Peak performance is a phrase that is used widely by athletes, coaches, and sport psychologists to describe the level of performance to which athletes should aspire. It is considered to be the best performance an athlete can achieve. When I came out of graduate school that is the goal to which I wanted my athletes to work toward. Yet, as I became more experienced as a psychologist and writer, I began to appreciate the power of words and came to believe that it is important that the words we use must be highly descriptive of what we are trying to communicate.

As time went by, I decided that Peak performance was not, in fact, highly descriptive of what I want the athletes with whom I work to achieve. Consider the word, peak. What it suggests is only a small point at which athletes can perform their best. Also, it is not possible to go any higher once that peak is reached. Lastly, the only way to go from the peak is down and the decline is quite steep.

For several years, I struggled with finding a phrase that I thought was truly descriptive of the level of performance I wanted athletes to reach. Finally, one day was in a supermarket meat section and noticed a piece of beef stamped with Prime Cut. A bell went off in my head! Prime is the best kind of beef you can buy. I thought I was on to something. I returned to my office and looked prime up in the dictionary. It was defined as, “of the highest quality or value.” At that moment, I knew I had it, Prime Performance was highly descriptive of what I wanted athletes to achieve.

I define Prime Performance as being able to perform at a consistently high level under challenging conditions. There are two key words in this definition. First, consistency. I am not interested in athletes having one great performance and a lot of poor ones. I want them to be able to perform at a consistently high level day in and day out. Second, challenging. I don’t care if athletes can perform well under ideal conditions. What makes great athletes great is their ability to perform their best under the worst possible conditions. So Prime Performance means performing well with minimal peaks and valleys, in pressure situations, and when it really counts.