Functional Path Training

Guru or Coach - Who do want to learn from?

To grow it is imperative to find mentors not gurus to learn from and grow professionally, this should help to make the distinction.

Guru – All about them

Coach – All about the athlete

 

Guru - Style

Coach - Substance

 

Guru – Full of information often unconnected

Coach – Bursting with knowledge that applies

 

Guru – Has the secrets

Coach – Open & willing to share

 

Guru – Quick with putdowns

Coach – Quick to praise and uplift

 

Guru – Dispenses and the Kool-Aid & expects all to drink

Coach - Water

 

Guru – No questions & has all the answers

Coach – Driven by questions

 

Guru – Big bold claims

Coach – Lets actions speak

 

Guru – In the spotlight on the FrontPage or ESPN

Coach – On the back page in small print or in the footnotes

 

Guru – Quick to follow the $$$$$

Coach – Driven by principles

 

Guru – Complexifier

Coach – Simplifier

 

Guru – Exclusive

Coach – Inclusive

 

Guru – Conditional

Coach – Unconditional

The Road to Rome

There are many roads to Rome but ultimately the goal is to get the destination. You can take different roads depending on your circumstances and constraints. If time is no consideration then take the scenic route, stop and see the sites and by all means sample the cuisine along the way. If time is limited then a direct route is necessary and the route must be carefully planned, there is little margin for error. Stops must be carefully planned and programmed for efficiency. It can help if you have been there before, that can give some margin for error but never take anything for granted as conditions may have changed. The moral is that if you want to get to Rome have a current road map or working GPS, get help from someone who has been there before and understand the constraints that can limit you ability to get there in the desired time.

Back to Basics of Coaching

Each year I reread the following books to keep in touch with the basics. My roots are deep in Athletics (Track & Field) so you can see that reflected in these reading. I find that every time I go through these books that I find something new or at least different perspective. This is just one way that I work at getting better at getting better. In my opinion if you want to be a coach you need to have a “go to” list like this that will keep in touch with the foundations of coaching.

Doherty, Ken. (1985) Track & Field Omnibook (Fourth Edition

Dyson,Geoffrey H.G. (1977) The Mechanics of Athletics

Mach, Gerard. Sprints & Hurdles. Canadian Track & Field Association, Ontario. 1980

Logan, Gene A. and McKinney, Wayne C (1970). Kinesiology

Todd, Mabel E. (1937) The Thinking Body

Wilt, Fred. (1964) Run Run Run

Gabbard, Carl., Leblanc, Elizabeth., and Lowy, Susan. Physical Education for Children-Building the Foundation, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. Prentice-Hall, Inc. 1987

Harre, Dietrich. Principles of Sports Training – Introduction to the Theory and methods of Training. Berlin, GDR: Sportverlag. 1982

Olbrecht, Jan. The Science of Winning – Planning, Periodizing and Optimizing Swim Training. Swim Shop, Luton, England. 2000

Kreighbaum, Ellen and Barthels, Katharine M. Biomechanics - A Qualitative Approach for Studying Human Movement. Fourth edition. Boston, Allyn and Bacon. 1996.

Lieber, Richard L. (2002) Skeletal Muscle Structure, Function & Plasticity – The Physiological Basis of Rehabilitation. Second Edition. Philadelphia: Lippincot Williams & Wilkins.

McArdle, William D. Katch, Frank I. And Katch, Victor L. (2001) Fifth Edition. Exercise Physiology – Energy, Nutrition and Human Performance. Baltimore, MD. Williams & Wilkins.

Scholich, Manfred. (1986) Circuit Training. Berlin: Sportverlag

Komi, P. V., Editor,(Second Edition) Strength and Power In Sport, London: Blackwell Scientific Publications. 2003

Lederman, Eyal. Neuromuscular Rehabilitation in Manual and Physical Therapies – Principles to Practice, Edinburgh: Churchill Livingstone – Elsevier. 2010

Lederman, Eyal. Therapeutic Stretching – Toward A Functional Approach, Edinburgh: Churchill Livingstone – Elsevier. 2014

Curwin, Sandra. & Stanish, William D. M.D. and Mandel, Scott. Tendinitis: it’s Etiology and Treatment, New New York, New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Bosch, Frans., and Klomp, Ronald. Running – Biomechanics and exercise Physiology Applied in Practice. London. Elsevier Churchill Livingstone. 2005

Davids, Keith. Button, Chris. Bennett, Simon. Dynamics of Skill Acquisition – A Constraints-Led Approach. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics Publishing Company. 2008

Wulf, Gabriele. Attention and Motor Skill Learning. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics Publishing Company. 2007

Good/Better/Best – Your Choice

Over the years I am convinced that athletes make clear choices about their level of achievement, it has nothing to do talent or ability (Some of the most talented athletes I have been around have chosen not be the best). It clearly comes to attitude and desire to be the best. Here are the three levels of achievement from my experience:

Good – They have no idea what winning is or what it takes. They look at winners as freaks or exceptions. They just do the workout. There is no more effort expended than necessary. In essence they are ticking the box, to them just getting it done is good enough. They are very comfortable being comfortable. They hide from work where possible and when they do work they do the minimum.

Better – They want to win to win but have no clear idea how to, they still see it as a mystery or a gift. They do train the practice; they give an effort and occasionally will rise to the occasion and go above and beyond. They will get uncomfortable when pushed but seldom of their on volition. They see work as a sacrifice. Often they are consistently inconsistent just showing enough to lead you to think that they will break through. In many ways these are the coach killers.

Best – They know how to win because they win the workout everyday not just on game day. They are hungry they need to win. They see work as an opportunity to improve not a sacrifice. They are comfortable with being uncomfortable all the time and they make everyone around them uncomfortable with their intensity and will be the best. They push the envelope mentally and physically. Failure is not in their vocabulary. What we see as failure they see as stepping-stones. These are the athletes you want to coach and build your team around. They will find a way. They will challenge as a coach everyday to get better so they can get better.

Our job as coaches is to push, pull, prod, educate, cajole the athlete to understand what it is to be the best and help them make the choice to get there. It is the process that makes coaching incredibly difficult and very rewarding at the same time.

Two Mornings in February

Let me preface this by saying I am a coaching junkie, my passion is watching coaches coach and learning from them. It is a bonus when the athletes they are coaching are the best of the best. In February of this year at University of Oregon I was able to watch two great sessions.

Thursday morning Track session at Hayward Field in Indoor Track

Harry Marra coaching world recorder holder Ashton Eaton and his wife Briana herself an Olympic medalist and world champion in the heptathlon. At the same time Jaime Cook, Assistant Track & Field coach at University of Oregon was working with his hurdler Devon Allen.

I met with Harry before and I went over what they were going to do. He started the session with a mini lesson on the mechanics of the high jump to review what they had done the day before. Then the session was focused on long jump especially rhythm of last six strides. It was great to see the communication between coach and athletes and Ashton and his wife worked to together to reinforce what Harry was emphasizing. It was fundamental with a focus on the basics, nothing overly complicated. Language was clear and coaching cues were short and on point. It was clear to me that coaching has made a huge difference in Ashton’s and Brianna development and it was abundantly clear why they are champions.

At the same time Devon Allen was doing a hurdle workout. They were working starts over three hurdles and then five hurdles and some running one step drills. I was especially interested to watch Allen because he had torn his ACL on the opening kickoff in the Rose Bowl just thirteen months before. It was quickly apparent there were no residual effects from the injury and subsequent surgery. I came away super impressed with Allen’s almost perfect textbook lead leg action, possible one the best I have seen in 46 years of coaching. This kids work ethic is off the scale doing both his football and track workouts and attacking them.

Friday morning University of Oregon Off season football Training

It was a 6:30AM team off-season training session coached by Jim Radcliffe, Head S&C coach at University of Oregon. It was dark and cold when they started. It was the last training session of the week with a strength training session to follow. Jimmy did a twenty-minute extensive warm-up session. The goal of the session was to break into their position groups and work on specific football speed appropriate for their positions. There was no standing around. They train the way they play - FAST. Before they did the speed development they did a session of throws and jumps again related to the demands of their position. Then they started the speed work and it was fast, I must say that seldom have I seen football players move with the speed and precision of movement these guys were executing, a real tribute to coach Radcliffe and his staff. I also must emphasize that there was no screaming and hollering at the players, just coaching corrections, emphasis on cues, basically good teaching. When the payers were in their groups they were player led! I walked around to watch each group and when I got to the wide receiver group there was Devon Allen, the hurdler running patterns and other speed drills. My immediate thought was this kid is a throwback to bygone days. He did not hold anything back. After the session I was with coach Radcliffe when he called over the football players that also ran track and he spoke to each one and asked how they felt when he got Allen his response was what is tomorrows workout!

I could not help but think of these two workouts as I watched Ashton win the Olympic trials in a world leading score with a dinged up leg. He was essentially 85 to 90% at best but because of the workouts I saw in February and the trust in his coach with the emphasis on fundamentals he was able to execute. Same thing watching Devon Allen dominate the hurdles on his way to making the Olympic team. The strength that he developed by doing the multiple workouts in track and football served him well. It is a tribute to the sports medicine staff at Oregon who got him back 100% from the ACL surgery and his coaches, but above a tribute to his focus. It is going to be fun to watch these clean athletes compete with the world in Rio. Somehow I think those workouts in February will make a difference. Onward, upward, higher, faster and stronger!

Are we creating fragile athletes?

We are spending so much time measuring various training loads, planning recovery and putting restrictions on the athletes based on those measurements that we are creating fragile athletes instead of more resilient robust athletes? What are we doing? In the search for protecting the athlete are we creating athletes who are unprepared for training load of any significance, much less a competition load because they have never been under duress in training? Everywhere I turn I see this. Just because you can measure something does not mean it is meaningful and certainly we can measure everything. Lets focus on what the athlete can do and needs to do to prepare for the rigors of competition. I would ever want to go back to the way it was fifty years ago when I was playing college football where we had three-hour practices with no water that was not the way to do it. We do need to push them and they need to learn their bodies and it’s capabilities by pushing the envelope and getting uncomfortable. It always goes back to basics of coaching, sound pedagogy, knowing the demands of the sport, knowing the athletes and having a system with a plan to implement the system. Some common sense would go along way to protecting and still creating a highly adaptable athlete that can handle a training load and thrive in competition.

Words

Words are so very powerful. They can hurt and they can heal. They can inspire. They can despair. They can discourage or they can encourage. Words, written or spoken are a cornerstone of communication. Select and use words that convey the message you want to convey. Your words are you and a representation of what you are. Lest we forget words create images and images create action. Learn to use words that elicit the action you want to see.