Functional Path Training

Change

In life change is a constant, you not the same person this instant that you were an instant ago. You can resist change or embrace it and manage it. I am continually amazed at how people resist change. Coaches are change engineers, our mission is to change behavior and help guide, prod, cajole, and lead the athlete toward their goals. I have found that changing physically by changing workouts, putting in a new training system, and adding new exercises is the easy part, the hard part is changing mindsets and in a team environment changing culture.

Changing culture is changing attitudes and habits that are sometimes ingrained and deeply entrenched. In this situation you often here things like “we already do that” or in meetings phrases like, “let me be the devils advocate” when new ideas are discussed. In my experience there is no simple solution for changing culture. From a leadership or management perspective it requires many uncomfortable decisions. Changing culture requires everyone to share common goals, to sacrifice together to use the past to gain perspective to move forward. Certainly disagreement and debate is acceptable if the spirit is to problem solve and achieve a consensus with everyone on the same page moving forward together to achieve a common goal. Turning losers into winners does not happen overnight. I have found that losers, both individuals and teams are comfortable being where they. They have all the excuses and revel in being downtrodden. Change requires dedication, commitment and focus on the goal ahead all the while realizing that it will take time. Many are called but few choose the path toward excellence. It is simply about choices. Make the choice to change or make the choice to stay the same.

Lessons I have learned Earning An Advanced Degree From School of Hard Knocks

The following are some lessons that have learned in my years of coaching. I was going through some files yesterday and I found this list that I wrote in 2005 after two particularly negative professional experiences in the previous year. I thought it would be worth sharing. Some these were hard lessons to learn and some were quite apparent from the day I started coaching.

Structure and order are essential in order to have any degree of consistent success.

Money and facilities are not the answer, good qualified coaches are more important.

Without a well-defined plan of training and competition there is chaos and inconsistent performance results.

More is not better. This is true if it is training, therapy gaining weight or losing weight.

One size does not fit all. It is important to consider what each athlete brings to the event in all respects.

It is more than physical talent; the athlete must have athletic intelligence and real mental toughness.

You must coach females differently both from a physical and a psycho/ social perspective

Anorexia is not an eating disorder. Eating or not eating is only a manifestation of much deeper psychological problems.

There is no quick fix, nor is there any thing like instant results.

Treating the symptoms rather than the causes does not work both in training and therapy.

If you spend as long in therapy as in training each day then something is seriously wrong with the training.

Progression is essential. Without a clear progression it is usually a process of one step forward and two steps back.

It is impossible to coach by email, phone, letter or fax. Coaching is a daily personal, labor-intensive process.

Objectively judging and assessing talent is essential for success.

Just because a person was a great athlete does not mean they can coach. Most of the time the great athlete only knows how they did it and what they did, which often will not work for anyone else.

Attempting to reproduce past results is an exercise in futility. The past is gone; it is only a reference point to guide future performance.

Never let your limitations as a coach limit your athletes. If you do not know something admit it, don’t try to bluff your way through it. The athlete will figure you out sooner or later that you do not know what you are doing.

There is no immediate cause/effect relationship between workouts and performance. In fact the relationship may be negative if the athlete is operating at the redline constantly during workouts,

Coaching is more than a workout or a drill. The context of the workout is often more important than the workout itself.

There is no place for performance enhancing drugs in sport, amateur or professional. Coaches have to speak out against it. Any coach who is aware that his athletes take a banned substance should be banned from coaching. There is no fine line in regard to drug use. You are either against it or you condone it.

2012 Looking Ahead

Happy New Year - Another year is past us, where did 2011 go? The beginning of a new brings hope and optimism, it bring resolutions to change and hopefully the resolve to make the changes last.  Each New Year for me signifies the start of another year coaching. Tomorrow I will begin my forty-third year of coaching. I am so thankful to be able to continue to coach and teach. I am as excited and motivated now as when I started in 1969. Forty-three years ago I wanted to change the world, I was full of idealism and had an abundance of energy.  I still want to change the world but with forty-three years of experiences I now know that the world I can change and impact is a smaller world, it is the people that I interact with on a daily basis and those I will touch through my teaching and coaching. I may not have as much energy, but I think I can direct and use that energy more efficiently to help guide, direct and implement positive change in the world of coaching. I hope all of you read this blog will take to heart the words of Gandhi “ Be the change you want to be.” Live change, change is constant so embrace it and define the change s you want to see. Let's all work and play to make 2012 the best year of our lives. Do it day by day, put an exclamation point on each day, and make each day better than the previous day.

2011 Lessons Learned - Lesson Nine

Lesson Nine – It is important to stand up for what you believe in and if you are wrong to admit it. Valuing honesty, respect, integrity and professionalism does not make you a bitter old man, it makes you a wise. In today’s world of quick fixes, fast information and instant Internet experts it is easy to lose sight of substance and strong foundational beliefs. Being an excellent coach is being an excellent person, it is not about being the smartest and most verbal, it is about having meaning and purpose in everything you do. One of my core beliefs going back to my first year coaching is that “the pursuit of excellence has it’s own rewards,” everything I have seen and learned this past year has reinforced that.

Ahead in 2012 and beyond I am looking forward to learning and challenging myself to keep getting better. I am forever thankful for my family and my roots and those who have helped me along way.

2011 Lessons Learned - Lesson Two

Lesson Two – The body is all about connections and linkages, not parts. How the parts and systems of the body connect and interact allow the body to achieve the remarkable feats of skill, power, strength, speed and endurance that we see it achieve. Therefore coach the linkages and connections to help the body more effectively solve movement problems. Get away from the reductionist approach that focuses on the parts, instead look at making the parts connect more efficiently. Ultimately performance is a big rhythmic dance with everything flowing and connecting.

Athlete Empowerment not Entitlement

I do not believe in entitling or anointing athletes. They must earn their way and pay their dues in all areas of their development. I do believe in athlete empowerment. The athlete needs to be a partner in the process, so that the process is meaningful and contributes to their growth as an athlete and a person. Coaching is not something you do to the athlete; it is something you do with the athlete. A good starting point for empowerment is to have the athlete do a complete self-assessment. The assessment needs to frank and honest and look at all aspects of their life. From this assessment they can then begin craft a personal mission statement. After that then they can begin to set goals.

Goal setting and ultimately goal achievement is not an easy process. It is not just writing words on paper and occasionally looking at them. They must make the goals actionionable, they must continually assess their progress toward goals.  We must teach the athlete how to set realistic performance goals based on objective measures. We must challenge them. This challenge should not be public, but a contract between you and the athlete that sets the bar higher for them. Teach them to measure against themselves and set a high standard. Do this in a one on one meeting. Assess their strengths and weaknesses. Show them what they need to do and how they can get better. Sell them on assuming ownership of their careers and help guide them. Ultimately it is a process of the coach and athlete growing together.

Catching Up & Catching My Breath

I left home on September 23 to do a seminar in Seattle and then go onto Australia. Since then it feels like I have been traveling nonstop. I certainly have accrued some significant frequent flier miles. Now that I am home for seven straight days and my body has some idea of what continent it is on I will get back into he routine of regular posts. Since September 23 I have met some amazing people with whom I got to share ideas and learn. I will share with you some of my observations and things that I have learned in future posts.

Something that was continually affirmed is that you can’t stray very far from the basics if you want to be the best at what you do. This is probably not what a lot of the younger generation of coaches want to hear but it is a fact. Not real complicated, simpler seemed to be better. A sound technical model coupled with good consistent training and a healthy lifestyle is a common thread I heard from the best coaches and athletes I observed and interacted with. I must admit that it was no surprise, but I was surprised at how often it was verbalized.

A pearl that I culled from the past few days at the USATF convention is that the art of coaching is nothing more than organized common sense.

Curt Gambetta’s Art Exhibit - Office Light

Parenting is much like coaching. You teach, you encourage, you guide, you get frustrated and then you turn them loose to spread their wings and fly. It was so cool to see my son Curt spread his wings and fly Friday night. Curt presented his art project at the Lawndale Art Center in Houston Texas. It was so neat to see his ideas come to fruition. From when he initially got the idea it was at least six years in the making. Curt is a 2002 graduate of Vassar College where he majored in Political Science. In 2009 he got his masters in Architecture from Rice University in Houston. He is now the Peter Reyner Banham Fellow at the University of Buffalo School of Architecture and Planning for the academic year 2011-12. This project  titled “Office Light” is an outgrowth of some initial work he did with light in 2005. Here are some pictures:

  

UKSEM Gambetta Presentation Abstracts

Keynote - The Necessity for Art & Science in Coaching

Effective coaches must be equally conversant with the art and science of performance. The key to effectively apply sports science to performance improvement is a coach driven performance team where the scientist serves the needs of the athlete through the coach. The coach must be a generalist that can guide and direct the sports science to look for and provide the performance edge. Sport science can make a difference, but only if the coaches input is valued and respected. With the plethora of sophisticated monitoring and testing technology available there is more there than the coach can easily assimilate. The coach must know the science in order to pose the questions to the scientist in order to make the numbers and the data translate into performance. At the end of the process in the heat of competition it is the art of coaching that will make the difference. Sports Science is a tool whose effectiveness is determined by the skill, experience and knowledge of the coach & athlete using the tool.

Workshop – The Training Session – Where the Rubber Meets the Road

The cornerstone of an effective training program is the individual training session. The goal is to “win the workout” in order to be able to eventually win in competition. The sequence of the elements of the training session will ultimately determine its effectiveness as a component of the overall training plan. The session must be designed and implemented in the context of the whole plan. It is essentially a pixel in a huge picture that is the annual plan. That being said one training session cannot make an athlete, but one session can certainly break an athlete. The session must be manageable, measureable and motivational as well as practical, personal and proactive. To achieve this requires careful planning so that the theme of the session is consistent with the theme of the microcycle and there are specific measureable goals and objects that are carefully evaluated at the conclusion of the session. Ultimately it is the quality of the session that will determine the contribution of the session to cumulative adaptive response of the athlete or team.

Workshop - Periodization – Nut’s and Bolts

Periodization is a tool to effectively prepare the athlete or team for competition. Periodization is not a model, it is a concept that has traditionally been taught as a model based on time constraints rather than timing of the adaptive responses. There is no magic or crystal ball needed, just a good understanding of training principles coupled with sound pedagogy. Periodization is the timing of the application of the various training stimuli and their coordination into a coherent program that produces competition results at the appointed time.

IFAC - Catching Up

I just returned late last night form a wonderful educational. motivational and uplifting four days in Glasgow Scotland at the IFAC (International Festival of Athletics Coaching  http://tinyurl.com/3bevtmh). This is the brainchild of my good friend, mentor and professional colleague, Frank Dick.  Frank is a great coach, communicator and visionary and IFAC reflects his vision. The vision and the mission are to raise coaching to a professional status and to recognize that sporting excellence is coach driven. If you are interested in coaching and advancing the coaching profession then I highly recommend you attend next years IFAC 2012 (October 28 to 28) in Glasgow Scotland and if you want to make another giant leap forward come to the GAIN Apprentorship http://tinyurl.com/3jwyo6q June 12 to 17 in Huston Texas.

What makes gathering like IFAC and GAIN special is the sharing. The formal presentations are great and stimulating but even more stimulating are the gatherings in the hotel lobby where ideas are challenged, new ideas hatched, training methods discussed. Professional growth and learning still excite me after 42 years, now I am more excited than ever. It just reminded again how important is it is to know what you know, know what you don’t know and then to find someone who does know. I found a whole bunch of people at IFAC who do know that helped me chip away a bit at what I don’t know. 

This is going to be a short week for me as I have to be in California for an all day meeting on Friday, but over the next few days I will post some thoughts and ideas stimulated by discussions and presentations at IFAC.

Quickly reflecting on this past weekend and my three weeks in OZ it is easy to summarize one overall impression. The Aussies are ten years ahead of us in terms of putting it all together and the Europeans in turn are five years ahead of us. We need to get past the marketing, blind following of pseudo sports science, and internet training porn or we will be passed by like a freight train leaving a tramp! We need applied sports science that is coach driven and we need to get back to basic physical education in the schools taught by trained physical educators with a strong pedagogical foundation. The responsibility for change rests on the coaches and teachers, it  can be done – who among are will to get out and do it?