Author: Vernon Gambetta
Practice Breaker – Laps
Here are two of my favorites: “Let’s go – take two laps and then we will get started with training.” “If you miss this shot then you will have to run.” Think about it, you see this all the time at all levels of sport, talk about a practice killer! Practice time is precious; it is a daily opportunity to improve skill, tactics and sport specific fitness, and wasting time slogging laps to “warm-up” or extra sprints for punishment does not optimize the opportunity to improve. It does nothing to make the athlete better and a lot to make them tired and diminish motivation. Be creative how you start practice what you do to start practice sets the tempo for the practice. Start with a brief explanation of the days practice and then do something that is meaningful and mindful to get them into the practice. The same with mindless jogging for a cooldown, do something that will set-up tomorrows training session. Make what you do meaningful and motivational; every step of practice should be directed to making the athlete better. Laps waste time and do not make the athlete better.
Practice Maker – Refinement
Refinement is fine tuning the practice after the basic technical model has been mastered. When that is robust then and only then should you think about attending to the finer points in a skill. Often we are in a hurry and try to do this too early in the process and the whole technical model erodes. Refinement does not have to pertain to just technique or skill it also can refer to development of physical qualities. Initially the athlete will begin with global attention to all qualities, as training age accrues then it is possible and in fact necessary to begin to refine the methods to be more specific to the sport and athlete. Simply refinement follows repetition in the development of the athlete.
Practice Maker – Repetition
Repetition is the mother of learning. We are what we repeatedly do. I doubt anyone would argue with those points. The task then becomes to carefully choose what we repeat. It is necessary to have a clear idea of the technical model you wish to achieve and a plan to achieve the desired technique. We know that practice makes permanent so repeating incorrect or flawed movements will ingrain the faults. It is very important to fit the technique to the person not the person to the technique. Certainly more is not better. Quality is the goal and quality is a measure of perfect. Therefore the ultimate goal of repetition in training is mastery. To achieve mastery demands progression, from easy to hard and simple to complex. Then comes refinement, which we will talk about tomorrow.
Practice Maker – Routine
The first consideration in effective practice is routine. A set routine is the basis for consistent practice. Great athletes and great teams have set routines for training that do not vary. In fact with individual athletes training routines sometimes border on ritual. Routine allows the athlete to focus on the task at hand. I have found that there is security in having a routine. It gives an anchor point to build the training session upon. Start on time, have specific objectives and stay on task, then practice will be meaningful. When I think of routine I think of the great hurdler Edwin Moses. I had the opportunity to watch him train for three years at the peak of his career. You did not need a watch to tell what time it was, when Edwin showed up to training it was 3:00 PM! He went to the same spot under a tree and did his stretching, he did the same warm-up, and it never varied. It did not matter if it was hot or cold he did the same thing. I watched him at Olympic Trails in 1984 same routine, at the 1984 Olympic games, same routine. There is a powerful message here, find a routine that works and live by it. As coaches we need to set routines for our athletes, we need to teach young developing athletes the necessity of routine as part of their daily preparation. When I change training cycles my first objective is always routine. As training cycles change routines sometimes have to change, so having it as an up front object underscores it’s importance.
Practice
The key to getting better is practice. Up to a point when an athlete is beginning their career virtually anything they do will make them better, in fact the more they do the better they get. Then there comes a point when practice must be guided and have a specific purpose. The mantra the practice makes perfect is passé. We know that practice makes permanent therefore how you practice is extremely important. In the next six blogs I am going to share what I have learned about considerations that are practice makers and practice breakers. Perhaps it will help to make your practices better. Tomorrow I will talk about Practice Maker One – Routine.
It’s Not About The Coffee
I am a big fan of Starbucks and believe me it is not about the coffee because I am not much of a coffee drinker. I could not tell Sumatra Plus from instant coffee, but I do know one thing about Starbucks it is all about the experience. The joke among friends and family is that my office is Starbucks and I have branch offices all over the world. Most importantly the terms of the lease are quite favorable. At my main office AKA the Starbucks at the corner of Fruitville and Honore in Sarasota they know me. (By the way if you are ever in Sarasota give me a call and I will meet you at the main office.) When I walk in they know I want a Grande unsweetened ice tea with four ice cubes. It cost $2.09. I can get twice as much tea at McDonalds for $1.07, so why Starbucks? Plain and simple it is about the experience. The baristas are friendly, the music is great, and they have nice comfortable chairs and a couch as well as free Wi Fi. I know McDonald‘s has free Wi Fi also and it may be faster; but it’s just not the same. It is about the experience and with some minor variations it is the same anywhere I go in the US and in the world. Heck I even like the smell the smell of the brewing coffee (I know you coffee aficionados say they burn their coffee hence the smell) but it sure beats the smell of greasy burgers at MacDonald’s. So what does this have to do with coaching? To me it is a clear message to us as coaches, it’s not about the wins or loses, it’s not about the sets and reps, or the volume of running, it’s about the process and the process comes from the experience. We must give our athletes daily experiences that instill in them a desire for excellence in everything they do. We, the coaches are responsible for this. It is not about facilities or technical knowledge; it is a clear focus on people and relationships. Before you start training today look closely at the experience you are giving your athletes – How do you greet them when they arrive at workout? How do you correct them when they have done something incorrect? You, yes you the coach, can create an atmosphere where champions in sport and life are inevitable. Remember it is not about the coffee!
Failure – A viable option?
I find it interesting how popular failure has become. Experts are writing books about how important failure is. There are blog post and comments galore. Hate to say I told so, but I discovered how important failure was over fifty years ago. I was a thirteen-year-old ninth grader and I failed miserably in school. A grade of C was a good grade, heck I could not even take PE maybe my only chance to get above a C because of Osgood Slaughters disease in my knees. Many people wanted to define me as a failure but thank God my parents did not, nor did I. My failure in Math and English drove me. I needed to figure out a way. I persisted, sure there where times when I gave up and threw my algebra book against the wall in frustration, but then I picked it up and went back at it. The same was true in sports; I was essentially a year too young for my grade in school. I was runt and then I grew, eight inches in ten months. What a mess. No idea where my hand was in relation to my face, my feet to my hips, but I was determined. I had an older brother who was a great athlete; I was determined to follow in his footsteps. I got better as an athlete; I did it on persistence, grit and determination not talent or ability whatever they are. I realize now fifty plus years latter that the failure fueled me, they drove me on, they made me more determined than ever to achieve. I guess I never thought of them as failure, I certainly did not think they were learning opportunities as I teach to my athletes now. I learned from them though, somehow I got past them and earned a college degree, a masters degree from Stanford (A school whose name I could not spell in ninth grade), played college football and competed in decathlon as a post collegian. I continue my work toward an advanced degree in the school of life. I continue to make mistakes, to take chances to stumble and fall forward. At age sixty-six I may not be smarter but I am significantly wiser. I think I know what I don’t now and work everyday to close the gap between what I do know for sure and what I don’t know (Huge chasm). That is what gets me out of bed in the morning; it drives me to be better. So failure is an option, but failure is not final, it represents an opportunity. Take advantage of the opportunities failure presents – go for it!
Periodization and the Systematic Sport Development Process – Part Three
Periodization is a viable concept that certainly will help improve our sport development system, but we also need trained coaches to plan and then implement the plan. A productive sport development system is coach driven and athlete centered. The solution lies in educating our coaching in the principles of planning in order to optimize resources and time. To achieve athletic success in any kind of systematic manner, certain principles must be observed. The principles are the same regardless of the sport. The plan is the means to execute the principles. The principles are: Principle of Progression – This is the most often violated principle. Progression in its simplest form moves from simple to complex, easy to hard and general work to specific work. These simple steps give way to complex interactions. All training variables do not progress at the same rate nor do all individuals progress at the same rate. To insure proper progression we must clearly define each step. Begin by articulating specific goals and objectives for each step. Then develop evaluative criteria to assess the achievement of each of the goals and objectives of each step. I would go so far as to say that at certain levels of development it should be necessary to show mastery before moving on to the next step. This is especially true in refinement of technical development. Progression is not linear. We need to begin with a clear picture of what we want the athlete to achieve or look like at the end of a training program as a goal. But we must remember that progression toward that ultimate objective will proceed in a staircase like progression. Constant progress should be made toward the goal, but some of the incremental steps along the way will be smaller than others. The Principle of Accumulation – Adaptation to the stress of training is a cumulative process. You do not do a workout and gain an immediate positive training response, unless it is a relatively small technical adjustment. Often times you will see the true results of a significant investment in training up to a year after the initial training stimulus. The effect of training accumulates over time, provided training has been consistent and the athlete has been able to stay injury free. Adaptation to different training demands occurs at different rates and the ultimate training adaptation is the synergistic accumulation of the collective training responses. Remember one workout cannot make an athlete, but one workout can break an athlete. Be patient, wait for training to take effect. Principle of Variation – The variables of training volume, intensity, frequency and exercise selection must be constantly manipulated in a systematic manner. Because the body adapts to training stress so quickly it is important to vary training in order to insure continued adaptation. This variation should not be random, but systematically planned in order to measure the effect of the variation. If training is not varied the body will adapt quite quickly and the training effect will be dulled. If no variation is incorporated there is a significant risk of staleness and eventual overtraining. Principle of Context – Before we incorporate something into training we need to see where it fits into the context of what is already being done and what is planned. Perhaps the biggest violation of the principle of context is to take one component, for example speed or strength and train those to the exclusion of all other physical qualities. This is fundamentally unsound. It is possible to design program where a component is emphasized for a phase, but it should be kept in proportion to the other components and put into the context of the whole training plan. Principle of Overload – In order for the athlete to progress they must be subjected to a load at a level beyond which they have adapted. Overload is achieved through manipulation of the training variables of volume, the amount of work, intensity, the quality of the work, and frequency of application of the training stimulus. Because there is a reciprocal relationship between volume and intensity it is important to be careful about increasing both at the same time. It is easy to fall into a trap of overload through volume. This happens because it is easier to quantify training in terms of volume, more runs, more jumps or more throws. This quickly becomes a trap because you cannot keep adding volume without quickly reaching the point of diminishing returns. It also happens because at the start of the athletic development process volume loading results in rapid and sometime spectacular gains. Remember that volume is not a biomotor quality. In essence the more you do the better you get. As training age advances that paradigm has to shift and the overload has to come more from intensity. Principle of Recoverability – The ability to recover both short term and long term from a workload is crucial to positive adaptation to the training stimulus. If the athlete is unable to recover form the training stress then it is not an appropriate load. Different athletes have different abilities to recover. No two athletes are the same in ability, nor are they the same in the ability to recover. Of all the training principles this is the one that is most easy to overlook because it is so easy to get caught up in the work and ignore the ability to recover. Ultimately all of this is an educated attempt at prediction of future performance based on evaluation of previous competition and training results. It is achieved through planning and organization of training into a cyclic structure to develop all biomotor qualities in a systematic, sequential and progressive manner. The goal is optimum development of the individual’s performance capabilities. Traditionally the focus has been on periodization as a model, in order to be more effectively applied I believe we should focus more on the process and the concepts. The traditional emphasis in planning has been on the long term plan. It has been my experience that the longer the period of time for the plan the less accurate the plan will be. In order to be more effective the emphasis in long term planning should be on global themes and training priorities based on competition performance, training results, and testing and evaluation data from previous years performance. A shift in focus to the detailed planning of shorter more immediate time periods is more effective and will better serve to meet the needs of the athletes. Periodization literature is rife with terminology and jargon. We need to make terminology exact and consistent in order to facilitate understanding and communication. I propose that we use the term Planned Performance Training (PPT) instead of periodization, which is foreign term left over from the old eastern bloc training schemes. Planned Performance Training is defined as thetiming, sequence, and interaction of the training stimuli to allow optimum adaptive response in pursuit of specific competitive goals. It is essentially why you do, what you do, in relation to when you do it. This could serve as a step toward updating and revising the concept to fit current sport demands and more accurately reflect current ongoing sport science research. Recommendations Study the applications of the concepts of Planned Performance Training to team sport training Reconciliation and organization of the competitive calendar to allow more thorough planning Agreement on a unified terminology to facilitate effective communication for improved coaching education in the application of the concepts Educate sport administrators on the necessity and value of planning Research methods of monitoring training to better guide planning of training Apply a multidisciplinary approach to planning that draws on history, sociology, anthropology, psychology, biomechanics, physiology and statistics Study successful training programs from the past to further validate and refine the concept Hopefully this overview will help to create further awareness of the necessity of planning and the various influences and ingredients that go into formulating a viable plan as part the whole sport development process. References Counsilman, James E. Competitive Swimming Manual for Coaches and Swimmers. Bloomington, Indiana. Counsilman Co., INC. 1977 Franke, Werner W. and Berendonk, Brigitte. Hormonal Doping and androgenization of athletes: a secret program of the German Democratic Republic government. Clinical Chemistry. 43: 1262-1279. 1997 Goralski, Robert. World War II Almanac 1931 – 1945 – A Political and Military Record. G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York. 1981 pp. 425 – 428 Rowbottom, David G. Periodization of Training. In: Exercise and Sport Science. Garrett, William E. and Kirkendall, Donald T. Philadelphia, USA. Lippincot Williams & Wilkins. 2000 Smith, Dean with John Kilgo and Sally Jenkins. A Coach’s Life. New York, New York. Random House. 1999 Walsh, Chris. The Bowerman System. Los Altos, CA. Tafnews Press. 1983