The Rhythms of Excellence: Christos Fiotakis on the elite mindset
Christos Fiotakis on the secrets of elite athletic performance / All rights reserved
Performance enhancement coach Christos Fiotakis reveals that greatness isn’t merely talent unleashed but rather the relentless accumulation of marginal gains, each small improvement compounding into extraordinary performance.
In our series ‘The Rhythms of Excellence’, Monaco Tribune explores the practices of influential executives and exceptional sportspeople. The aim is to understand how these leaders and top athletes shape their day-to-day performance. Today, we meet Christos Fiotakis, a performance coach who coaches both sports champions and CEOs.
Beyond physical training: The holistic approach
Christos Fiotakis doesn’t merely train bodies; he transforms mindsets. The Greek-born performance coach to tennis star Stefanos Tsitsipas, motorsport champions like Felipe Massa, and even Princess Charlene of Monaco approaches excellence through a comprehensive lens.
“The body is a kinetic chain,” Fiotakis explains. “When you move one shoulder, it’s connected with your shoulder blade. When you move your hips, it’s connected with your quads, your glutes, your core. Everything is connected.”
This interconnected philosophy extends beyond physical training. For Fiotakis, peak performance requires addressing the entire system—nutrition, sleep, mental preparation, and emotional wellbeing—creating a foundation that can withstand intense pressure.
Training at 200%: Why pressure becomes a privilege
One of Fiotakis’ most striking insights challenges conventional wisdom about handling pressure. Rather than teaching athletes to manage stress, he trains them to transcend it altogether.
“If you train 50%, you cannot go play 100% or 110%,” he asserts. “But if you train 200%, then the race, there is no pressure anymore.”
This philosophy transforms competition from something feared into something celebrated—a moment to showcase what’s been forged through extraordinarily demanding preparation. For marathon runners who log 10-15 kilometres daily, the race itself becomes “a celebration.” This reframes pressure entirely, turning it into what Fiotakis calls “a privilege” reserved for those who’ve earned the right to perform at elite levels.
“Being in the elite is hard work. Winning is not for everybody,” Fiotakis emphasises, acknowledging the reality that excellence requires both natural aptitude and extraordinary drive.
You need to think every inch
The compounding power of marginal gains
Fiotakis emphasises that excellence isn’t built through one magical solution but through the disciplined accumulation of small advantages.
“When you’re doing things good, everything can give you maybe from 2% to 5%,” he observes. “If you sleep well, it’s not going to really change your life completely, but it can give you 5%. If you eat well, 5%.”
These seemingly minor improvements—better sleep, optimal nutrition, proper supplementation, meditation practices—collectively create the edge that separates champions from competitors. As Fiotakis puts it: “All this adds up maybe 30%. You need to think every inch, every margin you can take from the other guy.”
You need to look to always tomorrow
Visualisation: Programming excellence into the mind
For high performers, mental preparation is as crucial as physical training. Fiotakis is a strong proponent of visualisation, but with important caveats.
“What you need to visualise, you need to make your goals to be reachable goals,” he advises. “Not to look too far. You need to look to always tomorrow.”
Rather than fixating on distant achievements, Fiotakis encourages athletes to visualise immediate, attainable benchmarks while remembering their greatest moments. “You need to remember the good moments of your career. Mostly, you talk about the good moments of your career. You try not to repeat the bad moments.”
Everybody’s an athlete
Beyond athletics: The executive performer
What’s particularly fascinating is how Fiotakis applies these same elite training principles to business leaders and CEOs. Working with figures like Thomas Flohr, owner of VistaJet, he employs identical methodologies.
“Every single client of mine, I see them as the athlete of their own,” Fiotakis says. “Everybody’s an athlete. Everybody can be an athlete.”
For executives, this means establishing proper sleep patterns, creating morning routines that put them “in front of their day” rather than racing to catch up, and treating training sessions as sacred, uninterrupted time.
The truth about uniqueness and elitism
Perhaps most refreshingly, Fiotakis rejects the contemporary notion that everyone can reach elite status. He sees excellence as something cultivated in those with both natural aptitude and extraordinary drive.
“Elitism is not for everybody,” he states candidly. “In life, we are not equal.” This doesn’t diminish the value of personal improvement for everyone, but acknowledges the reality that elite performance requires a rare combination of factors.
For Fiotakis, genuine uniqueness comes not from trying to be different but from authentically being oneself. “When you are unique, you’re not doing the same things that other people do, not because you want to be different, just because that’s the way you are.”
The core of excellence: passion with purpose
Throughout his coaching philosophy, one element remains constant: the necessity of passion. Fiotakis maintains extraordinary energy levels throughout gruelling days because, as he puts it simply, “I love what I’m doing.”
This passion translates into creating structures that free athletes to focus solely on performance. “An athlete doesn’t need to think of what he has to do. You need to give him the structure,” explains Fiotakis. By managing everything from nutrition to recovery, he creates an environment where the only expectation is “raw performance.”
In the pursuit of excellence, whether on the tennis court, the racetrack, or the boardroom, Fiotakis offers a roadmap that balances intensity with sustainability, discipline with joy, and elite achievement with authentic individuality—rhythms of excellence that transcend any single field of endeavour.