the optimization gamble
April 07, 2026
I work for a couple of years now in sports-physiotherapy and see many athletes, recreational and professional. And there is a thing many of them are up to: the will to optimize everything in their life to achieve a certain goal. This goal might be the next contract for a pro athlete but it can also be the sub 20-minute 5k-run time. To me in person a sub20 5k time is a pretty big thing as I really do not like running. It's way off of the things I'm capable right now. So if this would become one of my goals I also would have to change a lot of things in my life to get there. Some of these things (better sleep, more running, better food) would translate into a better lifestyle and be helpful for my overall health. But at the same time they might lead to things I actually don't want to miss (family time, a nice dinner with friends, a good red wine, some rounds of sparring instead of running). So there are costs of opportunity. And the point I want to make here is the problem of the optimization gamble: we optimize our life to achieve a goal (new contract as a pro athlete, a sub 20minutes time in a 5k race, a longer and healthier life) but we don't know what we get for this invest. Will it pay out? I'm all in for these kind of gambles but I do see it in the work with injured athletes quite a lot: a lost optimization gamble. Way too high training loads ending with some kind of injury. Or tracking every thing from sleep to food to mood ending with losing the love for the sport as it becomes so optimized. So all what I want to say is, that we should be aware that all these optimizations are basically a gamble and do not guarantee the reward we want and we should be aware that they come with costs. Think about these costs from time to time and don't get stuck in the optimization rabbit whole!