performing arts fit this bill perfectly. In athletics, you look at the numbers from the NCAA, and you'll find that, on average, less than 10% of high school athletes will make a roster in any sport or division.
2. The game can still be lost. Some people put in the cheat code and still couldn't beat the game. Almost no cheat code exists that will take you to the end. You still have to go through it, and you can lose. The athletic cheat code must do the same. Whatever you do, you must understand that it won't take you to the Hall of Fame. Barry Bonds was still a great player, and Ben Johnson was still faster than most of his peers. Their steroids helped them past that last bump or "video game boss" they were stuck on. Ultimately, you still have to play the game and hope you can beat it now that it is easier.
3. The cheat code makes it easier. A cheat code should make things easier. Suppose the cheat code makes you miserable and destroys your life to reach your desired success. In that case, it is probably a bad code (i.e., steroids causing havoc on your mental health or a pill that makes you faster but causes your heart to beat irregularly).
4. It is a code. Whether it is the variety of inputs in the Konami Code or typing in "God Mode" in another game the common theme you'll always see is that there are multiple inputs, be it letters or buttons to click on the controller. In this way, there are various buttons. We must also press multiple buttons for the athletic cheat code to work and do it in the proper order.
5. *Extra*The code is determined by the system and game played. The Konami Code does not work for every game or on every system. Below, I will discuss a theoretical code, but your sport and your life may change the order slightly.
Now it is time to understand the buttons and inputs we can press in the game of athletics, and then we will create the code.
The Inputs
Eat
I want to make it clear that I am not a nutritionist of any kind and will never claim to be one, but there are a few pieces of knowledge that I have picked up from mentors, books, and other writings that I think are important to share. With that said, I will not suggest any special diets or ways of eating; instead, I will stay with the three macronutrients and overall calories.
With that out of the way, let us look at calories first. When it comes to putting on weight or losing it at the most basic level, we come to the concept of calories in and out (Howell & Kones, 2017). In athletics, you often need more calories because the athlete is A) burning more calories than a non-athlete because of their high levels of activity, and if they do not eat more food regardless of what it is, they will waste away until they look like Christian Bale in "The Machinist" or B) they are trying to put on muscle and need to eat a lot of calories. In summary, calories are fuel. They are energy measurements; if you want energy to perform, you need them.
With that out of the way, let us start with protein. Building muscle mass is a balancing act between muscle protein synthesis and muscle protein breakdown (Trommelen et al., 2021). To push the synthesis over breakdown, we must both eat plenty of protein and work out to start the process. The required dosage of protein in athletics is 1.4-2.0g per kilogram of body weight each day and a total of 20-40g in a single setting for maximum effectiveness (Fritzen et al., 2019; Jäger et al., 2017). You need protein for strong and functional muscles and overall healthy bodies.
The next macronutrient we can focus on is carbohydrates. In pop culture, carbohydrates have gotten a bad reputation because of processed sugars and fixes for obesity. Low-carb diets are among the most common diets you will see in health magazines, but as I said, that is a discussion between you, your doctor, and a nutritionist. With that out of the way, let us look at what carbs do for athletes. When we exercise hard, our body uses carbs as the main fuel source in the form of stored glycogen. If the exercise extends for long periods without simple carbohydrates, the body goes to muscle for fuel (Fritzen et al., 2019). With that said, there are two types of carbohydrates: simple and complex. Simple carbohydrates are the more processed and quicker-to-digest foods (i.e., fruit, white bread, and fruit snacks), while complex carbs are less processed, higher in fiber, and slower digestion (i.e., brown rice, legumes, and whole grains). In athletics, simpler carbohydrates are better in short time spans, while complex carbohydrates are better at other times (Cui & Krayesky-Self, 2022). In the simplest terms, when you are working out and run out of gas, you have run out of carbohydrates.
Finally, there is the "big bad" of pop nutrition: dietary fat. A stigmatized nutrient that has fallen into one of two camps. It is either a wonderful tool and is more important than carbohydrates, or it is a vile villain that should be limited as much as possible. However, the truth about fat is that it is just a tool like protein and carbs. It acts as fuel and can assist with energy during exercise. There is no good evidence that fat makes you any faster if you still follow the basic calories in and out guidelines. Instead, it can be the tastier and more manageable option when trying to refuel. It also tends to digest relatively slowly to keep you fuller while helping your body absorb those fat-soluble vitamins needed to stay functioning.
Sleep
Now that you are nice and hungry from the food section, grab a snack, and let's dive into sleep and rest. The eight hours we hopefully get at night are crucial but should not overshadow the need for rest throughout the day to manage our fatigue.
Almost everyone loves sleep and tries to get more of it. Especially if you have ever been in a class of high school or college kids. No one is getting enough sleep, and outside of talking about the weather, the next most popular topic is how little sleep they got because of work and studying. Now, do not get me wrong, there are a couple of what we will call "hardcore fanatics" that will say fun things like "I'll sleep when I'm dead" or talk about how productive they are for getting up at 4 AM (funny enough the 4 AM people often leave out their 8 o'clock bedtime). They like to undersell the necessity of sleep because it is cool not to sleep, and this makes you a "badass," but for athletes and those reaching for their goals, proper sleep is necessary.
Nightly sleep is vital for your body to recover and grow. During sleep, the body does most of its rebuilding and healing. Like road workers who close on ramps from 10 PM to 6 AM to avoid heavy traffic restrictions, when the body sleeps, it can divert most of its energy to the process of rebuilding because the lungs and heart slow down, allowing blood flow to increase to other areas and carry the necessary resources to injured or damaged cells. When you are awake or have sleep difficulties, your body has to divert those resources to the essential spots like the heart. This increase in blood flow and other hormones that can be released in sleep allows the repairs and growth to occur so the muscles can perform.
When you do not sleep, the resources cannot be used correctly. Athletes can find themselves losing more frequently, running slower and for less distance, hurt more often, less accurate with throws, and reacting worse to high-speed demands (Fox et al., 2020; Pilcher & Huffcutt, 1996; Watson, 2017). Even if they were not athletes, they would find that their mood is unregulated, they have issues learning and remembering, they struggle with problem-solving, and they have a greater risk of mental health concerns (Charest & Grander, 2022; Fox et al., 2020; Scott et al., 2021).
As important as sleep is, it is only part of the rest equation. The breaks and rest that you take throughout the day are also important. While I will not be accounting for them in the cheat code, as they vary from person to person, I want to touch on them. During exercise, rest intervals have been shown to affect volume, duration, and metabolic pathways (De Camargo et al., 2022). Taking breaks during information learning is beneficial for most learners. As a learner sits listening to a coach or teacher, their ability to remain vigilant decreases and negatively affects their performance (Flanagan & Nathan-Roberts, 2009). At the same time, including rest points and chunked learning points leads to better learning outcomes in most individuals (Flanagan & Nathan-Roberts, 2009; Ginns et al., 2023; Long et al., 2016). To overcome short attention spans and mental exhaustion induced by learning, it is critical to rest at night and take time during activities for the information to settle.
Train
Exact training methods are particular to the sport and domain being pursued. They are beyond the scope of this blog and can be reviewed elsewhere. That being said, a few key components are crucial and universal when we discuss the effectiveness of the Athletic Cheat Code.
The first component I want to discuss is the idea of expertise. So, what does it take to be an expert? An often misquoted answer is 10,000 hours, but this simple number often deceives those who do not understand the context. It is often read to mean that if you do something for so many hours, you will attain mastery of it, but this misses the research done on the field of expertise. In particular, Ericsson (2008) discusses that after brief training and around 50 hours of experience, many people adapt to meet the demands of the activity, which means they start to move into automatic mode. Whether tying our shoes or playing a sport, we get to the point where the task is done well enough so we do not bother to improve. If you hold onto this mentality, you will find that a person with ten years of experience does a job no better than someone who has done it for five years because they did not stretch to improve.
This trap of complacency can be overcome through a simple process of deliberate practice rather than practice. Deliberate practice is when an individual hits four things:
1. A specific goal – I will make fifty extra free throws after practice and have fifteen perfect follow-throughs. (By stating what needs to be right on certain free throws, you set an intention of what you are trying to master).
2. Intense Focus – Your mind is on the basketball shots. You are not worried about a social media post or your relationships. Your mind is focused on improving and is present, so every shot counts, and there is no waste of energy.
3. Immediate Feedback – Whether it is a coach or video, you should review your shots to see if you are moving towards your goal. If you are not, there should be a way to correct it. You do not want to keep doing things wrong without knowing it.
4. Frequent Discomfort – The point of practice is to change and grow. Neither of these things is comfortable. We fall into bad habits because it feels nice and natural. However, we should feel like the change is weird and different to improve. If it does not feel this way, you likely did not change anything because it still feels the same.
Complimenting deliberate practice is the concept of specificity or doing activities that are related and helpful to your sport. The easiest way to understand it is to look at a sprinter versus a thrower versus a distance runner. All three are within the sport of track and field, but the demands of their sport vary and require separate training. All three may train in the weight room, but a thrower will work more on their upper body than the other two because arm strength is needed to help with a shot put. A sprinter will focus on short, fast, and intense workouts that the thrower does not need and the distance runner only needs on a few occasions. Then there is the distance runner, focusing on long runs for endurance. While crossover may happen, most of their attention will be focused on what is related to the demands they need.
A caution with specificity is when it is taken too far. For example, not every drill in the weight room needs to be like a sprint because the speed of running cannot be matched in the weight room. When you try to, you hit a point of submaximal growth that you could have had with squats. Do your sports training by training in your sport (deliberately) and training general strength and muscle in the weight room.
Meditate
I use the term meditate as a catch-all term for brain training. The point of meditation is to help the individual focus on the correct things and allow the mind to be in the present moment. This, accompanied by increased confidence, allows the body to fully realize the potential created after hours of practice while simultaneously creating better, more effective practices.
The first mental area I want to address is the one most closely associated with meditation, and that is mindfulness. An awareness of the present moment is done in a non-judgmental manner. Mindful breathing and exercises help teach the athlete how to center their attention at the moment instead of allowing their mind to wander to the past or future, where they have no control. This helps them prepare for what is happening before them and move on from something that may cause them pain, like a turnover. Though it is difficult to determine the full effects of mindfulness, evidence points towards it being a practical aid for performance enhancement and other athlete health benefits (Anderson et al., 2021; Bühlmayer et al., 2017)
The next area that we target is goal setting. The goals we set can greatly impact the levels we achieve, confidence, motivation, and satisfaction (Locke & Latham, 2002; Vidic & Burton, 2010). Suppose you never set a goal to play sports in college. In that case, you can never expect yourself to reach those heights. On the other hand, if you just got cut from your freshman squad and want to be an Olympian with no steps in between, you can quickly find yourself unsatisfied with progress and demotivated. Setting small goals that build upon each other is more likely to get you where you want to go. It is also a key to deliberate practice.
Then there is imagery, the art of practicing without practicing. Your body can take only so much time in any singular practice and physical punishment. Meanwhile, your ability to go inside your mind allows you to create scenarios to rehearse and technique opportunities that would otherwise be limited. By mastering this skill and focusing here, you can take steps that would limit you if there was only benefit from physical practice. This may include mental gains, brain changes, and physical changes (Ranganathan et al., 2004; Ruffino et al., 2017; Slimani et al., 2016).
The final major mental skill is self-talk. Almost everyone has some form of internal dialogue, and what we say can greatly change how we interact with the world. Very few people who say they suck at something find out they are good at it. Usually, they fall into a self-fulfilling prophecy where things never happen because they do not believe they can. However, we can turn this on its head when we use our words correctly. When we say words that motivate, energize, or instruct us, we find it easier to perform the task in front of us. Shifting our inner dialogue gives us a chance to do the thing.
Putting the Code Together
Now that you understand the four parts of the code, we must look at how they work together to create the cheat code we have been looking for.
Here in the code, we start with sleep. We do this not because of all it does to impact our performance but because of the time commitment required and how every other part of the code affects and is affected by it. The general recommendation for sleep is eight hours, which I know for most people is a tall task, especially when you are an athlete and have other things in your life, but that is why it should be first in the code; otherwise, you start to sacrifice it for travel, parties, or poor quality work. Carve it out, or you will not get it.
After that, we have to Eat. Now, some will debate the effectiveness of fasted workouts, but when it comes down to it. As an athlete, you need food before you start your day. First off, you will need a lot of calories to fuel your day, and if you do not start early, you will either force food down later to hit your goals or eat high-calorie sweets that may not sit well. Secondly, when you wake up, your body is in a fasted state already, and those glycogen stores are already depleted from doing all the recovery at night. Eat something probably lower in fat and more protein and carb based depending on how long before training. If you only have a brief amount of time, you want simpler foods that will not be thrown up in the workout.
The next priority in the code is Train. Depending on your sport, It may be a sports practice or a strength workout. Your body has had time to fuel and wake up from the night prior, leaving it primed to focus on having a practical training session. If this is a strength workout, it will probably be about an hour. You might partake for up to two if it is a sports session. However, if it lasts for two hours, you may add meditation to the code to help you refocus, as your mind will likely start to lose focus after an hour, making the practice less deliberate.
(Depending on the person, the next part of the code you can flip-flop the next two, but they should be done next.)
Now, you move on from the first training session and go to Meditate, which may be using imagery to redo areas of weakness in practice, goal setting to set yourself up for the next training, or using mindfulness to reset and refocus as you transition into other parts of your day.
From there, we Eat our next major meal. Our stomach has settled from the first training session, and we are a few hours before the next one. We started to reload and replace what was burned during the first training. This meal will be more balanced with more focus on our protein intake.
Next, you will Meditate (yes, this may be back-to-back depending on how you flip the last two, but they are likely hours apart in real life). In this session, you are minutes away from your next training, and you set your intentions. This may mean mindfulness to let go of any school or life stresses from the day or writing down specific goals to make training more deliberate.
Now you Train again. It has been several hours since the first session, and your body has had time to refuel and recover after the last session. You are ready to go again. Whichever session you did not do before, now is the time.
After this, you go home and Eat your last big meal (Notice I say big as you may eat other smaller snacks throughout the day that I did not want to consider because of individual variance). In this meal, you eat your protein and ensure you get some fat in for the day. It is good for your sleep.
Meditate to calm nerves and deal with stress that would keep you up at night. This also starts priming the body for its rest.
Finally, Sleep again to get all the benefits.
So, that is the theoretical code: "Sleep, Eat, Train, Meditate, Eat, Meditate, Train, Eat, Meditate, and Sleep."
Is this the perfect code? Probably not for everyone, as we all have different systems, but it is a start that you can base variations on. Will this make you an Olympian? No, but it will make you better than those who ignore the foundation of the code, and by ignoring these steps, you will not get there anyway. What about steroids or other cheats? Well, a person on steroids who does not use the code versus someone on steroids who does will see vastly different results. Steroids only help you recover muscle, not get your brain right, nor does it do the work for you. Furthermore, any special training plan is only as good as your sleep, diet, and the deliberate nature of your practice.
So, that is our cheat code. Do those four things in an order like that, and you will get those thirty lives that the Konami Code gave players. Now, it is up to you to do the work and beat the game.
References
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