Angels News: Shohei Ohtani’s Incredible Daily Routine in High School
In the book "Outliers," Malcolm Gladwell researched and found that it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert at something.
In the book, he quotes neurologist Daniel Levitin who said:
'The emerging picture from such studies is that ten thousand hours of practice is required to achieve the level of mastery associated with being a world-class expert in anything.'
10,000 hours feels like a lot. But it's also why we're all not masters at everything.
Shohei Ohtani is an expert in baseball. Moreover, he's an expert as both a hitter and a pitcher — something most other professional baseball players are not
But he wasn't born that way. Ohtani, like all other experts, had to put in the hours to get to where he is today. And when he spoke with FOX's Ben Verlander, he shared just how crazy his daily routine was in high school.
"We’d get up and first there’d be a roll call to check that everyone’s there," Ohtani said in Japanese. "Then morning practice for an hour or so. We woke up about 6 am or slightly after, then we’d have morning practice, then we’d go to school to study or have class until about 4 pm. And then we’d start after-school practice — I wonder how long it was — but it was until 9 or 10 pm. Then we’d have dinner, another roll call and then we’d go to sleep. It was just that everyday."
That's about a 17-hour day or so, with around six of those hours spent on baseball. Ohtani did this every morning, and said there were even earlier mornings when he was a freshman.
"When I was a freshman, I was up at 3 or 4 am to clear the snow," Ohtani said.
Ohtani wasn't born a baseball superstar. He worked towards it. All the hours he spent early in the morning and late at night playing baseball helped him become the superstar he is today. And that work ethic has allowed him to become the greatest two-way player in MLB history.
