Toughness: Reconciling The Military And Sport

I recently returned from the 2018 Physical Preparation Summit where Steve Magness was the keynote speaker. Steve spoke about conditioning for track and field and team sports, “toughness”, and the relationship between intuition, data, and objectivity. He seamlessly navigated between the micro and macro much like he does in Science of Running and Peak Performance. His toughness talk really resonated with me because it reconciled many of the practices I encountered in the military with psychological preparation for sport. Developing “toughness” has become a multi-million dollar enterprise and a series of hashtags and platitudes paying homage to things like “grinding”, sleep deprivation (he/she who awakens the earliest is the toughest), crawling through mud, and training offensive lineman like middle distance runners. In sport, coaches and executives sometimes misguidedly implement practices from the military, particularly the special operations community, in an effort to develop athletes’ toughness.

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