Below is an article written by Major League pitcher Ben Heller for The Journeyman’s Path. Ben has been through countless setbacks on his way to becoming an everyday Big Leaguer, and his resolve in overcoming those setbacks is unmatched. Ben and I were teammates for a short period at the beginning of the 2023 season, where I grew to admire his work ethic and perseverance. I hope you enjoy!
I’ve always been fascinated by displays of elite physical performance. I’m talking about things that seem outside the realm of human capabilities–things like surfing 100 foot waves, or scaling the face of a mountain without any safety equipment. Whether it’s running thousands of miles to push the limits of human endurance or skydiving from the outermost reaches of earth’s atmosphere, humans are capable of truly amazing things. As someone striving for elite performance myself, my first thought is naturally, how do they do that?
The answer to that question, I believe, can be summed up quite simply–adaptations and instincts. What’s intriguing is that adaptations and instincts are characteristics that we are all born with, implying that we are all capable of our own version of elite performance.
Adaptations – The changes our body and minds make in response to the stimuli we give it.
Instincts – Our natural ability to respond to situations without conscious thought.
The athletes who push the boundaries of human performance are the ultimate example of leveraging the power of these 2 human traits. They have trained their bodies to do a very specific task incredibly well. Most of them have likely spent their entire life forcing their body to adapt to increasingly difficult stimuli. And when it comes time to do the thing their body is adapted to do, they let their instincts take over, allowing them to perform in the zone.
The adaptation and instinct system makes sense in theory and when done to perfection, but the reality is that almost all of us are prone to kinks in the system. I’ve learned this first hand throughout my baseball career.
There are many adaptations a pitcher would want to make–throwing harder, making pitches move more, improving command, improving recovery, learning a new pitch, improving sequencing, and the list goes on. In order to effectively drive this adaptation, I not only need to train incredibly hard and consistently, but I need to be sure that the drills or exercises that I’m doing are the right ones. In other words, I need to work both hard and smart.
When it comes to instincts, I constantly have to fight myself to stay out of my own way. “Less is more” has never come easily to me, but it is my personal key to allowing my instincts to take over, and find the flow state that brings out my best performances. Most of the bad outings in my career have been caused by things like overanalyzing my mechanics, worrying about velocity, trying to impress someone in the stands, being nervous to get sent down, putting too much pressure on myself, or being nervous of something bad happening.
My career has been a journey of simultaneously trying to work as hard as possible off the field, while tricking myself into “trying” as little as possible on the field.
I want to close with a challenge, both for myself, and for you:
Leave no stone unturned when it comes to adaptation. If you love what you do, and you want to be the best you can be, put as much time and effort into it as possible. Empty the tank every single day, to the point that you can look yourself in the mirror and tell yourself that you couldn’t have done any more. If you can honestly say that to yourself, then I challenge you to completely let go when it comes time to perform. There is nothing to think about, nothing to be scared of. You will be the most adapted you can possibly be, and the only thing standing in the way of peak performance will be trusting your instincts.
You may not break a world record, but I think you will be amazed by the consistency at which you’re able to reach your peak performance.
Braden Bristo’s - The Journeyman’s Path 