Author: Vernon Gambetta
California – The Clinics
Friday at the Long Beach Convention Center I presented at the Perform Better Summit. This was the third summit for me this year. I did a didactic presentation on Foundational Leg Strength and then an hour practical learn by doing session. This was a mixed audience, not the normal audience I present to. Many personal trainers, an area where I have no experience, I am interested in coaching, injury prevention and rehab, I think that is where I have been most effective. None the less, got some good comments and meet some interesting people, some good questions. My biggest concern at these affairs is the huge emphasis on exercises to the exclusion of why. We do not need more exercises, we need focus, it is more than an exercise. It is the context the exercise is used. That is what I stressed. The next day, a highlight of the trip for me was the “Know it All Clinic” at Carpenteria High School. It was a great day; I got to see people I have not seen in years. The goal of the clinic was to raise money to help pay for John Larralde’s hospital bills. By that measure it was successful, but I think for John and all of us the outpouring of support in terms of old friends and colleagues gathering together was most heartwarming. One of the highlights was to see John O’Malley, one of John Larralde’s and my best friends who came all the way from Oregon for the day. It sure was fun revisiting the moon landing in real time. (John Larralde in the middle in the picture and John O’Malley on the right) I got to sit in with the sprint group, what a great group. It was chaired by Brian Fitzgerald, the coach at Rio Mesa High School a super coach who has developed numerous great high school sprinters. I wish I could have been a fly on the wall in the other groups to hear the wisdom of the other great coaches in attendance. One of my elementary school classmates, Jesse Martinez was there, I had not seen Jesse in years. He is now the head the Head Coach at Santa Barbara high school where I used to coach. We reminisced about how I would trade my mother’s salami sandwiches for his grandmother’s burritos. My mouth waters when I think about it. I could go on forever. I was honored to give the keynote address. When I stood in front of this audience I was humbled when I saw the great coaches I was presenting to. It just reminded me what a great sport Track and Field is and how deep my roots are in this sport. These coaches are the heartbeat of the sport and keep in thriving at the high school level. Their knowledge and dedication is inspirational.
California
I love California. I love the weather, the unique people, the landscape, in short everything about it including its imperfections. California is where I was born, raised and educated so to be able to spend a week there visiting friends and family and sneaking in a little work was a great break. I think the Eagles said it best in their album Hotel California – You can check out but you can never leave. If home is where the heart is, than my home is still in California. Over the next couple of days I will tell you about our week in the golden state.
Good for the goose, good for the gander
Come on Bob Bowman, a long time ago I learned that what is good for the goose is good for the gander. You didn’t complain last year when your swimmer was wearing last year’s fastest suit. Is turnabout fair play? Your guy lost, the other guy swam faster – give credit to the swimmer like credit was given to Phelps last year. I could not agree more that the suits have made a mockery of the sport. Why didn’t you threaten to boycott the Olympics last year, you and everyone else knew that the suits had changed the sport last year. Very simply $$$$$. If you and Phelps were not getting big bucks from Speedo you would change suits in a heartbeat!
Preseason Practice – Where Championships Are Lost
Preseason, two or three times a day practice is almost here in American football, collegiate soccer and volleyball. Each of the past three years at close to the same I have posted on this. In my 40 years of coaching and my additional four years of enduring six years of two and sometimes three a day practices as a football player I am convinced that this is where more championship are lost than won, especially in today’s world where the athletes have supervised out of season training. Watch closely over the next month and count the athletes who are actually injured during this time, usually enough time missed to compromise their ability to play in the first couple of games or matches. Why the injuries – very simply from cumulative fatigue probably more neural than metabolic. This type of fatigue is pervasive, slowing of reactions and responsiveness to the ground means that a position or a play the athlete would be able make in a less fatigued state now the movement or play can’t be executed. Basically if you think about it logically the athletes workload has now been increased 50%. What’s wrong with that picture? No one in their right mind would think of going from two hours of training a day to four hours – yet that is what we are doing. Think! Think! Think! ( By the way the same thing happens in Baseball spring training, but the workload is increased more like 150%) Then add testing to see if they are in shape or mentally tough. Another nail in the coffin! What happens if they aren’t in shape? Do you punish them and run them more to get them in shape? That is traditionally what has been done. The net effect of this is dead legs that probably come back to life in med October when half the season is over and all the injuries heal. Then there is heat stress. When are we going to recognize that this may be one of the biggest limiting factors in sport performance. Despite all the research and knowledge in this area, the translation to the field is still in the dark ages. Go watch an American football practice and you will see what I mean. They still have “water “breaks” where all the players run over and gather around the trough like a bunch of sheep. Why not give each player an individual bottle with a properly formulated sports drink and educate the player that they must drink four bottles during a practice. This should be carefully monitored and enforced. I know that many teams have now gone to taking every third practice off. That may be a step in the right direction but there is so much more that can be done. How are monitoring each layers training load? Some don’t need the break, other do. Isn’t the goal to get the whole team ready for the start of the season with each player in an optimal state of readiness to start the season? Unfortunately this phase takes on the look of death march with the goal survival. I think we need to reframe the whole approach to this phase. Make these teaching camps. This is the last phase of preparation for competition, all training should have progressively built to this point. This is a time to be sport and position specific, to emphasize high quality and intense work. It is time of fine tuning.
Form Running – The Baby Elephant Waltz
Have you ever watched offensive and defensive linemen do so called “form running’ drills? It is the most nonathletic disjointed looking activity you could imagine, certainly the epitome of mindless exercise for this population. I think the players just go through the motions because they intuitively know it has nothing to do with the ability to play their position, it is another task they must complete before they get to the stuff that matters. Various permutations of from running including high knee skips, high knee running and pawing are predicated on having time in the air to recover the leg through in the step cycle – this is the opposite of what a lineman wants, for that matter virtually any athlete who has to change direction wants to do. To be effective they need to play with their feet close to ground in order to optimize their ability to change direction and keep their center of gravity over and inside their base of support. If you are using these types of drills for anyone besides a sprinter, jumper or hurdler in track and field you are probably wasting your time. I have heard the argument that they are good for hip mobility, yes they are, but there are better drills that have positive carry over to change of direction sports. So what should you do? Jump rope, do ladder drills with short ladders, in short drills that emphasize getting the feet back to the ground with the hips over the base of support. Be creative and imaginative; devise drills that emphasize quickness in three to five second bursts. Drills that promote triple flexion of the ankle/knee/hip – the key to playing low. Playing low is rewarded in multidirectional sports.
Rolling Ropes
David Weck, the inventor of the BOSU Balance trainer sent me a DVD of a new concept he has been working on. It is called rolling ropes, what a great idea. Innovation is doing new things with old ideas and tools, which is what David has done. The jump rope a simple tool that I have let fall to the bottom of tool box used in an entirely different way. Go to the BOSU Fitness web site and you will see some good video clips of the concept. http://www.bosufitness.com/duplicate-of-the-hands-the-tools-the-bosu-effect He has reinvented the job rope as a tool to use without jumping to enhance rhythm, awareness, connectivity and linkage. I have been playing with this the past few days in my workout between exercises and warm-up, I can see where it could be a module within the workout or the last step in a an active warm-up for overhead sports. I will definitely be using this with volleyball and for the swim teams I work with. It is FUNdamental and remember simplicity yields complexity.
Rediscovering Recess
I know in school recess was savior for me. Even though I was often picked last (Played a lot of right field) my self esteem remained intact and my determination to be a better athlete grew. More importantly as someone who could not sit still in the classroom I know it calmed me down. I always did better in the subject immediately after recess. It was heartening to watch the PBS News Hour http://www.pbs.org/newshour/newshour_index.html Friday night July 24 feature on recess. It is amazing to me how narrow and backward in their thinking the decision makers in education have become. On this piece they even figured out that recess was a good place for conflict resolution – well da! Frankly what bothered me about this piece was that the play had to be initiated and led by adults. At least it is a start. In another piece on News Hour, Arne Duncan the Secretary of education actually mentioned art, theater and of all things physical education, what a step forward. We need more recess; we need mandatory physical education K through 12. Look around and you will see why. Teachers know this but they are judged not on what the kids learn but on how they perform on standardized tests. We are turning out a generation of dolts who can’t think, are slothful and unhealthy. The solutions are simple, but require administrators and teachers to get out of their comfort zone and push for the change that is needed. Recess and physical education will go a long way toward solving the health care crisis. Right now it is not health care it is disease care, lets teach good health habits when they can be taught, that would be an inexpensive positive start.
SpikeKey Beach Annual
If you have any interest in beach Volleyball or for that matter volleyball in general download the 2009 SpikeKey Beach Annual at http://tinyurl.com/spikekey09 Megan Wallin one of the players that I work with did a tremendous job putting this together from getting sponsors, to layout, to content – it is excellent.