Author: Vernon Gambetta
GAIN 2015 – Getting Started
We kicked off GAIN 2015 yesterday despite a lack of cooperation from mother nature and numerous flight cancellations, delays and re-bookings everyone got it. Terrific group. Very diverse group from all over the world with tremendous expertise.I am very excited to keep meeting people and exchanging ideas. Today our theme is "The Foundation" – the emphasis is on physical education as the foundation leading off with Greg Thompson an extraordinary PE teacher, followed by Randy Ballard from University of Illinois sharing his work on Trainability assessment – That takes care of the morning. Then I will present on the Basics of Training, followed by Nick Garcia from Notre Dame High School who will take us through the young athletes journey at the high school level. In the evening Mike Bahn from US Skiing and Patrick McHugh from Northshore Country Day school will present on solutions in youth sport. This morning we kick -off at 6:30 on the track with three active learning stations. All with the goal of "Coaching the Best to be Better."
Excellence is a Habit!
Everyday is NOT game day, everyday is preparation for game day. Do something today that no one else in your sport is doing to get better. Get out of your comfort zone & commit 24/7. Excellence is a habit & a lifestyle.You can be the best you can be, nothing more, nothing less!
GAIN VIII June 17 to 21, 2015
We are almost there to the start of GAIN 2015 our eighth gathering. Each one has better than the previous one, this year is shaping up to be the best ever with new delegates from all over the sporting world. It has developed into the professional development community/network I hoped it would be when I started it. We have three areas of focus 1) Physical Education 2) Sports Medicine/Rehab 3) Coaching/Athletic Development. There is no better experience than top professionals in these three areas asking questions, challenging each other and sharing. 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. GAIN Goals Provide a career defining educational experience for all involved Define the field of Athletic Development Reinforce the concepts that: Training = Testing and Testing = Training Training = Rehab and Rehab = Training GAIN VIII Theme Applying practice based evidence to ensure a difference in performance. Each day we have a theme that directs out teaching and attention. The daily themes for this year are: Day One – Getting Started Day Two – The Foundation Day Three – The Application Day Four – The Next Level Day Five – Bring It Home Hopefully next year you will be able to join us for GAIN or a GAIN specialty event starting next fall.
Punching The Clock
Nothing is more frustrating for me as a coach than to see athletes just doing it, putting in the time just going the through the motions thinking that will make them better. If just putting in the time was the answer then everyone would be great, there is so much more requited. To borrow the concept from De La Sale High football start with “Perfect Effort” anyone can do that, it takes no talent or special gift. For awhile a young athlete can fool themselves because in the teenage years virtually anything they do (to a point) will make them better, especially if they are talented. It does not take much to get better at that level if you have special gifts. But sooner or later, most often sooner they will have to pay the piper and the lack of intensity and quality will haunt them either in the form of an injury or performance plateau or decrement. Some of this behavior and attitude is reinforced by the so-called 10,000-hour rule, not a rule at all by the way. But it has been misinterpreted and misused to encourage just doing more and doing it earlier to accrue the magic time figure. What is forgotten is deliberate practice, which by Ericsson’s guidelines is demanding and uncomfortable. Also lets not forget deliberate play at the younger ages, that counts as development, it is fundamental and driven by the young athlete. Sandlot baseball, pick-up basketball and soccer make a big difference in learning through discovery and getting athletically fit. Ultimately it is not the time you put into accumulating hours, it is what you put into the time. Never lose sight of that.
Thought for the Week – Progression
Know and understand progression. The key to a sound training program is progression. Proper progression prevents poor performance and goes a long a long way toward preventing injury. Don’t confuse protocols with progression; protocols imply a set time frame for completion of tasks, in essence ticking the boxes. Progression demands mastery of each step before moving to the next step. In no way is it linear and entirely predictable. There is huge individual variability in how athlete’s progress at different stages of their career and how they adapt to varied training stimuli.
The Gap
The gap is the difference of where you are now in your training and where you need or want to be in your performance. Obviously the wider the gap the farther you have to go. Regardless of the width of the gap the training and preparation is always a process of working to close that gap. It requires constant vigilance so that one component of training does not get out of balance with other components and the necessary work that needs to be done to close the gap. It requires continual honest and realistic assessment on the part of the athlete and the coach to insure that progress is being made to close the gap. All of that being said in my experience it is a constant process of widening and then narrowing the gap.
Strength as a Skill
We need to rethink how we conceptualize strength. It would be helpful to conceptualize strength as a skill, a finely tuned skill at that. Think of it not as a sledgehammer that delivers a blunt blow. Rather think of it as a pinprick, a very high force concentrated in a very small area. To do that demands incredible coordination and synchronization. Anyone can get measurably strong in the weight room fairly fast (A certain amount of that kind of strength is necessary, but not as much as we have been led to believe), but applying and using that strength is another matter. A huge aspect of performance is closing the gap between strength you can measure and strength you can apply. To better apply strength think of it as a finely tuned skill that is highly trainable in a variety of situations using the interaction of the body, gravity and the ground. You might not be able to measure it but you will quickly see the difference where it matters most, in the competitive arena with a healthier more mobile, adaptable ant-fragile athlete.
That’s what they do at the U
I continually and constantly see this – high school strength and conditioning programs that blindly copy university programs, especially in football. What they do at the U has nothing to do with what should be done with growing and developing athletes. At the U they are working with mature men and women who they got to select at the high school level you are working with a very heterogeneous population of growing boys and girls. Imitation may be flattery but the end results are not very flattering. In addition in these imitation programs you have male training programs imposed on females and you wonder why high school female athletes have the rate of injury they do. Imitating the U ignores the importance of developmental age. Where is the progression? At the U they usually have a fairly large staff that can supervise programs for various sports, at the high school this is not the case. The bottom line here is that if you are copying what they are doing at the U it is not for you. You can do better than that for your athletes.