Author: Vernon Gambetta
The Gambetta Method – An Overview
The video is an overview of some of the ideas and concepts that are the foundation for my system. The Gambetta Method is simply my own system of training that has evolved over my 42 years of coaching. I would hope that as each of you journey through your coaching careers you will evolve your own system that fits the athlete’s and the sports that your are coaching. Hopefully this will serve as a catalyst to help you.
Effective Program Design & Implementation
Program design is a process that is a blend of art and science tempered with a heavy dose of practical experience. I always want to get it “right,” therefore there is always a degree of fine-tuning both in designing the microcyles and the design and implementation of each training session. Ultimately it comes down to knowing the athlete’s you are working with, how they respond to training, what hey bring to the table. I always start out with the finished product in mind. That must be clear to the athletes as well. I need to make sure that all deficiencies are addressed in a systematic manner. The threads of all components of training are always there; nothing disappears or gets lost in the shuffle. All components are trained during all phases of the training year; all that changes is the emphasis on the componenet. Each cycle has a general theme with specific objectives for each session. The objectives are measurable and I make sure the athletes know those objectives. After all, if I expect them to achieve the objectives they need to know what they are shooting for. I always try to incorporate variability without creating confusion. Variation must have a purpose. Often variability comes from derivatives of exercise and drills rather than introducing an entirely new drill or exercise. I am always aware of context, where the workout, drill or exercise fits in the bigger picture. The athlete must be sufficiently challenged so that there will be training adaptation. Rest and recovery both intra workout and inter workout must be planned. You must confer regularly with the sport coach to understand the content and extent of the technical and tactical work. Athletic development training must fit with the technical and tactical work, it cannot be imposed on top of it. If it does not you will add stress to stress and harm not help the athlete. Planning the actual session is the key to the whole process. The training starts with warm-up. Warm-up can become mundane so I work to cycle the content of the warm-up so that it varies according to the time of the training year and the goal of the training session. That being said there are certain elements of warm-up that never vary. That is their anchor and serves to provide feedback to me regarding training readiness and the residual effects of the previous workouts. You must coach the warm-up! It is very important because it is the transition from their daily activities to training and it sets the tempo for the session. It is the time where you adress fundamnetal movments that are the basis of the training to follow. The composition of the actual session must follow a prescribed order based on the objectives of the workout. I try to build in tasks or epochs in the session that allow me to gauge the progress of each athlete, as a rule of thumb Training=Testing and Testing=Training. No workout stands alone and no component of the workout stands alone. All systems are involved and affected in varying degrees. For example the emphasis in a session may be on speed acceleration, but there is spillover from that which affects other qualities. Therefore it is important to pay close attention to the order of the training components and the sequence of exercises and drills designed to train that component. Make sure that all components are compatible. I work to design each session so that it demands concentration and focus from the athlete. I want rest to be active and I want them mindfully involved in all aspects of the workouts. If they are “resting” I want them observing and if possible coaching their teammates. We must never lose sight of the fact that we are training to compete so we must train accordingly.
Experience
What kind of experience do you have? How long have you been doing what you are doing? If you have one year of coaching experience or fifty are you constantly challenging yourself to get better? Are you gaining experience or doing the same thing over and over? Are you making mistakes, learning from them and using them as springboards to improvement? The only way to gain valuable positive experience is to take risks, make mistakes, it is OK. If you stay in your comfort zone and never make mistakes you will not grow, you will repeat the same experience, a very dull existence. Who would you rather be around and learn from? Someone who is closed minded and knows everything or someone who is excited about learning and constantly working to improve him or herself? For me there is no choice, each day is a new adventure, an opportunity to get better, to expand your horizons. Last Sunday I had lunch with Jim Steen, men’s swim coach at Kenyon College, an icon in coaching, and winner of 31 straight Division III swimming championships. As I reflected on our conversation I could not help but think that here is a man who could be complacent, satisfied, be comfortable in his knowledge, but no way, he is still working to fine tune, to learn to do things better. Experience is a great teacher, but as Jim Steen said to me it is just a process of learning what you don’t know. You gain experience by seeking out new ideas and new approaches, you rediscover old methods and ideas that previously did not work, but will work now at a different time and place. Gaining experience makes each day exciting; there is something to wake up for!
Training Your Strengths
Should you train to your strengths or train to improve your weaknesses? Training to your strengths seems to run contrary to the way most coaches think. There is something about coaches and coaching that makes us want to train the weaknesses. It is so typical to hear coaches talk about what if. What if so and so had a better vertical jump, was stronger or could just handle the workload? Maybe before we focus on what the athlete cannot do we need to find out everything they can do? What is their real strength not their perceived strengths? Are they using their strengths to their best advantage? How are they using their strengths at the present time? How is training structured now? Is an inordinate amount of emphasis being given to training to improve weaknesses to the exclusion of the strengths? Sometimes we can focus so much on improving the weaknesses that we negate the strengths. Ultimately the goal should be a balanced program that takes advantage of the athlete’s strengths and minimizes the weaknesses. Do not focus on strengths to the exclusion of working on the weaknesses; rather learn to manage the weakness.
Thoughts on Coaching – 42 Years Later
Today I begin my 42nd year of coaching. It has been a journey that is for sure. It seems like just yesterday that I walked out on that track at Santa Barbara high school. I was 21 years old, three years older than the seniors, scared spit less but still cocky, thinking I knew it all. No way in my wildest imagination did I think I would coach this long. I am almost 64 years old, now I know I don't know it all and definitely not cocky. Looking back I have many fond memories, some regrets, definitely some things I would do over or never have done. The fondest memories are not from wins or loses, but from the relationships, the people, the athlete’s and coaches that I have been fortunate to work with during this time. Looking back one of the biggest lesson that I learned is that coaching is not technical expertise, the X’s and O’s, it is about people. It is how you communicate and relate to those you work with. It is so trite to say, but we coach people who run, jump and throw, not runners, jumpers or throwers. Sometimes I lost sight of that. I also have learned how important it is to take time to slow down to stop and smell the roses (Still struggling to reconcile this). It is so easy to get caught up in preparing the athlete, winning games and meets or losing them, quickly moving on to the next step while focusing on the big picture that you forget to take the journey step by step. Slow down, enjoy the process, and understand that sometimes you will have to take a step back to move forward. It has a way of working out as long as you know your destination, have a current road map, a working compass oriented to true north and a timetable, you will get there. If you don’t you will know why and be able to reorient and keep moving forward. I also learned in this journey that the path was much clearer and easy to navigate if I found people who had traveled the path before me, who had done what I wanted to do. A major turning point in my career was three days I spent with Tom Tellez (Coach at University of Houston) in January 1982. He completely changed the way I approached the track & field events from a technical perspective. I distinctly remember him telling me that he had invited me so I did not have to make the same mistakes he had made, so that I could learn from his mistakes. He saved me a lot of years, as have others. For those people I very thankful. You have to be yourself. Know who you are and why you coach. Know why your athletes participate. Constantly evaluate yourself. Be brutally honest in your self-evaluation. That is the only way you can improve as a coach and as a person. Today, January 3, 2011 is the only January 3, 2011 there will ever be. Make today special. I am very fortunate I get to coach this morning so it is starting out special!
The Generalist
Maybe it is my basic attention deficit nature, but I know I am most comfortable and I think most effective when I am around and work with generalists. I am a generalist that has been my focus since I started teaching and coaching. I think that is why I gravitated toward the decathlon when I competed in track. I knew that training for and competing in decathlon would make me a better coach because I had to look for commonalities between events and movements. It is always a challenge to look for and make connections but as you travel farther down the generalist path it becomes easier to see connections. Get someone to join you; together you will see things no one else is looking at. You will see movement and exercise with different eyes, certainly differently than conventional wisdom would have us believe. If you get too narrow and specialized it is easy to miss the forest for the trees. There are certainly times when you need to narrow your focus and look closer at parts, but then you need to step back and put those parts into the context of the whole. Getting too narrow and too detailed can be like looking through the wrong end of telescope, it is a very distorted view. A generalist develops the skill of making connections among seemingly unrelated information. As a generalist you quickly learn it's not the links, but the linkages that make the system. The specialists focus on the links, the small parts, the generalist stands back and sees the bigger, "holistic" picture, how the pieces work together. In 2011 I look forward to sharing more of the generalists view of training. Have a healthy and Happy New Year.
Ending the Decade – Some Basic Concepts to Guide Training
As an Athletic Development coach everything I do is driven and guided by principles. I thought the end of the first decade of the new millennium would be a good time to reinforce these concepts. These are the principles that are the basis of my system. These are not answers, but concepts. Start with what we are trying to develop: Athleticism – The ability to perform athletic movements (Run, Jump, Throw) at optimum speed with precision, style and grace in the context of your sport. The basic concepts I use to guide me in the development of Athleticism are: Ø Have a Plan, Execute It, and Evaluate It Have a clear vision of the end product plan and execute your training accordingly. Be realistic. Ø Build the Complete Athlete The body is self-organizing and very smart; give it movement problems to solve. All systems work together – You can’t separate or isolate, metabolic, endocrine hormonal, neural etc. Train all components all the time – Use It or Lose It Ø Fundamental Movement Skills Before Specific Sport Skills Develop physical literacy to prepare the athlete to enter the competitive arena without any physical, psychological, technical, or tactical limitations. Train fundamental movement skills everyday regardless of the level of athlete, they are the ABC’s and the multiplication tables of athletic development. Ø Build the Athlete from the Ground Up We are bipedal terrestrial animals; gait is the cornerstone of function for all sports. Strong legs provide the foundation. Ø Train the Core as the Center of the Action Movement revolves around and through the core. Train the core moving and standing. Remember all training is core training. Ø To Be Fast You Must Train Fast You are what you train to be! Everyone has potential for more speed, but we must train speed in, not train it out. Ø Build a Work Capacity Base Appropriate For Your Sport The key is “appropriate” for your sport, not just work, but work with a purpose. Ø Train Toe Nails To Fingernails Train movements not muscles using multi-joint & multi-plane movements Ø Training is Cumulative Win the Workout – You can’t win a game, match, or race without winning workouts. Training accumulates day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month, and year-to-year. Hopefully this will provide some food for thought going into the new year and the next decade. Good luck in your training and learning. Have a happy and healthy New Year.
Selecting & Using Training Tools
That drill really looks cool. That piece of equipment is really high tech,it has lots of lights, dials and printouts. I saw so and so do an exercise and they are winning. Yes, that is great, but? Are those good reasons for using a training tool? There are some questions you need to ask when considering new training tools or evaluating what you are currently using: Are you doing it because everyone else is doing, because it is the exercise of the day or the drill of the month? Monkey see, monkey do? Is the tool you are planning to use appropriate for the task at hand? Do you know how to use the new tool? Have you done your homework? In essence have you read the instruction manual that came in the box? Does the athlete understand what the training tool is and why they will be using it? This is important because the athlete is an active participant in the process. Coaching is working with the athlete to get them better; therefore their feedback in necessary and important. Is the new tool really going to be better than what you are doing now? Is the new tool replacing something in the training program or is it going to be added into the existing program? Think, analyze – What are your objectives? What is your plan for achieving those objectives? The training tools represent the actual point of implementation of the training; therefore the selection and use of the tools must be more than just exercises and drills. They must serve a specific purpose. Also consider that Training = Testing and Testing = Training. Can the training tool you are considering give you daily feedback? All of us have our go to tools. Know what yours are. I have certain tools that I use across sports if they are appropriate. I use them because I know where they fit in my training system. They are reliable and provide me with accurate information regarding the athlete’s progress. I would need much convincing to eliminate those tools. In today’s marketing driven environment it is often difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff. Hopefully this is some food for thought that can help you make better choices in selecting training tools.