Author: Vernon Gambetta
Talk is Cheap
Talk about winning Talk about innovation Talk about change Talk about curses The proof is in the pudding as they say. Talk is cheap; it is about action and results, getting the job done. Everyone that I have ever been around in any endeavor that has been successful finds a way to get it done. There is no talk of we did it that before and it did not work. That just means it was a lesson learned and it is time to move forward it will work at another time and place. There is no talk of we can’t do that here, it won’t work. Move forward, have a plan, work the plan and get it done!
I wish it was that easy
Designing and implementing a comprehensive training for an athlete in any sport is a complicated task on one level and a very straight forward undertaking on the other. First recognize that you must understand the demands of the sport, the event or position in the sport, the qualities of the individual athlete and you must address prevention in terms of common injuries that occur within the sport. Once this is accomplished you must devise a long term plan to systematically develop all qualities of athletic development in a manner that give the athlete the chance to compete efficiently in the competitive arena. The program must train all components of training all the time in a proportion dictated by the athlete’s stage of development and the competitive schedule. One component i.e. speed or strength is not emphasized to the exclusion of another. They are proportionally distributed to allow continued adaptation throughout the training year and throughout the athlete’s career. Within each component I like to think of training in a spectrum of development, just like there are visible and invisible bands in the spectrum of light the same occurs across the training spectrum. Even though you may not see the adaptive process at the time of the training it is occurring. Look at the spectrum aspects of strength for example; depending on all the variables I mentioned above the athlete could be training foundation strength, max strength, starting strength and ballistic reactive strength if those components fit with what is happening in the speed spectrum, the endurance spectrum, the skill spectrum and the flexibility spectrum. We cannot afford to look at components in isolation; all components are contextual and synergistic. This is the philosophical and methodological basis for my argument against centering all training in the hands of a “strength coach” in the weight room. I wish it were that easy.
It’s Not About the Time
I understand times, but I think it is more basic than that. Ultimately it is about competition, the times will come. Think back to elementary school, everyone knew the fastest kid in the school or in the summer when you were at the pool you raced to see who was fastest. Time was not a consideration. At junior high school play days you raced to see who was the best, oh by the way they ran a faster time than the other kids did, but that was not the focus. They achieved a pinnacle of success at their level, John Q. Public and the kids have no idea what times mean. I heard two guys in the barbershop talking about Bolt, they were talking about how much distance there was between him and the field. They did not know if it was a world record, 9.5 or 10.5, they were impressed he beat the best in the world by so much distance. I think coaches have a responsibility to stop chasing records and stress competition. That is I why I liked John Carlos, he would line up and race in the street if someone challenged him. If our best athletes in track and field would be willing to race and compete head to head and worry less about fast times, maybe the sport would not be in the crisis it is in now.
New Swim Suits
I have followed this whole swimsuit issue quite closely. Anyone involved in the sport quickly recognized that the suit made a significant difference in a swimmers performance. It was obviously that someone had not done their homework before adopting it as legal or as many suspect there was some hanky panky in the higher levels of sport to get it adopted. Most of the swim coaches I work with describe it as a wetsuit, an obvious aid to buoyancy. It looked like the NCAA was not going to legalize it for use in NCAA competition, a good move. Then I found out last week that under threat of a lawsuit from one of the manufactures it is legal for use in NCAA competition. Swimming is a sport under the gun with programs being dropped; now you are talking about it costing more to outfit a swimmer than a football player, think of the implications of that? I feel this is symptomatic of a bigger malaise affecting sport. There is this obsession with chasing records instead of focus on competition that is the essence of sport. Where can this go? What would happen if we turned off the clock and just raced? Isn’t that the essence of sport? To keep pushing the envelope, chasing records leads to the temptation to dope. Where does it stop? Perhaps a Roman circus would be appropriate. We are close to that now. When will we wake up?
Reductionist Thinking – Painting Yourself into a Corner
My basic premise is that the body is very intelligent and self organizing. It instinctively knows what to do, how to do and when to do it. Daily life activities and sport activities happen way to fast to think about some of the things people try to teach the body to do – proper lifting technique to prevent back injury comes to mind – you can bend your knees in a sterile environment when you have time to think about it, but under stress you do what you have to do. Firing the glute is another example; let’s get real, if you are standing on one foot or two the glute is firing! Why all this mumbo jumbo about glute firing, if the glute were not firing you would end up in a heap on the floor. Unless I am missing something muscles do not fire in predetermined patterns, if they did we would all be robots. That is why people that train to think about firing certain muscles move like robots. Let’s get real and use good common sense and science to recognize the wisdom of the body. Muscles work together in synergistic patterns to produce efficient movement, if they do not it is because of diseases like Polio, Parkinson’s or Muscular Dystrophy. That being said it is interesting to go back and study the work of Dr Kabat and Knott and Voss the originators and early practitioners of Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation (PNF), a treatment system designed to rehabilitate polio patients suffering from varying degrees of paralysis. They had it right; they stressed neurological patterns that emphasized muscle synergys using aggregate muscle action. It worked then and it works now. Most of their exercises were in prone and supine positions with some seated because their patients were paralyzed, but the principles can be adapted to other postures and work equally well with a healthy athlete. To the best of my knowledge I have tried to adapt my strength training exercises and routines based on my understanding of the principles of PNF since I was first exposed to it in the early 1970’s. I think this is why Frans Bosch’s definition of strength training resonated with me. He defines strength training as coordination training with resistance. I take it one step farther and define it as coordination training with appropriate resistance in multiple planes appropriate for the movement or sport. There are is another message here that is a recurrent theme for me – everything old is new again! Training and rehabilitation did not start in 1998, we all stand on the shoulder of giants who did not have of the analysis tools that we have available to us today. They had to heighten their powers of observation and hone their skills to produce visible and measurable results.
Paul Newman
I was sad to hear of the death of Paul Newman yesterday. He was one my favorite actors. I am sure everyone has their favorite role of his, but my favorite was his role as the Luke Jackson the convict in Cool Hand Luke. His line “shaking the bush here boss” is one of my favorite movie lines and the scene of him attempting to eat “fifty eggs in a hour” is a classic. The following quote from his NY Times obituary sums up Paul Newman, the man: “We are such spendthrifts with our lives,” Mr. Newman once told a reporter. “The trick of living is to slip on and off the planet with the least fuss you can muster. I’m not running for sainthood. I just happen to think that in life we need to be a little like the farmer, who puts back into the soil what he takes out.”
Change
“The soft minded man always fears change. He feels security in the status quo, and he has an almost morbid fear of the new. For him, the greatest pain is the pain of a new idea.” Martin Luther King I learned very early on in my career that change is a constant, if you are unwilling to change and learn then the world will soon pass you by. My college consultations over the last month reinforced this. All of these coaches are successful, they do not have to change but they are being proactive and leading change rather than following. I learned that leading change is much more exciting than reacting to change. It is not always comfortable, but it is always exciting. It is particularly gratifying to see others follow and jump on the bandwagon when they do not have to lead and take risk.
Twenty Years Later
This article resonated with me. I was especially interested in the comments of Andy Higgins and Doug Clement, two coaches that I really respect. I think this article summarizes the all the issues in a very succinct and concise manner. Questions continue to surround sprinting By BEVERLEY SMITH AND JAMES CHRISTIE , From Monday’s Globe and Mail September 21, 2008 Twenty years after Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson’s epic drug disqualification at the Seoul Summer Olympics, the sport remains cloaked in skepticism. Perhaps it’s just fatigue after a rash of doping positives in the years since. Or innocence lost after Johnson’s dramatic fall from grace. “I’m not sure there has been an athlete so identified around the world with such glamour – before the positive test,” Canadian track coach Andy Higgins said. That made the plunge all the more momentous. Now, Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt could not rouse a crowd at the 2008 Beijing Olympics without a spectre of doubt hanging over the finish line. Was he really clean? Could anybody so dominant – gold medals in both the men’s 100- and 200-metre events, plus the 4×100 relay – really have run like that without chemical help? It is Johnson’s enduring legacy. “I hate it,” Higgins said. “I’m essentially, by nature, an optimist. I have a positive view. … I am seriously pissed off because [tainted coaches and athletes] have made me to a degree a cynic.” Higgins watched Bolt drop his arms 20 metres from the finish line during the 100-metre final in Beijing and still run 9.69 seconds. “He’s an immense talent. No discussion,” Higgins said. “He’s 6-foot-5 and he comes out of the blocks like he’s 5-foot-6. He doesn’t get left in the blocks. Then, he runs away from them with that immense stride length and power. And he’s completely innocent of whatever can create pressure. “But all I have are questions.” The questions surrounding Bolt “are a sad outcome” of the Johnson legacy, said Bruce Kidd, dean of the faculty of physical education and health at the University of Toronto. “I like to give people the benefit of the doubt. I was electrified by his performance. But it is true that the prevalence of drugs in all aspects of society makes this a question in people’s minds.” Charlie Francis, the architect of Johnson’s drug-supported training regime, said last week he believes drugs weren’t the reason Bolt ran world-record times in Beijing. Rather, it is the Jamaican practice of training on grass surfaces, which is easier on joints and affects the connective tissue in a positive way. “Now, it’s not my job to speculate who is doing what,” Francis said. “I’m sufficiently satisfied that the playing field is level, enough to enjoy watching races at the highest level.” Does that mean Francis, once known as Charlie the Chemist, thinks sprinters are clean now? Or that no athlete is lacking of chemical assistance? What does it mean to be on a level playing field now? Francis said during the federally ordered Dubin inquiry into doping that Johnson had to take steroids to remain on a level playing field with the rest of the athletes. And six of the eight Seoul 100-metre finalists were eventually pegged with drug infractions of some sort, causing experts to call it “the dirtiest race in history.” “Sick. Shallow,” Higgins said of the drive to get onto “a level playing field.” Higgins was the only Canadian track coach to show up outside the athletes village in Seoul wearing the team uniform the morning after Johnson’s positive test. The rest of them didn’t want to deal with the media. He told the media that Johnson’s positive test wasn’t a sport issue, but a values issue. Athletes should be directed to learn solid values, Higgins said, so the effort to be your best holds the most meaning and that solid values serve you for the rest of your life. Johnson didn’t learn those values in the race to win at all costs, Higgins said, and he sees Johnson’s story as a tragedy. “He was a young man who was used by a very smart man [Francis] for his own ego purposes, and he’d been taken advantage of,” Higgins said. “That should never have happened.” One of the resulting tragedies of the Dubin inquiry is that people see Johnson as the bad guy and Francis as the good guy for revealing truths about the drug culture in track, Higgins said. In his mind, however, Francis deserves to be held responsible. In the end, Johnson has come through with questionable values, like the cult of celebrity. “He has nowhere to go,” Higgins said. He said Johnson’s demise has affected sport twofold in the two decades since: *It has cost the sport in Canada immensely in terms of financial support and limited the opportunities for track athletes that followed. *It has cost the sport credibility and turned people into cynics. But it wasn’t just Johnson’s positive test that caused it, Higgins said. It was the ensuing Dubin inquiry, which featured Francis’s revelations. “Charles Dubin became fascinated by Charlie’s bright mind,” Higgins said. “And the man is very bright. He has strong opinions, tons of them related to justifying what he did. And that kept getting aired. It was an amazing public seminar on doping. … It gave Charlie a forum.” After the hearings, the doping hotlines in Canada and the United States lit up, with athletes asking for confirmation of what they had heard – so they could use the information for themselves. “It added to the justification in a lot of people’s minds that the only way to the top was to take drugs,” Higgins said. “It missed the entire point, which was … that it was cheating.” Only he and fellow coach Doug Clement used the word “cheating” in their testimonies, Higgins said. “It didn’t get clearly defined, because the justifiers have all kinds of other words.” He says he has not seen a huge positive impact from the Dubin inquiry in Canada. The World Anti-Doping Agency wasn’t born for another 10 years, until after the Festina cycling scandal, when a manager was found with large quantities of doping products in a team car on the France-Belgium border. Kidd thinks that, with the efforts of WADA, drug use is less prevalent today in sport, although during the years after the Johnson positive, other countries were “just sweeping doping under the carpet.” Now, he says, there is a very strong worldwide consensus that doping is “antithetical to the value of sport and should be strongly policed.” Higgins is not so sure track and field is as tough as it should be on the doping issue. “There’s too much money to be made on world records,” he said. He questions the move by the governing International Association of Athletics Federations on tagging seven female middle-distance runners with doping infractions just before the Beijing Games, to send a message to any Olympic competitor considering cheating. But why not target sprinters, who are the major marketing attraction at any event? “Would it be smart for a huge sport to go in and create a scandal, and destroy illusions one more time?” he pointed out. In the 20 years after Seoul, it’s become clear not all infractions were made public. Former Canadian high-jumper Milt Ottey says Johnson was used “as a scapegoat” for a dirty track scene “and the IAAF knew it at the time.” “My suspicion was that a lot of Americans were caught but that was squashed,” Ottey said. “[The IAAF] had a chance to make a real statement, but they let it be believed it was a single event … it was Ben. Now, anyone who does anything great is suspected. That’s sad.” Asked if anything has changed, Ottey says people are now more tolerant of performance enhancement. “I think the public is more understanding of the Ben Johnson incident, though, and they think it’s time to forget and go on.” Angella Issajenko, Canada’s fastest female sprinter who never tested positive but admitted to drug use at the Dubin inquiry, has always said Johnson’s treatment following the doping scandal was unfair. “He didn’t sodomize somebody’s child, come on, he took … stanazolol a few days a week; big deal,” she said. Kidd said sport never had innocence, embedded in society as a whole. “Sport is always thought to create a high moral standard,” he said, adding Johnson’s positive test was a reminder that it didn’t. Higgins said Johnson blasted an illusion of innocence. In reality, coaches and athletes knew about rampant doping in the days and years before the infamous test result. “You knew that the Eastern Bloc was into it,” he said. “You knew what you were competing against.” Now, Higgins says, there are more than a few people performing at the highest levels that are starting “to get very nervous,” but what remains of the former Eastern Bloc hasn’t changed. However, he still sees too many suspicious things. “The human physiology just cannot do the work needed to perform at the highest levels and stay there week after week through an unbelievably long season,” he said. “It’s not possible.” Sadly, the Ben Johnson-born cynicism is just one more aspect of a huge all-pervasive cynicism about almost anything, Higgins says.