Author: Vernon Gambetta

I have a passionate belief in the importance of coaching and the role of the coach. I am a coach. I am not restrained by conventional wisdom; rather I can choose to use conventional wisdom as a starting point. I specialize in being a generalist. This allows me to focus on the big picture, the connections and relationships that define athleticism. Athletic competition on the track, fields, courts and pools of the world are the laboratories to test these concepts. There is no hiding in this arena; it is a result driven world where training mistakes and inadequate preparation are quickly exposed. To optimize training the basic concepts are simple. Simplicity yields complexity; you don’t have to try to make it complicated. That is why being a generalist is so important; it allows me to make relationships and connect the dots that the specialist because of their narrower vision will not see. Over reliance on sophisticated technology computer algorithms and technology will not get the job done. You need the coach with experience to ask the hard questions and interpret the data. Without that, high tech tools are no more than random number generators that confuse rather than guide us. Much of what I stand for is not new; it has worked in the past in a myriad of environments but has been rejected by some as old fashioned, not high tech, and not scientific. We have abandoned proven methods in the name of progress. Certainly, in every field of endeavor everything old is new again, because of our society’s rejection of the past we have not studied the coaches who paved the way for us. We stand on the shoulders of giants with coaches like Bill Bowerman, John Wooden, Doc Councilman, Geoff Dyson, Franz Stampfl, and Percy Cerutty. Without them, where would we be today in terms of athletic performance? They were innovators who were not afraid to challenge conventional wisdom. No one stands alone; I have been very fortunate to learn from many people. Most importantly I have learned from the athletes that I have coached. Who better to learn from? They were the ones who did the training; they were the ones who competed, they lived it. My concepts of training are based on study of past training methods, sports science research, best practice, and practical experience working with all levels of athletes across a spectrum of sports from the speed/power end of the continuum on up to the marathon. Just like the athlete the coach learns through deliberate practice, through trial and error. You learn in the trenches, not from a book or in a laboratory. You learn from your mistakes and your successes. That is where you start, but that is just the beginning. Modern society and conventional wisdom in training has dulled our instincts. The key is to unlock these instincts and allow the body to solve movement problems the way the body was designed to function. This is in no way dangerous or extreme, it is essentially what children do in free play when unrestrained by adult supervision and burdened by having to do the movements correctly. Today even at the highest levels of sport, coaches are creating robots. Movement is not paint by numbers, it is an expressionist drawing, it is not a classical music aria, it is a jazz riff. We need to get away from reductionist thinking, stop breaking movement and exercise into its smallest parts and focus on those parts in hopes of producing a moving flowing working whole, it won’t happen. It will only happen if there is an approach that focuses on the big picture and the connections. In many respects this is where sport science has failed us. In the rush to publish and the desire to show statistical significance we have become so reductionist in our thinking that we now fail to see the forest for the trees. Is it important to understand scientific concepts? Yes, it is, but we cannot be restrained by them. On the field, track, bike, or in the pool we cannot isolate variables. Does that mean we should reject science and rely solely on practice and experience, absolutely not. Be informed by science not driven by it. The great coaches are both artists and scientists. They know what canvas to paint on, what brushes to select, the brush strokes to use and how to blend the colors to achieve the result they desire. We must get all the pieces working in harmony. In performance the essence is linkage and connections, not isolation. Therefore, the training should reflect this with focus on muscle synergies and connections. I am alarmed with the biased one-sided training regimens that I see being imposed on athletes today. If you are doing a lot of something then you are probably not doing a lot of something else, it is a zero-sum relationship. When you do this, the result is a highly adapted athlete, the athlete adapts to that one component being trained. To thrive in the performance arena demands the opposite, a highly adaptable athlete whose training is not biased, but reflects the demands of the sport and the needs of the individual athlete. Certainly, we are not going where no one else has gone before, these are not uncharted waters, the path is clear, and the destination is obvious. That begs the question then, why with all we know and the supposed progress we have made, why are results so inconsistent. Why are preventable injuries at levels never seen before in sport? We need to take a different approach. We must take a long look at what got us to this point. Look back at what worked in the past. Look at those people who are producing consistent reproducible results today. We need direction, definition and leadership, not more marketing and hype. We need to recognize and acknowledge the problems and address them with practical concrete solutions. To achieve this, we need to shift the focus back on people, not facilities, equipment and training methods. Coaching is a people profession, people working with people to raise performance levels. We must do everything possible to raise the standard of coaching. We can change and we must change, or we will go the way of the dinosaur. I implore you to take another look at what you are doing and go out and work to build highly adaptable athletes that can thrive in the competitive arena.