What Sport Taught Me About Preparing for Presentations

Clear presentations are one of those skills that can really make a difference in a career.

For everyone in a leadership position, it is absolutely necessary. For everyone aiming for one, it is a must-have skill. The ability to explain an idea clearly, get buy-in for a new project, or show the impact of your work to different audiences can change how your work is perceived.

I am a big fan of sport, and over time I started noticing how similar presentation preparation is to training.

You do not become good at running, swimming, lifting, or doing pull-ups just by reading about technique. You improve by practicing, repeating, correcting mistakes, and showing up again.

Public speaking works in a very similar way.

In this article, I want to share several things I learned throughout my career about presentations — and why I think preparing for them has a lot in common with sport.

1. Practice makes a difference

This sounds trivial, but it is still the most important point.

The more presentations you do, the better you become at them.

It is similar to any exercise. To make a clean pull-up, you need to do hundreds of them. Maybe thousands. At first, every movement feels difficult. Later, your body starts understanding what to do.

The same is true for presenting.

If you present once every couple of years, it is easy to feel overwhelmed. The stakes feel high, the room feels bigger than it is, and nervousness can take over.

But if you present every month or two, it slowly becomes a habit. Every next presentation becomes a bit easier. Nervousness does not fully disappear, but excitement starts replacing it more often. You become more comfortable with being on the spot.

Speeches improve on stage, not only on paper.

You can prepare a good script, but at some point you need to stand up and say it out loud in front of people. That is where the real improvement happens.

2. For your first presentations, overprepare

There is common advice that you should not learn your presentation by heart.

In general, I agree with it.

If you simply memorize the full text, you can become too dependent on exact wording. If you forget one sentence, you may freeze. You may also sound robotic if you have not practiced the delivery properly.

But for your first presentations, I would give slightly different advice: overprepare.

When you are new to public speaking and very nervous, knowing the presentation almost by heart can help. Not because this is the best long-term method, but because it gives you stability when you do not yet have enough experience.

It is similar to sport again. Beginners often need more structure. More repetition. More control. Later, when the technique becomes natural, there is more room for flexibility.

The same applies to presentations.

At the beginning, preparation gives confidence. When you know what comes next, you feel safer. When you feel safer, you speak better.

Later, with more practice, the goal should not be to memorize every word. You already have the muscle memory. The better goal is to know the structure, the key points, the transitions, the opening, and the closing very well.

Confidence comes from preparation, not personality.

3. Remove everything unnecessary

One slide should have one clear message.

Everything extra should be removed.

The same applies to the whole presentation. If you cannot summarize your speech in one sentence, it is probably not clear enough yet.

Every time you rehearse, cut unnecessary words. Remove slides that do not support the main point. Delete details that are interesting but not useful for the audience.

This is very similar to sport.

In any movement, unnecessary steps waste energy. If you are preparing for a race or another physical challenge, your energy is precious. You do not want to spend it on movements that do not help.

The same is true for presentations.

Do not try to put everything you know into the slides. Long texts complicate your preparation and dilute the focus of the audience. Your goal is not to show the full volume of your knowledge. Your goal is to help people understand the main message.

The less unnecessary material you have, the stronger the presentation becomes.

4. Practice out loud, not only in your head

Thinking through a presentation is useful.

But it is not enough.

A presentation that sounds clear in your head may sound completely different when you say it out loud. Some sentences will be too long. Some transitions will feel unnatural. Some words will be difficult to pronounce. Some parts will be much faster or slower than expected.

That is why you need to practice out loud.

Not once. Several times.

In sport, visualization can help. But no athlete improves only by imagining the perfect performance. At some point, the body needs to do the movement.

Presentation works the same way. Your mouth, voice, breathing, and rhythm need practice too.

Recording yourself is also useful. It is uncomfortable, but powerful. You will immediately notice things you do not notice while speaking: speed, unclear articulation, repeated words, weak transitions, lack of pauses, nervous gestures.

Video analysis is uncomfortable for athletes too. But it works.

5. Train the weak parts separately

In sport, you do not always train the full movement from start to finish.

Sometimes you work on separate drills. Grip. Breathing. Footwork. Transitions. Balance. Speed.

Presentations can be trained in the same way.

If you speak too fast, practice speaking slower. Not only during the full presentation, but with small pieces of text.

If you struggle with transitions between slides, practice only transitions.

If your opening is weak, repeat the opening several times.

If you lose energy at the end, practice the final part separately.

This approach is much more effective than simply repeating the whole presentation again and again without understanding what exactly needs improvement.

Find the weak part and train it directly.

6. Warm up before you start

Before a presentation, warm up.

Not only mentally, but physically.

Your voice is part of the performance. Your articulation matters. Your breathing matters. Your posture matters.

You do not need anything complicated. Say a few sentences out loud. Move your face a bit. Exaggerate articulation. Speak slightly louder than normal. Check that your voice is awake.

This may feel strange, but it helps.

In normal conversation, we can speak quietly, shorten words, and rely on context. In a presentation, especially in a larger room or online meeting, this is not enough. People need to hear you clearly without extra effort.

Clear articulation also makes you feel more in control.

Just like in sport, warm-up does not guarantee a perfect performance. But skipping it rarely helps.

7. Check your equipment

Technical details look small until they fail.

Check the room in advance if you can. Understand where you will stand, how the screen works, whether the clicker works, and how the sound setup looks.

Put your phone in airplane mode. Turn off applications that can send notifications. Close unnecessary tabs. Make sure the right version of the presentation is open.

This is also very similar to sport.

You do not run a half marathon while chatting in messengers. You also do not wear new shoes for the first time during a competition.

The presentation itself is already enough pressure. Do not add avoidable technical problems on top of it.

8. The audience is not your enemy

People usually do not come to your presentation hoping that you will fail. They want to learn something, understand something, or make a decision.

They are interested in your domain, your project, your experience, or your point of view.

They are not there to analyze how nervous you are.

So come from the position of someone who has something useful to say.

This does not mean pretending to know everything. It means respecting your own experience and the value of your message.

Perfection does not move people. Energy does. Clarity does. Connection does. Authenticity does.

A small mistake will not ruin your presentation. A lack of clarity probably will.

9. Nervousness is part of the game

Being nervous is normal.

Actually, it would be strange not to feel anything before an important presentation. Nervousness means that the situation matters to you.

Sport is full of this feeling. Before a race, a match, or a difficult attempt, there is always some tension. The goal is not to eliminate it completely. The goal is to manage it.

The same is true for public speaking.

The brain often overestimates risks. It tells you that every pause is too long, every mistake is visible, and everyone notices everything. In reality, most people notice much less than you think.

Breathing helps. Pauses help. Slowing down helps.

Before an important sentence, pause. Give yourself one second. It will feel longer to you than to the audience.

You do not need to remove nervousness completely. You need to stay in control enough to deliver the message.

Conclusion

Preparing for presentations is much closer to training than many people think.

You need repetition. You need drills. You need warm-up. You need to remove unnecessary movements. You need to check your equipment. You need to learn how to manage nerves when the moment comes.

Good presentations are not built only in slides.

They are built through practice.

You can read about public speaking, watch great speakers, and analyze strong presentations. All of that is useful. But at some point, you need to present.

Again and again.

That is how the skill develops.