Yesterday was my birthday, while it was a great day, it does make you think. What if I started coaching 10 years earlier, what if I applied what I know now back in the day. What if……what if… Unfortunately you never get this time back as it is the most precious commodity in the world. I believe the solution is the 1% Rule for moving forward effectively.

My team has started this season by following the Raymond Verheijen’s periodization model as it just made so much sense to me. Rather than going for the big bang effect at pre-season training it was about building up fitness and gradual improvement. The model builds up over the season using 6 week blocks where there is a progressive overload placed on each player. This overload causes the muscle to break down and then repair itself therefore making it stronger. This takes time and the training volume gradually increases over time to get the benefit. I see this as very much the 1% rule in action. If we do a good session and the players apply themselves to the programme in each and every session then they will get the benefit of compound interest on the 1%. Adding this up they will get a massive improvement over the season. Let’s use this example. If player A and B start the season at a base level of 100 (both players do the same sessions twice per week for the 40 weeks of the season). Player A works to improve by just 1% at each session while player B just goes through the motions of turning up but not pushing himself to achieve anything more. At the end of the season Player A will be at 222 while Player A will still be at 100 (or even less). This is a massive differential and should explain why some players progress massively while others stand still or even regress.

The 1% rule was introduced to me by James Altucher and he applies it to his life every day. In football I have referred to it for football conditioning but the same applies to the technical, tactical or mental side of the game.

Nothing will change in a day but developing good habits and achieving 1% a day improvement will make every habit work.

So there you have it merging two great ideas from two people from very different fields allows us to develop a model for improvement. It is far too early to see if it is working yet but let’s look at the end of the season to see if anyone gets anywhere near 222. That is over twice as good as they currently are. Now that would be amazing to witness.