“The Wall Will Break If You Just Keep Hammering”: Inside the Mindset of U.S. Bobsled Olympian Hunter Powell
Hunter Powell didn't discover decathlon through years of multi-event training. He discovered it three days before a college conference meet, when his coach at Western State told him it was go time.
He started laughing. Then he said yes.
That moment — the willingness to walk into the unfamiliar and still say yes — is the defining thread of Powell's athletic life. From Western State to Baylor to CSU, from the track to the bobsled, and across 15 years of chasing an Olympic dream, Powell has built a career not on natural gifts, but on an almost philosophical commitment to becoming.
"I knew I wasn't the most talented. I've never been the most genetically gifted. But the one thing I do better than anybody. Nobody can outwork me."
The Century Workout
Ask Hunter Powell what the hardest workout he's ever done is, and he won't hesitate. One hundred sled pulls. One hundred pounds. One hundred meters each. His coach called it the Century Workout (largely as a warning). Powell heard it as a dare.
He attempted it on the 4th of July while still in school, got kicked off the football field halfway through, and called his coach to find another turf field. Coach Bailey's response: "Dude, if you keep doing this, I'll kick you off the team."
Powell waited until after graduation. Then found a soccer field, and did the whole thing.
"It's a ridiculous workout. But it's awesome."
The Century Workout captures Powell's mindset at its core: the gap between what seems reasonable and what he believes is possible.
Bolt, Einstein, and The Long Game
Powell has thought carefully about what actually separates people who reach the summit of any field. His conclusion runs counter to how most people explain elite achievement.
"You really can do anything. Anybody can really do anything if you're willing to stick with it long enough."
He points to those who made their mark on history. Usain Bolt. Einstein. Neither of them, in Powell's reading, credited raw talent for their greatness.
"The people who have reached the summits of any field never said it was because of their innate ability. Usain Bolt never talked about running the world record because he was the most athletically gifted. He talked about it because he had been doing it since he was a little kid. He did it longer than anybody else."
Consistent across disciplines, centuries, and domains. Persistence, not prodigy.
The Hammer and the Wall
Somewhere in his journal from the past year, Powell wrote down an analogy he'd been sitting with. His version:
"There's a wall in front of you. On your side, all you have is a hammer. On the other side is everything. Every goal, every dream, everything you've been looking for. There are two truths. One: you have no idea how long it's gonna take to break through, and if you quit, you will never achieve those things waiting for you on the other side. Two: if you keep hammering, someday the wall has to break."
The power of the metaphor isn't the breakthrough moment but rather the uncertainty before it. The part where you keep showing up and swinging without ever really knowing if or when the end is in sight. That, Powell believes, is the real mental game.
"You can live a life of quiet but comfortable mediocrity. Or you can keep hammering."
His Why That Doesn’t Waiver
Powell has been, by his own description, "broke as a joke" for 15 years chasing the Olympic dream. Multiple quads came and went. Each time, he kept going. When you ask what sustained his long-term pursuit of this goal, he points to identity.
"The man that I want to be would keep going. He loves it, he thinks he can get better. And if that's the case, I want to be that man. I'm gonna do as he would do."
It's a subtle but important reframe. Powell isn't asking whether he can endure another year of sacrifice. He's asking who he's trying to become and then acting accordingly. He articulates his why with a clarity that sounds like it's been refined over years of determination.
"To pursue excellence in all I do. To be a man of discipline and a man of character. To live a life that was worth remembering — whether or not it's actually remembered."
And woven through all of it, a belief that the act of becoming ripples outward.
"It's about loving the becoming of the man you're trying to be, or the woman you're trying to be. Constantly trying to improve the person that you are — not just for yourself, but for the world around you. And hopefully being able to inspire others to do the same thing."
ABOUT THIS SERIES
I'm Amy Wotovich, and I am on a mission to interview 100% of Team USA's 2026 Olympic and Paralympic athletes for Back The Team's series Inside the Mental Game of the Games — the most comprehensive mindset record of a single Games cycle. What do elite competitors actually believe about pressure, identity, failure, and joy? Hunter Powell is one of hundreds of athletes sharing their unfiltered answers. Follow the journey!
