Author: Vernon Gambetta
GAIN 2019 – In the Books
GAIN 2019 is in the books. I am already going through GAIN withdrawal. GAIN is always special, but this year was even more special. It was an incredible mix of people who were willing to share and question. It is this interaction coupled with the highest quality of presentations that make GAIN very special. My goal when we started GAIN was to make it different. To establish a network for professionals to connect and share ideas to make themselves better. It has become a community that stretches worldwide. Even though the G in GAIN is Gambetta, it is not about me, all I am is the facilitator, facilitating a culture of sharing in an intellectually challenging environment. The faculty all have skin in the game, they live what they teach, they are willing to share successes and failures. Diverse ideas are encouraged, no BS is tolerated. The strength is in the network as a learning community. We are all highly motivated professionals eager to challenge conventional wisdom, generate new ideas and take a different look at old ideas, all in pursuit of excellence. It is an electric and exciting atmosphere because it is not something that is normally done in sport, physical education athletic medicine and sport science. GAIN is designed to meet the 21st century reality that demands adaptability to rapid change by fostering teamwork, a multi-disciplinary approach to address all dimensions of sports performance. The emphasis is on innovation not imitation, to see the world with new eyes by offering different perspectives. We go beyond the what, how and when and delve deep into the why. We learn to use new tools and different application of old tools, all with the goal of producing an adaptable, robust athlete who will thrive in the competitive environment. In has been career changing for me. I can’t wait for next year. My challenge is to make each year the best experience possible, the group this year set the bar high.
Smell the Roses
Fifty years this week I coached my first and only California State High School Champion in the shot put, Sam Cunningham. He threw 64’9” a mark that would have placed second this year. At the time I did not appreciate what an accomplishment this was. I was in my first-year coaching, 22 years old and pretty full of myself because I had coached a state champion. Now fifty years on I realize that Sam was one the best athletes I would ever coach. I was too young to appreciate the accomplishment. Sam was a special athlete and a special person, a great competitor, leader and a great person. He would go on star on the football at USC and in professional football. The lesson is quite simple, enjoy every triumph, take the time to reflect, smell the roses and always put everything in perspective. There were many more medals and championships after that but none more special that that sunny day in June at UCLA in 1969.
Some Questions to Think About
What are you: Strong for? Fit For? Fast For? Does what you are doing in preparation for performance really connect to the actual performance? Is your training making the athletes better or just making them tired? How do you know your training program is having the intended results? Ultimately how do you measure your performance as a coach?
Churchill – Walking With Destiny
I highly recommend this book. Not an easy read. It is long and detailed. Very rich in content with many insights into a very complex man. I have always been fascinated by Churchill, after reading this I am no less fascinated. He had his flaws, that was for sure, but somehow under the direst circumstances he led his nation through one of the most difficult times any nation in history has endured. I think there are many lessons in this book that apply to our current world order. “In that sense, Churchill was one of the greatest individualists of modern times, because he approached everything in life completely as an individual rather than part of a group, from the moment he left his officers mess in 1889 onwards. (P.980)” This sums up my appeal of Churchill as a figure in history, he was his own man.
1440 – Not Enough Time?
When someone says to me they don't have enough time I don't react very well. In fact to me it is a losers lament. Why is that the people with the most to do get the most done? It is because they make choices how to effective use their time. Think of it his way: You have 1440 minutes in a day, how many of you are using those minutes to your best advantage? Take an inventory over two or three days and you will be surprised how much time you actually have.
Not My First Rodeo
In the past fifty plus years I have had the opportunity to see a lot and experience a lot. I have seen great coaches and terrible coaches. I have observed great practices and training sessions. I have observed and been subjected to practices and training sessions that I would not subject my bitterest enemy to. Why am I writing this? I am writing this because I see the current generation of younger coaches acting like they invented the wheel. What I see today in training, there is very little that is new. It is fifty-year-old or older stuff repackaged and made glitzy posted on Instagram or YouTube. I have learned that ultimately what works are those methods that are grounded in fundamentals and do not stray from the basics. I am seventy-two years old and have been coaching for fifty years. Before that I played American football and competed in the decathlon. I am still learning and trying to grow professionally and personally. I have learned that the only way to grow is to stay curious, always ask why. Be acutely aware of what you know and what you don’t know. Be willing to experiment, to make mistakes, admit the mistakes and learn from the mistakes. I have learned that just because you can measure something does not make it meaningful. Certainly, I always need to be informed by numbers, but to default to my intuition and experience if there is any doubt. My mission in life going forward is to share what I think know, what I don’t know as well as my experiences good and bad. To share what I am learning and why to help others get better at what they do. I know for sure there is no one way, there are many roads to Rome, some are more direct than others. Lest we forget we are coaching people who play not machines or robots. I am looking forward to a few more rodeos!
Team Speed
When I the so-called experts talking about team speed and all they emphasize is acceleration, I just scratch my head. Are you watching the same game I am? Top end speed, max speed is important for team sport players and must be trained. The key concept is that in athletics you accelerate to top speed, in multi-directional sports you accelerate to optimum speed. Top speed obviously assumes more importance depending on where you play on the pitch/field. If nothing else, it will inoculate you against hamstring pulls. I plan on expanding on this in a future episode of the GAINcast, it definitely will be a topic of discussion at GAIN.
Shaking My Head
Stop and think for a minute – It takes approximately .8 of a second to express maximal strength. Most athletic movements take place in the range of .2 to .5 of a second. So why do we spend such an inordinate amount of time emphasizing maximal strength? Is it because it is measurable? Is it because it is convenient? Is it a misunderstanding of the principle of overload? Can you see the basic disconnect here? Isn’t it more important to develop strength you can use? Think about strength training as coordination training with appropriate resistance to allow you to produce or reduce force in .2 to .4 of a second. Train appropriate for the strength and power demands of the sport. Just remember too often what happens in the weight room stays in the weight room. Get outside the confinement of the weight room walls and open up a whole new vista for performance improvement. Think athletic development not strength and conditioning. Build a robust athlete prepared for the demands of the sport.