Resilience and Elite Sport

Bouncing back!

Resilience

If you’re reading this, and you’re dreaming of becoming an elite sports person (or indeed, successful at anything) there’s a really important ingredient that you’ll need to get there.

It’s called resilience.

Resilience is your ability to recover and bounce back, after any set-back or challenge.

Brilliant resilience is often seen in the world of sport.

In order for elite athletes to make it to the top, they need to be very mentally strong and resilient. During their development and career, they may have to overcome serious injuries, criticism, bullying, challenging circumstances or mental health set-backs, to bounce back even stronger, and go on to win major championships or races, against all odds.

Extreme resilience is necessary in really tough physical challenges or races- and there are so many inspiring cases of athletes completing all kinds of crazy challenges!

Ross Edgely (athlete, sports scientist and author of “The World’s Fittest Book” and “The Art of Resilience”) wanted to test his limits, so set about taking on challenges all around the world to test both his physical and mental capacity.

Ross managed to complete a triathlon whilst dragging a tree (yes, a 45kg tree!), he also swam around the entire UK (which meant 157days in the sea!) and climbed up a rope so many times that he reached the height of Everest! Massively impressive perseverance, grit and determination in order to conquer all of those challenges, and still be smiling at the end of them!