What is "High Performance"?

High performance is a term that has been used with increasing frequency in all sorts of contexts, from sport to business. 

"High Performance Business Mentorship"

"High Performance Director"

"Modeling High Performance in Sales"

Given this is a newsletter for coaches, we'll focus on what "high performance" means in the sport context.

The concept of High Performance Sport has its origins in the 1980s in the Soviet Union and East Germany. Toward the end of the Cold War, national governing bodies in the Eastern Bloc developed high performance teams to support the holistic development of elite athletes. 

These high performance teams consisted of sport coaches, physios, doctors, strength and conditioning coaches, psychologists, soft tissue therapists, biomechanists et al. The role of these teams was to integrate their respective practices as opposed to operating in their individual silos with little regard to others' roles, all with the athletes' PEAK PERFORMANCE in mind.

But wait, high performance isn't peak performance?

No, and here's why: PEAK PERFORMANCE is a singular instance of an athlete performing as close to their potential as possible as the outcome of the physical preparation process.

HIGH PERFORMANCE is the integration of multiple disciplines to function harmoniously to provide an athlete with comprehensive support and training to allow them to achieve PEAK PERFORMANCE.

High Performance environments are not those where athletes consistently achieve at a level, but where there is the most synergy.

High Performance is INTEGRATION.

Keep an eye out in 2 weeks for some examples of what High Performance might look like in your setting...