Author: Vernon Gambetta
Two Good Reads
Just finished these two real informative and enjoyable books. The Eastern Stars is about a town in the Dominican Republics, San Pedro de Macoris, which has produced a disproportionate number of professional baseball players based on its size. It is so much more than a book on baseball. It is a look at the history and culture of the Dominican Republics using their passion for baseball as a portal. It is a great read. I really like Kurlansky’s writing style and thoroughness. The other is a book about how great teachers teach – what the best college teachers do, by Ken Bain. It is a worthwhile handbook for anyone who teaches or coaches. Author does a good job of weaving research on latest theories of learning with example s of how professors apply the theories. I wish this book would have been available when I started teaching and coaching.
Wanted – A Few Great Professionals
If you are interested in excellence, learning and being a leader in Athletic Development I would like to invite to the 2011 GAIN Apprentorship. The fourth edition will be held June 17 to June 22, 2011. Mark those dates on your calendar. This is open by application only, so apply now. I am looking for professionals who want to grow and make a lasting contribution toward defining the field of Athletic Development. This is not for dilettantes; you must be serious student of your discipline who is willing to share your ideas and be challenged. If you are interested in applying email me at gstscoach@gmail.com of call me at 941-378-178 for more information and details. There is a special scholastic rate and two scholarships available for young professionals. I am currently working on finalizing the faculty and the site. Based on the feedback from the first three years this is a game changer, I know it certainly has been for me. Some pictures from GAIN 2010
Who are you training? Plow Horses or Race Horses
It is important to know who you are training, the type of training they need and what type of training they respond to. In my experience you have two types of athletes, the thoroughbred and the plough horse or workhorse. The thoroughbred is high strung, wired differently; they demand and need high intensity short bouts of work that challenge them. They are high maintenance, basically a pain the ass sometimes. They don’t need more; they do not respond to volume loading in fact it deadens them. They resist that type of work, because they know it is counterproductive for them. In team sports these guys are often labeled as “prima donnas” (sometimes they are), but in my experience they are the money players. These are the go to athletes, the ones who score, touchdowns or game winning baskets. They have pop; they are wired for speed and explosiveness. These win games. At the opposite end is the plow horse. These guys are workers, they can’t get enough, it seems the more they do, the better they get. Coaches love this type of athlete because they will do anything they are asked to do and then do more. You can count of them, they are not spectacular, but they are steady. You always know what you are going to get here. There is another group,a tweener so to speak, the quarter horse, a smaller group, a different bread. They are a product of the old west where a horse had to work all day and then sprint to chase some runaway cattle at night. They have some of the characteristics of both the thoroughbred and the plough horse. They are fast and explosive, they are tough and they have work capacity. You need to have some of these also to have a great team. They also will win games for you. So now that we know what we have to work with and agree that each has different characteristics, then why do we train them all the same? I have made that mistake and so have you. Different athletes need programs that fit their needs; one size does not fit all. This is the time of year when American football and soccer in most parts of the world have ended training camps and are beginning their seasons. How many of the thoroughbreds can’t go the starting gate or if they can are not 100% because they have been deadened or hurt in training camp? Tough to admit, but it is true. We need to find a way to individualize in a team context. It is not easy, but it can be done. Everyone must be on the same page with an implicit understanding that the goal of training is to get everyone to the game, match or race at their optimum, ready to perform in the competitive arena. One moral of this story is that if you want to win the Kentucky Derby make sure you are training thoroughbreds and train them like thoroughbreds.
Changing the World
41 years when I started coaching and teaching I was bound and determined to change the world and I tried. The end result was frustration of myself and those around me. Well 41 years later I am still trying to change world, but I have come to the realization that it is not as simple as I thought it was years ago. Hopefully with age comes a bit of wisdom, so over the past several years I have reframed my concept of what the world is. It is a much simpler proposition, the world as I define it, is my small world, those whom I can influence day to day, those that I interact with, the individuals, teams and organizations that I work with on a regular basis, myself, my family and friends. A friend of mine called it preaching to the choir. Yes it is and if I can get that choir to sing more harmoniously and even a bit louder then we have a chance to save our own world. If I can save my world then by example there will be a chance to influence change in the bigger world. The following quote by Tom Wujec says it quite nicely. “If you are going to create something significant that makes the world a better place, that rights a wrong, that solves a problem, or prevents the end of something good, then you are going to have to tell this story of meaning and significance to others.” For me the story is and always will be to build and rebuild the complete athlete by following the functional path. For me this is a cause, not a business. So everyday I strive to do something that no one else in the world is doing and do it better. This makes each day a unique challenge, it sustains me and challenges me and those around me to be better.
The Slow Leak
Here is the scenario. A team or for that matter an individual makes a huge investment in their off season and their preseason training. Training camp commences which usually consists of multiple sessions a day and the emphasis is now entirely on the sport itself. Training of the physical qualities is stopped, or drastically reduced. There is minimal work done on strength training, power development or speed development outside of the actual activities of the sport practice. The process of the slow leak begins. All the physical qualities that were developed in the off and pre season begin to erode. Some erode faster than others. In the female athlete strength and power erode rapidly. The best analogy is that is like driving your car with a slow leak in a tire. For quite sometime it is virtually unnoticeable but a time goes on and the tire loses pressure the ride get bumpier and bumpier until the tire is entirely flat. This is precisely what we do to our athletes if we do not a have comprehensive program to stabilize and even in some cases continue to build the physical capacities we have developed outside the competition season. Mind you that if the job has been done in the off-season then stabilizing those qualities during the competitive season is not especially difficult, but it must be done in a systematic manner. In season training is not a matter of volume, it is more a matter of very intense directed work designed to hone and sharpen specific physical qualities based on individual needs and sport demands. All of this comes back to the law of reversibility – use it or lose it. Relatively small modules of speed development, power and strength repeated on a regular cyclical basis certainly can stabilize those qualities for the duration of the competitive season. With younger developmental athletes whose competition season is not extended you would be remiss to not continue to develop their physical qualities. If you do not, you are missing a huge window of adaptation, an opportunity to take advantage of the endocrine hormonal advantage their have during their developing years. For females generally this is in the age range of from 12 to 16 and for males from 14 to 18. Those are general guidelines that must be adapted to each individual. If it is long extended competitive season then you need to look for strategic opportunities to have some more extensive periods of emphasis on various qualities based on individual need. Look at what qualities the games, matches, meets and actual practices address and reinforce those without adding stress to stress. My rule of thumb is that, as the season progresses I want to make sure to keep a good thread of strength training up to and through the peak competition phase. The female athlete must NEVER stop strength training, even up through and to the championship competition. The male athlete can reduce and sometime curtail strength training entirely during the taper with no ill effects. The moral of the story is that to keep the tire from leaking you must train during the competition season. In future posts I will provide some strategies to achieve optimum training during the competitive season within the time constraints that usually exist.
Step Back
Sometimes it is important to step back from what you are coaching, reassess and look at the bigger picture. It is so easy to get caught in a rut, a comfort zone so to speak, that you begin to run on autopilot. It is easy and convenient to look at the parts and zero in on pieces of the training puzzle and lose sight of the end objective. Instead step back and focus on the connections that occur in movement, look carefully at what is connecting the parts. It is the parts that break down, but to focus on the parts will not fix the problem. What is happening at the parts is the symptom, not the cause of movement error or injury. Find the causes of movement errors, do not focus on the symptoms. Step back and look at how the parts interact, and then do everything you can to enhance that interaction. Smooth efficient movement is flowing, rhythmic and synchronous. Our goal in training is to enhance that flow, rhythm, timing and coordination.
A Personal Manifesto
I have just finished a physically exhausting but very mentally rewarding stretch of work where I have been fortunate to interact and exchange ideas with a wide range of professionals in the area of athletic development, rehabilitation and sport coaching. As I spent the last week reflecting on the last three months – What I saw and what I learned, I came back to something I wrote in one my first blogs in 2005, it is my personal manifesto. I thought I would share an expanded and updated version it to provide you with an understanding of where I am coming from and frame my ideas: Innovate – Lead do not follow. Look at old ideas and concepts with new eyes. Operate on the edge, constantly search for a better way. Educate – Share ideas and be a sustained positive influence on how those I teach think act and feel. Change the World – Lofty but each of us have the responsibility to make our own world better. I define the world as my world, what I can directly control and directly influence. Define the Field of Athletic Development – Athletic Development is coaching and coaching is teaching. Values Driven – Never compromise values for money or fame Define Myself – Do not let others define me. Stay true to my beliefs and myself. Keep the compass oriented to true north and make sure the compass is working. Know what you know – Do not try to be something you are not. A corollary to this and in some ways more important is to know what you don’t know. Know History – Honor and respect people and events that have opened the doors for you and have blazed the path you walk. Recognize that you stand on the shoulders of giants. Enjoy the ride – Take some time to reflect and be absorbed in the process. Take one step at a time. Enjoy success and learn from failure. Collaborate – Find people who are willing to share, to challenge your ideas and who have been there before. Know your destination – Make sure there is a there, there. Finally I will end with a quote from Martha Graham: “ Nobody cares if you can’t dance well. Just get up and dance. Great dancers are not great because of their technique, they are great because of their passion.”
More on Elbow and Baseball
Paul thanks for you comments in regard to my post on the elbow, you are spot on with most of what you say. However I do wonder how you can be so sure of the cause of Strasburg’s injury without being privileged to have actual biomechanical analysis of his pitching. I do not mean TV footage, I mean true 3D biomechanical analysis. Without that detailed analysis you are merely offering an “educated opinion”, not sure we need more of those. We need facts. Incidentally Cooper and his mentor Sammy Ellis have been preaching that “upside down” idea forever. I heard it continually and constantly during the time I worked with them. In reality those pitchers were not injured any more frequently than those whom they considered to have perfect mechanics. From my point of view if we do a good job of preparing for the demands of pitching with proper training then we minimize the risk of injury. That is all we can do. Pitching mechanics, just like any skill are highly individual. By the time a pitcher is signed to a pro contract he has been pitching for 6 to 8 or more years, substantially changing mechanics at that point is dicey. In my opinion some of the injuries that I saw in my time in pro baseball were from pitching coaches trying to change mechanics, especially arm action, rather than preparing them for the demands of their technique through proper strengthening. In addition you wrote: “And if things "just happen", then why are we all wasting our time trying to thoughtfully determine how to help athletes be their best?” Did not mean to imply that at all. The point of this is sometime things just do happen, it can be an odd occurrence, one pitch. Nobody did or has done more that we did with the White Sox minor league system to prevent shoulder and elbow injuries than we did from 1988 through to 1996. Dr Andrews saw what we did, hence the genesis of that comment. There was no logical explanation for the elbow injuries we saw that one year. Sometimes you can do everything to prevent injuries and they will still happen. I did not mean to imply that prevention was/is futile, prevention is part of any sound conditioning program.