Everyone does the training the coach sets. Champions do a bit more. The extra kick-abouts. The extra film session. The extra 10 minutes of stretching. The choice to sleep instead of scroll. Over years, these tiny extras compound into an enormous gap.
But "extra" doesn't mean burnout. Mentors help athletes work out what extra actually looks like for them — usually one or two small things done consistently, not a hero week followed by three quiet ones. We also protect rest as its own kind of extra work.
Most importantly, we help athletes find intrinsic motivation for the extra: not to impress a coach or parent, but because they've decided who they want to become — and this is what that person does.