Functional Path Training

Greater Than Sport

We are obviously in a time of worldwide crisis. As coaches and citizens of the world we need to recognize that this transcends sport. Lives are at stake, the fact that sporting events are being cancelled seems trivial. Certainly, I feel for the athletes who have sacrificed so much and had their competitive opportunities taken away, but we must think about the big picture. Let’s do everything in our power to prevent the spread of this virus. The sooner we act and get out ahead of this then the possibility of some sort of return to normalcy is increased. Although we should all recognize that post corona virus there will have to be a new reality that we all must understand. All of us need to be proactive and take all steps necessary to prevent further spread of this virus.

Load Management - Walking on Egg Shells

The whole concept of load management as it is being interpreted and implemented is beyond me. Frankly, it makes no sense. Call me old school, but isn’t good planning and training design that prepares the athlete for the rigors of competition what we are supposed to be doing? We have reduced the quality and intensity of training to meet magic numbers developed by flawed measurement devises based on artificial algorithms. We are walking on egg shells, afarid to push the athlete. Sometime in the process you have to train hard and push beyond your perceived limits in order to force adaptation. We are now well into our second generation of fragile athletes that are victims of underwork. Injures are not being reduced, although I have no stats to back this, it is my observation that severity of injuries has increased. There is a threshold of training that you must achieve to become competition hardened. For me fifty years into this journey it has been quite a simple proposition – do the necessary work that exceeds game demands, that meets the needs of the individual athletes, that has a transparent injury prevention component, emphasis fundamentals and never strays far from fundamentals of the sport and movement – this approach has produced injury free robust athletes ready to thrive in the chaos of competition. Load is planned and adjusted daily informed by the response of the athlete and the close observation of the coaches, seldom if ever is it driven exclusively by numbers. A healthy athlete should not be held out of competition – that is what we are training for, lest we forget.

Herb Elliott – Some Quotes & Thoughts

I don’t have many heroes in sport, but from the time I first saw this picture in Life magazine of Herb Elliott and his coach running the sand dunes at Portsea he became my hero. Here are some thoughts and quotes from a presentation he recently did in Australia. He is 82 years and sharp as a tack. He retired from running at age 22 and has never looked back. I think there are many lesson todays coaches and athletes can learn from Herb Elliott.

“Turn yourself into a better human being through sport”

He related that he ran to exhaustion 4 days a week, the other two days he just ran for the pure joy of running. As a note most of this time he was working an eight-hour day!

He related a workout on a very windy day when his main competition in Australia, Merv Lincoln was also doing a workout at the same track, as it turned out it was almost the same workout. He observed that Lincoln chose to run with the wind while he ran into the wind. Herb said he knew could beat Lincoln after that day because he was ok with being uncomfortable.

For all you complexifiers out there this is a gem:” Running is so bloody simple – you are born, you walk, then you run. Don’t make it complicated!”

We Have It Backwards

Today we spend an inordinate amount of time and effort preparing the path for the athlete. We make sure that everything is controlled. We make the path smooth and straight when in reality the path is circuitous and crooked with many detours along the way. What we should be doing is preparing the athlete. Get them ready for the bumps and detours. Build adaptability and robustness that prepares them for any path and obstacle in their way. Lest we forget that the goal is to grow and nurture and adaptable athlete who can thrive in the competitive cauldron.

No Track, No Problem

Congratulations to Tove Shere, Track Coach at Santa Fe Prep for being inducted in the New Mexico high school track & field coaches Hall of Fame. Tove’s teams have won multiple state championships and they don’t have a track! Tove never let this be an obstacle, instead it represented an opportunity to be innovative and creative in training. No excuses, she just got the job done. Tove has been an integral part of the GAIN community since it’s inception. She is always learning, trying to improve and get better. She is quite an accomplished athlete herself finishing on the Podium  the World Duathlon championships. We need more coaches like Tove, who know how to coach the person and are teachers first. I don't have many heroes but Tove Shere is definitely one of my heroes.

The Wizard of Foz – Dick Fosbury’s One-Man High Jump Revolution by Bob Welch with Dick Fosbury.

You can learn a lot from athletes’ biographies, especially from someone who innovated like Fosbury did. There are many lessons to be learned from this book both about sport and life through the chronicles of his rise to Olympic Champion and beyond. It is well framed in the context of growing up in the fifties and coming of age in the turbulent sixties. Fosbury developed his technique without coaching and in many ways in spite of coaching. This is a little pearl I go from the book regarding Fosbury’s in competition mental approach in preparation for a jump:

“First, the corrective. Fosbury would think: What if anything needs fixing from my previous jump? Often, for example, it was a reminder not to drift into the bar and instead, to jump vertically, not horizontally.” (P. 123)

“Second, the connective. Once he’d determined what needed to be fixed on this coming jump, he would connect the action to the particular part of the body responsible for making that happen, to feel it. To think that thought – more pronounced arch, for example – would help the body rehearse, or memorize, what it needed to do.” (P. 123)

“And, finally, the disconnective. In the final few seconds before the jump, he wanted nothing more on his mind regarding the past. All of his energy needed to feed his now. “I never started forward on my approach,” he said, until was absolutely convinced I was going over the bar.” (P. 124)

Enjoy the book it is an entertaining and informative read that brought back many memories from a bygone era in track and field.

Read this Book! The Playmakers Advantage

For the past fifteen years I have been focused on what to do to get better at getting better. I have explored cognitive neuroscience, recognizing that the brain and how we train the brain is the key to getting better at getting better. In that pursuit I have read numerous books, devoured research literature, attended seminars and talked to as many experts as possible. The deeper I got into the process I knew I was on the right path. This is why I am encouraging you to read The Playmakers Advantage – How to Raise Your Mental Game to The Next Level. Len Zaichkowsky AKA Dr. Z and Dan Peterson have done a masterful job of compiling the research and their extensive experience into a comprehensive informative guide to the latest information on training the brain to improve sports performance.

This is a terrific resource for coaches. They go into detail as to the what, the how and very importantly the why of training the brain. The material in Playmakers Advantage represents what we have to do as coaches to optimize what we are doing. It is not a simplistic self-help motivational work, there are too many of those and they are ineffective in changing behavior. This has breadth and depth reflecting the latest research and best practice. It is one of the most valuable books I have read in a long time. How often as coaches have we said it is all in your head. Playmakers Advantage shows how to use what’s in our head to our competitive advantage.

Failure and Risk

In order to succeed you must take risks, you must operate well out of your comfort zone. Risk implies that there is a chance of success or failure. 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 what you do with it and how you handle it. Let it define you and defeat you then yes then you have failed, build upon it define yourself and rise above it then you are a success. Johnny Cash, a man who certainly had his share of public and private failures and rose above them summed it up quite well: "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."

Foundational Beliefs – Guiding Lights

The following are foundational beliefs that make up the pillars of my coaching philosophy. I early in my career as a coach I learned that philosophy is the guiding light, the beacon that guides you through the good times and the bad. These may be of assistance to you in defining how and what you do as a coach:

Coach & Teach the Way You Would Want to Be Coached & Taught

It Is Always About the Athlete

Focus on the Process - The Pursuit of Excellence Has Its Own Rewards

Embrace and Lead Change

Relentlessly Pursue Personal & Professional Growth and Learning

Use All Dimensions of Communication

Embrace the Difference – Nobody Is the Same

Always Ask Why?

Never Take No for Answer

Less Is More - Simplicity Yields Complexity

Be Passionate and Enthusiastic

Be Humble

A Doping Primer

Anyone who knows me or has regularly read this blog or followed me on social media knows that I am vehemently anti-drug. So, it may seem strange to have a post on a primer for drug use and how to beat the system but I think this will give you context for looking at the issue. This is what I have seen up close and personal in my 48 years of coaching how athletes and coaches beat the system.

Read the following books (Be sure to read between the lines), they will give you deep insights in how to beat the system:

Wheelmen – Lance Armstrong, The Tour De France, And the Greatest Sports Conspiracy Ever by Reed Albergotti and Vanessa O’ Connell

The Secret Race – Inside the Hidden World Of The Tour De France by Tyler Hamilton and Daniel Coyle

Watch this movie to learn how to lie to the cameras and your accusers (Listen carefully to what is not said):

         The Armstrong Lie (https://youtu.be/0a4qRHY8dQQ)

Practical Tips:

Your national governing body for sure and preferably the international governing body should be complicit. They can protect you.

Have big time sponsor with deep pockets. It is even better if the sponsor is in bed with the national governing body and those in the international federation

Have a doctor and sport scientist that can help you with prescriptions and testing to beat the system – This is essential

Have remote training “altitude” training camps that allow for time to stall the testers or to evade them completely

Have no moral conscience or scruples of any kind, don’t forget it is just about winning, medals and above all money, big money