Functional Path Training

The Functional Path Training Blog

This is the 15^th anniversary of my blog - https://functionalpathtraining.typepad.com/ I started it in August 2005 after I left the madness of six months with the Nike Oregon Project. Initially I started it to help get me in the routine of writing everyday so that I could finish my book Athletic Development – The Art & Science of Functional Sports Conditioning. I finished the book and it was published in 2007.

I also used the blog to regain my focus on what was good about sport and training after what appeared to be a dream job turned into complete horror show. The Oregon Project experience was one of  the low points of my life. I learned a lot about corporate greed, cheating to beat the system to win medals. The blog has helped me move forward from those dark days. Through the blog I have connected with coaches that are coaching clean and fair and willing to learn. Someday if I ever write a novel it will be about those six months with the Oregon Project. The title will probably be A Dirty Shit Show.

For you loyal readers thanks for following me all these years. I hope I can keep stimulating thought and providing good information to make the best better.

Planning/Periodization – Several Random Thoughts

Recognize that periodization is concept not a model.

Why do we still teach antiquated models in our coaching education programs? They don’t work as advertised and never did. In addition the Eastern European models that are still portrayed as gold standard are based on drug cycles.

Recognize that Periodization is not about time, it is about timing of the application of each training stimulus.

Conduct a Thorough Gap Analysis - The difference between training and competition to develop a viable dynamic plan.

Ask yourself: Are you planning for continual adaptation?

How do you deal with and plan for extended seasons that are common in sports at all levels of competition?

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

Let the “Games” Begin

As the games begin I run the gamut of emotions from the excitement of seeing the best of the best go head to head to deep despair and disappointment. As young coach in 1972 and 76 the Olympics was pure excitement, it was in my mind the pinnacle of athlete excellence. I trained with some Olympians and getting to see them in the big show was special. I got to go to Montreal as a spectator. It was so exciting I was like a kid in a candy store I was oblivious to the politics going on. I was there, I went to the practice track every day from day literally from dawn to dusk until track & field competition began. When the competition began I would watch the warm-ups at the practice track and run to my seat in the stadium for the competition. What an inspirational learning experience. It was heady times for a naïve young coach who thought it was all about technique and training and good coaching. Little did I know what was to come?

Then I got to the higher levels of the sport of track and field. I was now coaching national and international athletes and was serving on various committees of TAC (The precursor to USATF). It was then that the reality of the cheating and corruption hit me. It was not fun to watch. I saw it first hand when the American track and field athletes were offered so-called “educational testing” leading into the 1984 games. In essence they were being educated in how to beat the system. I saw the inner working of what is now USATF, an organization that makes FIFA look like the boy scouts. I know you are thinking that was almost forty years ago, yes and it is the same people and coaches involved today.

That brings us to today with the games set to begin. We have athletes from the US who are considered potential stars of the games who have tested positive more than once. We have the same drug coaches coaching. We are as far from the Olympic spirit as is possible. It is all driven by billions of dollars of sponsorship and television money. All that being said I will still watch selected events and sports there is still something special about this level of competition. I am looking forward to seeing the athletes that I have worked with compete because I know they have not cheated. I wish good luck to the honest and clean athletes and coaches who hopefully will be able to rise above the madness. My dream, a dream I hope to see in my lifetime is truly clean sport where there are lifetime bans and bans for coaches who cheat. I dream about seeing these young 11 & 12-year-old swimmers I am working with now have a chance to compete on a level playing field. Let the games begin and celebrate the true Olympic spirit.

Competition – The Essence of Sport

Records are not the essence of sport, competition is. A bold and broad statement so let me explain. The more emphasis on an incessant search for world records only encourages athletes to dope. The financial incentives are great and we are forcing athletes to push the envelope every outing, which is physically impossible. Let’s shift the emphasis back to competition. Great close competitions are as exciting as a paced world record that no one outside the sport understands.

The Gray Area

The gray area is a dark shady place with indistinct boundaries to the dark side. If you are choosing to coach in the gray area, looking for new chemicals that will enhance your athletes performance in my world you are a doper. There is no gray area it is either black or white. Why go there when there is so much room for improvement beyond just marginal gains in the white area that we have not explored? Why turn coaching into a big chemistry experiment? It is not necessary. In my 45 years of coaching I have met few athletes who have tapped into their top end physical potential. You can be the best without drugs, take the time to dot all the I’s and cross all the T’s. Meticulously plan, leave no stone unturned in improving your coaching knowledge. Remember less is more and it takes time to be the best; don’t try to rush the process.

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.

Do we really need them?

Lance and Roger will you please exit stage left. To see each of them featured on the New York Times sports page today was upsetting to say the least. You are both dopers – the media are the dopes for continuing to give attention to all your exploits. Lance says, “Nobody needs to cry for me.” Don’t worry I won’t just go away. Take your Lite beer and ride into the sunset and keep living a lie.  I never bought into the whole feel good story of Lance. No doubt in my mind what he was doing. Everybody in baseball in baseball knew that Clemens was juiced – no need for a positive test to prove it. Let’s stop giving them any attention. If you want to do some good donate to the American Cancer Society. Don’t be a dope and support dopers. When Lance or Roger are on TV turn it off, boycott the games Clemens pitches in, he is a huckster. Roger and Lance we don’t need you!

Lessons I have learned Earning An Advanced Degree From School of Hard Knocks

The following are some lessons that have learned in my years of coaching. I was going through some files yesterday and I found this list that I wrote in 2005 after two particularly negative professional experiences in the previous year. I thought it would be worth sharing. Some these were hard lessons to learn and some were quite apparent from the day I started coaching.

Structure and order are essential in order to have any degree of consistent success.

Money and facilities are not the answer, good qualified coaches are more important.

Without a well-defined plan of training and competition there is chaos and inconsistent performance results.

More is not better. This is true if it is training, therapy gaining weight or losing weight.

One size does not fit all. It is important to consider what each athlete brings to the event in all respects.

It is more than physical talent; the athlete must have athletic intelligence and real mental toughness.

You must coach females differently both from a physical and a psycho/ social perspective

Anorexia is not an eating disorder. Eating or not eating is only a manifestation of much deeper psychological problems.

There is no quick fix, nor is there any thing like instant results.

Treating the symptoms rather than the causes does not work both in training and therapy.

If you spend as long in therapy as in training each day then something is seriously wrong with the training.

Progression is essential. Without a clear progression it is usually a process of one step forward and two steps back.

It is impossible to coach by email, phone, letter or fax. Coaching is a daily personal, labor-intensive process.

Objectively judging and assessing talent is essential for success.

Just because a person was a great athlete does not mean they can coach. Most of the time the great athlete only knows how they did it and what they did, which often will not work for anyone else.

Attempting to reproduce past results is an exercise in futility. The past is gone; it is only a reference point to guide future performance.

Never let your limitations as a coach limit your athletes. If you do not know something admit it, don’t try to bluff your way through it. The athlete will figure you out sooner or later that you do not know what you are doing.

There is no immediate cause/effect relationship between workouts and performance. In fact the relationship may be negative if the athlete is operating at the redline constantly during workouts,

Coaching is more than a workout or a drill. The context of the workout is often more important than the workout itself.

There is no place for performance enhancing drugs in sport, amateur or professional. Coaches have to speak out against it. Any coach who is aware that his athletes take a banned substance should be banned from coaching. There is no fine line in regard to drug use. You are either against it or you condone it.

Periodization in Perspective

Matveyev did not invent Periodization. He was one of many who formalized the concept. Because he was Russian, and the Soviet Union was the dominant geopolitical force in the communist bloc, Soviet ideology tended to prevail even in sport. I believe this explains the dominant influence of the Soviets in the literature of training methodology. Certainly others like Harre in the GDR, Nadori in Hungary all made significant contributions. Most of what we see in the literature today, including the work of Tudor Bompa, who has done much to popularize the concept in North America, is basically a rehash of the Soviet literature. Not much has been done to modify, study and change to adapt the concept to the contemporary challenges that exist today. It is a much different sport environment than it was even as short a time as twenty years ago. Previously where the focus was the Olympic games, hence quadrennial cycles, now there are more frequent world championships and high level competitions in many sports. Competition schedules are not as clearly defined. In most sports, especially ate elite level, there is no off-season. None of the literature on Periodization has ever effectively addressed team sports. In addition one would be naïve not to recognize the huge impact systematic doping had on the development of the former eastern bloc sport development systems. In fact much of the Periodization was based on sophisticated manipulation of drug cycles.