Functional Path Training

Some Notes/Thoughts from "The Generals"

Just finished reading Thomas Ricks latest book "The Generals" - American Military Command from WW II to Today. I found it very interesting reading in that it explained much of our military success and failure  over the past eighty years. But as a coach interested in leadership, organizational behavior and excellence I found it rich in ideas and thoughts. Here are a few thoughts that I found particularly relevant:

Art of strategy is foremost not about how to do something but about what to do. In other words, the first problem is to determine what the real problem is." P.47

Do away with "mind-numbing" time based training and replace it with competence a based system. P.338

Motto of the German general staff: "be more than you appear to be." P.357

"Not trusting people is an invitation to organizational disaster>" LT General Walter Ulmer Jr. P.360

"... commanders need to be educated less on what to think and more on how to think - and also on how to adapt. They need to learn how to learn. P.458

Your Brand

I have been hearing a lot about brands and branding lately. In a traditional sense a brand is a name or a symbol. In coaching and teaching it represents more, it is you and what you stand for. You are your brand. Who you are? You actions and your words will define who you are to others. How honest you are with yourself will clearly define you. Be yourself and true to yourself. Be the brand you want to be. A good place to start is genuine concern for others through your actions and words.

Practice – Getting Better at Getting Better

I just finished a book that is a must for every coach’s library, Practice Perfect - 42 Rules for Getting Better at Getting Better by Doug Lemov, Erica, Woolway and Katie Yezi. I have added this book to the reading list for my GAIN Apprentorship program. It is a very good blend of the science behind practice and the author’s practical experience. Obviously the cornerstone for effective athlete development is practice, but too often it is just about putting in the time. Now with the 10,000 hour figure looming out there everyone is even more concerned with putting in the time. It is not the time in practice, it what you put into the time. Practice must be deliberate, focused and connected to the desired end result – performance in competition.

In an article in the January 19 New York Times on 49ers offensive coordinator Greg Roman says it quite well: “ Every game is different,” Roman said this week. “No matter how you look at it, you have to pay homage to the football gods every week in practice, in meetings, in your preparation. Then you have to go out and perform on game day.”

What are you doing in practice? Do you know why? Are the practices appropriate for the people you are coaching? Are you paying homage to the gods of your sport? Read Practice Perfect for answers to these questions and many more to help your athletes be better at getting better.

Following the Flock – Sheepwalking To Mediocrity

I learned a long time ago that if you follow the flock of sheep for too long eventually you would step in shit. Just doing something because everybody else is doing is not a good reason for continuing to do it.  You must think for yourself, look for a better way. Thirty years ago when everyone was wearing polo shirts with an alligator on them I found a company that sold shirts with a rat on them. Not to be contrarian, but to make a statement. Be independent, think for yourself, analyze. Innovate don’t imitate. Get beyond peer-reviewed research, so-called best practice and find out what works. Open your eyes and what happening right in front of you every day at training. Follow your instincts; chances are that if it looks artificial and segmented then it is artificial and segmented. Always remember that the competitive environment is not controlled and sterile it is wild and chaotic, so prepare the way you want to compete. If you do what you have always done you will get what have always got. Not good English but words to guide your training.

Lessons from the Armstrong Affair?

Let me start by saying I refused to watch the Oprah interview. Armstrong is a master manipulator and I feel this is another attempt to manipulate public opinion. I have been following the whole Armstrong affair with great interest. I have read most of the books. For a very long time I was in a very small minority because I always felt he was dirty. My cynical side felt that he was using the whole Livestrong Foundation as a front. I refused to wear a yellow bracelet. I am still trying to absorb all the revelations and subsequent further accusations. What I do hope will come out of all this are some lessons that will help us to clean up sport. What the affair Armstrong has brought to the forefront for me is that big-time sport is dirty. Folks what you are seeing with cycling is not isolated to cycling. Doping is rampant in track & field and some areas of swimming, not to mention the NFL. The outlaws are far ahead of the law. They are well financed as we have learned from the Armstrong revelations if you have enough money you can beat the system. The testing system is flawed, easily evaded. There are huge amounts of money at stake here, for the athletes and their entourage, for the sponsors for the International and national governing bodies and the IOC.  I just hope for the future of sport and the young people coming into sport that we will find viable solutions and learn lessons from this whole sordid affair. Time will tell.

Finish It!

You have just had your athletes do a great workout. You have polished technical elements. The level of speed and explosiveness has been sky high. So now what? Of course you will now do a cooldown. Typically the athletes slog two laps for a cooldown. Think about it what you have just done. Neurally you have taken a giant step toward negating what you accomplished in the workout. I want my athletes to finish the workout with an exclamation point. I want them to finish the work feeling close to the way I want them to start the next workout. Use your imagination and creativity. Finish with mindful activities that will set them up mentally and physically for the next workout. This is a great place to put hurdle mobility, some light med ball work and off course flexibility work. This is where you do some dynamic balance. In team sports it would be a good time to play a small game that gets them moving in different ways than they moved in training. Use the time to make the athlete better and prepare for the next workout. Never miss an opportunity to improve your athletes.

Achievement Triangle

I developed this five or six years ago as a tool to make my athletes aware of what they needed to do to be the best, to be a peak performer. A conversation the other day reminded me of this so I thought it would be worth sharing again. One thing that I have observed since I developed this is that those at the peak of performance are completely comfortable with being uncomfortable all the time and they often make those around them uncomfortable. If you want to play where the big dogs play then forget a comfort zone.

Failure Is An Option

In order to succeed you must take risk, you must operate well out of your comfort zone. Risk implies that there is a chance of success or failure. I maintain that most of what holds coaches and athletes back from achieving ultimate success is not fear of failure, but fear of success. If they succeed then they must do it again and probably be expected to do it better. This brings pressure, most of which is self-imposed. That being said to be highly successful failure must be an option. Learning from failures opens up the path to success. Failure is a learning opportunity, it is all what you do with it and how you handle it. Let it define you and defeat you yes then you have failed, build upon it define yourself and rise above it then you are a success. I will close with the words of Johnny Cash, one of my favorite musicians, a man who certainly had his share of public and private failures and rose above them: "You build on failure. You use it as a stepping stone. Close the door on the past. You don't try to forget the mistakes, but you don't dwell on it. You don't let it have any of your energy, or any of your time, or any of your space."

By the way today is the anniversary of his Folsom Prison Blues concert, read about it on Garrison Keillors Writers Almanac writersalmanac.publicradio.org

Mach Sprint Drills – A Personal Perspective

I have had many questions lately regarding sprint drills. Whether or not I use them, how I use them etc? The following is an article I wrote several years ago for the the Australian publication Modern Athlete and Coach. I think it will shed light on the why and how of the Mach drill system. I have used this drills extensively over the years with great success, of late I have also incoporated some of the Bosch drill system. The combination of the two if used properly are of great benefit.

Mach Sprint Drills – A Personal Perspective

I am going to try to lend a bit of a historical perspective on the Mach drills. I must emphasize that this is my perspective and opinion based on discussion, observation as well as my coaching experience. I was first introduced to the Mach drills in 1975 by a group of Canadian athletes training in Santa Barbara Calif. They showed me the drills and gave me an article on the drills written by the originator of the drills, Gerard Mach who was the National Sprint & Hurdle coach of Canada. I was immediately attracted to the drills because I could see logic and a system to their application. (This logic and systematic approach to their application has been lost over the years, even in Canada). They did not appear that different from the drills that Bud Winter (Coach at San Jose State University and the coach of Tommy Smith, Lee Evans et. al.) had taught for years, but after reading Mach’s article there was a logical sequence that was not there with the Winter drills. I began to use the drills with good results, but I felt that I needed to find more about the drills and how they fit into the whole system of sprint development. In 1976 the Canadians had a training camp in Southern California where I was able to see Mach coach first hand for several days. This gave me a better depth of understanding of the drills and their application. I also saw how they were applied in hamstring rehab when I watched Coach Mach work with a 400 Meter runner who had pulled his hamstring three days previously. In 1977 I met Dr. Al Biancani, who at the time was the Coach at Cal State University Stanislaus, he had apprenticed under Mach. Al was very generous to share his knowledge of the Mach system and his interpretation with me. This was a tremendous help in understanding correct technique on the drills, coaching cues as well as their place in the whole system. In January 1978 I was able to attend a presentation by Gerard Mach where he spend three hours detailing the development of the Mach Polish Sprint School from his experimentation as an athlete to the application with athletes like Andzej Badenski and Irena Szewinska. It was an epiphany. It was an incredible system, as I look back he was far ahead of his time. The system and concepts that he had articulated in the 1950’s are those concepts that every good sprint coach uses today. A cornerstone of his system was the A B & C drill series. The drills were also designed to enable the sprinter to get the repetition of work necessary to prepare to actually sprint in the adverse weather conditions that occurred inn the winter in Poland. In presentations he always pointed out that he did not have the good weather that the American sprint coaches in the west and south enjoyed, so he had to come up with alternatives.

Mach broke the stride into its components parts, knee lift, foreleg action and the push off through the drills. The “A” Drills were designed to work the knee lift component. The “B” Drills were designed to work on foreleg reach or pawing action. According to Mach “All exercises with leg extension and active down are special exercises to strengthen the hamstrings.” (Page 6, Sprinting & Hurdling School by Gerard Mach, CTFA 1977) “The marching and skipping exercises were designed to develop the technique required for body lean, arm action, high knee lift, leg extension, and keeping the center of gravity high, but did not emphasize the strong driving forward or push forward action.” (Page 6, Sprinting & Hurdling School by Gerard Mach, CTFA 1977) The ”C” Drills were designed to work on push off and extension.

My interpretation, from discussions with Gerard Mach and Biancani, as well as my extensive use of these drills over the years is that their primary benefit is not as technique drills. They are drills that specifically strengthen the muscles in postures and actions that are similar to those that occur during the sprint action. It is through strengthening in the specific positions that technique is improved. I consider them posture drills, specific strength drills and functional flexibility drills. The technical benefit is ancillary. These drills do have a place in a sprint training program if they are properly taught and constantly coached. Incorrect execution and repetition can ingrain bad habits. One of the biggest faults on the “A” series of exercises is the emphasis on knee lift at the expense of impulse off the ground. The knee lift occurs as a result of what happens on the ground. On the drills the knee should not be pulled off the ground, but driven down to create a quick strike on the ground, which will result in knee lift. Another fault that I see in execution of the drills is the rate of execution. Mach emphasized that the drill should be executed at ”three steps per meter.” He also emphasized the necessity of correct arm action on the drills. Too many times I see athletes doing the drills with very passive arm action, which is incorrect.

Each drill is sub divided into a march action, a skip action and a run action. This was designated by the subscript as follows:

         A1 = Marching

         A2 = Skipping

         A3 = Running

 

         B1 = Marching

         B2 = Skipping

         B3 = Running

The progression was from marching to skipping to running. The drills were used daily as part of warm-up. They were actually used a workouts to emphasize either power speed or strength endurance. They were also used for rehab after hamstring pulls. For workouts the drills could be done at less than ten repetitions, less that ten meters, less than ten seconds, this was termed “Power Speed.” Mach would also add resistance to the drills in the form of a sandbag or a weight vest. If this was the case then the drills were designated as “Power Speed Mixed.” If the drills were done longer that 20 meters, more than tens reps and more than ten seconds in duration they were designated as “Strength Endurance.” If resistance was added to this then it was termed as “Strength Endurance Mixed.” Irena Szewinska was reported to have executed series of 200 Meter A2’s. I personally have used A2 and A 3 for 4 –6 x 50 meters with a weight vest (10 % body weight) with developmental athletes.

The drills are a great lead in to teaching hurdles. The lead leg action is actually a “B” action, the trail leg is a “C” action closely coupled with an “A” action. Another aspect of the drills that picked up from Mach that I do not see applied very often is to link the drills to acceleration. For example execute an A3 for 10 Meter and change it over to an acceleration of 30 Meters. The goal here is to work a particular component of the stride and to immediately place it into the context of the whole the whole action

I summary I feel Mach was a genius. His work has stood the test of time. If we understand that the drills are part of a complex system used to develop the sprinter, hurdler, jumper then they do have a place in the daily preparation of the athlete. As a side comment it is interesting to note that Tom Tellez, coach of Carl Lewis and Leroy Burrell, did not believe in the use of drills. The bottom line is that that there are many roads to Rome!

Less Can Be More

There is no substitute for focused directed work with a purpose. Certainly just doing more work is not necessarily better. Have a laser like focus. Know specifically what you want to achieve. Make every exercise, drill, run, jump or throw count by having specific measurable objectives for each element of training. Also make sure the training session is in context of the whole training plan in order to insure progress toward the over all goal. Each segment of the training session should be carefully constructed so that one segment flows seamlessly into the next segment. The previous segment should set up and enhance the subsequent segment. No training component stands in isolation. Touch on all biomotor qualities with major emphasis on some and minor emphasis on others. Don’t try to do too much in any one session. If you are working with advanced athletes multiple sessions are referable to long extended sessions. Make less more.