Author: Vernon Gambetta
Jesse owens
Last night on PBS American Experience (http://tinyurl.com/83pojz5 ) series there was an excellent documentary on Jesse Owens. There was some training and competition footage that I had never seen before. What a perfect technical model of sprint mechanics! I don’t have many heroes in sport but Jesse Owens is one of them. Watching this documentary reminded me again just how great he was. There are no superlatives to describe his accomplishment of breaking three world records in one day and tying a fourth all in the span of an hour. He did this on a track that was chewed up, without starting blocks, with shoes that probably weighed two to three times what today’s spikes weigh and without any of the benefits of modern training methods. In my book he is the greatest track & field athlete of all time! He also was a class individual. I got to meet Jesse Owens in my first week coaching in 1969. He was in Santa Barbara to give a speech that evening and he stopped by Santa Barbara High School to talk to the track team. His message was clear and on point, work hard keep your chin up in the face of adversity and respect yourself and your coaches. At the end of his talk he asked one the boys to stand up, it was Sam Cunningham, later known as Sam “Bam” Cunningham at USC and withbthe Boston Patriots, he said that he had heard he was a great athlete and wanted to wish him luck. I think it took Sam about two weeks to come down from that. If you get a chance watch the program it is well worth it.
Buyer Beware
There is a whole of genre of “you tube’ like channels on the net that feature workouts and exercises with absolutely no context. No experts to provide expertise. This may not matter to you, but it does matter to me. All this is just “stuff” without any frame of reference; no why, just a whole lot of what, sometimes a little on how and they would lead you to think the who is everyone. I may be old fashioned but I want more information, some simple things like: Tell me what you know? Where did you learn it? How have you used it? Did it work? Why? Did it fail? Why? Just more exercises and drills by themselves are not the answer. They must fit your situation with your athletes and in the context of your training system.
Training Advice from the Culinary Arts
You never know where or when you will get training advice and information. Yesterday I was listening to one of my favorite programs on NPR, The Splendid Table (splendidtable.publicradio.org/) with Lynne Rosetto Kasper. The discussion was salt. They said that if the recipe called for salt and the proper amount was blended in then you did not notice the salt. However if too much slat was included or if it was excluded you noticed it immediately. What a great metaphor for the blend of the ingredients in training. If a training component is there and blended properly, included at the correct time in the process you never notice, everything is in sync. However if a component is out of proportion, i.e. to much speed, not enough strength then you notice immediately. If a component is left out then the whole training program is affected and you will know it. So don’t forget the salt, but remember to include just the right amount, not too much or too little and know when to add it in the cooking process.
Specialization
The other day someone asked what me specialty was in coaching? It is not often I am at a loss for words, but I had to stop and think for a minute. I have no specialty; I specialize is in being a generalist. As a track & field coach my specialty was combined events – decathlon & heptathlon, in many ways that sums it up. Coaching all the events enabled me to make connections between seemingly unrelated concepts and technical elements so that if I chose one event to work on I had better understanding of that event. Early on that defined the direction of my coaching. I worked in professional baseball for eleven years, most everything I did there was not from baseball, the training concepts came from track & field, swimming, team handball and cricket. Using information and ideas from other sports enabled me to see baseball with different eyes. I had an advantage because I had little background in baseball so I went far afield to improve the movements. I looked at the pitcher as a javelin thrower in long pants and trained him accordingly. Today I consult in many sports and coach day to day doing the physical preparation for beach volleyball. Some of the things I am doing with my beach volleyball players are things that I advise the sprint swimmer to do. Unrelated? Superficially yes, but on deeper examination there is much transfer. I am not a strength coach, that is way too limiting for me. I do coach people to get stronger though. How about a speed coach? Nope, too limiting again, you can’t get someone faster if they do not have strength and power. Don’t lock yourself into a narrow specialty, stay general, and learn from other sports and other disciplines. You will be a better coach for it and there is never a dull moment.
Learning – A Perspective
It is a given that a coach should be as knowledgeable as possible. What are you doing to today to learn and to get better? As coaches we should be constantly learning. No doubt we should question the specialists and experts, read and research, observe other coaches and other sports – that is all fine and well but don’t miss the forest for the trees. Every training session, each interaction with an athlete is an opportunity to learn. I can only speak for myself but in my early days of coaching (when I knew everything) I missed out on many learning opportunities because I was too busy talking to listen and see. Don’t repeat my mistakes, listen, carefully observe, step back and think before you speak. Each day look at the world with new eyes, seek out the learning opportunities your athletes can teach you, it is as much as any book or expert. Listen to what they say, watch what they do, see how they solve movement problems, they are a wealth of information and they are there everyday for us to learn from.
20/10 x 5
When looking at the training of endurance sports of biking, distance swimming and distance running strength training is often an afterthought. A sound strength program has tremendous potential to improve performance and to prevent injury. If you think about the demands of endurance sports the goals of strength training are clear: Swimming – To improve an athlete’s ability to streamline and to hold water Cycling – Maintain an aerodynamic position on the bike and producing maximum power per pedal stroke Running – Improve ability to use the ground and be able to tolerate the amount of running necessary by avoiding impact injuries such as tendonitis. These demands create a different approach to strength training. The strength goal is work on movements that improve posture and alignment. In swimming the goal should be to strengthen the core and legs and properly strengthen the upper body so that the athletes can improve their distance per stroke and achieve a better alignment in the water. In cycling, a large part of efficiency is to ability to hold an aerodynamic position, which demands a large amount of core strength, stability in the shoulders and obviously functional leg strength. In running, efficiency is a matter of optimizing stride length with stride frequency, and all require strength endurance. There is a mistaken notion that one has to go to the gym to do strength training. No excuses, you don’t need a weight room, instead think of a “weight room without walls.” Equip the no wall weight room with a set of dumbbells of 10 to 25 percent of body weight; a sturdy box or bench 12 to 14 inches high; a 3 kg medicine ball and a stretch cord. With these items one can do anything you need to do to build functional strength for swimming, biking and running. Since the great majority of endurance athletes do their sport on a part-time basis, time is of the essence. Therefore I suggest a simple program that consists of 20 minutes of strength training three times a week and two other days for ten minutes followed by extensive static stretching. The method requires a consistent application of a few exercises done with intensity. Break the strength-training menu into three different categories: (1) Total body, which includes pulling/pushing movements and their variations done with dumbbells (i.e., dumbbell high pull, rotational snatch with one arm, etc.) (2) Lower extremities, which is all derived from squatting movements, step-ups and lunges all done single leg or alternating legs; (3) Upper body, which includes more body weight movements such as pull-ups, push-ups and their variations, and core strength work. The 20-Minute Day – The selection of exercises includes two total body movements (done as an emphasis for the workout), one or two leg exercises with one or two upper body movements. The 10-Minute Day – This is devoted to core strength development working on rotational movements. It is a misconception that since the movements of running and cycling is linear in nature that there is not a great deal of need for rotational movements. Quite the contrary, the control of rotational movements that is necessary in order to be more efficient. As the season progresses and the competition schedule increases in number and importance, this 20/10 x 6 can be reduced to two of 20 and three of 10. It’s possible to do the strength training work pre-swim and not have it affect the quality of the swim workout. With cycling, if the workout calls for steady medium intensity, then some core and upper body work before hand can be beneficial. However, in running, because of the high eccentric component, you could do core work beforehand but total body, upper and lower body work would be not be advisable. The overriding principle is to never compromise the quality of the bike, swim or run as a result of a strength-training workout. Some of these considerations are also dependent upon an athlete’s training age and background. Another option is doing a strength workout early in the day and the swim, bike or running workout in the afternoon as a way to address the problem of getting the workout done. 20/10 x 5 – Twenty minutes three times a week and ten minutes two times a week, a simple formula to better injury free performance.
Leroy Walker
Dr. Leroy Walker passed away two days ago. He was an icon in US track & Field, for that matter in US Sport. I did not know Dr. Walker personally but the memory of him etched in my mind was of a training session I was privileged to watch in 1972 at the US Olympic trials in Eugene Oregon. I was a young 25-year-old junior high school coach who had been coaching for four years. I literally camped out at the track watching every workout I could, listening to every conversation that I could hear, a sponge for knowledge trying to learn everything I could. One morning I got to watch Dr Walker work with his outstanding 200-meter runner, Larry Black. I was peripherally aware of who Dr. Walker was at the time. I was amazed at the attention to detail and the things he was pointing out that they were working on. They were fine tuning Black's turn technique in the 2000 meters. Specifically on running the line, tilting and turning the shoulders and the correct arm action. What a session, I have never forgotten it. Any of you may recall that Larry Black was a great turn runner, mabe one of the best ever, it made me realize it was not by chance. A terrific lesson for a young coach, that the best keep working to get better.Coaching matters. Over the years I heard Dr. Walker speak at several conventions. He was a great orator, very articulate and eloquent in his speech. His message was always clear, it was a about coaching and teaching, about character and human values. The world, especially the world of track and field was a better place because of Leroy Walker. Today we need more Leroy Walkers to lead us, to get the sport right again.
No Excuses
Could have, would have and should have are losers laments. I have low tolerance for excuses. If you could have or should then why didn’t you? To me it always comes down to choices. Look at why you are always late to training or late to meetings. Be cold, hard and objective in your analysis. Find actions you can do make the necessary changes in your schedule, your lifestyle or your approach and execute those changes. How can you restructure what you do to change your habits, because that is what it is, a habit and habits can be changed. Make conscious choices to do things differently. The same is true with performance issues. If for example if you are having trouble on a particular part of your race or some issue with technique that is holding you back then do something about it, don’t make excuses. Change your mindset and find the reasons for the deficiency and then systematically go to work to improve it. So you lost the race or the games don’t make excuses. Learn from the lose or failure and move on. Use it as an opportunity. Don’t whine and complain, nobody wants to hear that. We are captains of our own ships, you plot the course to change the result and if necessary gather the information necessary to plot a new course. I recommend two books to help in this process: Mindset by Carol Dweck and The Power of Habit – Why We Do What We Do In Life And Business by Charles Duhig. In my career I have heard all the excuses and I have fallen into the trap of making excuses. I know from experience and observation that when there is an environment where excuses are not tolerated people change their expectations and with the changing expectations there are changes in behavior and outcome. It may be trite to say but it is true that the level of expectation determines the level of achievemnt. Remember what Yoda said: “Do or Do Not. There is no try.”