Do you remember the star football player who used ballet for his off-season training?

In 1983, running back Herschel Walker signed a $5 million contract, becoming the highest paid pro football player at the time.

Walker's game combined eye popping speed, a bruising physical running style, and consistent health in a sport with astronomically high injury rates.

Was his success a product of outstanding genetics?

You wouldn't have thought so in his elementary school years, when Herschel was bullied for being overweight and slow.

Fiercely driven to improve, Walker began doing 500 pushups a day to build strength.

He started racing trains which passed behind his house, to improve his speed.

This workout regimen wasn't a sometimes thing, to be skipped on days he was tired or busy.

It was an every day thing, a consistent stimulus telling his body it needs to change.

Which it did, as Walker transformed into an elite athlete, and one of the nation's top high school football players.

After choosing to enroll at the University of Georgia, he immediately became a star, named first team All American while leading his team to a national championship in his freshman year.

Superior speed and strength helped him dominate initially, but elite competition exposed other weaknesses which could have derailed his career later on.

His balance and coordination weren't great, limiting his game and increasing his risk of injury.

So Walker turned to ballet, something no football player even considered at the time, to eliminate new vulnerabilities which had emerged.

This highly unorthodox decision paid off, as he completed his college career healthy, and incredibly productive.

Walker then signed that large contract, and a few others later on, before completing a 15 year pro career.

Athletically, and financially, this formerly pudgy little kid's sports career became a profound success.

A youth athlete who had holes in his game, and worked to fill them.

Who trained consistently enough to reinvent his physical abilities.

Always looking for the next opportunity to raise his game if he believed something would help, no matter how unconventional the idea.

Why don't we see this mindset more often?

Distance runners working to improve their flexibility and power.

Soccer and basketball players getting stronger.

Hockey players training for speed.

Kids who want to be great in their sport can't simply play the game and expect to maximize their potential.

Because your weak points are guaranteed to hold you back eventually, once the competition is good enough to take advantage of them.

You have to do what's not easy, or obvious, to truly excel.

I have so much respect for every youth athlete who trains their weak points in our gym.

It's inspiring to see a slower kid make the choice to take speed school, giving their all even when they're far from the best in the group right now.

Or seeing smaller kids lift weights, gaining a little bit more strength each and every time they train.

These athletes are doing exactly what Herschel Walker did a half-century ago, the ones who will reap the biggest benefits 5 years down the line.

And who knows how far this growth mindset will take them?