Author: Vernon Gambetta
The Opportunity Phase
Conventional wisdom says that when the competitive season ends that you take a period of active rest, traditionally this is as long as a month. Several years I began to question the wisdom and in fact the efficacy of this. Wasn’t this just a vestige from the out dated and now passé eastern European periodization models that we have been brainwashed with? Weren’t we in fact taking a step backward and losing fitness and compromising our technique and losing fitness for the following season? In fact by taking this active rest weren't we just “dulling the knife.” When the season ends you are at peak fitness levels and technique is fine tuned to the highest levels so why not take advantage of this? So three years ago with the professional beach volleyball players that I work with we started using an Opportunity/Experimental phase after the peak the competition season, this replaced the rest or active phase. The idea was to take advantage of the peak fitness and sharpness and use this period to refine technical elements, to try new training methods that we would use in the subsequent year, in short to experiment and take advantage of the fitness. The number of training days was reduced from six days a week to five and one of those was an entirely different activity like kayaking or paddle boarding. Two other days were technical and two other days were explosive power oriented. Sessions were short, no longer than 45 minutes. We followed that with four weeks of four days a week and then two weeks “off” where they could do anything they wanted as long as they were active. We then began the new training year with a foundation block that started at a much higher level than previously. Give it a try I think you will see good results with this concept.
More
It is so easy to say more is not better and then go right back to doing more. In many ways more is easy, one more rep, one more run or swim, you can do it. The question is why? Is doing more better? In my experience, both first hand and through observation more is definitely not better. Set a target; achieve it with both quality and intensity. Remember there is a distinction; quality is a measure of perfect and intensity is a measure of 100%. Know what you objectives are in training and set reasonable means to achieve those objectives. I am reminded of the words of a country western song: “Work your fingers to bone, what do you get? Boney fingers.” Train with a purpose to get results in competition.
Santa Barbara High 1976 – 77 Cross Country & Track
My daughter found the T-shirt (pictured at left) in the bottom of a drawer. Seeing that t-shirt triggered memories of one of my best teams and my best years coaching. I started coaching at SBHS as a student coach and student teacher in 1969. I then coached at the feeder junior high school for four years and then took a year to get my masters at Stanford. In 1974 – 75 I returned to SBHS as head girls cross country and track coach and assistant boys track coach. In 1975 -76 I took over as head coach of both boys and girls and combined the programs. Cross-country and track at Santa Barbara high school at that time were special. I guess I really did not realize how special until I started to reflect back on those years to write this blog. To say there was a culture and tradition of excellence in track and field at SBHS would be an understatement. My predecessor, Bill Crow had an amazing won loss record of 164 wins and 24 losses and 3 ties. The team name was the Dons. There was a Don way – a pretty simple culture. The rules were simple: Wear the uniform and be on time. Those were the rules Bill had used; I certainly was not going to change that. The kids knew what it meant to put on that special singlet. They knew that they had to honor it with their best effort. Each kid got a handbook for cross-country and track. In the handbook were the top ten lists, biographies of the returning letter winners and past results. The track was a “funny shaped” (80 yard straights that gave the illusion that the track was almost circular) 440 yard rock hard asphalt track with a grass straightaway inside the track for sprints and hurdles. It was a beautiful setting in a natural bowl (Peabody Stadium) surrounded by trees. There were two shot put rings, two long jump/triple jump pits, and two pole vaults pits that made running meets very efficient. We had all adult officials; many of who were teachers at the school and others retired teachers and administrators who had a deep loyalty to the program. The dual meets started at 2:30 and ended with the last mile relay at 5:10 PM. In the meets there was boys frosh/soph division, boys junior varsity, boys varsity and girls JV and girls varsity – yes that’s right five meets going on at once. It was an amazing show! Robbie Fletcher who was a special needs student did all the set up for the meets, he dug up the pits and got everything in place. He took tremendous pride in his work. I have often wondered what happened to him. I used to give him an Italian submarine sandwich from Tino’s Italian Store for his work; you would have though I paid him a hundred dollars. My wife Melissa was the meet announcer. She did a great job of keep the meet moving and everyone apprised of the results of each event and the running score of each of the five concurrent meets. The clerk for the meet was one of principals. I coached the hurdles, distance and long, triple and high jump. Gates Foss coached pole vault, Gates was one the best coaches I have ever been around. He had been the pool maintenance man at SBHS for close to forty years and had coached the pole-vaulters all that time. He was methodical, extremely patient and worked very hard to stay current on technique. Every year he had at least one fourteen foot pole-vaulter and some years two. That year we had one. John Larralde was my right hand man and number one assistant. He helped me with cross-country and with the distance events in track. John went onto surpass me at Carpenteria high school where he coached two California sate high school mile champions. I like to think he learned some of those lessons at SBHS. We had a throws Coach was quite experienced and two teachers who had little experience to supervise the sprint workouts. We had 120 boys and girls out for the track team. For cross-country we had 50 boys and girls on the team. The team reflected the socio economic and cultural mix of the school. There were rich kids, poor kids, African Americans and Mexican Americans. Our feeder schools were La Cumbre Junior high school and Santa Barbara Junior high school. SBHS was a three high school and the junior high schools were three-year schools. The feeder schools had good track programs, I had previously coached at La Cumbre Junior high and many of the seniors had been seventh graders when I started coaching. A part of the tradition of SBHS track & cross-country was the tarp. The tarp was put out in the middle of the field; it was were all the kids put their gear and waited to warm-up. The tarp was our territory and only the Dons could sit on that tarp, it was hallowed ground. In 1976 Girls Cross Country placed second in first ever California Interscholastic Federation Southern Section (CIFSS) girl’s cross-country championship after going into the meet as overwhelming favorites. A clear case of bad coaching, lesson learned here was that if in doubt in the last week do less not more, that last hard Monday workout killed us, we didn’t need it. The boys were seventh in a tremendous team effort. One of our traditions was to run a postal two and three mile on the track the week after CIF finals. The boys won the national team postal three-mile tile in 1976. We owned the Distance Medley relay at the Arcadia invitational, in 77 the girls won it for the third year in a row. We also broke the national record in the DMR that spring. Both the girls and boys won Channel league team championships. The boys had their 43 meet win streak broken. The Girls were fifth place in the CIF southern section. We had two individuals qualify for the Sate Meet that was held at UCLA. Tara Hobbs placed ninth in the two mile and Molly Miller placed sixth in the 440. The girl’s mile relay placed fifth. The team was made up of Tara Hobbs, Annie Byron, Connie Hogan and Molly Miller. They ran an incredible race to beat several teams seated above them. To advance to State meet in California was a grind, a very tough process. It started with the league meet where you had to be in the top three. Then it went to CIF Prelims where you had to place in the top eight or nine. Then you went to CIF Finals in your division where you had to be in the top five to go onto Masters Meet. At the Masters Meet you had to place in the top five to go onto to state meet. The State Meet is a two-day meet with prelims on Friday and finals on Saturday. All our training was pointed toward this. During the summer we had a summer track class where the emphasis was on teaching not training. The weight room was open several evenings a week and there were all comer track meets on Thursday nights. The rule was that you could not do your event during the summer. You had to do something different. I did not have a 100 mile a week club or anything approaching that with my cross-country kids. I had excellent senior leadership they would meet and run on their own and then lift weights. They had pride in what they were doing and wanted to have the best team possible so they were highly motivated. I doubt that anyone ever went over 50 miles week during the summer. My philosophy was to not take the run out of them. We trained hard when we started and it was along way from May and June our ultimate targets. I also wanted them to develop ownership of their program, I would guide them not lord over them. The kids did a great job of preparing that the summer of 1976. In cross-country we had eight dual meets, usually on Thursday and four Saturday invitational meets. In track we had dual meets on Tuesdays or Thursday with four invitational meets spaced throughout the season. Looking back through the prism of time it was one my best years in coaching. We did a lot of things right. We all had high expectations and achieved to and beyond the level of expectations. I demanded a lot from the kids and my coaches and even more from myself. My regret is that I never took the time to really enjoy all that was going on around me. I was so focused on getting a college job and being in the big time that I never allowed myself the time to enjoy the moment. 35 years latter I am enjoying writing about this great group of kids and what they accomplished, all this spurred on by an old t-shirt found in the bottom of a drawer. It was a special time with special people.
Get Your Head Right and Your Leadership Skills Squared Away
In my opinion these four books are game changers. They are a must read for every coach who wants to be the best they can be. I wish I would have all of these available to me when I started coaching. Brain Rules – 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School by John Medina. I just finished reading this for the second time. It is so rich in content it almost does require a second reading to absorb all the details. Medina takes the most current research on cognitive neuroscience and puts it into twelve rules he calls the brain rules. The rules are understandable and easy to apply. This rules can make a real difference in your coaching and in life. The Chimp Paradox – The Mind Management Programme for Confidence, Success and Happiness by Steve Lewis. Lewis by training is a forensic psychiatrist. He worked with British cycling the last eight years. I first heard of him in an article I was reading about Chris Hoy the British cyclist who gave Peters much of the credit for his success. According to Peters we have three brains: the Human Brain, The Computer Brain and Chimp Brain. The trick is to learn to use the human brain and the computer brain to your best advantage and learn when to put the chimp in the cage and when to let the chimp out. The key is to get the three brains working together. The Chimp can be your best friend or your worst enemy, hence the chip paradox. This is without a doubt the best book I have read on mental preparation. Get it, read and reread it, it is a great resource. Learning to manage the chimp can make a big difference. A Failure of Nerve – Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix by Edwin H. Friedman. He pulls no punches in his recommendations and criticism of the quick fix society we live in. By no means is this light leisure reading, but this man who was an advisor to presidents and business leaders imparts a wisdom that only someone who has worked at the highest levels of leadership and decision making would be able to do. Winning Matters – by Frank Dick. This is another gem that I just reread for the second time. Frank is a friend and mentor who has had a huge influence on my coaching career. This is a practical work full of ideas and aphorisms that will make a difference in your day-to-day coaching. His wisdom and experience as a leader come through loud and clear. It is clearly a handbook for winning.
Trouble With The Curve
I really enjoyed this movie; so much of it rang true for me. It certainly brought back memories of my days as Director of Conditioning with the White Sox. I was fortunate to be involved in the scouting and evaluation of prospective draft choices. I was used to evaluate their athleticism and to try to ascertain what if any physical improvements could me made. Also evaluated injury histories. It involved a lot of boots on the ground and face time. Like Eastwood’s character as opposed to what I call the “Moneybull” approach we needed to see the player play, how they warmed up, how they moved, how they reacted to certain situations, all of those things absolutely cannot be reduced to stats and numbers. The movie proved once again that Clint Eastwood is a master director and actor (Can’t take his politics though). Go see the movie even if you know nothing about baseball, it very enjoyable and entertaining. It serves as a poignant reminder of the human side of sport. Performance is three-dimensional, actually in some ways five dimensional, numbers on paper or on a computer are one-dimensional.
It’s the Culture
The root of successful teams is the culture. It is not something that just magically happens. Like talent a winning culture is grown, encouraged and nurtured. What exactly is it? Honestly I can’t quite put my finger on it. You know it when you see it, you can sense it, it is a feeling, sometimes a state of mind. It is not inspirational signs all over the walls, or t-shirts with slogans, it is a way of getting it done everyday in a workmanlike manner without fanfare. It can be changed both for the better and for worse. It is not something you can take for granted. Look around at coaches who have successful teams and individuals they get it. It is doing the little things consistently well. It is how you wear the uniform. How you fail as well as how you win. It certainly is not facilities. It is people, a way of life in sport that fosters a sense of confidence without being cocky. It may be intangible but you know it is there.
Monkey See, Monkey Do
The conversation starts out like this after Joe Blow wins a world championship. “Yea I heard that every other day he ran backward up a 400-meter hill wearing a snorkel while he was barefoot. Wow I think I need to have my cross-country team do that.” So we throw away our shoes, buy snorkels and find a very steep 400-meter hill and proceed to do Joe Blows workout three times a week. You might say that is absurd, well look around. This goes on all the time, I call it the monkey see, monkey do syndrome. Did you ever stop to think that what Joe Blow or whomever you are copying might have achieved in spite, not because of what they did? Look at in context, why did it work for Joe Blow? Just because it is on YouTube or on a popular exercise forum does not mean is it something your athletes should be doing. Remember the training you are doing with your athletes should fit your athletes. It should be appropriate for their training age and stage of development. Don’t copy, innovate, learn what you athletes need and find better ways to meet their needs. Chances are you will find that it is pretty basic and seldom more than one standard deviation from the mean. Don’t play monkey see, monkey do.
Spanish Swim Coaches Convention
It was a very enjoyable three days with the Spanish swim coaches at their annual convention. I read Spanish fairly well but I am very rusty on my spoken Spanish so it was very interesting attending the presentations. As long as I could read the slides I could follow along. I was able to capture bits and pieces of information that stimulated some ideas for me. Hopefully my presentations gave the Spanish coaches some food for thought. I want to thank the organizers and especially my host Pablo Terradillos Suarez for making it a great experience. There were several presentations that stood out for me. Maria Pelaez Navarrette an Olympian several times for Spain and a European champion presented an overview of her career. It was very interesting to hear the athlete’s perspective. She was very articulate and analytic in her presentation. I would really like to see more presentations like this at coaching clinics; I think it gives the coach important insights and perspectives. There was a thought provoking presentation on the start some of which I agreed and some of which I questioned. This is an area in swimming that in my opinion has much room for improvement. I am trying to learn more about the swim start and apply what we have learned over the years in track. Jose Antonio Del Castillo Perez gave a very analytical presentation on the development of his swimmer. I really liked the way he presented the interaction of all components of training. Juan Jaime Arroyo Toledo, a Mexican coach, now at the University of Leipzig presented his research on a contemporary model of periodization sometimes called “reverse periodization.” I was able to talk extensively with Juan the night before at the banquet. I think he is right on with his concepts. I am looking forward to sharing information with him and reading his doctoral dissertation. We definitely need more investigation in this area. I really enjoyed the presentation on Dryland Training by Xavi Abalos Cuevas a young coach who is really working hard to improve his craft. For me this was another step in my coaching journey, an opportunity to share and learn. I was honored to be able to present to such an esteemed group. I sincerely hope there is another opportunity to return some day. Muchas gracias por la oportunidad.