Author: Vernon Gambetta
Trnidad Day One
Cool first day in Trinidad. Went to the 36th edition of the Hampton Games in Hasely Crawford Stadium. No more than five minutes after getting to the stadium I got to meet the great Hasely Crawford himself. 1976 Olympic 100 meter champion, I remember that race like it was yesterday. Always neat for me when I can go to a track meet, the mother of all sports, for me a little like field of dreams. Great talent and wonderful people. Got to catch up with a bunch of people that I met on my last trip. Looking forward to working with some of their Track & Field athletes in the future. This trip is focused on presenting to Netball and Volleyball on Athletic Development for their sport. Looking forward to the next three days. Rainy season here so it relatively cool, much nicer than the heat of Florida summer.
Happy Fourth of July?
This should make you think and wonder what the hell we are doing as a nation. We need to teach history again. Those that ignore are condemned to repeat it. 7/2: Don’t Know Much About History? July 2, 2010 by Marist Poll Filed under Celebrations, Celebrations Polls, Featured, Living There’s good news for American education. About three-quarters of residents — 74% — know the U.S. declared its independence from Great Britain in 1776. The bad news for the academic system — 26% do not. This 26% includes one-fifth who are unsure and 6% who thought the U.S. separated from another nation. That begs the question, “From where do the latter think the U.S. achieved its independence?” Among the countries mentioned are France, China, Japan, Mexico, and Spain.
Clueless in Sarasota
When is it good to be clueless? Or is it good to be clueless? Maybe being oblivious is a better option? The more I see on the Internet and read unedited, unreviewed “stuff’ the more I think it is good to be a bit clueless. If being clued in means cluttering my brain with a plethora of mindless information that focuses on trivialization of training then I prefer to be clueless. How can anyone filter the massive volume of information that is being produced by the day, hour and minute? You cannot unless you have a context for your search for knowledge. Context is king. You must have a historical context and a knowledge base in classical training and sport science literature as a firm foundation. I choose to remain clueless in my little world by expanding my knowledge with a plan and a direction. I had someone ask me if I read a certain blog or subscribed to a certain pay for play site. My answer was quite direct and succinct – Not interested in infomercials and promotion of a new DVD. Colleagues are forever sending me clips from Floswimming and Flowtrack, I look at them and chuckle. Guy Drut did that in 1976 in preparation for Montreal, I have it on a VHS video. (Quick go to Wikipedia and look up Guy Drut if you are under thirty) All those hurdle drills you guys are doing, I have a VHS of a Russian Middle distance runner doing all those drills, given to me by a Canadian coach about twenty three years ago. I don’t watch flow anything, because it smacks of flow crap, just a bunch of exercises that will make you tired but not necessarily better. Same with some of the debates I see – Does it really matter if it is inner core or outer core? Lets get real. At age 63 and after 41 years of coaching I am more motivated to learn than at anytime in my life, but I know I must separate the noise from the music, the wheat from the chaff. I am confident in what I do know and equally confident in what do not know. My mind, my eyes and my ears are open. There are only so many bytes free so I want to focus on quality, need to know information to improve my knowledge, I choose to remain clueless with a childlike curiosity in my pursuit of excellence.
General Strength – A Closer Look
General Strength (GS) has become a garbage “throwaway” term in the Track & Field world. You can give the circuits all kinds of cute names like Waterloo, Dunkirk or D Day, but whatever name you use, it has evolved into mindless repetition of poor quality movements with no specific goal in mind. I remind you that just getting someone tired is not training with a purpose; it is just getting someone tired. Hurdle overs and unders are great if they placed in the correct place in a workout, if not they are just stuff. If you look at the composition of the various GS workouts proliferating on various Internet sites what you see is too much work in prone and supine positions with no discernible pattern or sequence to the movements. I observed much of this first hand in my work with the Oregon Project. I could see no sequence to the application of the circuits and the distribution of the work throughout the training cycles. I was uncomfortable with it then and I am more uncomfortable now that it has taken on a life of its own. With middle distance and distance runners this has replaced strength training with appropriate resistance. What everyone calls GS or General Strength is circuit training. It has a place in a program, but you must develop strength before you can endure it. The guiding principal is to develop strength before strength endurance and power before power endurance. Circuit training can and should be used during certain phases of the training year to enhance strength endurance and/ or power endurance depending on the composition of the circuit and the work to rest ratios and resistance. The movements need to be carefully chosen to fit the athlete’s event, their specific needs and the time of the training year. I encourage you to take a long hard look at how you are using this component. If it is just stuff thrown together, then it is just stuff. Anyone can do stuff!
Thoughts on Middle Distance & Distance Training
Here are some of my thoughts on training middle distance and distance runners. I continue to be amazed at the things that I see going on in training. We have been down this path so many times before I am amazed that the same questions are being asked and the same mistakes are repeated. In my 41 year coaching career I have been fortunate to work with some great middle distance and distance athletes (male & female) and some great coaches. Here are some of the things I have learned. Anyone can run miles – It is what you put into the miles that count. More miles can make you tired, but they do not necessarily make you better. Stop slogging – Slow running and shuffling are poor foot strikes that just reinforce poor biomechanics. Work on race distribution not race pace. Races are never run at even pace. Learn to change gears. Learn your race and how you best need to run that race and train accordingly. Become race “hardened” – Learn how to race. The only way you can learn how to race is race, race over your race distance and under your race distance. If you are an 800 or 1500 meter runner try to run the second or third leg in a 4 x 400 relay as much as possible. ALWAYS include an element of speed in training at all times of the year. If you are waiting to start speed work you are waiting to get beat. Running strength comes from an accumulation of training over time. Progress in your volume by adding training sessions, not by adding more to a session. If you are running once a day add two morning sessions a week. If you are running five days a week add a day. Progress gradually, never compromise good mechanics or quality. Strength training must be an integral part of the runner’s preparation during all phases of the year. You must train leg strength. Strength is the basis for speed and injury prevention. A good comprehensive functional strength training program will help with postural integrity, joint integrity and shock absorption. Use Bowerman’s axiom of a hard day followed by an easy day. Make hard/easy your mantra. Read Run, Run, Run by Fred Wilt and Modern Training for Running by Ken Doherty. Both were written more than forty years ago. I know you will think I am living in the past, but both these books are spot on with clear messages and information that today’s coaches need. They are not confused by scientific gobbledygook, just good coaching information.
Some Powerful Thoughts
The first is for pushy parents and coaches who want to identify the “champion” early and dictate every move to the youngster. This is from Roger Federer’s mother: “ Roger had unbelievable coordination at a very young age. At age one he could kick a soccer ball in your direction. We noticed this but we didn’t push him. All the major decisions of his sports career he took himself.” Give them the space and they will grow. The second is for coaches and teachers from a Sports Illustrated article about Phil Jackson, coach of the Lakers: What separates Jackson are the speeches he doesn’t give, the timeouts he doesn’t call, the spaces he forces his players to fill on their own. “It’s like going to a psychologist,” says former Bulls center Will Perdue. “He doesn’t give you the answers. He expects you to figure it out for yourself. “ White space on a page and silence can send stronger message that loud speech.
Game Speed
This is at the forefront of my mind as I watch the World Cup matches. Game speed is different than pure track speed. Game speed requires the player to quickly (instantly) solve a myriad of movement problems. The track sprinter has one task – get to the finish line as fast as possible. The sprinter deals with three dimensions, the body, gravity and the ground. The games player has a fourth and some would say a fifth dimension – the opposition as well as an implement and/or the ball. The sprinter is rewarded for time in the air – the time necessary to recovery the legs in the stride cycle. The games player is penalized for time in the air, the requirements of triple extension to start and accelerate and triple flexion to stop demand that the feet are close to the ground. Also there is a demand for highly variable stride length and frequencies. Therefore stride frequency is rewarded. Game speed is totally dynamic and unpredictable, in many ways random and chaotic. Are sprint speed and game speed related? Yes, absolutely, they are cousins. The research of Warren Young from University of Ballarat in Australia shows that the more complex the cuts and changes of direction the less correlation with linear sprint speed. I prefer to have good sprint speed as a basis to teach and develop game speed. Obviously a combination of the two gives that player an edge, provided he can channel that sprint speed to the demands of the game. Game speed entails the ability to recognize, react, start accelerate, decelerate, possibly reaccelerate, and change direction and stop quickly. Quickly is a time from tenths of a second to four to seven seconds depending on the game or situation in the game. To improve game speed you must know the speed demands of the game you are preparing for, the position the player plays and the player’s speed, strength and power qualities. I have found it most important to understand how each player plays their game and help them to improve that. Generic cone, ladder, ring and programmed change of direction drills have varying degree of transfer to improve game speed. Overall we probably spend too much time on these types of drills. Training for game speed demands intensity and focused concentration applied to quality repetitions. There is a tendency to introduce fatigue too early in the process. Mindless repetition of drills has been proven to be ineffective. Remember just making them tired is not making them better. Teach first, refine the movements, then speed it up, only then should you add an element of fatigue. Another axiom that I live by is that testing speed does not equal game speed. Testing speed typically involves programmed and rehearsed situations; the game is unrehearsed and random. Game speed is hard to measure unless you have sophisticated analysis systems to use. If you do, then the job becomes a bit easier and specific. If not you must closely observe practice and study video of practice and game situations and adjust and train accordingly. It is important to always try to incorporate speed of thought, decision-making and awareness in game speed training. That is fundamental to insuring a degree of transfer of training to the game. Game speed training should consist of short sharp bouts of work with a specific goal for the movement that the player clearly understands. At various times it is valuable to slow it down in order to speed it up. The next step is chaining those bouts together in varying sequences and actions. Then add a reaction component and last but not least add an opponent or a ball. Training game speed is a challenging process. It demands thorough preparation by the coach to constantly assess progress and challenge the athlete. Be creative, it is a FUNdamnetal challenge.
US Soccer at World Cup
The US coaching staff and the team deserve kudos for reaching the knockout round. Our victories and our losses should tell us we have a long way to go to be competitive in the top tier of the World Cup. I will say the same thing that I said in 1998 when I worked with the team and in my observations of each succeeding World Cup – we seem to be very naïve in our preparation. Not just in preparation for the World Cup but in how we identify and develop our players from the time they enter the system. Hopefully this World Cup will help us to change and innovate by looking closely at what we did well and what we did poorly. As food for thought – Our 2022 World Cup players are now 10 to 12 years old. What are we doing to make them better than our current crop of players? What are we doing differently?