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.

Level Of Expectation

I have long believed that you level of expectation determines your level of achievement. Set the bar high and do everything possible to prepare yourself to clear that bar. Prepare to clear it not once, but continually because once you break through you can do it again. Raise the bar and raise the level of expectation. As a coach, don’t coach to the least common denominator; bring everyone up to the standard of your most proficient athletes. Demand that of them and yourself. It so easy to give in and regress towards the mean where everybody average and everybody is comfortable. I don’t know about you but I cannot recall being around anyone who was successful in any walk of life but especially sport who was comfortable. If they got comfortable they stopped getting better, if they stopped getting better the opposition passed them by. Do something today that gets you and your athletes changing, growing, knowing learning, questioning. Find a way to keep clearing the bar and raising it. Live in a culture of high expectation and achieve, get in the peak performance zone and revel in the challenges that exist there. Don't wait, do it now. Strike while the iron is hot, get out there and start making yourself all those around you better. Raise the level of expectation.

Discipline

Sport is not isolated from society; it is a microcosm of the society in which we live. So it is naïve to think that the discipline problems that exist in society will not exist on our teams. We can bemoan the lack of discipline or we can do something about it.

For the young athlete to learn discipline demands guidance. We as coaches must provide that guidance. We must set the standards by fair rules that carefully lay out the behavioral expectations involved in being part of the team. These must be written. They must be clear so that there is no room for debate. Essentially as the coach you are providing a structure to begin to improve their abilities and their enjoyment of the sport.

I think many of today’s athletes crave the structure we can give them, even though it may not be part of their everyday life outside of sport. But they have to understand that it’s a two-way street – that they can’t just follow the rules they like, but sometimes they must obey all the rules even the one’s they don’t like. That’s the price they have to pay for the structure the coach provides.

Discipline is a responsibility of coaching. If we do not enforce discipline then we are shirking our duty as coaches. We must understand that we are not coaching a sport; we are coaching young men and women who are competing in a sport. We owe it to them to provide the most positive experience that we can. Through firm and fair discipline we can create a favorable learning environment that will allow them to reach their potential.

How can this be done? Start by getting everyone on our side. You and your coaching staff should decide on the behavioral expectations of your athletes and then set the rules that will define those behaviors. Review them with your administrators. Get them to buy in and support you before any challenges are made. if you feel comfortable doing so, you might want to involve the senior athletes and the parents in the process. If they’re part of the process, it’s easier for them to buy in.

Once the rules are set, schedule a mandatory parents’ meeting to go over the rules and responsibilities for their youngsters to be on the team. This meeting should also educate the parents to practice procedures, nutrition guidelines, and criteria for team selection. Take this opportunity to educate the parents about the sport and your philosophies. Be sure to make it clear that there is no room for debate and that the rules are non-negotiable and apply to everyone on the team.

Both the parent and the child must sign a statement that they will observe the rules. If they do not they will not be allowed to participate. Emphasize that to be an athlete is special. It is a privilege to participate, not a right. There should also be a pledge from the coaches as to the behavioral standards the athletes and parents can expect from the coach. The ultimate goal is to create an atmosphere of mutual respect.

Remember as coaches we have a responsibility to teach our athletes. Very few will compete past the high school level, but they all can have the great growing-up experiences of testing their limits and being part of a team.

 Discipline will help insure a positive experience. It is not outdated, and it never will be.

                                               

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.

Where is the Athleticism?

Where have all the athletes gone? At first that may seem like a very naïve statement, but lets examine it further. Look beyond the numbers, the spectacular performances at the elite levels of sport. Injuries are skyrocketing. What is missing? It is athleticism. We know it when we see it! We talk about it, but do we know how to develop it? What is it? Lets begin by defining the term. Athleticism is the ability to execute athletic movements (Run, Jump, Throw, Pull, Push, Extend, Bend et.) at optimum speed with precision, style and grace. It is certainly not a very complicated definition. It is easy to see when someone has it. It is certainly inherent in the successful performer in any sport. My observation is that in sport, even though performance standards continue to skyrocket we are seeing less and less athleticism, especially at the developmental levels. With increased early specialization and an emphasis on specificity we have sacrificed overall athleticism.

Sometimes we are lead to believe it is an either-or proposition. Produce a better athlete or produce a better sport player with refined specific skills. Ultimately the goal is to produce the best possible adaptable athlete who plays a particular sport. In this case not only will performance be enhanced, but injuries will be reduced.

Some of the downside is the apparent conflict in terms of time and effort. With the same amount of training time available is it possible to train to improve athleticism without sacrificing specific skill training? First of all we need to eliminate the distinction, the two are not mutually exclusive. The two are co-dependent and intertwined, one enhances the other. There is time within the context of the existing training structure to fit in athleticism components. It just needs to be made a priority.

There is a saying that “You don’t need to see different things, but rather to see things differently.” Sometimes we overlook the obvious. In the incessant search to improve performance we have gotten away from the essence of it all, the foundation of athleticism. It can be developed through a systematic approach to athlete development. It is imperative to look for every opportunity to incorporate elements of athleticism in all aspect of training. Specific sport skills are a combination of patterns of complex motor programs. They are patterns that can be reproduced when we tap into the wisdom of the body. Though experiencing all different patterns of movement we learn to let things happen. We learn to let the motor program run. We cue an action that will result in a “chain reaction” of efficient movement. We need to emphasize a free play approach that results in fluidity and improvisational skills.

What has caused this? There are several factors:

Early specialization in one sport is a serious problem that has contributed to the decline of athleticism. The broader range of motor skill developed through free play and exposure to many varied motor programs is a big limiting factor. The choice is to produce better all around athletes or produce highly specialized one-sport specialists with very narrow skill ranges. Ultimately the goal is to produce the best athlete possible with a rich repertoire of motor skills to select from to better execute the specific sport skill.

Biased one sided training with an emphasis on one or two components of performance rather than a blend. The components of performance, and therefore training are: speed, strength, stamina, suppleness, skill and recovery. There is a synergistic relationship between all components therefore all components must be trained during all phases of the year in varying combinations

Monkey See – Monkey Do Syndrome. Just because an athlete has been successful with a particular training method does not mean the method is the best or should be copied. It is my experience that many athletes are successful in spite of, not because of their training. Make sure that what you are doing is based on sound training principles and a good progression. Above all make sure it fits the athletes you are presently working with.

“Nobody gets hurt, but nobody gets better.” Training that is so conservative or narrow that the athlete is never challenged will not produce results. The justification for many machine-oriented strength training programs is that they are “safe.” When in fact, because they fail to challenge the athleticism of the athlete they might actually predispose the athlete to injury.

It is always easy and convenient to look to the “Good old days” as being better. The simple fact is that before the advent of specialization athletes learned and competed in several sports. It was not unusual to see a high school athlete compete in three or four sports. This was not so bad. The athlete may not have been as good early, but once they did chose to specialize they had a broader base of motor skills to draw upon to enhance their chosen sport skill. Sometimes it is good to look back to gain perspective to move ahead. We cannot go backward, but we must look for ways to enhance athleticism that has been lost due to early specialization.

Training must have a purpose that will transfer the training to the event. With a base of athleticism specific training will be even more purposeful. The basis of training athleticism is rooted in running, jumping and throwing which encompass the whole spectrum of human movement. The body is a kinetic chain. Athleticism training is all about linkage – it is all about how all the parts of the chain working together in harmony to produce smooth efficient patterns of movement. The brain does not recognize individual muscles. It recognizes patterns of movement, which consist of the individual muscles working in harmony to produce movement.

Understanding and training athleticism is a challenging process. It demands creativity and imagination. It is often contrary to conventional wisdom as represented in current mainstream sport science research that emphasizes specificity and measurable outcomes. Do not be limited by conventional wisdom use it as a staring point and move forward while thinking and acting outside the box. You and your athletes will enjoy the day to day challenges of training more with the results being a higher injury free performance level.

"IT"

When an athlete has “IT” you can see “IT,” you can feel “IT,” you can sense “IT.” I am not sure what “IT” is but I know you better have “IT” if you want to be successful. It is fashionable to talk tangibles, what is measurable in talent identification and selection and then to talk about the intangibles. “IT” is somewhere in between. "IT" is not just physical ability, "IT" is not just mental toughness, “IT” is that quality that distinguishes and separates one from the pack. “IT” can be grit, but “IT” is more. Keeping looking for ”IT” and you will find “IT.” “IT” is the difference maker. In the competitive cauldron the athlete with “IT” finds a way to get it done.

Kids Being Kids

Let get back to letting kids be kids, instead of making them into miniature adults and forcing them into sports and drills that are inappropriate and unnecessary. Turn them onto play, just old-fashioned free play where they can learn by exploration without adult guidance. Let them awaken the inner athlete, it is there, but it can quickly be taken away by forcing them into organized sports activity that turn them into robots. Let them tap into their movement instincts and patterns. Encourage activities that get them comfortable with their bodies and reasonably test their limits. All of this precedes sport skill. This approach will give youngster a broad movement vocabulary that will enable them to learn sports skills when the time is appropriate. Take advantage of the so-called “skill hungry years,” ages nine to eleven and develop fundamental movement skills. Everyone will be better for 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 Eight

Lesson Eight – Those that ignore history are condemned to repeat it. In my experience there is no substitute for a historical context. This is one of the biggest deficiencies I see in today’s “new breed” of coaches. Go to the original sources and study them, don’t depend on interpretations. If you want to understand the “New Interval Training” you must go back and understand the old interval training. If you are interested in strength go back and study Tommy Kono. If you are interested in speed go back and study the work of Gerard Mach. If you are interested in endurance go back and study Igloi. If you are interested in applied sport science go back and read John Bunn and Doc Councilman’s works. Chances are the ground you walking on have been explored before so why repeat past mistakes, make new ones to grow and expand your horizons. In order to understand where you are going it is important to understand where you have been.