Nike SPARQ is a division of Nike that works with some of the world’s best athletes and teams, and has a mission to innovate ways to enhance performance. SPARQ is an acronym for ‘Speed, Power, Agility, Reaction and Quickness,’ and a SPARQ assessment covers all these areas in a multitude of sports for athletes around the world.

SPARQ Performance Director Paul Winsper heads up the team of ex-professional athletes, tech geniuses and psychology experts who dedicate their lives to helping elite sportsmen and women get even better. Here, he explains the things we can all do to increase our performance levels and up our game.

Selecting the right activity at the right time is vital.
If you can choose the right thing at the right time, you can really change your motivation. You shouldn’t be inflexible, like, ‘Hey, it’s Tuesday – let’s lift some weights!’ but instead, be smart about when to do what.

The motivation an athlete has to win a Gold medal is pretty different to the motivation somebody has to get up from the sofa and lose 10lbs, but the right timing is something that applies on every level, as we see from all the data we can track activity with today. The psychology of behavior change is about engagement and information. You don’t want your routine to get predictable or it becomes boring; on the other hand, there are certain good habits you can pick up. For example, exercising on a Monday before 9am sets you up great for the week ahead.

“People might be surprised to hear that high-level athletes do have down days, like everybody else.”

Improving your performance is not the same as punishing yourself.
Many people still make the huge assumption that people should give their all, all the time. That’s where the model of going to the gym came from – when you go a set number of times a week and every time lift weights till your arms give up.

But in reality, some days you’re not ready for the gym. Swimmers are very good at understanding their bodies, and if you’ve been a pro-soccer player for 15 years, you should have great core fitness and awareness. Some days, we might just do some yoga or stretching instead of cardiovascular work, because long term, that will be more productive. Once upon a time, people thought the sign of a good gym session was being sick afterwards. Those days are gone and today, we don’t even do that with the pros. Don’t push yourself so far that you forget your greater purpose.

Even superstars have down days.
People might be surprised to hear that high-level athletes do have down days, like everybody else. Sometimes things just aren’t clicking. When you get up and train seven days a week for years and years, it can get oppressive for people. For that reason, it can be hugely motivating sometimes for athletes to change or even blow off their training once in a while. Great athletes have their off-days, too. They move the same as the rest of us, their brain functions the same. It happens to everybody.

Athletes can show us how to stay switched on.
One thing that is different about a pro-athlete’s mentality is that they are always in a mindset of discovery. They stay ahead of the game by always being alert and aware of their surroundings. They’re always looking for that extra one percent, always looking for that edge; that’s what their whole working life is focused on.

We can’t all be like that all the time, but we each can make more of an effort to stay open and aware, to always look for new ways to be active or improve performances. The more engaged you are with your activities, the less likely they are to go stale.

“...as a rule, any activity is better than total inactivity. The Nike+ FuelBand keeps you moving throughout the day, which is ideal for your overall fitness.”

For amateurs or pros, community is key.
Involve friends – a text message from a friend can be so motivating; it’s fascinating. That’s because being part of a community provides a different kind of challenge. It might not be a medal, but you still want to meet that challenge, and understand that you are part of something bigger than yourself. If you know your friends are watching and cheering, the reinforcement from that makes you more likely to repeat the behavior. It’s just like the way the Nike+ FuelBand notifies you that you’ve hit your goal: it shows you you’ve done something positive. We all like praise. It’s human nature.

Avoiding activity because it’s the ‘wrong’ kind of exercise is usually a mistake.
People sometimes do nothing instead of the ‘wrong’ training for their sport or size. But as a rule, any activity is better than total inactivity. The Nike+ FuelBand keeps you moving throughout the day, which is ideal for your overall fitness. If you want to choose something specific, choose something you enjoy and don’t do things you hate. If you dislike running, don’t make a routine based on running, because you’ll fail within a week.

The Nike+ FuelBand works for every level of fitness.
The Nike+ FuelBand is a thing of genius. I wasn’t sure if it was relevant to me when I first heard about it, but I’ve been wearing one for ages, and I’ll do more when I’m wearing it, like take the dog for one more walk, even though it’s always pouring down with rain in Oregon!

It’s the simplicity of that daily goal. It empowers the individual. It makes suggestions, but it lets you decide which to follow or change instead of making you feel guilty. That ability to set your own goal gives you power to act depending on what you like, or your environment, but the NikeFuel score means you can still compare it to everybody else over a day or even a month of general activity.

The biggest killer is inactivity. Doing something that leaves you sitting down for a long time is the problem. That’s why just putting on a Nike+ FuelBand is so important: just knowing there’s finally a clear motivation to actually do all these things (use the stairs, walk to work, etc.) that we have known for decades that we should be doing.