How much time is required to become proficient?

Those who read this blog realize that I am constantly promoting the notion that consistent training is the key to proficiency. This is a fairly common sense approach to training, but it is also a somewhat vague approach as well. What I mean by that is the fact that proficient and consistent can mean completely different things to different people.

Here is an illustration of what I mean:

7 years ago, I would train 6 days a week. Actually, I would split train and this included 2 hours in the morning and 2 hours at night. If someone forced me to cut down to a one hour split train in the morning and evening and cut the frequency to 5 days a week, I'd be pretty annoyed to say the least and would consider my training inhibited.

Today, I train far less today than I did those years ago and my skill continues to improve.