Functional Path Training

Coaching – More Than X’s and O’s

The technical and tactical part of coaching is the easy part. For some reason coaches early in their career tend to focus on these areas to the exclusion of all else. Just as we want to develop and build complete athletes we must be complete coaches. Being a complete coach means attending to all elements of the job. The administrative aspect of coaching is the most onerous, but in many ways most important. You must master it and master it early. You can’t compete in the track meet if you were so disorganized you forgot to order the bus. Communication skills or lack thereof can be the coaches undoing. Ability to communicate with the athlete is obvious, but communication with other professionals and your colleagues is just as important. Talk less, listen more, respect those who have opened the doors for you. My advice is to take a step back and look at where you are and do a thorough assessment of your entire skill set and abilities. Above all make sure you have a balance, don’t forget your family and relationships. There is life outside of coaching; I know it took me too many years to figure that out.

Speed - Train It In

The sad part of speed is that so many people train it out of their athletes. Especially with the endurance athletes, but I even see with speed and power athletes. It is about quality not quantity. Start with warm-up, some of these elaborate hour and fifteen minute warm-ups that include every drill under the sun are just getting the athlete tired not ready for explosive effort. Speed is about quality and economy of effort. I quote my good friend and colleague Gary Winckler, ”work capacity is not a biomotor quality.” Speed is a quality that must be trained year around regardless of the event or sport discipline. The high neural and coordinative demands require that those pathways stay open and stimulated. Everyone has potential for speed but many do not reach it because of improper training or the fact we buy into myths that it cannot be improved.

 

Speaking of speed today is cool Papa Bells birthday. He was a star in the Negro leagues and one of the fastest players to ever play the game of baseball. Sam Harriston, who was a coach with the White Sox when I worked there had played with Papa Bell and he told this story to illustrate how fast he was. He was rooming with Papa Bell and they were both in their beds with the lights on in their room. Papa Bell got up to turn the lights off and was back in his bed before the lights went off. (I know this story is attributed to Muhammad Ali, but it was really Papa Bell) That is speed! Try that every night as a drill and you will get faster.

A Story and a Lesson

As I have posted and tweeted on middle distance and distance training I have been thinking more about the lessons I have learned along the way. I want to start out by saying that I have clear bias toward the speed the power influence. From speed and power will come more efficient mechanics and optimum force into the ground. Middle distance and distance runners are not just a big heart and lungs with legs attached. There has be a convergence, a synergy if you will, with all systems of the body working at the same time, together to produce the desired speed for the intended distance.

Now to the story and the lesson. I can’t remember the year exactly; I think it was 1973 in early February, a Sunday morning around 9:00. I was warming up for a pole vault ( Trying to smash that elusive 12' barrier) session at the UCSB track. It was cold, high thirties (yes it does get cold in California). I got there early to do some extra warm-up before meeting the coach who was helping me in the vault. Just as I was going to begin my warm-up jog, Jim Ryan showed up. He asked me if he could jog with me. I thought to myself you are asking me, I should be privileged just to be on the same track with you. So we started to warm-up at my pace, a tendonitis trot, very slow at around eight-minute mile pace. We did a mile. I was shocked, Jim sounded like a Hoover vacuum cleaner, his breathing was heavy, and his footfalls were loud and percussive. I knew he was having problems with asthma, but this seemed weird.

 

We stopped and did a few leg swings, a couple of stretches and then went to the infield to do “strides,” 100 meter buildups opening up the stride. He was being polite and letting me set the tempo, the first two were slow around 16 seconds for 100 meters.  The same response and as when we were jogging, breathing heavy, percussive foot strikes. Then I picked it up and dropped to around 14 seconds per hundred and then a couple around 13. Everything changed. It was a magical transformation. His breathing was quiet his foot strikes were efficient, everything smoothed out. It was that beautiful flowing long efficient stride that had seen so many times. We stopped and chatted a few minutes and he went off on a run.

I have never forgotten that morning. I remember going home and puzzling over it. Why? Over the years I have seen this phenomenon repeat itself in so many ways. There was a point of physiological, neural and biomechanical converge where all his systems were synced up and efficient. For him it was 15 second 100 meter tempo, four minute pace. At that speed everything came together in a finely tuned rhythm. So for me the lesson I want to share with you as coaches is to help the athlete find that rhythm, key in on it, train it in, don’t plod and force unusually slow tempos on the athlete that are uncomfortable and inefficient. In my opinion and experience the same is true in swimming and cycling. Don’t misinterpret this and take this out of context, I know you can’t run fast all the time, but be aware of this convergence zone, look for it and tap into it and you will get more out of what you do.

This is the root of the problem

I received this comment on this portion of my post from earlier today.

"the winner is the person who can maintain the highest percentage of their maximum speed for the duration of the race."

This is not true. Basic physiology, since the main components of speed and endurance are different energy systems.

This is the basic problem, until we get past thinking about energy systems, we will not produce the middle distance and distance runners we are capable of producing. If you are still basing your training on energy systems and letting that dictate everything then you are not up with current thinking. Same school of thought says you should not mix energy systems in a workout, totally unrealistic. You mix all energy systems in a race, so you should mix them systematically in a workout. Energy systems are not little switches that turn on and off as needed. Forget energy systems and think about neural drive and coordination. Learn how to run fast efficiently. Then learn how to carry that speed and efficiency for longer distances. For you swim coaches, the same goes for you. Stop depending on those neat color coded charts and train for the race.

Could Not Agree More

This has been my stance for years.

WADA boss calls for ban on tainted coaches

BY KAYON RAYNOR Senior staff reporter [email protected]

Friday, May 14, 2010

COACHES OF athletes who are found guilty of anti-doping offences should also be banned, says director general of the World Anti-doping Agency (WADA) David Howman.

"Yes! And that's a subject that we feel has to be accentuated to by government," Howman told the Observer in an exclusive interview yesterday.

"You can deal with lawyers who misbehave; you can deal with journalists who misbehave; you can deal with doctors who misbehave (but), how can we deal with coaches?

"You can strip them from representing the country; you can stop them from going to (an) event, but you can't stop them from coaching unless there is a law, so we're looking at ways and means of where that can be encountered," the WADA boss declared.

"The reason for it is that very often the athlete is, I can't say innocent, but is the receptacle of information given of persuasion by people who should know better; older people who they take guidance from who tell them to go and do something which is wrong," Howman added.

"There should be a degree of responsibility... laid at the feet of those people (including) coaches... trainers, agents, doctors, pharmacists, and we think very strongly they've got to be dealt with."

According to the current WADA rules as shown on its web site, www.wada-ama.org, the principle of strict liability only applies to athletes.

"The principle of strict liability is applied in situations where urine/blood samples collected from an athlete have produced adverse analytical results.

"It means that each athlete is strictly liable for the substances found in his or her bodily specimen, and that an anti-doping rule violation occurs whenever a prohibited substance (or its metabolites or markers) is found in bodily specimen, whether or not the athlete intentionally or unintentionally used a prohibited substance or was negligent or otherwise at fault."

Conversely, there are few documented cases where coaches of sanction athletes have been handed coaching bans.

In July 2008, the United States Anti-doping Agency (USADA) slapped Trevor Graham with a lifetime coaching ban for reportedly helping his athletes, which included Marion Jones, Justin Gatlin and Tim Montgomery, to obtain performance-enhancing drugs. Graham has always denied providing performance-enhancers to his athletes.

Athletics Canada also handed Ben Johnson's former coach, the late Charlie Francis, a life-time ban after he told a 1989 inquiry that he had introduced Johnson to steroids.

Johnson tested positive for the steroid stanozolol after winning the 100 metres at the 1988 Seoul Olympics and was stripped of his gold medal.

The WADA boss hinted that until countries put legislation in place to sanction coaches and other athlete representatives, the anti-doping fight will not end.

"They should be subject to at least the same sort of sanctions as the athletes. They should be out of sport for two years or out of sport for four years. There's no reason why not, so I look at it from the angle of being fair to all that might be part of something," he said.

"If you look in society and you say they are five people are involved in a crime, you don't just prosecute one, you get the whole five who are involved in the conspiracy. We should be doing the same in sport," added Howman, who is a lawyer by profession.

WADA, which is headquartered in Montreal, Canada, was established in 1999 to act as an independent international agency to co-ordinate efforts to rid sports of doping. The agency involves government representatives, certain inter-governmental organisations, alongside sporting bodies.

Middle Distance & Distance Training Thoughts

From the day I started coaching I have always approached the middle distance and distance events from a speed and power perspective. Very quickly I saw that those who could run forever, but could not run fast were not going to be competitive in races. Remember the winner is the person who can maintain the highest percentage of their maximum speed for the duration of the race. If you have speed and you want to be successful, then you must learn how to use your speed. The only way you learn to use is to run fast, train speed in, don’t train speed out. Some fast running must be included during all phases of the training year.

 

Isn’t this all about preparing the athletes to race. In my opinion there is too much emphasis on pace. Pace is a misleading term. It is not pace it is distribution of effort. Distribution is what allows you to use the highest % of maximum speed for the duration of the race. Good distribution demands great & efficient running mechanics and the ability to change tempos (shift gears) in one stride. To learn race distribution you need to know your strengths and weakness and how you can run your race. You must become race hardened. That is a key element that is missing today, without dual meets and smaller meets the young developing runner is denied the opportunity to learn how to race and become race hardened.

 

Good running mechanics don’t come from drills. Drills are part of the picture. Greater improvement in running mechanics comes from proper strength training. You must strengthen the legs and hips; this is neglected in most middle and long distance training programs. Strength is the basis for speed and good running mechanics.

Training or Coaching?

Are you training your athletes or coaching your athletes? There is a clear distinction. Unfortunately today I see much more training than coaching. In another post I plan to address the reasons, meanwhile here are some distinctions between coaching and training as I see them:

Training – focused on the result. Just get it done.

Coaching – Focused on the process, how it is done, making sure it is repeatable.

 

Training – Self centered, all about the trainer, the athlete can’t do it without the trainer.

Coaching – All about empowering and teaching the athlete. Creating self-sufficiency rather than dependence.

 

Trainer – Has all the answers.

Coaching – Always gathering data from the training, fine-tuning and learning.

 

Training – Lots of screaming and yelling, ”motivating.”

Coaching – Purposeful, meaningful feedback and cue’s, communicating and teaching.

 

Training – Focused on equipment, needs machines and apparatus to train.

Coaching- Focused on the athlete and the sport they are preparing for and coach accordingly. Use what is needed and necessary, not bells and whistles.

 

Training – Scattered, all over the place.

Coaching – Focused on the task at hand. No cell phone!

 

Training – Follows the latest fads, listens to gurus.

Coaching – Knows best practice and follows it. Stands on the shoulders of giants. Has a mentor.

I think this gives you the idea. Which are you? Look at yourself and look at your colleagues, if you are a trainer, become a coach. Coaching is much more satisfying and rewarding.

Some Thoughts on Coaching and Training

Training contains a fair amount of redundancy. Use that to your advantage as a consistent means to compare and track progress. I know for years I have used a consistent pattern of warm-up that provides me with instant feedback on the athletes training readiness for that day. The same for certain drills and workouts that I place at the same time in a training cycle. As the athlete gains training age this information becomes increasingly more valuable.

 

The best basis for future planning is careful contextual analysis of the prior training. Therefore it is very important to keep detailed training records and logs.

 

Don’t always look for cause & effect, look for connections. Train the connections.

 

Use Foster’s RPE rating – Wait 30 minutes after the training session, have the athlete rate the session on a 1 to 10 scale. Multiply that score by the minutes in the workout.

 

Talk less, listen more. Speak with meaning. The power in verbal communications often is not the words; it is the space between the words. The rhythm & pacing, how you say what you say goes a long way to determine how and if the message is received.

 

“Nobody cares if you can’t dance well. Just get up and dance. Great dancers are not great because of their technique, they are great because of their passion.” Martha Graham

Role of Sports Science & Sport Medicine

Sports science is important in advancing our knowledge of training. I am a huge supporter of sport science, during my career I have had the opportunity to work with some of the best, but today we have a problem. The but is that sport science and the sport scientist do not captain the ship, the coach does. The same with sport medicine; under that term I put the pysio (ATC in US), physical therapist, chiropractor and doctor, they are important, but they should not captain the ship. The captain of the ship should be the coach. The coach is the ultimate authority on what needs to be done to get his individual or team into the performance arena in optimum condition to perform. This means the coach must be a great a communicator and organizer. The coach must be knowledgeable enough in sports science and sports medicine to be able to direct, detect and ask the correct questions. I have seen first hand what happens when sport science or sport medicine runs amok and it is not pretty. The athlete suffers and the coach loses games and matches, the athletes underperform and no one is willing or able to take responsibility. The performance team is the team behind the team, they should be invisible, there are no super star sport scientists, sports medicine practitioners, there are only star athletes and great teams. The spotlight should be on the athlete, not the support team. Lets just make sure that we have the horse before the cart and the coach is driving the cart.

Bob Williams Pace Calculator

Bob Williams is a coaching colleague and a very good friend. I worked with Bob five years ago when we both working on the Oregon Project. Bob ran the steeplechase at Oregon for Bill Bowerman. He is a disciple of Bowerman and understands the Bowerman method better than anyone I know. Over the years the Bob has developed some great runners, his latest product is Elijah Greer who ran in the 1:47’s  in high school and is now a freshman at Oregon. Bob developed his adaptation of the pace calculator. I will let Bob tell the story:

The first pace calculator was The Oregon Pace Rule, developed by Jack Berg, Ph.D., Bill Bowerman’s Track Assistant back in the early Sixties. Jack was a four star athlete from Roseburg, Oregon, and came to school to compete.  Jack had vaulted for Bill in the mid to late 50’s and I believe he was the Northern Division Champion at 13 feet 6”. Jack was a Chemistry professor at the University and very bright. He designed the Oregon Pace Rule from his own desire to help Bill figure out track paces quickly. As a distance runner for Bill I was an early recipient of The Oregon Pace Rule.

 

 I bought a few of the pace calculators from Jack in the early 70’s while I was in Eugene going to graduate school. By about 1982 the pace calculators had worn so badly that I needed to get a new one from Jack. Unfortunately Jack had passed away a few years earlier from cancer and I was unable to locate his widow to buy them.

 

So in 1983 I started to research the process for developing a new pace calculator. New tracks were being built in meters so it seemed reasonable to have the new pace calculator to meet the needs of those school coaches with metric tracks. I added all of the road distances from 10 Kilometers to the Marathon so recreational and serious runners could figure out mile splits and it could double as a track coach’s tool, too.

 

This process took close to eight months before I got my first prototype. The pace calculator has been through three changes since 1984 with the additions of the 150 and 500 meters as requested by coaches, change in plastic cover to paperboard like the original Oregon Pace Rule for environmental and cost reasons.

 

This is a valuable and very practical coaching. I bought the early “yards” version in the 70’s. To purchase the Bob Williams Pace Calculator go to www.coachbobwilliams.com