I also spent time playing basketball, American football, baseball, and of course football. As you'll learn, it is important for proper athletic development for kids to be exposed to a large variety of athletics. This helps the body and brain expand what I call their "movement vocabulary".

Growing up, I wasn't the naturally lean kid. I carried a bit of extra weight around the belly and always a little nervous to have my shirt off around others. Even though I was what you'd call athletic, I don't think I was truly healthy. My parents told me don't worry about it, it'll go away as you get older, It's just baby fat, but it never did.

You'll see why these early challenges with my body were what first drove me to start researching and learning about the human body, because what you conventionally hear just didn't work.

Choosing Football

By age 13, I made the decision to go to say "Football is what I want. I'll do whatever it takes to go Pro."  From that point forward, I rapidly rose up the ranks of youth football and took training on my own to a new level. I'd be training in my backyard and garage in the morning before school. I would get some extra juggling in after training at night before bed. I even started eventually doing gym workouts after school before team training as well.

As you can see, I was the Grinder. The kid who was just working all day every day. I kept hearing the no pain no gain mantra in my head, and don't get me wrong.

I was getting better. I was seeing improvements on the field with my touch, dribbling, shooting, and everything else.

Looking in the mirror though, my body looked worse. I looked so stressed out at the age 14 and 15. I was still overweight even though I was working twice as hard as all the other lean athletic kids.

As we'll see in the next post, I kept up this workload month after month. As a young kid, I was able to recover and stay afloat, but eventually it caught up with me. Injuries started to come. Chronic fatigue and brain fog would set in. My body just felt so heavy all the time.

Of course, I knew what to do. Work harder. Sacrifice. Ignore the Pain. All the thinking that gets put into the heads of young players through TV, movies, and now social media.

All the signs were pointing to me needing more rest and better sleep, but I ignored them in favor of the Grind.