Author: Vernon Gambetta
Fascia – The Latest Fad?
It seems all of a sudden everyone has discovered fascia. I heard yesterday there is a fascia exercise book coming out. Once again are we heading the down the reductionist road here. We can’t ignore fascia, but just like bone, muscle, tendon and ligaments they are all part of a beautiful self-organizing adaptive system – the body. Lets not trivialize the role fascia plays, but let's put it in context. Anatomy Trains is a nice concept, a unique way to conceptualize the body, but not the way or the answer.
Some Current Reading
These are some of the books I have read over the last several months. As I put this list together I realized how wide and varied the subject matter is. I guess this represents how I think. I tend to follow my interests and them let them take me where they may. I love learning and connecting seemingly unconnected things. Not much that is directly on coaching and training, I have reading more research and going back through my library on that stuff. Winning Matters by Frank Dick A must for every coaches library. Words of wisdom and advice from Frank Dick, former Chief coach of British Athletics and a mentor and friend. Reading this was like sitting down with Frank at my house and talking. Outstanding – 47 Ways to Make Your Organization Exceptional by John G Miller. Simple concepts and ideas. The Dragonfly Effect by Andy Smith and Jennifer Aaker. Many good ideas here. Where Good Ideas Come From by Steven Johnson. Outstanding, a very good read. Proofiness – The Dark Arts of Mathematical Deception by Charles Seife Bad Science by Ben Goldacre. Very good, will make read headlines about the lastest and greatest medical studies with a different perspective. The Shallows – What the Internet is doing to our brains by Nicholas Carr. Will make you want to turn off you computer and get off the grid. Play – How it shapes the brain, opens the imagination, and invigorates the soul by Stuart Born, MD. Good read. Unfolding the Napkin by Dan Roan. Good ideas on organized and visually presneting yopur thoughts. Complexity – The Emerging Science At The Edge of Order And Chaos by M. Mitchell Waldrop. Good overview of complexity science and it's history. Fire In The Mind – Science, Faith, and The Search For Order by George Johnson. More on complexity science. Strange Beauty - Murray Gell-Mann and the Revolution in Twentieth Century Physics by George Johnson. A biography of a brilliant man. Monsoon – The Indian Ocean And The Future of American Power by Robert D. Kaplan. Big fan of Kaplan's writing and perspective. This one focuses on the history and geopolitics of the nations surrounding the Indian ocean. A must read to undersatnd the background behind todays headlines. Washington Rules by Andrew Bacevich. Also a big fan of Bacevich. He is a voice crying in the dark about our role on the world. Our leaders need to listen to this man. Also read one of his other books Limits of Power. He will make you think. In the Company of Soldiers by Rick Atkinson. About being embedded with 101st airborne and David Pataeus command staff at the invasion of Iraq. Really makes you wonder why were are there. Striking similarities to his WWII book Army At Dawn, about how unprepared we were. Yalta – The Price of Peace by S.M. Plokhy. Good read. Wolf – The Lives of Jack London by James L. Haley. Good read. Outside Looking In by Gary Wills. Good read, got me intetrested in reading more of Wills writing. The Gun by CJ Shivers. History of AK 47, good read. Looking For A Ship by John McPhee. Just reread this, big fan of John McPhee, actually going back and rereading all his books. The Sugar Necklace – My Adventures In Caribbean Cooking, Eating, And Island Life by Ann Vanderhoof. Looks at the Caribbean through the food. Intresting. The Sugar King of Havana by John Paul Rathbone. Good read, some insights into Cuba and Castro, The Glass Rainbow by James Lee Burke. Outsatnding detective novel from one of my favorite writters. The Reversal by Michael Connelly. Another great one if you like detective fiction.
Fitness
The word fitness conjures many images and feelings. In many circles fitness is equated with appearance – he or she looks fit. Many athletes equate fitness with gut check workouts that you do to get “fit”. In my eyes fitness is a moving target. It is certainly not something you are. It is an ongoing process. Being fit early an athlete’s career has different connotations than fitness for an athlete who has trained and competed for 10 years. As coaches we need to broaden our definition of fitness and widen our concepts of what it is. I always ask myself a simple question: Fit for what? Are your getting fit for the game or are we getting fit for an arbitrary test that measures fitness? Train for the sport; understand the demands of the sport. If the athlete’s training is well designed then the fitness should be threaded throughout, sometimes it will be an upfront objective and other times it is very transparent. Don’t forget that training is cumulative and that work capacity accumulates from year to year. Be fit for your game.
Strength and Conditioning – Biological Principles and Practical Applications
I am about one third through this book and I have found it rich in content. I have already picked up some useful ideas. It is a must read for anyone in the athletic development field. The editors have done a great job of bringing together some of the best applied sport scientists in the world to provide the current science behind what we do day to day as coaches. My only criticism is the title; I wished they had not used strength & conditioning in the title. I am very biased toward athletic development because it more completely describes the evolution of the field. (That’s my hang up and bias). Without a doubt, this is a great addition to my library. Foreword (Sir Clive Woodward). Preface. 1.1 Skeletal Muscle Physiology (Valmor Tricoli). 1.2 Neuromuscular Physiology (Alberto Rainoldi and Marco Gazzoni). 1.3 Bone Physiology (Jörn Rittweger). 1.4 Tendon Physiology (Nicola Maffulli, Umile Giuseppe Longo, Filippo Spiezia and Vincenzo Denaro). 1.5 Bioenergetics of Exercise (R.J. Maughan). 1.6 Respiratory and Cardiovascular Physiology (Jeremiah J. Peiffer and Chris R. Abbiss). 1.7 Genetic and Signal Transduction Aspects of Strength Training (Henning Wackerhage, Arimantas Lionikas, Stuart Gray and Aivaras Ratkevicius). 1.8 Strength and Conditioning Biomechanics (Robert U. Newton). 2.1 Neural Adaptations to Resistance Exercise (Per Aagaard). 2.2 Structural and Molecular Adaptations to Training (Jesper L. Andersen). 2.3 Adaptive Processes in Human Bone and Tendon (Constantinos N. Maganaris, Jörn Rittweger and Marco V. Narici). 2.4 Biomechanical Markers and Resistance Training (Christian Cook and Blair Crewther). 2.5 Cardiovascular Adaptations to Strength and Conditioning (Andy Jones and Fred DiMenna). 2.6 Exercise-induced Muscle Damage and Delayed-onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS) (Kazunori Nosaka). 2.7 Alternative Modalities of Strength and Conditioning: Electrical Stimulation and Vibration (Nicola A. Maffiuletti and Marco Cardinale). 2.8 The Stretch–Shortening Cycle (SSC) (Anthony Blazevich). 2.9 Repeated-sprint Ability (RSA) (David Bishop and Olivier Girard). 2.10 The Overtraining Syndrome (OTS) (Romain Meeusen and Kevin De Pauw). 3.1 Principles of Athlete Testing (Robert U. Newton and Marco Cardinale). 3.2 Speed and Agility Assessment (Warren Young and Jeremy Sheppard). 3.3 Testing Anaerobic Capacity and Repeated-sprint Ability (David Bishop and Matt Spencer). 3.4 Cardiovascular Assessment and Aerobic Training Prescription (Andy Jones and Fred DiMenna). 3.5 Biochemical Monitoring in Strength and Conditioning (Michael R. McGuigan and Stuart J. Cormack). 3.6 Body Composition: Laboratory and Field Methods of Assessment (Arthur Stewart and Tim Ackland). 3.7 Total Athlete Management (TAM) and Performance Diagnosis (Robert U. Newton and Marco Cardinale). 4.1 Resistance Training Modes: A Practical Perspective (Michael H. Stone and Margaret E. Stone). 4.2 Training Agility and Change-of-direction Speed (CODS) (Jeremy Sheppard and Warren Young). 4.3 Nutrition for Strength Training (Christopher S. Shaw and Kevin D. Tipton). 4.4 Flexibility (William A. Sands). 4.5 Sensorimotor Training (Urs Granacher, Thomas Muehlbauer, Wolfgang Taube, Albert Gollhofer and Markus Gruber). 5.1 Strength and Conditioning as a Rehabilitation Tool (Andreas Schlumberger). 5.2 Strength Training for Children and Adolescents (Avery D. Faigenbaum). 5.3 Strength and Conditioning Considerations for the Paralympic Athlete (Mark Jarvis, Matthew Cook and Paul Davies).
Just Train!
We need to train. Just get out there now – run, jump, throw, lift, push, pull, twist, and turn and get tired with a purpose. Have something to eat, take a nap, get some rest and go out and get after it again. Does it really have to be more complicated than that? Do we need training Taj Mahals filled with machines that flash and generate random numbers, where you are afraid to grunt, get chalk dust on the floor or drop a weight? Give me the basics and I will more than make do. The basics will produce champion’s consistently, no frills, just results. Forget prehab, just train! Any training program worth it’s salt will have a transparent injury prevention component. Today we do more prehab than training and have more injuries than ever. That should give us a clue. We may be causing injuries rather preventing them because we are not preparing the athletes for the demands of their sport because our focus is in the wrong place. Get them ready for the game. Make sure the training programs address all components of physical literacy, all the time. Stop looking for dysfunctions and imbalances. Look for functionality and train propriability. Athletes are not normal by the very nature of what they are trying to do; they are constantly operating at the edge of the performance envelope. We need to bulletproof them by leaving no stone unturned in their training programs. Give them the where with all to operate at the edge. Recovery? Recovery from what? First you have appropriately stress the body with directed training. Eat food, sleep, stretch, learn your body and listen to it. Train hard, train a little harder, go easy and then rest. Don’t take an ice bath or get a massage every time you break a sweat, instead learn how your body responds to various training stressors and learn what you need to do to recover from those. I know this sounds old school and it is. Open you eyes and tune your ears and you will see more voodoo and hear more pseudo science passed off as the things to do in training. We need to pause, take a step back and assess where we have been, where we are and where we are going. We need to cut out the marketing and hype and apply a heavy dose of common sense to our analysis. We can’t, nor should we turn back the back the clock, instead we need to open our eyes. Why? Very simply I am concerned. I am concerned about the direction athletic development is taking in building and rebuilding the athlete. We are trivializing the role of the coach. We are on a path to making the coach irrelevant in the process. We must address the previously mentioned concerns and address them now. Coaching is leading, constantly learning in order to better guide the athlete on their journey toward excellence. We need to get back to basics, take command of our ship, clearly define what we do and do it without hesitation or reservation.
Rice University Speed Clinic
I will be speaking at the Rice University Speed Clinic Saturday Febrary 19 along with Dr. Peter Weyand and Mike Young. It should be a good one. Hope to see you there. http://speedsymposium.eventbrite.com/
Coaching is:
Coaching is: Leading – By both word and action Following – Being a good trooper when necessary Communicating – Not just talking, but also listening. Sending and receiving Being There – In the moment fully engaged Motivating – Cajoling, encouraging, pulling, tugging the athlete into unexplored territory Innovating – Seeing the world with new eyes, looking at old problems and finding new solutions Courageous – Making decisions that are not comfortable, taking a stand when no one else will Pragmatic – Getting the job done regardless of resources and circumstances Real – No posing or pretentions Very Special – When Chip Kelly, University of Oregon Football coach was asked what he would say to his team before they took the field to play for the national championship, his answer was simple: ”I will tell them I love them.”
Using the Past – Sage Advice from Ken Burns
Yesterday as I was doing some research for my new book and I rediscovered Ken Burns 2004Commencement address to the graduates of Georgetown University. I have always enjoyed his documentary films. As a student of history I appreciate what he has done to keep history alive for current generations. His words resonated with me in light of what I see and hear in the world today and in the smaller less significant world of athletic development. Burns words are in bold, italics and my comments are in regular font. As you pursue your goals in life, that is to say your future, pursue your past. Let it be your guide. Insist on having a past and then you will have a future. Be careful that you are not living in the past, learn from the past, use it as a reference point Do not descend too deeply into specialism in your work. Educate all your parts. You will be healthier. Replace cynicism with its old-fashioned antidote, skepticism. Be a generalist, follow your curiosity, go outside your field and see how others think and do. Don’t confuse success with excellence. The poet Robert Penn Warren once told me that “careerism is death.” The pursuit of excellence has it’s own rewards. Insist on heroes. And be one. Be the best you, you can be, regardless of other people’s judgments and expectations. Read. The book is still the greatest manmade machine of all — not the car, not the TV, not the computer. Get off the Internet and read real books, get familiar with the library and all it’s resources. Build your own library. Write: write letters. Keep journals. Besides your children, there is no surer way of achieving immortality. Writing a journal, a bloging even tweeting gives you a focus. Write for yourself, no one else needs to read it. I hope Ken Burn’s thoughts and my comments will cause you to take a few moments to reflect, to slow down and appreciate where we have come from so that we can move forward in a positive direction with a true sense of purpose.