Author: Vernon Gambetta
GAIN 2019 – Applications Open
GAIN is a community of professional’s eager to learn and willing to share ideas and information. GAIN is not about more exercises, sets, reps and training methods it is about passionate people who pursue excellence with honesty, integrity and respect to make a difference in the lives of the people we coach and teach. Who attends? GAIN is open to Strength & Conditioning/Athletic Development coaches, Sport Coaches, Physical Therapists, ATC’s, Chiropractors, Doctors and Physical Education teachers. Those who attend are professionals seeking career advancement & renewal through a networking experience and who are interested in getting out of their comfort zone. When is GAIN? June 11 to June 15, 2019 Where is GAIN? It is held on the campus of Rice University in Houston Texas. How much does GAIN cost? Tuition is $2150. This includes breakfast, lunch and dinner each day, and lodging at Rice University. How do I apply? Go to tinyurl.com/gain19 to apply, submit your application now, enrollment is limited. We will let you know within ten days if you are accepted. Where can I learn more about GAIN? Go to www.thegainnetwork.com/ or call 941-378-1778. You can also email Vern Gambetta at gstscoach@gmail.com Why do I have to apply? Can’t I just sign up? Having people apply is part of what makes GAIN special. It would be easier to make it open for anyone to enroll, but that is not what GAIN is about. We are looking for people who are wiling to share and challenge themselves and others to grow professionally. The people in the network with you are as important (maybe even more important) than the faculty experts. The connections and inspiration you get from those around you have a significant impact on the experience. Who are the faculty? Our faculty has a a tremendous breadth of experiences and a record of excellence in their chosen fields. They know how a performance team works, how all aspects of athletic development complement each other and most importantly they understand the process of developing athletes. How does the network work? The GAIN annual meeting is the beginning. Participants have access to a secure website that offers access to an online forum and library including video of past GAIN Annual Meetings. In addition, GAIN members are eligible to come back each year at a reduced rate. GAIN 2019 Theme Building on the Basics – Step by Step GAIN Mission To focus on the possibilities for enhancing human movement with no limits or limitations and emphasize connections and links between all disciplines in the same manner we emphasize connections and linkages in the body.
Herb Elliot and Ralph Doubell – Some Lessons for Today
Sadly, I doubt that unless you are a diehard track fan you do not know these names. I am surprised at how many of the current generation of track coaches and athletes do not know these names. Herb Elliot won the Gold Medal in the 1500 meters at the 1960 Rome Olympic games in a world record time of 3:35.6. Ralph Doubell won the Gold medal in the 800 Meters at the 1968 Mexico City Olympic games in the world record time of 1:44.40. The last two books I read in 2018 were Ralph Doubell – Don’t Worry, It Is Only Pain and The Golden Mile by Herb Elliot. The Doubell book is new, the Elliot book was first published in 1961, I had read it first in 1969. I did not realize how much it had influenced me until rereading it again last week. My original copy had gone missing. Elliot and Doubell were both Aussies. They were coached by two giants in coaching – Elliot by Percy Cerutty and Doubell by Frans Stampfl who had also coached Roger Bannister to the first sub four-minute mile in 1954. The two coaches could not have more different in personality and approach to coaching Frans Stampfl was a professional coach, paid by University of Melbourne, a rarity at the time. He was a generalist who coached all events. As an athlete he had been a javelin thrower. His training methods were biased toward classical interval training as developed by Woldemar Gerschler in Germany in the 1930’s. There were more structured workouts ion the track working at varying prescribed paces. Stampfl was an early advocate of weight training. Doubell lifted up to three times a week at certain times of the year. Percy Cerutty was a self-made man. After nearly dying from ill health in mid-forties he started running and lifting weights, adopting a lifestyle defined by his approach to physical culture. He espoused a Stotan philosophy, Stotan was a contraction stoic and spartan. He was an outspoken critic of the track & field establishment. Their training was spartan to say the least. The training was based on effort and feel rather than being driven by the watch. In the year leading up to Rome they ran 3 minutes and thirty seconds all out often once a week to get used to the pain and effort necessary to win the gold. Cerutty was also a big advocate of weight training, it was integral part of their preparation. A big part of their preparation was sand running at Portsea, their primitive training camp. It is interesting to note that both Elliot and Doubell had not started specializing early. Doubell was a late developer that played a variety of sports until specializing as a University student. Elliot did everything, he rowed, played cricket, Aussie Rules Football. He was a prodigy in many respects breaking world junior record in the mile and 880 as an 18-year-old. Doubell did not do much formal training as teenager by todays standards. Elliot did more but nothing approaching what some high school boys are doing today. Both were very active as youth, playing outside walking and riding their bikes everywhere. At the same time, I was reading a doctoral dissertation “Applications of Anaerobic Speed Reserve to Elite 800m running” by Gareth Neil Sandford. It was a tremendous piece of work, full of actionable information about the 800 meters both in terms of training and racing. This was written in 2018, but I could not help but think how Cerutty and Stampfl had it figured out sixty years ago. I t is amazing that in the intervening sixty years how muddled and confusing training has become. These two books should be mandatory reading for every track and field coach, for that matter for every swim coach, triathlon, cycling and cross-country ski coach. It will make you think about getting back to basics and focusing on the need to do to get your athletes faster.
50 Years and Counting – The Journey Continues
Next Monday marks the anniversary of my first day of coaching fifty years ago. I thought this would be an appropriate post to start the new year. Even though it is now fifty years since the first Monday in January 1969 it seems like just yesterday. So much has happened in those fifty years. How do you measure what you have done – good, bad and indifferent? I do know one thing for sure that when I started coaching and teaching was sure I was going to change the world and fifty years later I am still trying. Back then I thought it would be easy, it seemed logical that people would want to change and innovate. Little did I know how much people resist change and new ideas. Fifty years ago, I had all the answers, now at age 72 I have more questions than answers. I have learned that challenging people with intelligent pointed questions is how real change occurs. Change is never easy, seldom comfortable, but it is a constant. Let’s take a step back and look at the socio-cultural milieu in January 1969 when I stared coaching. In September 1967 I played my last football game at Fresno State. Up to that time I had defined myself as a jock football player, something I was never 100% comfortable with, I knew there was more there. Certainly, the world around me was changing at a head spinning rate. Quitting football, focusing on school and working in the agricultural unit at Fresno Sate doing heavy manual labor from 1:00 to 5:00 each afternoon sharpened my perspective and clarified my future goals. It was liberating, there was a whole wide world out there to conquer. As 1968 ended and the Apollo 8 astronauts left earth’s gravity and circled the moon – a peaceful culmination to the chaos of war and social change that characterized the rest of the year. I just knew the world would never be the same again. I quickly learned that there was clear choice -you could be a leader or a follower. I chose to lead, to work to be a change agent. Certainly, my generation – the baby boomers – was leading these changes, although not always with clear goals or visions of where change would lead. Sport does not exist independent of society and it was 1968 – 69 that the athletes began to wake up. Tommy Smith/John Carlos raised fist protest at the 1968 Olympic games in Mexico was just the tip of the iceberg. Athletes had rights and now they were willing to exercise those rights, frankly it is a battle for those rights that continues unabated today. The way I was coached in college football at Fresno State was typical of coaching across the spectrum of sports in those days. It was characterized verbal, physical and psychological abuse. I knew it did not work and I vowed that when I began to coach, I would find a better way. That was the main reason I gravitated toward track and field. There was clear objective measure of performance – the stopwatch and tape measure. I could measure my improvement, if I worked smart, I got better, pretty straightforward. No coach could tell me I was not tough enough or not good enough, the stopwatch and tape measure did not lie. In addition, the coaches I was exposed in track and field had a whole different mindset and demeanor. There were teachers and I could see the athletes responding to this. So, there I was the first Monday of January 1969 in front of 93 eager and willing high school boys to start my coaching career. They were willing and I was scared! I wasn’t that much older than many of the seniors. I was friends with many of their older brothers and sisters. I had gotten to know many of them while working as a park ranger at a popular surfing beach the past two summers. Fortunately, the head coach, Bill Crow, who I had known since I was a little kid, was there to be a calming and guiding influence. Under high school rules at the time we could not train after school until second semester which began in February. We had 50 minutes for the athletic period, the last period of the day. I remember thinking that 50 minutes was too short, we needed twice that amount of time. Little did know then that it was perfect, it forced me to be very organized with my teaching, to be on point, no fluff. Less can more – first lesson learned although not always well applied over next fifty years. Until 1985 I coached Track and field at all levels with varied degree of success. I had great kids who were willing to work and focus. I think I learned as much from them as they did from me. In 1985 I came to the crossroads and as Yogi Berra said I took it – I began another journey in what was then the infant field of strength and conditioning working as an assistant conditioning coach with the Chicago Bulls and Chicago White Sox. In 1987 I went to work full time with the White Sox as Director of Conditioning. The next twenty years were a blur, many starts, restarts, pioneering, dealing with naysayers, eventually proving people wrong by showing that system based on sound training methodology would transcend the traditional training methods. It was not comfortable, nor was it easy. In the 1990’s it became very apparent that an overemphasis on strength as an isolated component of training was counterproductive. It was clear that an athletic development approach were all physical properties are trained in varying proportions and they must be trained year around. This has been my focus ever since. To get this message out that athletic development grows robust adaptable athletes who thrive in the chaos of competition. As I look back and also look forward the deepest joy has come from commitment to process and the subsequent outcome of performance. There have been championships, gold medals, record breaking performance’s as well as deep disappointments.God willing there will be more years ahead to apply and share the lessons the lessons I have learned this past fifty years. Finally, I want to thank my family who have been so supportive over this journey. My wife who stood by me and supported me and always kept me grounded. My wonderful children who had to share their father with many other people. They are the best and inspire me. Last but not least the athletes that I have been fortunate to coach and learn from. Lest we ever forget that this profession is all about people and relationships. Here are few thoughts and lessons I have learned in the in the past fifty years: Have a clearly articulated philosophy and live it Be true to what you believe in, never compromise your core beliefs I have learned to use the chip on my shoulder for positive change rather than self-destructive behavior Practice does not make perfect, it makes permanent, messy practice can and is productive There are no boundaries or limits Be the best you, you can be Always strive to keep making a better you Passion is my fuel, but it is high octane and flammable so I had to learn to handle with care You can’t do it alone – Family, true friends and professional colleagues are necessary Build bridges not walls Be the change you want to be If you are wrong, then admit it You will and should make mistakes, just learn from them Love guides me – Love for my fellow man and love of the life we are given
False Prophets Bearing Gifts
Beware of false prophets bearing gifts! There are many silver tonged devils out there who needlessly complicate simple things and are then selling you machines to measure or train those things. Machines that flash red lights and sound sirens are seductive, but they can’t replace a good coach. Have a good filter, know the basics and don’t stray from the basics. Don’t be fooled by the smooth foreign accents or the degrees, recognize them for what they are – snake oil salesmen. There are no shortcuts!
My 2018 Best Books
Of the 150 books I have read in 2018 these are my selections for the best. It is an eclectic collection reflecting my various interests. Hopefully this will give you some ideas for good reading. This year I did not pick a book of the year. Too many good ones to pick out one book. The Culture Code by Dan Coyle Endure – Mind, Body and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance by Alex Hutchinson The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything – Spirituality for Real Life by James Martin SJ Master of Modern Soccer – How the World’s Best Play the Twenty First Century Game by Grant Wahl The Playmakers Advantage by Leonard Zaichowsky & Daniel Peterson On Grand Strategy by John Lewis Gaddis Human Movement an Integrated Approach by Joseph R. Higgins Boyd, The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War by Robert Coram Franklin D. Roosevelt – A Political Life by Robert Dallek Our Towns – An Ongoing Journey into the Heart of America by James and Deborah Fallows Thinking in Bets – Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts by Annie Duke The Barcelona Way – Unlocking the DNA of a Winning Culture by Damian Hughes The Browns of California – The Family Dynasty That Transformed the State and Shaped a Nation by Miriam Pawel Vietnam – An Epic Tragedy, 1945 to 1975 by Max Hastings The Laws of Human Nature by Robert Greene
Looking for Secrets
When I see a new article or a post on the unveiling of the latest secret training method my cynicism meter goes off the scale. One secret that I have learned is there are no secrets. There are no shortcuts to the podium. You can keep looking if you want to, but you are wasting your time. Know the basics, master the basics repeat them until they are flawless. Individualize the training to fit the athlete and adapt the technique so it fits the athlete; don’t try to fit the athlete to the event. Practice with purpose and direction and realize that it will take time. A little talent helps, but a little talent can go a long way if it is maximized and build on a strong foundation of basics. Nothing sexy, no shortcuts just put your nose to the grindstone and get after it consistently.
Using Olympic Lifting – A Perspective
The following is excerpted from my book Athletic Development – The Art and Science of Functional Sports Conditioning – Chapter 10 Full Spectrum Strength with some updates. In the athlete development process, the role of Olympic style weight training has occupied a large role. This has good and bad implications. Olympic style weight lifting is a training method that is excellent for developing power. Olympic lifting as a competitive event consists of two movements, the clean and jerk and the snatch. The derivatives of those movements are what make up the majority of the training exercises. There is no question of the inherent value of these exercises as a tool to raise explosive power, but once again the method must be kept in context and reconciled with the overall goal of the strength training program. In order to achieve optimum return, there are several key points to consider: the first point is that Olympic lifting is a sport. That sport consists of lifting as much weight as possible in the clean and jerk and the snatch. Those lifts have a high technical demand, but the skill is a closed skill that occurs in a narrow range of movement. The Olympic lifting movements do produce tremendous power production because of the distance the weight must travel, the weight and the speed requirements. This power production is highly dependent on the technical proficiency of the individual lifter. Essentially, the training of the weight lifter consists of the actual Olympic lifts and some derivative and assistance exercises. There is no running, jumping or other demands on their system. The sole focus is on lifting as much weight as possible. Olympic lifters traditionally have lifted several times a day. This began in the 1980s because of the influence of the Bulgarians who emerged as a dominant power in the 1970s. The Bulgarian weightlifters were reported to have had as many as six lifting sessions in a training day, repeated for up to five or six training days in a microcycle. Each session seldom ever exceeded sixty minutes. All sessions were at very high intensity. Once again, the point must be made that all these athletes did was lift. It also should be pointed out that they were full time “professional” athletes. Perhaps the most important underlying factor that enabled them to accomplish this severe training regimen was a program of systematic doping. We know that was a huge factor in the lifters ability to recover and handle the high volumes of high intensity work necessary to make the type of strength gains these lifters were making. It also should be pointed out that on the international scene Olympic weightlifting is the “dirtiest” sport in terms of positive drug tests. This is not meant to be negative or to denigrate the sport; rather it is to put the emphasis on Olympic lifting in perspective. Too many coaches have blindly copied the methods of the Olympic lifters without taking these things into consideration. Even if you are an Olympic lifting coach the volumes and intensities reported from the former Eastern bloc countries are beyond anything a drug free athlete can possibly handle for any significant length of time. Let’s take this a step further. It has become very popular among the strength coaching community especially in American football to center their strength training program on Olympic lifting. Many of the football strength coaches blindly copied the volumes and intensities of the Bulgarian and Soviet lifters without taking into account the previously mentioned facts. This volume and intensity were applied in addition to the running, agility work, jumping and the sport specific training. It should be easy to see the problems that would arise. The Olympic lifts are very technical in their demands. Typically, when we work with athletes their lifting sessions are sequenced after their other work. This is not optimum time to utilize lifts with a significant technical element and high neural demand, because fatigue will compromise technique. The other factor that must be considered when extrapolating from the world of Olympic weightlifting is body proportions. Olympic lifters, in effect, are pre-selected by their body types. In order to be successful tall athletes with long limbs are quickly selected out. Smaller athletes with limb lengths that afford a lever advantage succeed. Therefore, to apply Olympic lifting movements without taking into consideration body proportions can severely compromise the effectiveness of the methods Another argument given for the use of the Olympic lifting movements is that they help with jumping because in biomechanical analysis of Olympic lifting the pattern of force closely resembled the vertical jump. I may be missing something here, but then why not just jump with resistance. To learn and master the technical complexity of the Olympic lifting movements to improve jumping seems to be a bit of a stretch. In most situations when working with athletes there is not an infinite amount of time available for training. Therefore, chose methods that will allow you to train the athlete in order to be better at their sport within the restraints of the available time. Recognizing these limitations, the use of Olympic lifting movements is viable and have a place across the spectrum of sports because of their potential for power development. But the movements must be adapted and modified to fit the athlete. It must fit the athlete literally. Body proportions must be carefully considered. Significant modification must be made for the tall athlete. It is important to point out that the Olympic lifting movements do not have to be done with a bar. I have found that Olympic movements with dumbbells to be particularly effective. The factor of body proportions is eliminated because the dumbbell “fits the body.” The disadvantage of the dumbbell is that you will eventually be limited in the amount of weight that can be lifted so that if you are working with sports that require strength dominated power like football or the throws then it is necessary to use the bar to achieve heavier loading. Dumbbells also allow modification of the pulling movements to be done in diagonal and rotational patterns. The bar essentially locks you into the Sagittal plane. From a technical perspective make sure that you as a coach know and understand the technique. Master the teaching progressions. Be sure to allow time in the training program for skill acquisition before adding significant loading. Also teach and preferably train the movements in a non-fatigued state. Adapt the method to the athlete, not the athlete to the method. Remember you are not training Olympic lifters; you are training athletes who use the Olympic lifts and derivatives to raise explosive power.
What Makes Coaching Special
Last week during my visit to Santa Barbara I connected with one of my former athletes from the Santa Barbara High School cross country and track team, Raul Gil. I had not seen Raul for close to forty years. He graduated in 1977 and was captain of the 1977 track team and a team leader on the 1976 cross country team that finished seventh in CIF Southern Section (There was no state cross country meet then). What a tremendous person and success story. He came to US from a small town in Mexico at age eleven not speaking a word of English, he was in ESL (English as a Second Language Class through his sophomore year in high school). Early on he maintained two paper routes, which he credits with teaching him business skills. In 1977 he was named paperboy of the year and won a trip to Europe. He graduated from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo with a degree in business and because of being paperboy of the year got a job with the local newspaper on the business side where he worked for over thirty years. Now he is a team leader for an international company. It was so good sharing stories and catching up. He told me that when I named him captain of the track team that it was the first time he had to get up and speak to a group in English. His children have graduated from college as well a majority of his extended family. Just sitting down with Raul reminded me that coaching is about people, yes, he was a fast runner, yes, we won championships, but most importantly Raul is a champion in life. He is someone to look up to and emulate. Raul thanks for making me a better coach and person, you are in inspiration to me. If you ever wonder why you coach, this is why – the possibility to be a factor in a person’s life. This elevates us all.