5HT #110: becoming a late-bloomer athlete

Recently, I had a week where I played tennis, went rock climbing, and played golf, and I caught myself wondering: Wait… Am I an athlete now? 😳

When did that happen? And can anyone just become one? 

Because for most of my life, I never would’ve used that word for myself.

To understand why this felt so weird, we need to rewind to 2005.

Growing up, I was the biggest kid in class and much more musical theater computer geek than jock. I was playing Sky Masterson in Guys & Dolls and Paladin in Diablo II (IYKYK). Then, during my senior year, I decided I really wanted to experience high school sports, so I begggged the varsity basketball team to let me on.

Miraculously, they gave me a shot ⛹️.

I never played a second 😂, but they were kind enough to give me a chance. I’m pretty big. Tall enough. And I worked really hard. So I guess maybe they thought all that was a plus? Either way, I was effectively their Rudy, and it was both a humbling and intensely rewarding experience.

So, yeah, for most of my life I had more mascot energy than athlete energy. Until now. 

Turns out, there’s science behind the shift. 

Sports psychology has a construct called athletic identity, which is the degree to which someone identifies with the role of an athlete. Not your mile time. Not your max bench. Not whether anyone has ever picked you first for kickball. Your self-concept. 

The concept even has its own measurement system called the Athletic Identity Measurement Scale, or AIMS, a questionnaire designed to assess how strongly someone identifies with the role and persona of an athlete.

Nike has been selling a version of this idea forever. Nike cofounder Bill Bowerman famously said, “If you have a body, you are an athlete.” It’s even part of their mission statement, and they have unbelievable ads that speak to this.

And they're right. 

Anyone can be an athlete. 

But what you play could affect how long you can play.

According to one longevity study, the sports associated with the biggest lifespan boost weren’t the ones people did solo.

And the kind I backed into? Turns out it's the longevity jackpot ding ding ding.

Tennis 🎾—which I’ve written about and try to do at least weekly—adds nearly a decade (9.7 years). Badminton 🏸 (which, to my surprise, I’m told is seeing a resurgence in places like Taiwan and even the US), adds 6.2. Soccer ⚽ (go Team USA) adds 4.7. Meanwhile, jogging 🏃 added 3.2, and health club activities 🏋️ added just 1.5.

The study was observational, so don’t read that as “pickleball cures mortality.” But it’s easy to buy into the author’s conclusion that leisure-time sports with more built-in social interaction were associated with the best longevity outcomes.

So by increasingly trading solo barbell time at home for tennis matches, I may not have just changed my self-image. I may have traded up on the longevity menu, too. (I have my wife Sara to thank for this, since she pushed me to try tennis in the first place 🙏.) I’m also now passable at playing golf and leveling up at rock climbing (which I often do with friends).  

But science adds the part the Nike ads leave out: it's not just the body that makes you an athlete. It's the identity.

A 1993 paper called Athletic Identity: Hercules' Muscles or Achilles Heel? explains how a strong athletic identity can cut both ways. That's the part worth sitting with. Because the paper isn't really about sports. It's about what happens when a behavior becomes a belief about who you are.

👍 Held loosely, athletic identity is the engine—the thing that gets you onto the court without renegotiating the decision every single time.
👎 Held too tightly, it's a trap—one torn ACL or one birthday and the floor drops out.

The version I’m stumbling into at 38—picking it up late, holding it loosely, with zero scholarship on the line—miiiight quietly be the healthyish-est kind. My old mascot energy turned out to be weirdly protective: I never built my whole self on it, so I get the engine without the fragility.

And here's why I think this goes way beyond my Tuesday tennis game—and sports in general.

The biggest health story of the decade is GLP-1s—and the most important open question about them isn't safety or supply. It's identity. When people stop taking semaglutide, they regain about two-thirds of the weight they lost within a year. That's not a hot take; that's the actual STEP 1 trial extension. The shot changed the body. It never touched the self-concept, so the body went back.

The point is, the people who keep weight off won't be the ones who lose the most. They'll be the ones who made the same quiet switch I did—from "I'm trying to lose weight" to "I'm a healthy person." From a thing you're doing to a thing you are. GLP-1s can be the on-ramp, but it’s your identity that’s really the road.

That's the whole game, and we're barely talking about it. We finally have the most effective tool we've ever had—and we're treating the easy part—the pharmacology—as the finish line, when the hard part has always been the story you tell yourself about who you are.

So am I an athlete?

I think I am.

And you probably are too… or you’re at least one identity-shift away. 💪

The trick is being on the Hercules way—for the joy, the partners, the play, the years—not the Achilles way, where it's the only thing holding you up. 

Whether you get there with a tennis racket your wife talked you into, or a once-weekly injection, the racket and the shot were never the point. Who you decide you are is.

👋 Who are you again? I’m Derek Flanzraich—founder of two venture-backed startups in Greatist (👍) and Ness (👎). I’ve worked with brands like GoodRx, Parsley, Midi, Ro, NOCD, and Peloton. I now run Healthyish Content, a premium health content & SEO agency (among other things).

Every Thursday (and now Sunday!), I share healthyish things I feel strongly about. (Disclaimer: I’m more your friend with health benefits. None of this is medical advice.) Also some links are affiliate links, but they influence my decisions zero.

Oh, you also feel strongly about some health things? Hit reply—I’d love to hear it.