Functional Path Training

The Power of Suggestion

There is a phenomenon that I learned in my Psych One class many years ago; it is called the Hawthorne Effect. An experiment was done at a manufacturing plant to measure the effect of changes in lighting on productivity. The workers knew they were part of an experiment – that is a key to understanding the phenomenon. The researchers found that if they turned the lights up and made it brighter that productivity increased and they found that if they made the lights dimmer productivity also increased. In short any change had a positive effect. We see this quite often in sport. We suggest that we are going to put an emphasis on speed or strength and soon everyone is commenting on how they feel faster or stronger. If you publicize it and TV commentators get a hold of it then they begin to look for and comment on how much faster or stronger looking the team or the athlete are.

Sometimes there is an actual change, but never as quickly as people are prone to comment on the change. In fact it was the suggestion of improved speed or strength that resulted in the perceived change. The lesson is that the power of suggestion and subsequent belief in the suggestion is quite strong. As coaches we need to make sure that the suggestion is supported by reality and is more than a Hawthorne effect, set a goal for what you want to improve. Elicit the power of suggestion by sharing the goal and getting everyone on board. Measure what you want to improve and keep measuring periodically to insure progress toward the goal and turn perception into the reality of measurable competition results.

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 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.

2011 Lessons Learned - Lesson Five

Lesson Five -10,000 hours is only part of a much bigger picture. Just punching a clock accumulating hours, starting to specialize early and put in your time each day is no guarantee for excellence. You do need some talent, a lot of direction, laser focus and a will to succeed in order to make the practice meaningful. Excellence requires a growth mindset a willingness to risk and make mistakes and the ability to learn from those mistakes. It is a journey where many are called and not as many chose to complete the journey.

2011 Lessons Learned - Lesson Four

Lesson Four – Correlation is not causation. Beware of confirmation bias in scientific studies. They are likely to find to find what they are looking for. As coaches we need to look for coaching significance. We can't wait for science to verify or refute what we do. Researchers follow; coach's lead so go out prototype and experiment. "Truth is what works."

2011 Lessons Learned - Lesson Three

Lesson Three – Use technology to supplement, not supplant your coaching. Technology is an aid not a replacement for a good coaching eye and a feel for what is happening. If in doubt rely on intuition and gut feeling over artificially generated numbers. Cultivate and sharpen your ability to look and listen more effectively.

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.

Lessons Learned and Earned in 2011

2011 has been an unbelievable learning year. The opportunity to interact with top professionals in many fields made this past year special. Over the next few days I will share with some of the lessons I have learned and earned. I say earned because this is an ongoing accumulation of graduate credits toward my PhD in the school of hard knocks. Some of the lesson over the years and this year have been hard earned. Hopefully this will stimulate some thought and reflection on your part. Some of these are old lessons I had to relearn and some are new.

Lesson One – Coaching is a people profession. Technical expertise and scientific knowledge is necessary but emotional intelligence, the ability to connect on a personal basis is paramount. We don’t coach soccer players, tennis players or swimmers; we coach people who do those sports. It is so easy to lose sight of that and get caught up in the X’s and O’s, the technical and scientific and forget the people part, the human element. We don’t build athletes, we grow and nurture them, and it is a constant growth process with no set formula. Each athlete is a case study of one. The human element presents many unique and varied challenges. This is what makes up the art of coaching and what makes coaching so special.

Possibility

It is so easy to get caught in negativity and focusing on what an athlete can’t do as opposed to what they can do. Look where someone can be rather than where they are. Look for what someone can do rather than what they can’t do. Limits are artificial but sometimes as coaches we make them real by constantly verbalizing them. Project into he future and see what can be done. If you are working with developing athletes as I have for much of my career you must focus on possibilities. That gangly 14-year boy who can’t walk and chew gum at the same time could be the next ________ you fill in the blank. We must teach, direct, motivate and guide them. Make them aware of their possibilities and help them realize those possibilities, get them to share the vision.

Footwork

The feet don’t work independent of the rest of the body! What a brilliant statement, you say I already knew that. If we already know that why do so many people talk about “quick feet” and “foot speed” as if the feet were independent of the rest of the body? There is no question that the feet are extremely important in sport because it is the feet that are in contact with the ground in movement. All movement is initiated off the ground. Ultimately it is the feet that must absorb shock on ground contact and then use those forces to propel the body or the ball in the desired direction. The purpose of footwork is to get the player and the ball to the right place at the right time. This is too big a job for two feet to do alone. The feet need to have help! They get their help farther up the kinetic chain in the hips. It has always been my contention that quick feet are actually loose and supple hips. I have never seen an athlete who was tight in the hips have good footwork!

Control of and positioning the center of gravity is the major objective of proper footwork. This consists of keeping the hips over the base of support if stability is desired or shifting the C of G outside the base of support to initiate movement and change direction.

Improving footwork is in essence speed work. Therefore it should be done when the athlete is fresh to obtain optimum results. In a typical training session there will seldom be more than eight minutes devoted to footwork drills. Remember that the drills do not have to be done all at one time; they can be distributed throughout practice to complement soccer skills. Be sure to allow enough rest between drills so that quality is maintained. In the beginning stages technique is more important that speed.

Learn to execute the action correctly then add speed. Design sport specific footwork drills that are derivatives of the generic footwork drills. This will ensure that the improved footwork will transfer to the game. Remember the objective of good footwork is to position the body to be more effective in performing the specific sport skill.