Functional Path Training

What a Day! Venice Wins in Three – Regional Champions!

What a tremendous team effort, we defeated Clearwater in three games to advance to state championship Final Four Wednesday night in Lakeland. We will play Leon High School of Tallahassee, a team that we split with during the regular season. We came out of the blocks in the first game smoking, it was the best game I have seen the team play in my three years working with the team. Warm-up carried right into the game (more on that in a later post). I feel fortunate to be part of this program. Brain Wheatley the head coach gave me the opportunity three years ago to begin working with his program. Frankly this group of coaches and kids reignited my passion for coaching. I just hope that all of you sometime in your careers get the opportunity to work with a group of kids as focused and dedicated as this group. Now to refocus on the goal , the state championship, I compare it to a high hurdle race (each hurdle is a match), we have cleared the eighth hurdle, we can see the finish, but we have to execute a great three steps (win three games) to set up clearance of the ninth hurdle. We are almost there.

Venice Volleyball – Another Giant Step Forward

Last night Venice defeated Naples Gulf coast in three games to advance to the regional finals on Saturday afternoon at home. That put us three matches from our of a state championship. This group of your ladies has dedicated themselves for three years to reach this goal. Jillian Allen, the young lady squatting in the picture epitomizes our team, she is focused, dedicated and intelligent, a leader on the team and in school. I preach that what you in April pays dividends in November. Last night Jill had two tremendous blocks in the middle that directly reflected some jumping mechanics we worked on last spring.

The First Step

Last night Venice Girls volleyball won their eighth straight district volleyball championship. This is the first step toward the state championship. We have had November 19 circled on our calendar for a year. This year these young ladies will not be denied. It was so cool just to be able to sit and watch as they clinically dismantled the other team in 55 minutes. It was really neat to see the speed and quickness that we had worked so hard to develop back in April come together now. In so many ways I am in awe of these young ladies focus and dedication. Everyone works hard, but they have worked with a focus and a direction for three years. For me it was all summed in one play where our setter, Taylor Capaso, all 5’21/2” of her went up and just killed the ball right between two girls who were both 6”1”. They were three to four inches taller than us across the front line, yet we consistently hit through and over them as well as consistently blocked their shots. Our girls can jump!First game of playoff is Tuesday - onward and upward.

Venice Volleyball Senior Night

Last night was senior night at Venice. We closed out the regular season with a resounding win over a local rival to raise our record to 17 wins and 9 loses. 8 of the 9 loses came to teams ranked in the top twenty in the nation.  This group of seniors is a special group of young ladies. In many ways they are throwbacks in terms of their commitment, focus and work ethic. The three years working with this group has been one of the highlights of my coaching career. It was a very emotional night for all of all of us. Personally it was very neat to sit on the end of the bench and watch them play and reflect on what had gotten them to that point. I will be graduating with this group, do to work and travel demands I will no longer be able to work with the team, but I cherish the memories these long ladies have provided. We still have three weeks left though to refocus and began the second season – the playoffs. Our record as of today is 0-0, playoffs begin on Tuesday and the State Championship is November 19.

Dani Samuels – Discus World Champion

I was so excited I excited when I found out that Dani won, I jumped up and cheered. I was in the middle of volleyball practice and everyone thought I was nuts until I explained my happiness. I got to watch a strength training session with her and her coach Denis Knowles and his son who designs her strength training program in 2007. What an impressive athlete, with great coaching! Denis has a long term plan which is certainly coming to fruition. She did not begin heavy traditional weight training to any extent until 2008, instead building a good foundation of “functional strength.” At that time she took gymnastics two days week including trampoline, in addition she was a national class basketball player, in short a real athlete. You take those qualities, couple that with great coaching and the support structure at new South Wales Academy of sport and you have a world champion. I think her best is still ahead. I first met her coach Denis  Knowles in 1996, during my first trip to Australia. He is a tireless and learner and a real gentlemen, always willing to share ideas. It is great to see someone like Denis produce a champion at the highest level. Coaching does matter.

Shame on You

I think it is a real shame what is going on with the questioning of the gender on the South African 800 meter World Champion Caster Semenya. Let’s not try this in the court of public opinion, wait until the tests determine her gender, this is a complex issue that most of us are not qualified to offer opinions on. If you want visual evidence why did we never question the gender of Maria Mutola or the current world record holder in the 800 meters, Jarmila Kratochvílová. Look at these pictures, is appearance proof enough? No way! I rest my case. Let’s shut up and let this young girl enjoy her success.

 

Volleyball Arm Swing

Several weeks ago Jill Gerber wrote the following: “In working with the Venice Volleyball team what kinds of things are you doing to connect the whole body movements of throwing to the body movement of the attack arm swing? I am finding that most volleyball players rely heavily on a shoulder/arm movement rather than a more hip, trunk, shoulder, elbow, wrist chain of movement.” Jill, first of all let me apologize for not answering sooner, just kind of fell between the cracks. I believe in using a variety of medicine ball throwing movements to reinforce the concept of total chain involvement. At least two days a weeks we do an upper body wall throw module with a 3 kg ball using two arms and then the same series one arm with either a 1kg or 2 kg ball depending on the individual players needs. Two other days a week we do Total Body Power throws for distance and the other day a different total body throw series designed to reinforce arm lag and hip lead. With specific individuals whom the coach feels need to improve arm speed with do a program of manual resistance, stretch cord fast eccentric work and throwing with various weight and size balls. I really think the root of the problem with the girls volleyball players is that they do not have a good foundation in throwing mechanics. That is something I am going to emphasize more in the 09 off season. I am going to just have them play catch with a football or a softball.

Kelvin Giles Comment on the Female Athlete

Kelvin Giles sent me the following excerpt from one of his manuals after reading the last post on the female athlete:

The following information illustrates the differences between the male and female during these ever-changing periods of maturation. It must be pointed out that these are simply differences and in no way should anyone think that this means that we treat the female athlete differently to the male athlete. They can train hard and they can adapt to all the physical, psychological, technical and tactical facets of their chosen sport. They can be exposed to and reach the highest standards in attitude, commitment and discipline. The differences should be viewed as being subtle and should be treated respectfully but not used as an excuse to lower expectations. Without personalising this issue too much I have been honoured to coach several world class female athletes to Olympic and World Championship heights and in each case my approach was no different to that with the male athlete. In each case their mental toughness, discipline, ability to tolerate high intensity work and their total lack of complaint when things got inconvenient and adverse were exemplary.

Go to Kelvin’s website http://www.movementdynamics.com for more information. Also read the article on his website about coaching Generation Y, it will make think.

Perpetuating Myths

Last night I read an article that will appear in the New York Times Sunday Magazine on Sunday May 11 called “The Uneven Playing Field” by Michael Sokolove. It is an excerpt from a book called “Warrior Girls: Protecting Our Daughters Against The Injury Epidemic in Women’s Sports.” When I read the article last night I was taken aback. My first reaction was shock, then disgust and then anger. Read this excerpt and I will follow with my thoughts:

Girls and boys diverge in their physical abilities as they enter puberty and move through adolescence. Higher levels of testosterone allow boys to add muscle and, even without much effort on their part, get stronger. In turn, they become less flexible. Girls, as their estrogen levels increase, tend to add fat rather than muscle. They must train rigorously to get significantly stronger. The influence of estrogen makes girls’ ligaments lax, and they outperform boys in tests of overall body flexibility — a performance advantage in many sports, but also an injury risk when not accompanied by sufficient muscle to keep joints in stable, safe positions. Girls tend to run differently than boys — in a less-flexed, more-upright posture — which may put them at greater risk when changing directions and landing from jumps. Because of their wider hips, they are more likely to be knock-kneed — yet another suspected risk factor.

Sure there are physical differences, but the more we accentuate them the bigger they will be. Today the young female is severely short changed because of the constant stream of information like that presented in this article. Unfortunately this is what the parents, coaches and the girls themselves read and believe.

To a certain extent the next paragraph is true:

This divergence between the sexes occurs just at the moment when we increasingly ask more of young athletes, especially if they show talent: play longer, play harder, play faster, play for higher stakes. And we ask this of boys and girls equally — unmindful of physical differences. The pressure to concentrate on a “best” sport before even entering middle school — and to play it year-round — is bad for all kids. They wear down the same muscle groups day after day. They have no time to rejuvenate, let alone get stronger. By playing constantly, they multiply their risks and simply give themselves too many opportunities to get hurt.

Why am I upset? Because once again we totally miss the point. Don’t set the bar lower because they are girls. Set the same expectation for training as the boys. Girls do respond to training. Come and see the Venice Girls Volleyball team and you will see girls with muscles. They train and work at it year around. They prepare to play, not just play the game and practice the skill. The girls who performed poorly on the Athletic Profile have specific remedial work to do. There are different training groups based on the specific training task that day, one size does not fit all.

Sure once past puberty females have a different endocrine hormonal profile than men, that does not mean they do not have the capacity to train and subsequently adapt to that training, it is not a fait accompli that they will get hurt. This whole article overlooks several key factors, not the least of which is the fact that in long term athlete development process the female athlete is victimized by a system that throws them into competition and skill development before they have the physical base of preparation. They over compete and under train and are coached by coaches that have no formal training as coaches and do not understand the needs of the female athlete. The system or lack thereof rewards the more aggressive girls who develop earlier and does not take into account the girl who not as aggressive. In addition there is an incessant search for athletic scholarships that causes the girls to over compete to showcase their talents.

There are some simple solutions:

         Improve the quality of coaching.

Limit the number of competitions a girl can compete in until physical benchmarks are achieved.

Institute daily mandatory physical education Kindergarten through twelfth grade.

Recognize that the female athlete must strength train year around.

All the BS about different landing and running mechanics is just that, pure bull shitake. Poor landing and running mechanics 99% of the time are due to lack of strength, the ability to handle their own bodyweight. You can blame lack of core strength, whatever that is, but it is really a lack of strength throughout the entire kinetic chain. There must be a daily investment in strength training as part of warm-up that includes exercises that are mindful and proprioceptively demanding. Training is a year around proposition, not just something you do six weeks before the start of the season for thirty minutes three times a week. The answer lies in commitment to a consistent athletic development program that encompasses the lifespan of the female athlete. Seven year olds beginning to play should have activities that challenge balance and proprioception coupled with strength oriented movements that require control of body weight in multiple planes.

We do not need more articles like this. We need more practical high quality information in the hands of the parents; coach’s and teachers so they can be more aware and better prepare the girls for the rigors of training and competition.