One of the best experiences of my coaching career was being able to work with Aaron Gwin at the beginning of his riding career.
I had a connection with Rich Houseman, who “discovered” Aaron at a local SoCal DH race. Rich called me and told me that I needed to start helping this kid because he was going to be great.
I had the chance to work with Aaron for about 3.5 years, before he was a sponsored rider and then through his time with Yeti. Aaron was actually the reason that the Yeti team hired me because he was impressed with what I was doing with him and wanted to make sure that I was the strength coach for the team.
Over that time he came and stayed with me to train and I had the chance to see him go from an unknown rider to the best American DH racer in a generation, getting 10th in his first ever WC race, finishing as high as 3rd in a race and placing 5th overall after just a few years of racing.
I learned some valuable things from working with and observing him and here are the top 3 things I took away from our time together.
Don’t make excuses.
Keep your emotions in check - never too high or too low.
Staying injury free is more important than maximizing performance with your training program.
I hope you got something from these lessons as well. You don't have to be a pro racer to apply these things to your own training and riding.
Until next time...
Ride Strong,
James Wilson
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