Everything counts in striving for sporting success

Date Published: 19-Apr-2012

There are a lot of sportspeople out there who would love to unearth the secret of success. Former Auckland Blues and Connacht Rugby performance coach Greg Muller may not have the definitive answer but his premise that ‘Everything Counts’ certainly lays a sound foundation when seeking to unravel the great conundrum.

As the founder and director of Pure Athlete – a Galway-based company that has developed a range of sports recovery products aimed at both athletes and people boasting of an active lifestyle – New Zealander Muller believes that an athlete’s recovery period after training is just as important as the training sessions themselves.

Muller has strived most of his life to procuring the magic formula that delivers sporting perfection and the one thing that he has come to realise is that ‘Everything Counts’, which is the slogan for his Synergy 15 product range. Success cannot be conjured up through sheer grit alone. It is a jigsaw puzzle that, piece by piece, has to be patiently put together. Those pieces include skill development, strength and conditioning, nutrition and recovery.

For his part, Muller is fascinated by the mechanics of breeding champions and, although 20 years involved in sport and physical education, he has spent the last decade exploring what it takes to win and master your own destiny – be it in sport or life. “I guess I have spent the last 10 years studying high performance and winning – looking at the mindset of winning coaches, winning teams and winning athletes.”

From this he formulated his own philosophy and, indeed, he runs his own programmes – entitled ‘Pure Performance’ – which help people to “exceed or perform at a higher standard and achieve excellence”.

In this regard, Muller has had some success, playing an integral part in Auckland rugby’s most successful season (2003), when their professional side, the Blues, claimed the Super Rugby title while Auckland won both the National Provincial Championship (NPC/Air New Zealand Cup/ITM Cup) and the prestigious Ranfurly Shield. It was the first time a region held all three crowns.

It was during this season that Muller had really begun to look at what it took to be successful. As a former physical training instructor in the military – working with New Zealand’s elite forces – and former senior instructor of the joint services physical education and recreational schools, he knew what it took to get soldiers and athletes into peak physical condition. However, he began to realise that other factors also played a fundamental part in winning.

“My whole philosophy now is to combine the physical and mental aspect [of sport], developing the performance in an athlete so they can reach their potential,” continues Muller, who is currently working with a number of teams, including the Garrycastle and Barna footballers and Kinvara hurlers. “And Pure Athlete is an outcropping of that.

“What I found, athletes and teams were generally focused quite heavily on aspects such as skill development and patterns of play and things like that and they weren’t so good on some of the other aspects, such as recovery. Ultimately, when it comes down to performance, every single thing that you do, from your thoughts to your actions, count.

“Recovery is a massive part of that. I couldn’t over-emphasise that enough. From that point, once you finish training, it is all about your recovery so you can maximise the next session and get the most out of it.”

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.