Author: Vernon Gambetta
Finding the Edge
It is so tempting to just do what you are good at in training and to neglect the other things that you need to do to make significant improvement. It is so easy to rationalize away and then have it come back to haunt you when you need those other things the most. If you spend all your time on what you are good at then how do you get better? Somewhere you have to find that edge, a sweet spot where you can balance strengths and weaknesses in order to make incremental progress toward a goal. It is pushing the envelope to get out of your comfort zone. It has become fashionable to advise the athlete to get comfortable with being uncomfortable all the time. That is fine as far as it will take you. For me that smells too much like grit and mental strength, two terms that I am not enamored with. It requires intent and purpose for each session, it is more than that just doing it. You have a well-articulated plan that is grounded in fundamentals. Execute the plan, constantly evaluate and revise the plan as necessary. Recognize that progress is not linear and sometimes there will be setbacks, but with a clear plan, a setback will be a marker to gauge where you are. The key is to push yourself continually to find the edge that will make a difference.
Focus on Function
The body is a system. It is a system like no other. It is a completely open system, that is highly adaptable. The whole of the actions that the body can achieve is greater than the sum of its parts. When the body needs to solve a moment problem it is almost magic what it can do. Never sell the body and its capabilities short. If you want to understand function start with walking gait. Gait is very basic but incredibly complex when you put it under a microscope. Gait is the basis of function. The legs and arms move in opposition and the shoulders move in a counter rotation to the hips. There is constant loading and unloading from toenails to fingernails in response to the ground and gravity. Running adds another degree of complexity because of the flight phase but the principles are the same. Learn to look at movement with new eyes. Look at gait as the basis of throwing, jumping and freestyle swimming. Searching for symmetry is contrary to how the body is constructed. The body is fundamentally asymmetric. The heart is on one side, one lobe of the brain is slightly larger than the other, there is a dominant foot, leg, arm, hand, eye, and ear. Because the body is smart this fundamental asymmetry is proportional and has no negative effect. Today because we are able to measure more, there has been a tendency to look at these asymmetries as something that must be corrected. If fact these perceived asymmetries may actually be what makes the athlete able to perform at their best injury free. We must also remember that as an athlete accumulates training age in a particular sport that the body will adapt and favor a limb or a side of the body. To understand function in the body and how to train it don’t forget to look under the hood. You must understand muscle function which in most cases is significantly different that what is taught in traditional anatomy courses. We do not live in an anatomical position; we move all joints through multiple planes of motion heavily influenced by gravity and the ground. The brain does not recognize individual muscles, it recognizes muscle synergies and patterns of motion, therefore it is futile to isolate individual muscles. Isolating individual muscles results in neural confusion. Train the linkages and connections and the links will take care of themselves. The goal in training movement is to link, connect, sync and coordinate to produce efficient flowing athletic movements. The solution is quite simple – take advantage of the bodies wisdom and construction to train and rehab movement using multiple joints, working through multiple planes of motion in a proprioceptively enriched environment. Never lose sight of the fact that each athlete is a case study of one and will respond slightly differently so it is important to base training on principles and can be adapted to each individual. Hopefully this post has raised some questions and will stimulate thought and discussion. The longer I coach, the more I am in awe of what the body can do. Just like I present movement problems for the athlete to solve, each day as they solve those movement problems raises more question about what I need to do to make the athlete better. It’s a process!
Firing Away ( An Old Post Resurrected)
"A lot of things weren't firing — his glutes, his hips, thighs," (Training Guru to the star players – name deleted to protect the guilty) told the newspaper. "I wouldn't say his condition was the most severe, I wouldn't say it was the best. … But if I were to classify it on a scale of one to 10 with 10 being the most extreme, I'd say he was definitely in the seven, eight category." If those muscles were not firing how did this player walk? Let’s get logical rather scientific. If there is an injury the body is very intelligent much smarter than the coaches and therapists who try to intervene by turning muscles on or off. The body will guard and call in substitute, as in most teams the substitutes are not as good as the starters, what we need to need to do is figure how to get the first string back into the game and playing as a team. We don’t do that lying on a training table trying to get individual muscles to fire and then hope we can get them back into sequence. We need to figure out what muscle synergies we can use to coordinate all those muscles to work together as a team. Otherwise it would be so simple, just find the master switch, program the body, turn it on and just like flipping a light switch beautiful motion. Hate to break it to the gurus, but there is no switch. We need to understand planes of motion and muscle actions and be able to figure out how to manipulate those variables along with the ground to get the first team players back on the floor playing together. Just remember if they ain’t firing you ain’t moving. It is not about firing it is about coordination and teamwork. Join the team and skip down the functional path to movement bliss. (This is a post I wrote many years ago, if anything this thinking is more pervasive now than it was then.)
My Vision
My vision is to develop robust, resilient, adaptable athletes who are physically, psychologically & tactically ready to compete to win in the competitive arena. In 52 years, the vision has never changed. However, over the years the means of achieving the vision has had to adapt, because it has had to adapt. Robustness is a cornerstone. Train for the demands of the sport taking into consideration each athlete’s needs. Resilience is a quality that transcends sports. It is learning to deal with adversity and bounce back better. For the coaches and athlete there are good and bad days, how we handle those is a measure of who we are. The athlete has to be adaptable rather than adapted. This has demanded a well-rounded program that emphasized the development of all athletic skill. No one physical quality can be emphasized to the expense of another. Ultimately it is about being ready for the chaos of the competition. All we can do is give the athlete a chance to win and trust that our preparation will serve them well. As teachers(Coaches) that is our final exam!
Doing it Better
I am always trying to find ways to do what I do better. I have a defined system of training that I am constantly working to refine. With success it is tempting to stand pat and not change. I am constantly learning, learning what I do works and learning what I can do to make it better. The more I stray form the basics the more inconsistent the results. There are key areas that you must address with every athlete regardless of the sport. I have learned that before I add something new to the training that I must be sure that it is better than something I am already doing. I have also learned that if I add something, that I need to take something out. It is too easy to copy YouTube exercises without context. Each exercise in the program has a specific purpose that must fit with the other exercises and drills in the session. If you come and watch a training session you won’t see anything sexy or cute, you will see basic movements designed to be sport appropriate to make the athlete robust and resilient. Steady progress toward a goal is more important than spectacular training sessions that can’t be repeated. Never forget it is a process – know the process, invest in the process, work the process and enjoy the results.
Get Beyond the Numbers
In today’s world of high performance sport we have the potential to bury ourselves in numbers. There is not much we can’t analyze, measure or monitor. In many ways this is a positive step forward & some ways it can be negative. The key is keeping the numbers in context. If you are letting the numbers dictate everything you do then it is time to reconsider. We coach people who do the sport not machines, there is a huge about of individual variability to the same training and competition stress not to mention the emotional and psychological factors that weigh in. Talk to your athletes; closely observe their body language. Find out about the rest of their lives, remember they are athletes only 2 to 4 hours a day the other hours of the day can a more of an impact than the training time – 24 hour athlete. Sharpen your observation and communication skills. It will add a dimension to the numbers, sometimes it will validate the numbers and other times it will dictate throwing out the numbers and following your coaching instincts. I cannot help but think how we did it before we had the ability to gather the numbers we have today. After all in high performance sport the only number that counts at the end of the competition are those numbers on the scoreboard.
Some Thoughts
Don’t take what you read as gospel. There is little that is new. Always trace the origins. If it is too good to be true, it is probably not true. Be a detective, think like Sherlock Holmes. Think for yourself. Ask hard incisive questions. Stop following the flock. Shake it up, be disruptive. Never be satisfied in what you know, keep learning & growing.
If You Think You Have It Figured Out
Maybe you have just completed a successful season and won a championship. The temptation is to rest on your laurels. To do the same training again. In order to stay the same, you must change. Rethink what and how you did it. What must be reemphasized? What must be changed? How can I build on this year’s success? What is necessary to avoid stagnation and continue to achieve adaptation? The athletes will quickly accommodate to the stimulus. If you do what you have always done, you will get what you have always got. Terrible English but an important point to consider in order to get optimum return from training. So how do you progress? It is also necessary to recognize that there are certain training periods where you just need to put your nose to the grindstone and get after it. Sometimes you don’t really need to change the training the stimulus, just change the sequence of where it is placed in a program. Change is always uncomfortable, especially after achieving success. Sustained excellence demands continual change.