Author: Vernon Gambetta
GAIN 2018 Wrap-up – Recollections & Reflections
GAIN 2018 has been finished for just a little over a week and I already can’t wait for next year – only 343 days to go for GAIN 2019! For my wife and I GAIN is a lot of work, but each year it is gratifying to see the work come to fruition. For all involved it is a special time of learning and sharing with other with professionals across many disciplines and sports with varied perspectives from around the world. Eleven years ago, when we started GAIN there were 16 attendees including the faculty, this year there were 89. The goal never was to get big as this was intended to be another summit or a large clinic. It is only open by application. Those who are selected to attend have skin in the game and are willing to share their success and failures and subsequent lessons learned. This year’s theme was: Connecting the Dots – Back to Basics. It was so cool to see lights go on in people’s heads when they saw connections that they never thought existed and how they could apply those connections to make the people they work with better. Then there was the basics. We had people who have worked with the best teams and athletes and athletes in the world and all underscored how they never deviated from the basics, how the basics were reinforced up to the day of an Olympic final. It is impossible to write the great American novel if you don’t know the alphabet. Each day started early with a field session on the Rice University track. This is an “Active Learning” session designed to allow the attendees to feel the movements, with the emphasis was on the basics of movement. These are high level teaching sessions designed to be tied to subsequent presentations and concepts presented in the classroom. After breakfast there were two classroom sessions followed by a break for lunch. After lunch there were three workshops that the attendee rotated through. Those were followed by three shorter classroom sessions and a short free discussion period broken into interest groups. Then dinner followed by an evening session. The first night this was designed to get everyone taking and to meet each other. The second night was a Gold Medal panel consisting of GAINers who had worked Gold medalists in Rio and Korea. The recording of that panel will be on the GAINcast soon. I mention the meals because that is where GAIN really happens, It is not the presentations, workshops or active learning sessions, those only serve to facilitate discussions at meals and sitting at Valhalla pub on campus. Now the learning and sharing continues on the GAIN forum. I think faculty member Landon Evans from University of Iowa summed it up quite well: “GAIN is the antidote for the lack-luster workshop/clinic environment these days.” I remiss to not thank Rice University men’s Track & Field for being our campus host, especially assistant coach Brek Christensen. Special thanks to my wife Melissa who does all the hard work in preparation and to Tove Shere and Pauline Giles who were so helpful to Melissa. Special shout out to Tommy McHugh and his dad who do all the filming and maintain the website.
Where are the heroes?
Are there any heroes left? I have a few but frankly most of my heroes are dead. A hero is special, they stand above the crowd, they speak up and act for what they believe in. Some of my hero’s today are the young athletes I work with that I see working their tails off without adulation, money or public attention to pursue their dream of being the best they can be. My heroes are the coaches who work with these young athletes dedicating countless hours to offer guidance through the growth process. My hero’s today are teachers who labor in anonymity to teach our future leaders and responsible citizens. They do this for relatively low pay and little recognition, yet they are the cornerstone of our future. Take a minute today & recognize the heroes in your life. Look around they are there, don’t look on the front page of newspaper or on sport center they probably aren’t there. They are neighbors and your friends, the one who get the job done.
Fifty Years On
This is not the easiest blog I have ever written. I must admit I am struggling to find the right words to express my feelings today. 50 years ago, yesterday I was studying for my last final before graduating from Fresno State college when I turned on the TV and found out that Robert Kennedy had been shot. Four years before during my senior year in high school his brother had been shot. The 1968 California primary was the first time I was old enough to vote. Next morning, I took the final and then found he had died. I can still remember the hollow feeling I felt then. Needless to say some of the dream died that day. 50 years later I still have much of the idealism I had that day tempered by many experiences and lessons. I am still hopeful for a better world and world peace, hopefully we all will be able to see some of his dream come true in our lifetimes. For me personally since graduating from Fresno Sate the last fifty years have been an incredible journey, some successes, some failure, some mistakes, many lessons learned and love from family and friends. Thank God for my parents who were uneducated immigrants who inspired me to live the American dream. Thanks to my wife and children who inspire me every day. Thanks for the friends. There is hope because there are good people who want a better world. Louis Armstrong said it best in his iconic song: What a Wonderful World I see trees of green, red roses too I see them bloom for me and you And I think to myself what a wonderful world I see skies of blue and clouds of white The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night And I think to myself what a wonderful world The colors of the rainbow so pretty in the sky Are also on the faces of people going by I see friends shaking hands saying how do you do They're really saying I love you I hear babies crying, I watch them grow They'll learn much more than I'll never know And I think to myself what a wonderful world Yes I think to myself what a wonderful world
Posture
Posture is not a static position. Posture is dynamic constantly changing and adapting to environmental demands in order to efficiently execute the desired movement. It is highly impacted by gravity, the ground and vestibular and proprioceptive considerations. Posture is not a still picture or a static position it is dynamic alignment and realignment of the body to stabilize, reduce and produce force based on the demands of the activity at hand.
What’s New?
This past weekend my good friend and professional colleague, Jimmy Radcliffe, came to Sarasota for his annual day and a half visit after the NCAA regional track meet. We spend the time each year reflecting, analyzing what we did the previous year and planning. Jim was kind enough to have me assist with the Women’s Olympic Gold Medal Ice Hockey team so that was one topic of conversation. Neither of us had ever worked with ice hockey before, but we came to the conclusion that it really did not matter because it was all about reinforcing basics and improving movement efficiency. We came to a profound realization, after looking at the landscape of Strength & Conditioning/Athletic Development through the lens of a combined ninety years of experiences, that there is very little that is new. People have put together “stuff” with sciency names that is great for marketing, but beneath the hype and catchy phrases you see that there is not much new there– essentially old ideas repackaged and sometimes bastardized. What is new is the technology, some of it good and some of it bad. What technology has given us is a better understanding of why and how methods work and don’t work. It is interesting to note that most of the methods were developed and perfected before sophisticated technology existed. Look at the 1940’s book by Logan & McKinney and you will see that the analysis that they were able to do without high speed computerized analysis techniques was spot on. Take a look back, know your history, know the principles behind training. Here are some books (there are many more) and names from the 1970’s and before that are just as timely with their information today as when they were written. Logan & McKinney – Kinesiology Bob Nidefer – The Inner Athlete Knot & Voss – Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation Pat O’Shea – Scientific Principles and Methods of Strength Fitness Jim Hay – The Biomechanics of Sports Techniques Joseph R. Higgins – Human Movement, An Integrated Approach If you take the time to read these books you will realize that everything old can be new again. We are not two old guys longing for the good old days, rather we are asking the younger generation of coaches to take a longer view of the body of knowledge that has gone before us. We both realize that when we used “new” ideas that strayed from the basics, the results were not there. It does not have to be shiny and new to be good. Know the basics, repeat the basics, don’t deviate from the basics and above all know and respect where the basics came from.
Coaching Pedigree
I am definitely not a betting man, but if I were to bet on the horses I would thoroughly investigate a horse’s pedigree before I bet on a horse. It is the same in coaching and teaching. Pedigree and lineage mean are meaningful. Who were your mentors? Who did you learn from? You can’t choose your parents, but you can choose your mentors, that will determine your pedigree. More letters after your name do not improve your pedigree, gaining knowledge and experience do improve your pedigree. Remember Seabiscuit did not have the pedigree, but that horse had people who believed in him and sought out the knowledge to make him better. If they would have listened to conventional wisdom Seabiscuit would not have been a winner. Create your own pedigree.
Nurturing the Athlete – It Takes Time
My father was a gardener and I remember the first time he took me to work with him, I was probably ten or eleven years old. As any youngster, I was impatient and full of questions. I wanted to know why this patch of garden had no plants. Why we had to water this area and fertilize another section. Why we had to trim these plants and let others grow. I wanted to know why he didn’t plant all the seeds at the same time. He explained it to me, but I must admit that I did not fully understand it until years later after I had started coaching. The carrots had to be planted at a certain time. The winter and summer squash were different. Some vegetables thrived in the cold of winter and others need the heat of summer. The same is true with the nurturing of the athlete. You must carefully cultivate the soil by developing physical competencies. Then you plant appropriate levels of training of the various physical capacities. You allow those capacities to grow and develop and then you carefully harvest them in competition. At no time is anything forced. Developing athleticism is a long-term process that requires constant attention from the gardener/coach.
Real Change
Change will come not by finding new answers to old questions, but real change will come from abandoning the old questions, stop trying to answer them, leave them. Ask new questions and reframe the old ones. Asking the same old questions just leads to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, not a real practical solution for the problem at hand.