What is an athlete?
In my humble opinion the word “athlete” deserves some attention. I have long been fascinated with words and how they came about. I think that language is an intriguing phenomenon. Not only is it a unique way that humans interact with each other and communicate, but also it can be an interesting reflection of the human psyche (for more on the power of words and knowledge read the book “The toltec art of life and death” by Dan Miguel Ruiz.
Essentially, words exist with specific definitions, but humans have the choice to use whatever words they feel like at the time to describe themselves, a situation or the environment they are in and this is based on their own unique view of the world at that particular moment. For example, the words I use to describe my personality may be very different to the words you use to describe your personality. Even more interestingly the words you use to describe my personality are probably also different to the words that I have used to describe my personality. We are both describing essentially the same thing but we are driven by subjectivity – just like how beauty is in the eye of the beholder. So what has all this got do with anything you may be asking?
Well, since opening the Geelong Athlete Centre I get many people asking “who can and can’t train at your gym?” and usually followed by “I don’t think I am an athlete.” So because of this I thought it best to explain just what I believe an athlete is.
Lets first take a look at the Cambridge Dictionary definition.
Based on this definition I see how people, particularly those of a more modest nature, may not see themselves as an athlete. Being “very good at sports” tends to imply that to be considered an athlete one has to be athletically gifted and excel in all forms of physical exercise. However, I don’t necessarily believe this to be the case. I think that anyone who plays sport, good or bad, is an athlete.
Now, lets have a look at the thesaurus for similar words associated with the word athlete.
These words start to conjure up the idea that there are different types of athletes like the “professional”, or the “amateur” or the “{insert sport here} player”.
Lastly, lets take a look at the origin of the word for maybe a better definition. The word athlete originated from the Greek word “athlein”, which means, “compete for a prize”. I like this definition, as I believe that an athlete is someone who not only plays sport, but also competes in that sport. Also, the idea of competition implies that there will be some impetus to compete successfully and thus the need to improve sports performance becomes warranted.
Thus, we can conclude from having looked at the definition, similar words and origins, that the word athlete is an umbrella term for people who play sport competitively. To simplify I have come up with four types of athletes.
This simple exercise of defining exactly what it means to be an athlete, became the impetus to create specialised programs for each of these types of athletes at the Geelong Athlete Centre. Our mission is to help ALL athletes and we believe that athleticism can be learned and developed. This is something we are passionate about and through our tailored programs we would like to provide the opportunity for all athletes to become the best athlete they can be!
