Author: Vernon Gambetta
Evolution of Strength Training – A Personal Perspective Over Fifty Years (Part Four)
In 1985 I began my foray into professional sports with the Chicago White Sox and the Bulls as an assistant to Al Vermeil who had a contract to provide the conditioning for both teams. Once again the same old myths and misconceptions that I thought had been forgotten reared their ugly head. You would have thought that by 1985 with the success that athletes had enjoyed world wide with a comprehensive conditioning program that the coaches and athletes would have been embraced this training as an opportunity to improve their performance. I think since that there had been little emphasis on training in professional basketball and baseball the attitude on the part of the coaches was let them play, those who are talented will succeed and those who are not will fall by the wayside. Although in looking back on those years I think a big part of the problem was Vermiel’s over emphasis on trying to impose the Olympic lifts on both sports. It created even more resistance and in many ways the players and coaches were right, there was a better way. I kept hearing that basketball and baseball were different. Don’t lift heavy because it will hurt your shooting. The trainer told me that pitchers should not lift overhead because it would hurt their shoulder. When I stated that didn’t they lift their arm overhead when they pitched I was told I didn’t understand the game. I was dumbfounded because they all ran, jumped and threw. In January of 1987 I was fortunate to attend the European Athletic Coaches Association Conference in Aix Les Bains, France. There were two speakers that got me pointed in the direction that I continue to pursue today. The first speaker was Anatoly Bondarchuk, the Soviet throws coach whose hammer throwers were dominating the world. I was generally familiar with his concepts, but hearing him speak and getting to speak to him brought some clarity to his ideas. I am currently working to apply many of his concepts to my training programs today. The other speaker Giles Cometti really rocked my boat. He got me thinking of the manipulation of various types of muscle action on special and specific strength movements. I have continued to apply and refine his concepts today. Perhaps the most profound application of his ideas was with the Swiss Shot putter, Werner Gunthor. In 1987 I took over as Director of Conditioning for the Chicago White Sox that gave me the opportunity to put together a systematic comprehensive program in professional sport and do it my way. At that time no one in professional baseball had a systematic year around program. Few teams even today have a program to the extent that we had. In order to make it work I decided that we needed to make the program more specific to the demands of the sport of baseball. It needed to include more work on balance and proprioception, more work on rotation. I was very influenced by Dr. Lois Klatt, head of the Human performance Lab at Concordia University in River Forest, Illinois and the book Total Body Training Bob Gajda and Robert Dominguez. Through their influence and working closely with several physical therapists, I gradually moved away from weight training to the concept of strength training. Weight training is one method of strength training; in order to train a complete athlete it is necessary to utilize all methods available to achieve the desired goal. What evolved was a functional strength-training program that was adapted to the multi-plane demands of the sport of baseball as well as the unique demands of the specific positions. The program was based on biomechanical analysis so that the movements we were training were more specific. Pitchers had a specific program; catchers had a specific program, rather than one program for all. All these programs had all components linked so that what was done with speed and agility training was related to balance and proprioception work, which in turn was related to the strength training work. The players were accountable for a daily program in-season and for a comprehensive off-season program that was monitored. We had a pre spring training pitcher/catcher mini camp for key players to make sure they were ready for spring training (That was 1989 before anyone was doing it) My goal with the White Sox was to create a model that would work in any sport. I was lucky to be able to use the resources available to work toward accomplishing this task. We were able to achieve good results with the White Sox both in terms of measurable improvements of speed and power as well as significant reduction of injuries. During the time I worked with the White Sox I also worked with the Men’s Canadian Basketball team from 1989 to 94 and the women’s team from 1992 to 1994. That was challenging and fun environment. Challenging because I had to design a program for others to implement because I could not be with them all the time due to my obligations with the White Sox. Fun because the coaches were so supportive. It was a great learning experience. I left the White Sox in 1996 and have worked with a variety of sports since. I continue to see some of the same things that I saw when I first started coaching. The monkeys see, monkey do syndrome is still the norm. If it is good for them and they just won the national championship then it is good for us. There is a prevalent attitude that the greatest testament for a piece of equipment or a particular training method is the affirmation of winning. What I have seen through my experience is that success is often achieved in spite of, not because of the training and that superior talent and genetics sometimes prevail. A good sound training program is not based on equipment or personalities, but on sound scientific training principles. We need to consider what is really high tech? I got a call recently from a friend who had just visited a new training facility, he could not wait to call me and tell me about the “high tech” facility he had just visited. They had a machine for everything. Everything was connected to a computer. What is more high tech – the machine or the body? I have come to the realization that the body is the ultimate high tech machine. The farther away we get from the body the less specific the training. Perhaps the biggest influence on my thinking the last ten years has been Frans Bosch. His definition of strength training as coordination training with resistance really resonated with me. It confirmed what I had seen and experienced over the years. I have adapted his definition with my own spin as follows: Strength Training is coordination with appropriate resistance, to handle bodyweight, project an implement, move or resist movement of another body and optimize ground reaction forces.
Evolution of Strength Training – A Personal Perspective Over Fifty Years (Part Three)
In 1973-74 while attending graduate school at Stanford University I also had the opportunity to coach the jumpers and decathletes. This gave the opportunity to apply what I had learned with more mature male athletes. It was also the opportunity to work with Payton Jordan, the track coach at Stanford who was a pioneer in weight training. He had worked with a man named John Jesse who authored many books on strength training for sport. Jesse was way ahead of his time in the application of strength training to prevention and rehabilitation of injuries. Doctor Wesley Ruff, my adviser, encouraged me to do research in the area of strength and power training, which I found very helpful. This helped me to better understand the scientific reasons for the things that I was observing as a coach and experiencing as an athlete. In 1975 –77 coaching Track & Field and Cross Country at Santa Barbara high school was my first experience working with female athletes, I did not make distinctions as to gender, they were athletes. They strength trained with the boys. In fact we learned that the girl’s derived even more spectacular benefits than the boys and that they needed to continue their strength training throughout the season or the drop off would be dramatic. The Strength training was an important part of the program regardless of the event or gender. A watershed moment for me came when I was coaching at Cal Berkeley in the spring of 1978. We were doing some research at Shriners Hospital biomechanics lab in San Francisco on my runners. It involved biomechanical analysis, EMG and force platform analysis. One day when I was at the lab I was introduced to a women, looking back, I would guess who was in her mid fifties at the time. Knott and Voss at Kaiser Permanente hospital in Oakland had trained her when they were doing their original research on Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation (PNF). We talked for over an hour about the concepts of PNF. Just like everyone else I had mistakenly thought PNF was a stretching technique when in fact it was a strengthening technique used to rehabilitate polio victims. The concepts stuck in my head. I began to research it more and came to the conclusion that the principles needed to be adapted to my strength training system. It was my venture outside the sagittal plane and the traditional lifting movements. It was something I continued to prefect over the next few years and I continue to use today. It literally opened up a whole new vista for me in regard to strength training. It became much less about how much an athlete could lift and much more on movement patterns with appropriate resistance. Before the late 1970’s there did not seem to be distinctions between all the styles or schools of lifting. You just put together an eclectic program, you were not labeled a free weight guy, an Olympic lifting guy or a HIT guy, and you trained athletes. Two things changed this: 1) Olympic lifting ascendancy in the late 1970s that I believe resulted from the spectacular gains made by the Bulgarian weight lifters. The Bulgarian methods were thoroughly detailed by Carl Miller in his book “Olympic Lifting Training Manual.” The Olympic lifting movements had always played a major role in weight training for improving sport performance, but things seemed to change in the late seventies. There was an attempt to blindly copy Olympic lifting training protocols without any apparent regard to its relationship to the whole training program. Just because an Olympic lifter, who does nothing but lift, is able to lift up to five times a day does not mean that a football player or a basketball player can copy what they do. Different sport, different demands, different body proportions. Olympic lifting for sport performance is a means to an end. If you are an Olympic weight lifter then it is as end in itself, because those lifts are the performance standard. 2) The rise in popularity due to marketing in the mid 1970’s of a new machine oriented system based on a cam system that was invented by Arthur Jones. The Nautilus system based on eccentric loading and one set to failure. It was not that these were the first machines, but they were the first machines that were marketed with a training system and philosophy to back them up. It appealed to the American mentality of instant gratification. It was hard work, but it was over rather quickly. In addition because of the eccentric emphasis it was possible to gain hypertrophy rather quickly, which appealed to American football. Things began to change rapidly with the advent of the full-time professional “Strength Coach.” In the seventies there were very few strength coaches at any level and if there were most of their attention was centered on football. In professional sport there were few fulltime strength coaches, in fact you count them on the fingers of one hand across all sports. In 1976 the Dallas Cowboys hired Bob Ward, who was the track coach at Fullerton College in California. He had a full time year around program that was backed by management so that the player’s had to comply. This was the exception, not the norm. Superior talent and genetics continued to prevail even into the late 1980’s. Not all the teams in professional football had fulltime strength and conditioning coaches. The advent of the strength coach in college and professional sport was like a good news bad news joke. The good news was that now there would be someone who whose sole responsibility was to condition the athletes. The bad news was that was that with the exception of those who had a track and field background they seldom got out of the weight room and all programs were derivatives or copies of the football program regardless of sport or gender.
Evolution of Strength Training – A Personal Perspective Over Fifty Years (Part Two)
After graduating from Fresno State I went to University of California Santa Barbara for my teaching certification. While there I was fortunate to take a class from Sherman Button on Fundamental of Conditioning. He was way ahead of his time with the material and concepts that he presented.( I appreciate that even more as look back at what he taught us) It was a great class because of his comprehensive approach to conditioning built around weight training. The two textbooks for the class were especially helpful. Pat O’Shea’s book “Scientific Principles and Methods of Strength Training.” and “Foundations of Conditioning” by Falls, Walls and Logan. As a class assignment we had to design a yearlong comprehensive training program for our chosen sports. I put together a program for track and field that incorporated all components of training. It was an initial attempt at periodization, but most importantly it forced me to look at strength training in a new light. I was now a coach as well as an athlete. I was responsible for other people’s performance. I had to teach them skill and have them ready for competition, so I had to pay attention to the big picture. Strength was only one part of the equation, although a most important part. That spring, in my first track coaching assignment, I got the opportunity to coach one of the best athletes I have ever coached, Sam Cunningham. He became California State Champion in the Shot Put that year and also an All American football running back. He was 6’3” tall, weighed 225, he could run the 100 in 9.7, but by my thinking he was “weak, “ because he could not lift much weight in the weight room. Yet he had tremendous explosive power. This led me to begin to ask the question: How much strength is enough? A question I would continue to ask throughout my career. A question I continue to ask today. In the fall of 1969 I began training for the decathlon. I did all my strength training with Curt Harper, a world-class discus thrower. Working with Curt we trained on a varied program that involved Olympic lifting and power lifting. I got very strong. The only problem was that the work in the weight room was not transferring into performance on the track and in the field. I obviously had the emphasis wrong. Once again I begin to question the whole place that weight training had in the program. Three things led me to modify my approach 1) The writing of Ken Dougherty in his books Modern Track and Field and Track and Field Omnibook, especially the latter. In these book he talked about concepts that would latter evolve into my thinking on special and specific strength. 2) Training for the decathlon in Santa Barbara gave me the opportunity to train with some of the greatest athletes in the world. I saw how they trained. It also gave me first hand exposure to the European methods of training that up until that point I had only read about. This exposure to the Europeans let me to question the traditional approach that we were taking. They spent less time in the weight room, when they did come to the weight room they were not to be as strong as we were, but they seemed to be able to do a better job of expressing their strength and transferring to their events. They did fewer exercises and seemed to emphasize lighter and faster movements. They engaged in more varied activities like jumping and all types of throws. 3) In the fall of 1971 Pat Matzdorf, from University of Wisconsin, moved to Santa Barbara to train. He had broken the world record in the high jump that year. His strength training was very different than anything I had seen. Bill Perrin, the track coach at Wisconsin, and a real innovator designed his program. It involved what he called simulation training, which consisted of specific strength training exercises that worked on various parts of the whole jump using a variety of methods including weights and rubber tubing. He also utilized depth jumps in his training. This was my first exposure to a systematic application of Plyometric training. From 1969 to 1973 I coached at La Cumbre Junior high school in Santa Barbara, California. It was first hand experience working with growth & development in the pre-pubescent and pubescent male athlete. There was not much equipment or even free weights. The strength program consisted primarily of push-ups, pull-ups, dips and rope climb. At this age, with the tremendous linear growth that was occurring body weight exercises were very appropriate loading. I felt that the key objective was to lay a base of athletic fitness that they could harness when they went to high school. Although at the time I felt somewhat shortchanged that we did not have more weights, in retrospect I was on the right track. Another key milestone in the evolution of my ideas on training in general and strength training in particular was the 1972 AAU Learn by Doing Track & Field clinic in Sacramento, California organized by Fred Wilt. Many of the top track & filed coaches in the country were in attendance. The opportunity to interact with them was invaluable. Two of the “Learn by Doing” stations were devoted to Plyometric training, which was new and revolutionary at the time. Each evening there were presentations by Polish triple jump coach Tadeusz Starzynski, he presented the whole spectrum of his training program for triple jumpers that had produced Joseph Schmidt, three time Olympic Gold medalist. It obviously involved a lot of jumping exercises, but it included medicine ball work and some very specific weight training. Certainly nothing heavy like our jumpers were doing at the time. There was nowhere near the extent of weight training we were having our athlete do and the weight training that was done was much more specific. This experience had profound influence on how I trained my athletes for explosive power from that time on. I immediately incorporated his concepts and ideas in my own training, as well as with the athletes I was coaching. The results were a tremendous increase in explosiveness and speed.
Evolution of Strength Training – A Personal Perspective Over Fifty Years (Part One)
I thought it would interesting to share with you a personal approach to the evolution of strength training as I have seen it using my experiences as an athlete and coach who has been involved in strength training for 50 years. When I began weight training in 1963, it was not commonly accepted as a method of training, in fact weight training was discouraged. There were concerns that you would become “muscle bound,” that it would slow you down, or it would interfere with you coordination. It was considered acceptable to do hard manual labor to develop muscle, but weight training was frowned upon. With all these thoughts in mind we had a guest speaker come to my high school to speak to all the athletes. The speaker was Lynn Hoyem, a backup center for the Dallas Cowboys, who spoke to us about the benefits of weight training. He had gained 50 pounds of lean mass through weight training. He gave us advice as to how to start a program, explained some of the basic physiology of muscle growth and strength gain. He offered tips on how to gain weight, as most of us were football players who were trying to gain weight. It was a very impressive presentation that was very different from we were being told at the time. I knew that if I were going to have any chance of playing college football, my sport of choice at the time, I would have to get stronger and bigger. At that time there was not very much information on weight training. Before I started on a program I felt I needed to find out more information, because my coaches were wary of weight training. My best friend and I went to the local university library and checked out every book they had on weight training. The two books that I found most helpful were “Weight Training In Athletics And Physical Education” by Gene Hooks, who was the baseball coach at Wake Forest University and “Better Athletes Through Weight Training” by Bob Hoffman, who was the owner of York Barbell Company and a pioneer in weight training. The books were very good and gave us the information we needed as to selection of exercises, set, reps, and overall construction of weight training program as well as reinforcing that weight training would help us be better athletes. In addition Strength and Health magazine, published by Bob Hoffman, proved to be a good source, because it contained high-level information on all aspects of strength training, including tips on good nutrition. (In fact in looking back through my files while doing research for this article I found articles from Strength & Health on periodization which people would consider cutting edge today) The information was very good; in fact it was cutting edge, with the latest training ideas from the eastern bloc countries and features on top athletes who made use of weight training in their training programs. It was very informative and motivational, because they were working hard to break down the myths surrounding weight training. After gathering as much information as I could, building some basic equipment and purchasing a barbell set my best friend and I started on a program. When I began I weighed about 163 pounds. I was so tight I could not touch my toes. I could barely do a pull-up and could only do about 20 pushups, not very good by any standard of measurement. Still people were cautioning me that weight training would make me tight and slow. After four months of a program I had gained 15 pounds. I could touch my toes; in fact I could put my palms flat on the ground. I now could do ten pull-ups and fifty pushups and was noticeably faster. I could also now also put my hand over the rim in basketball, where before I had been barely able to touch the rim. Naturally I was questioning the myths. In fact everything that the coaches and a lot of experts was saying was just the opposite of what had happened. I gained muscle, got more explosive, more flexible and faster. I realized that I was onto something and I needed to find out more. Thus began a magical mystery tour of trying out new training methods and ideas, which continues today. Following conventional wisdom of the time there was no thought of weight training in season. Since I participated in three sports the only time available to lift was after track ended in the spring until the start of football practice in September. The next off-season, which was before my freshman year in college, I was able to gain another twenty pounds and increase my explosiveness. I realize now in retrospect that some of this was normal growth and development coupled with the hard work. Directed work during a growth spurt when the body is secreting anabolic hormones like crazy is an optimum time to make gains. This is a clear message to all those high school age athletes who are seeking the magic bullet of supplementation. A good sound diet coupled with a well-designed training program during a growth spurt will yield spectacular results. After my freshman football season at Fresno State College there was no formal off-season program. We were instructed to be in shape for spring practice and sent on our way. Essentially we were on our own. We had one of the first Universal Gym multi station selectorized weight machines and a few free weights. Naturally since the machine was convenient and easy that is what I used. I found immediately that my “strength” increased rapidly. In fact I remember remarking to a friend that I can lift a lot more because I do not have to balance and control the weight. I quickly gained more muscle bulk, but now instead of feeling more explosive I felt bulky and slower, but I thought that was ok because everyone else was doing it. The first day of spring practice I pulled a hamstring, my first experience with anything like that. In retrospect it had a lot to do with the type of lifting I was doing, of course I did not relate the two at the time. In setting out to design my program in preparation for my sophomore year I realized that I must get off the machines and do more work with free weights if I was going to develop the strength necessary to be a better football player. I had heard of a man named Alvin Roy who originally had worked with a high school in Louisiana and then with the LSU football program when they had won the national championship in 1958. He had worked with Billy Cannon, the Heisman trophy winner and Jim Taylor who went on to star with the Green Bay Packers, both of whom were fast, explosive and agile. The things that I read that he was doing made a lot of sense. Through my high school football coach I found out that he was now with the San Diego Chargers, as their strength coach. As far as I know he was the first in professional football. He had a book on their training program, World Champion San Diego Chargers Strength Program – In and Out of Season; it was co-authored by Sid Gilman the head coach. The book had all the details of their program. There was a big emphasis on Functional Isometric Contractions. Looking at today I find it quite interesting that they continued their program in-season, which was unheard of at the time. I followed the programs down to the letter. It was a varied program that involved squatting, Olympic lifting movements, as well as functional isometric contractions. I saw much improved results in terms of speed and explosiveness. The drawback was that I struggled to gain weight on the Charger program. Looking back it was just too much work for my maturity level. Also it later came out the players on the Chargers player’s had free access to anabolic steroid’s, which greatly enhanced their work capacity. There was no rest or recovery days built into the program which at the time I thought was ok, but I now realize was a big mistake, because I was always sore. The lesson to be learned here is that it is not advisable to blindly copy someone else’s program unless you know all the factors and ingredients of the program. Through articles in Strength and Health and watching the track team at Fresno State weight train I quickly realized that the sport of track & field was very advanced in the use of weight training. Herb Elliot, who dominated the mile up through the Rome Olympics, and his coach Percy Cerruty made extensive use of strength training. Perry O’Brien, the first man to throw sixty feet in the shot put was an avid weight trainer. He was fast enough to lead off a sprint relay, so it obviously did slow him down! Dallas Long, the first man to throw over sixty five feet and Randy Matson, the first man to throw over seventy feet were all avid weight trainers. Lynn Davies, the 1964 Olympic Long Jump champion, was able to significantly improve his speed. Russ Hodge, who broke the world record in the decathlon in the early sixties, made extensive use of weight training in his program. Chuck Coker, the coach at Occidental College in Los Angeles was a pioneer in the implementation of weight training in Track & Field. In college it was the track team, especially the field event people under the direction of Coach Red Estes who extensively used strength training, not the football team. Larry Alexander was a high jumper on the track team had thoroughly studied the Russian high jump training methods used by Valeri Brummel, who was the world record holder at the time. Larry was kind enough to share his ideas with me. Brummel’s program made extensive use of a variety of strength training exercises and jumping exercises that we would later call plyometrics. Larry also introduced me Track Technique magazine, a magazine devoted to presenting the latest training methods in track & field. These articles laid out a systematic approach as well as reasons for the drills and exercises. The information published in the early to mid sixties is as timely today as it was then. It is no wonder that I found that when I worked out with the track athletes I got my best results from my strength-training program. The basic problem with all the programs that I used throughout college was that there was never any recovery. We went heavy on legs as often as three times a week, in addition to running every day, which never allowed our legs to recover. I thought having a sore back and dead legs were just a normal part of the training. Fortunately or unfortunately depending on how you look at it, we did not try to lift in season or during spring practice, which actually served as a break. The problem with no workouts in season is that every off-season was that I essentially starting over again each off-season. I questioned this because I saw the track athletes lifting throughout their season with no ill effects. In fact the shot putter’s would often lift the day of the meet. Little did I realize that this was a portent of things to come later.
Building & Rebuilding The Athlete Seminar DVD’s
In 1992 I started teaching a seminar called Building and Rebuilding the Athlete. I taught the seminar on a regular basis from 1992 until 2005. It was a seminar/workshop that defined functional training and rehab and challenged conventional wisdom in those areas. The emphasis was on how all the components of training fit together to build a complete athlete who would be fully adaptable to the sport or activity they were training for. During that time virtually everyone who are now leaders in the field attended the seminar. I never videoed the seminar despite continued requests to do so. Fast-forward to Leeds in the UK this past November. I was invited by Brendan Chaplin, S&C coach at Leeds Metropolitan University to present the latest updated version of the Building and Rebuilding the Athlete seminar. It was a great audience and an outstanding venue. Brendan videoed the whole seminar and is offering it for sale. So finally the seminar is now available for all. To purchase the DVD’s go to: http://www.strengthandconditioningeducationonline.com/home/vern-gambetta Here’s a list of the videos in the Building the Complete Athlete Series….THERE ARE 16 VIDEOS IN TOTAL!!! Introduction: In the video Vern sets the scene about his coaching and how you can apply the lessons he’s learned over the last 40 years. Building your Functional Framework: In this video Vern discusses developing your philosophy of coaching, what are we actually trying to do? How to get better as coaches and what our roles really are. This will get you thinking about your views on the matter. Coaching Nuts and Bolts: This video is all about how to coach, the art of coaching versus the science and Vern’s thoughts on this! You’ll become a better coach simply by watching this one video alone. Sport Demands: This video will teach you how to assess sports requirements and what you need to be looking for. Skill and Technique: This video will outline the importance of skill and technique and how this intertwines with physical development. You can’t build skill on poor physical competence base. Work Capacity Training: In this video you’ll learn about how to build work capacity in your athletes. Vern has some unique and key elements when it comes to this highly misunderstood area of our profession. Work Capacity Application: This video will teach you how to apply the concepts of the work capacity video. You need that theory but more importantly you need to know how to apply the theory to actually get those results. Physical Literacy: Everything starts with this, you must have it, and you must know how to assess and develop it. Learn how in this video. Physical Competency Assessment (PCA): Learn how to begin with your athletes with this assessment process. This starts the Building the Complete Athlete process! Periodisation Nuts and Bolts: This is all about planning. Where to put certain training units, and what you REALLY need to think about and include in your periodised plans. The Importance of Core Strength and Stability (2 videos): Vern discusses ‘Core Training’ in these videos and makes some extremely valuable statements about how to actually train the core. These could be the most valuable videos in the series! Multi Directional Speed and Agility Training: This practical video shows how Vern develops Gamespeed and movement qualities. You’ll pick up some superb drills and exercises to get your athletes moving well on the field or court they compete on. There’s also some key questions answered about what you can train and what you can’t!! Functional Strength Training: This video shows Verns’ progressions when it comes to strength training. Learn how he has achieved success in this area with pretty much every major sport in the US and at the highest level! Plyometrics: What they constitute, how to programme them, what not to do, and most importantly how to actually COACH them! In-Season Training: In this video you’ll learn about planning training for athletes in season. There are some major things to avoid and some big things that you need to include too. Volume and intensity are also covered in detail leaving you with a blueprint of how to get the best from your athletes or clients.
Classic Track & Field Tales
This is a page-turner; I could not put it down. I absolutely devoured this book in one sitting. This is a trip down the memory lane of the true glory days of track and field. The stores, anecdotes and recollections that Larry Knuth has complied represents a look back at the golden years of Track & Field though the eyes of athletes’ coaches and fans. If you are a serous student of coaching this is a must read, If you are a track & field coach fan or coach this will be one your definitive historical texts. One of the biggest deficiencies I see in young coaches today is a complete lack of understanding of the history of their sport. I was shocked when the coach of the 2012 Olympic Gold medalist in the pole vault did not know who Dutch Wamerdam was! He was only the Bubka of his generation, but even more dominant. The best way to learn history is through stories. Larry has collected some amazing stories of pioneers in the sport of track & field. Thanks Larry for the time and energy compiling this. Available for purchase by check for $19 include postage/handling made to LK Publications, 30100 Town Ctr. Dr., Suite 0-160, Laguna Niguel, Ca., 92677 or contact Larry at LKpublications64 @ yahoo.com.
The Future – The Coaches Domain
By necessity the future is where coaches live. Sure we have to be in the moment just like our athletes but virtually everything we do in training is preparing for events in the near or distant future. Planning is a huge part of this future orientation. Planning is a way to bring the future into the present and be able to do something about it. It seems that the longer you coach, the more experiences you have the more proficient you get at producing future performances. You do this by coaching day to day like it was your last day coaching. You do it by being in the moment and keeping the athlete in the moment. You do it through constant evaluation of day-to-day training and competition results to constantly adjust and reorient to the ultimate goal in the future. Good coaches are constantly self-correcting and reorienting toward their ultimate competition goal. None of us have a crystal ball, but we do have the ability to control what we do today. The way to most effectively build the path to future performance excellence is by taking care of each training session as they occur. Thoroughly plan the workout, listen to the athlete, adjust as needed and you will be doing everything in your power to control future performance. The future is now.
Learning to Train – A Giant Step
Watching the swim workout Saturday with the Sarasota Sharks reminded of how important it is to learn how to train. It also reminded what a big step this is in the development of the athlete. The group ranged from junior level world-class swimmers to fourteen year olds just finishing their fourth month with the senior group. The contrast in the workout was amazing to watch. Everyone did the workout. For the young athletes you could tell that just showing up and “doing” the workout was good enough for them. The feeling is that if you “do” enough workouts like the older swimmers do, in other words punch the clock, then I will get better and be like them. Certainly true to a certain extent, but we know as coaches this will only get you so far. Then you have the athletes who train the workout. They understand the goal of the workout and execute what is required. No real preparation beforehand or analysis afterword but they know how to execute the workout. They get more out of it in terms preparation to race. Then you have the big dogs, they get it. Their goal is to “win the workout.” They know how to train. They understand how the workout relates to later peak performance. They push themselves to be very uncomfortable, just like they have to push themselves in competition. This is where they all eventually need to be to achieve the possibility of success at a high level. Certainly not everyone can make it to this level, but that is where he or she should strive to be. To do that you have to learn how to train, it is a process that does not happen overnight.