Hard Work Isn’t Enough: Why High School Football Players (and Adults in the Gym) Waste Their Training Time | FIT
Football season is back baby! For most, that means butterflies in the stomach, painted faces, and a loudspeakers blasting AC/DC “Back in Black” (because it'll never go out of style). For players, it’s a chance to prove the work they’ve put in since January. For me, it’s a chance to reflect; not just on the game, but on what goes on behind it. For me, it’s a reminder. A reminder of how much time I wasted as a kid.
When I was coming up in the early 2000s, we didn’t have access to the endless resources kids do today. No Instagram tutorials. No YouTube breakdowns (would’ve been nice when I was trying to learn to throw the javelin).. No free ebooks on speed training or strength development. You lifted weights, did your own thing in the gym, and hoped it worked. Looking back now, I wasted more time than I’d like to admit.
Looking back now, with everything I’ve learned as both a player and a coach, I realize just how much time I left on the table.
But here’s the irony: today’s athletes are often wasting just as much time, even though they have the exact opposite problem. Back in my day, we didn’t have the information. How was I suppose to know that I needed to read “Science and Practice…”
Would I even be able to?
Kids today are still wasting time at a similar rate; however I think they have too much information and filter failure. Unfettered access to all the information and no way to discern whether or not it’s total BS or gold.
From Scarcity to Overload
Back then, our problem was scarcity; we didn’t know what we didn’t know. Today, the problem is overload; there’s so much information that kids can’t tell what’s valuable and what’s garbage. Most just look to see whether or not the person giving the info looks the part. I totally get it, but that’s very surface level thinking.
One scroll through TikTok and you’ll see a college kid doing “speed drills,” a bodybuilder hawking supplements, and some self-proclaimed performance coach promising miracle results in 30 days. All of it looks impressive. Almost none of it is contextually right for a high school athlete.
So, kids bounce around. They try this drill for a week, then that exercise for two. They chase novelty instead of mastery. They confuse motion with progress. The result? They’re no better off than we were twenty years ago when we didn’t have anything at all.
The Illusion of Hard Work
Every athlete believes they “worked hard” this offseason. And to be fair, they probably did. But here’s the problem:
If you trained only with your team, you did the same thing your opponents did. Imagine a Venn diagram of every school’s workouts—95% overlap. Same lifts, same chants, same structure. I’m sure you did some bench press, power cleans, squats, novel single leg exercises (barely loaded); I’m sure you all gathered ‘round after practice/lifting and either broke it down on “hard work” or insert team mascot here. Sound about right?!
If you chased internet workouts, you trained inconsistently and without direction. Random doesn’t equal results. Most of the stuff you see on the internet lacks context. Plucking something from your FYP may work (you may get lucky depending on the time of year, phase of training, etc.); then again it may be completely redundant and your lack of filter is to blame.
Either way, you didn’t separate yourself. Unless you were born with superior genetics, you’ll get the same results as your opponent.
Logical Fallacies at Play
This belief, that you can do the exact same thing as everyone else and still get a different outcome; is a classic false cause fallacy. Athletes assume that because they “worked hard,” success will automatically follow. It’s literally the price of entry. No one get’s to play these games and not work hard.
Also, effort alone isn’t the cause of progress. The right kind of effort, consistently applied, is what creates separation.
There’s also special pleading. Players convince themselves:
“I worked harder than my opponent.”
“My offseason was better.”
“I’ll break out this year because I put in the time.”
But if the inputs are the same, why would the outputs be different? Unless you’ve got God-given gifts, the rules apply to you too.
Adults Make the Same Mistake
This isn’t just about athletes. Adults fall into the same traps every January. MOST wander into the gym with no plan and copy whatever workout they saw online. Others cling to the treadmill or the same machines they’ve used for ten years.
Both groups work hard.
Neither makes progress.
Why?
Because like the athletes, they’re mistaking effort for effectiveness.
What Actually Sets You Apart
The truth is simple: time is either invested or wasted.
To invest it, you need:
Customized programming: Targeting your actual weaknesses, not following a cookie-cutter plan.
Multi-planar development: Training that makes you strong and fast in every direction, not just the straight-ahead lifts.
Principle-driven progression: Building in layers—mobility, strength, speed—so one block feeds the next.
Filter for information: Knowing what to ignore is just as important as knowing what to apply.
That’s what separates the few from the many.
The Lesson I Wish I Knew
If I could go back and coach my younger self, my career would have looked much different. Not because I wasn’t willing to work—I was. But because I would have known what to work on.
Back then, I didn’t have the info. I had bodybuilding magazines and the original formula NOXplode.
Today, kids have too much info, not enough filter. Both roads lead to the same destination: wasted time.
The only way forward is to cut through the noise and commit to a system designed to separate you from the pack.
The Takeaway
Friday (or Thursday) night lights are on. Players are suiting up, convinced they’ve worked harder than the guy across from them. But if both players trained the same—or trained aimlessly—they’ll cancel each other out.
This applies to athletes and adults alike: hard work is table stakes. It’s not enough.
If you want to actually get different results, you can’t just do what everyone else is doing.
And you can’t just chase every new idea you scroll past.
It takes commitment and consistency in the right direction.
You need principle-driven training, a filter for information, and a willingness to separate yourself.
Otherwise, you’re just wasting the one resource you’ll never get back: time.
If you’re tired of wasting time doing what everyone else is doing — or worse, bouncing between random workouts with no plan — now’s the time to change that.
At FIT: Sports Performance & Fitness, we don’t guess. We coach. We use principle-driven systems to help athletes and adults actually separate themselves, look athletic, move athletic, and feel athletic again.
👉 Click here to get started with FIT today.
Time is the one thing you can’t get back. Stop wasting it. Start investing it.