A few years ago I read Legacy by James Kerr, the story of the New Zealand national rugby team known as the All Blacks, the single most successful team in all professional sport. With a win rate of 77.4 percent in 580 games over a period of more than 100 years you may be surprised to hear that this team has not always had it their own way.

In the late 1990’s soon after rugby union became a professional sport there were still many “hangovers” from the amateur days, the days when the players didn’t rely entirely on their rugby income to sustain themselves and their families. These hangovers were usually literally that, players notoriously used alcohol within team cultures for many purposes.

Team “bonding” where players would got rip-roaring drunk together with all inhibitions therefore removed, club allegiances and grievances were aired (and dealt with) and where new friendships quickly blossomed. Post match activities also usually involved copious amounts of alcohol in the “court sessions” where the elected players (a judge and his various court officers) would dispense fines for a variety of misdemeanours that could range from scoring too many points in a game to being dressed badly to making an error in training, whatever it was the recipient was charged, had a right of reply (the smartest kept their mouths firmly shut as to not incur further wrath) and received their fine from the “Fine Master” – most often a scull of beer, a shot or 2 of a spirit and sometimes included, on top of the drinking, an activity designed to further increase the effects of the alcohol.

Of course these type of behaviours robbed teams of their fitness and degraded team values so in the pro era teams that reigned in these traditional activities found greater success and began rising up the rankings.

I guess it’s no different in business organisations. Those that promote excessive alcohol use or turn a blind eye to it are ones that in the long term suffer – individual and team performance decreases.

The All Blacks after one particularly disastrous series of games drew a line in the sand. The drinking culture had to stop but what would they do to replace these team bonding activities? Furthermore what other areas could professional teams explore to increase performance?

One man, Wayne Smith a previously very short-lived All Blacks coach, outlined his ideas to the new coach Graham Henry. Henry had appointed Smith knowing he had qualities that despite perhaps not suiting head coaching would hugely benefit the team.

And they did, Smith outlined a series of small 1 percent improvements that had to be implemented by Henry otherwise Smith would resign. Henry knew Smith was serious with his ultimatum, allowed Smith to proceed with his initiative and there’s a very good argument that the resulting back to back World Championship wins could be traced back to Smith and his 1-percenters.

In my work with clients we are always working on the 1 percenters too. If you find 10 areas you can improve 1 percent in that 10 percent improvement could result in significant gain. And even if you only get a 1 percent in 5 areas it’s still significant enough to make a big difference.

A key consideration is how will you measure them? Sometimes the list you use is the list because they’re actually measurable. It may be awesome to attempt to increase 40 metre sprint times or jump power but without timing gates and force plates, generally unaffordable for most fitness coaches there’s no point trying to use these tests.

Here’s a list of ten 1 percenters you can implement to affect change in your fitness and health –

• Increase your sleep by 30 minutes every night
• Turn off your WiFi at night to decrease EMF in your living environment and increase the quality of your sleep
• Decrease caffeine by 1 cup a day
• Decrease alcohol intake by 25%, so if you drink on average 10 a week make it 7 or if it’s 6 make it 4 etc
• Decrease the amount of food you eat daily, experiment by starting with half portions of everything you eat for a week – start with food journalling what you eat over 1 week to help with this exercise
• Drink more water and less of other stuff (juice, soda etc)
• Change your exercise from steady-state to intervals. If you do intervals already, try this protocol – any exercise you like, treadmill, bike, burpees, jumping jacks, sprints, 30 seconds FLAT OUT, 30 seconds rest for 5 minutes. Do it – FEEL IT! You’re welcome.
• Decrease your reps on lifts in the gym to a maximum of 5 and lift heavier
• Buy a foam roller and use it at least twice a week

• The tenth 1-percenter is download my FREE eBook and read it, it will take you a couple of hours to read and it will level up your lifestyle – I GUARANTEE IT. Go to this link and answer a couple of questions and get my eBook, did I mention it is FREE!

Pick out 5 from the above list and implement them, do all 10 if you can, I think you will be amazed at the difference!!