Author: Vernon Gambetta
Training Basics
Keep it basic. The complexity will come by combining foundational elements. Be targeted and focused. Never lose sight of the goal: to prepare the athlete to be taken to their physical, technical and psychological limits in the competitive arena. Training is a means to an end – nothing more, nothing less. Constantly apply this litmus test to your training: Is what I am doing in training nice to do or need to do? If it is not need to do don’t do it. From my experience nice to do activities make you tired and hurt, need to do makes you better and advances you progressively toward your training and competition goals.
American Masters – Merle Haggard
I love this PBS program, but last nights program on Merle Haggard was real special. Certainly brought back memories of my college years in the 60’s at Fresno State. That is where I first heard Haggard and was introduced to the “Bakersfield Sound” and country music in general. More of my education came out of the classroom as I saw racism and real dirt poor poverty for the first time. The things Haggard sang about in his songs. (Seeing a family of twelve in a tar paper shack in 105 degree heat was a wake-up for me – never complained about no air conditioning in the dorms after that.) The great central valley may have been the breadbasket of the world, but in the sixties the sons and daughters of the Okies were being forced to change and it was not always comfortable. Merle Haggard’s music and life is a really metaphor or the turmoil in this most conservative region of the country. He is most definitely the “poet of the common man.” www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/merle-haggard/watch-the-full-film/1605/
Is this good news or bad news?
This was in yesterdays NY Times Business section: E-Books Top Hardcovers at Amazon By CLAIRE CAIN MILLER Published: July 19, 2010 Amazon.com, one of the nation’s largest booksellers, announced Monday that for the last three months, sales of books for its e-reader, the Kindle, outnumbered sales of hardcover books. In that time, Amazon said, it sold 143 Kindle books for every 100 hardcover books, including hardcovers for which there is no Kindle edition. I am an old school bibliophile who loves the tactile feel of holding a book, smelling the paper, underlining and writing in the margins. I actually found this quite alarming. Is this really a good thing? My gut feeling tells me it is not. I just can’t tell you why, but this does not feel right to me. I will probably never have an e-reader of any make or design. I already spend too much time in the wired world. Last night I finished the 115th book of my reading year that spans from September 1 to August 31. I am close to needing another room for my books, I love it it! I love book covers and everything about books. I understand all the logical arguments in favor of electronic books. I know that with real books we are killing tress, but with eBooks are we killing minds? How can I write in the margins, use my multi colored underlining system, it is just not the same experience. To paraphrase Howard Schulz of Starbucks fame – it is not about books, sometimes it is about the experience. I am currently reading about eight books; each one represents a different experience, a different feel, and different weight physically and intellectually. I am sure I could get them on a Kindle but it would just not be the same.
Steve Ralston – The Consumate Professional
As a coach I do not believe you can afford to be a fan, but I also know that you cannot help but have favorite players. Those individuals who epitomize what it is to be an athlete and a professional. For me Steve Ralston, is one of those people. Today Steve is going to announce his retirement as a player for the New England Revolution. In pro sports I put him right up there with Carlton Fisk and Jack McDowell, whom I had the pleasure of working with in my White Sox days, as consummate professionals. It hardly seems that is was fourteen years ago that Steve was a boyish looking rookie on a veteran Tampa Bay Mutiny team full of grizzled veterans of soccer leagues around the world. He was rookie of the year in the 1996, the inaugural season of the MLS. He played on the flank and was tireless in creating space, then tracking back on defense. His work rate was the best. He was fit and soccer fit. He was both quick and fast. He had a deceptive first step and getaway stride that enabled him to separate himself from his mark. He retires as the league career leader in minutes played, a real iron man. As a young rookie on that first Mutiny team than won the Eastern conference regular season championship he was the rock, solid, you always knew what you were going to get – a consummate team player. We had the mercurial Carlos Valderrama distributing the ball, Roy Lassiter was a goal scoring machine who set the league single season scoring record that still stands. Then there was Steve, he was as quiet and even keeled as Valderrama was temperamental, as consistent and steady as Lassiter was inconsistent. Rumor has it that Steve may go into coaching, I hope he does. Whatever Steve does he will be one of the few heroes that I have from my work in professional sport. It was a pleasure to work with him and watch him play. All the best to you Steve, you are a tribute to the game and the MLS. You were a pioneer who helped get the league established.
Some thoughts on recovery
I remember returning from my first trip to Australia totally enthralled with what I had seen in terms of systematic recovery programs at the AIS and some of the state institutes. I came to the conclusion at the time that you must be proactive and design your training around recovery. Conceptually at the time that might have been a logical conclusion especially with the attitude that existed here in the states at the time. That attitude was that rest & recovery were a luxury; you rested when you needed it, a very reactive attitude. Over the last fourteen years I have seen the whole “recovery” piece take on a life of it’s own. It seems an elite athlete cannot do more that a few minutes of “hard” training and they must have a massage, get ice and have a specially concocted recovery drink. In other words the pendulum has swung completely to the other side where it seems to be all about recovery and not about training. Somewhere in between the truth lies. The human body is a wonderfully adaptive and self-organizing organism. We need to give it credit and stop interfering with the natural inflammatory cascade that triggers the adaptive response. I think we need to take a step back and look at what we are doing with recovery today and reassess it's place in the whole training process. There is very little actual research to back up what we are doing in recovery. Let’s reconsider how often and what external means of recovery we are using. Let’s do a better job of learning what each athletes “recoverability” is to all the various types of work they use in training. Lets remember that the foundation for a good training program is a good plan. A good plan will take into account the demands of the various types of work and adjust accordingly. Hopefully this will stimulate some thought and discussion and help find a more balanced approach to recovery.
Blood, Sweat And Chalk – Read This Book!
If you are interested in change and innovation in sport then you need to read this book – Blood, Swat And Chalk – The Ultimate Football Playbook: How The Great Coaches Built Today’s Game. Sports Illustrated writer Tim Layden does a masterful job of tracing the changes and innovations in American football tactics. It is a very real and personal story full of interviews with people who have been in the headlines and coaches you have never heard of. For me it underscores that change is possible, though never easy or comfortable. These change agents were often surrounded by naysayers. It also proved to me that imitation is the highest form of flattery. As soon as the innovations worked everyone copied them, but only after they were proven to work. Even if you are not into American football this is worth the read. I loved the chapter on the single wing formation. Tim Tebow is a throwback to the single wing tailbacks of the 1930’ and 40’s. The chapter on Air Coryell brought back a flood of memories having played against his teams at San Diego State in the mid sixties. His system was ever so simple it is still in use today. Designed so that it could be taught and mastered in two days. The coaches highlighted here were willing to get away from the follow the leader sheep-walking world and innovate. Most innovated out of necessity, they were getting their asses kicked doing it the old way, or they did not have the personnel to do the traditional things so they found a better way. It makes me wonder where the next great innovations in sport will come from. I doubt it will be technology; it will come from the creative mind of some unknown coach who dares to be different. Will it be you? Why not?
The Tyrany of Dead Ideas
Do you ever wonder why we keep teaching and following certain things, never questioning them? This tyranny of dead ideas stifles innovation and holds us back in training and performance. It seems generation after generation fall prey to this and keep repeating the mistakes of the previous generation. Imitation is not innovation. We have to be willing to let go off of cherished beliefs that do not work and in many cases are counter productive. Here are a few dead ideas that I see day to day in my work: Necessity of an aerobic base for anaerobic, start stop intermittent sprint and transition game sports Icing a healthy limb after exercise The traditional model of Periodization – volume to intensity, with a long period of general preparation to build a base In the 400 meter relay the use of the down sweep pass Using heart rate zones to dictate training intensity Lactate as the cause for fatigue and soreness Jogging to warm-up Static stretching to warm-up Training to failure There are many more. I would love to hear from you on the dead ideas you encounter in your work.