Breakdown of Te recomiendo mejorar el rendimiento antes del torneo.
te
to you / yourself (reflexive) / you (direct object)
mejorar
to improve
recomendar
to recommend
antes de
before (+ noun / infinitive)
Questions & Answers about Te recomiendo mejorar el rendimiento antes del torneo.
Why use the infinitive mejorar here instead of the subjunctive que mejores?
While you can absolutely say Te recomiendo que mejores, verbs of influence like recomendar, aconsejar, and permitir offer a shorter alternative. You can use an indirect object pronoun (Te) plus the conjugated verb (recomiendo) followed directly by an infinitive (mejorar).
In this infinitive structure, how do we know who is supposed to do the improving?
The indirect object pronoun tells us. Because the sentence uses Te (to you), it is understood that you are the one receiving the recommendation, and therefore you are the one who needs to take the action of improving.
The English translation says 'your performance', so why does the Spanish use el rendimiento instead of tu rendimiento?
In Spanish, when the owner of a noun is already obvious from an indirect object pronoun in the sentence (like the Te here), it is very common to drop the possessive adjective (tu) and just use the definite article (el).