Author: Vernon Gambetta
Doping – Ignore it and it will go away
These two statements from two of the track & Field governing bodies regarding the information implicating other athletes that came out of testimony at the Treavor Graham trial. Lamine Diack, president of track’s international governing body, in a conference call with reporters Thursday, noted the eight-year statute of limitations on doping offenses. Jill Geer, spokeswoman for USA Track & Field, said in a telephone interview: “The things that have been coming to light over the past several years have primarily been events that occurred four to ten years ago. Our current athletes are trying to remain focused on their present and their future.” These two statements speak volumes about why there will always be a problem. The governing bodies refuse to confront the issue. They chose to hide behind statute of limitations and legalize. As far as USA Track & Field -What happened to their zero tolerance policy? Conveniently forgotten? If there was ever was an organization that needed to clean up their house it is USA Track & Field. They are afraid to go after the drug coaches. They have ex- athletes serving on development committees who were banned for doping, what message does that send? These organizations really do not want to clean up the sport, they want the scandal to go away so they can continue to run their Roman circus freak show and keep pushing those records higher, faster and longer. The ultimate bottom line is there is too much sponsorship and TV money at stake for them to take a stand.
GAIN Apprentorship
We are just one month away from our first Apprentorship program. It is a very good group, there is still room for one or two more people if you contact my right away. We will not have a program in December; I am only going to do one per year each June. Because of the amount of follow-up necessary with each group for the following year to do two per year would be very difficult.
Yesterday
I started working with the Venice (Florida) High School Baseball team. We did a few basic tests, taught the coordination phase of the warm-up (I use that that to evaluate basic movements’ and aptitude for fundamental motor skills) and then taught a couple of 3D stretches. The coaching staff is committed to a systematic approach for a whole year, just like girls volleyball, this is the only way I will work teams, there are no quick fixes. This will be a fun project. I would have preferred to do a full Athletic Profile on them but I did not have the help to do that, so I will build the steps of the profile into the teaching progressions. The first three weeks will be devoted to establishing a routine of good training habits and learning all the progressions. Once that is accomplished then we will be able to effectively train. The goal is to train better baseball athletes. I will keep you posted on their progress. Yesterday was our last workout of this phase with girls volleyball. Now we go indoors and start to transition to much more volleyball specific training. I will have them for 30 to 45 minutes after two hours of summer volleyball from June 9 until the first week in August. We also will start with a new group of incoming freshmen. That is always a challenge because now I essentially have four training groups. Thank God for Dr. Harabedian’s PE 30A class at Fresno State in 1964. I am glad a I paid attention. Training session management is such an important part of effective coaching. I do not see this taught or addressed anymore.
Shake, Rattle and Roll
Everywhere I have been the last three months I have seen commercial vibration machines. I see them in therapy and I see them in training. These commercial machines usually have three or four settings with a vibration range from 30Hz to 60 Hz. The inexactness of these ranges is like trying to perform brain surgery with a butter knife, not very exact and dangerous. When you ask the million dollar question of the people that have them – What do you with the machine? How do you use it? You get amazing responses like – It makes them feel good before work out or the classic one – We use it for recovery. Recovery from what? Just like evaluating any mode or method of training I always ask myself the following questions: What is it specifically supposed to do? Can I measure that improvement or at least see it? Why does it work? How does it work? When is it best to use it? In what context should I use it? Last but not least, with whom is it most appropriate to use? Certainly the concept of vibration is well researched, but the application is not. Much of the early research on vibration was done and continues to be done on the harmful aspects of vibration in industrial settings and in space flight. I think it is necessary to get beyond the guru endorsers and study what is really happening and how this mode is best used. Some of my colleagues have had good success in using for flexibility, especially at ankle. They also are also quick to add that the gains are short lasting; the research seems to substantiate this. My other concern is the cost. This is an expensive machine that allows one athlete use it at a time. Not very time efficient. I figure that for the cost of two of these machines you could hire one coach! Remember if the only tool you have is a hammer, then everything becomes a nail. Try using a body blade. It vibrates and it is self regulated. Perhaps too simple simple because there are blinking lights are alarms, just the feedback from your body.
GDR Doping
If you missed it, be sure to watch the PBS "Secrets Of The Dead" episode entitled: "DOPING FOR GOLD." http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/ I have read all the books, but to see the images and hear the interviews made the depth and magnitude of the systematic doping in the GDR even more unbelievable. In many ways this resembles the Holocaust, there are many people who were involved in it who still will not own up to their involvement. The scary part of all of this is that this stuff is still going on today. If anything it is more pervasive because the monetary stakes are even higher.
Peter Callahan – State Champion Miler
Approximately eight years I had the opportunity to consult for one year with North Shore Country Day School in Winnetka, Illinois. Patrick McHugh, the Athletic Director brought me in three different times during the year to do staff development and work on up grading their physical education and athletic program. Patrick is also the track coach and as you know track and field is my passion so we connected because of our mutual interest. We speak and correspond on a regular basis, in fact Patrick will be attending the Apprentorship program. Two years ago Patrick told about a boy who had come out from basketball and run some great times as a freshman. The way Patrick spoke about this boy and the times the young man ran with no background intrigued me. He played basketball again his sophomore year and ended up 2nd in the state in the mile. This year he decided to not play basketball because of a recurring foot problem aggravated by planting and cutting. Up to this time the young man had probably never run over thirty miles a week. The traditional approach would have been to take advantage of the opportunity of no basketball and pile on the miles. Patrick and I talked about it and my advice to him was train him like an athlete not a distance runner. So they did. He did tons of circuit work modeled after the Seb Coe workouts from the 1980’s. I will have to check with Patrick but I do not think ne ever exceeded thirty miles in a week. Oh by the way North Shore does not have a track. Actually a great advantage because the majority of the stress workouts were done on grass. Here is Patrick’s description of the race: “The pace in the 1600m goes out slow. Everyone looks for Thompson or Peter to take the lead and neither of them want it. Thompson eventually takes the lead and coast through 400m in 66 and then hits 800m at 2:15. Peter is right on his shoulder. Sure enough he starts moving with 600m to go and Thompson starts opening up a gap. Peter hits 1200m at 3:22 about 5m back but Thompson is starting to increase his lead. Peter struggled in the Prelims from 1200m to 1400m against a weaker opponent so this was the point of the race I was most worried about. Coming onto the back stretch Thompson had increased his lead to 10m and seemed to be starting to pull away. About halfway down the back stretch the lead stopped increasing. Peter started slowly closing the gap. He hit the 1400m mark at 3:52.9 and then really started moving. He caught Thompson with 100m to go and flew by him. The announcer described the race this way “and with a tremendous burst of speed, Callahan has taken the lead!” Peter runs a 27.4 last 200m and a 58.2 last 400m and wins by 2 seconds. I haven’t seen a much better finish by any high school kid ever.” Congratulations to Peter and Patrick – Tremendous accomplishment and a great illustration of following the functional path. Chicago Tribune article:http://chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/sports/highschool/cs-25-prep-track-sidemay25,0,6606829.story Chicago Sun Times article http://yourseason.suntimes.com/othersports/966022,052208btrstate.article
Adding an Exercise
I saw a real intriguing exercise the other day that got me thinking about the process I use to include an exercise in a training program. First I ask myself the following question: Is it want to do, nice to do or need to do? Want to do is not good enough. If it is want to do it goes in the want to do file for future reference. If it is nice or need to do then it must fit in the context of the sport. It must fit the athletes. It must have the ability to progress both into and out of the exercise. Then I ask myself does it replace an excise that is currently in the program? Is it a better more effective exercise? If it is not superior then I will not add it to the program. Over the years when I have forced an exercise into a program without following this criteria it has been either ineffective or a disaster. I know that over the life of this blog I periodically come back to context. The more I observe programs and evaluate my own work the more important context is to the development and implementation of an effective program.
Edward O. Wilson
Last night on the PBS program NOVA (One of my all time favorite television programs) the subject was Edward O. Wilson. The title of the program was “Lord of the Ants.” http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/eowilson/Wilson is scientist from Harvard who gained fame for his study of ants and his theories of animal behavior that he derived from his observation of animals in nature. He is the founder of the field of Sociobiology. My first exposure to him was through his book Consilience, where he discusses methods used to unite the sciences with the humanities. He defines Consilience, as the synthesis of knowledge from varied fields of human endeavor. He is the consummate big picture thinker. The program was fascinating and very thought provoking. He is definitely someone I hope to be able to meet sometime. His current project is a huge collaborative effort to compile an Encyclopedia of Life http://www.eol.org/ to catalog all the living species on earth. The plan is to have one page per species. The estimate is that there will be 1.8 million entries. At age 78 he has a passion for learning and teaching that is inspirational. This speaks to the point I was making on yesterday’s blog about the younger generations. He has every right to act as if he knows it all, but he is driven to learn, share ideas and educate. He is a great role model for us all.