Author: Vernon Gambetta
Rush to Sport Science
Just saw where another NFL team named a Director of Sport Science. I have been looking at this whole area while preparing for my presentation this Friday to EXB 179 Frontiers in Exercise Biology class at University California Davis as part of a series on The Role of Science in Sports sponsored by Dept of Neurobiology, Physiology & Behavior. I will be speaking on "The past & future of science in training athletes" (It is free & open to public – join us.) Certainly throughout my career I have used science to the fullest extent I have been capable given the resources available, time and budget. I find it interesting that all of sudden over the past few years I keep seeing the term “sport science” tossed around like it is some mysterious cure all and a magic pill to improve sport performance. I think all this attention warrants some very basic questions. I ask these questions not to be sarcastic but out of genuine curiosity to see what this is all about. What really is sport science? Do these teams and organizations really know what they are getting when they hire a sports science person? Is it just monkey see, monkey do – just hiring one because everyone else has one? What exactly will they do? Will they just be window dressing? How will they interface with the sport coaches, S&C coaches and the medical staff? Who really knows how to use and apply sport science? Is this really all that innovative? I know over twenty years ago with the Chicago White Sox we did biomechanics analysis of our minor league pitchers, we had an extensive sport psych program. We did research on running and movement mechanics. I thought it was just part of what needed to be done to develop the athlete. Did it make a difference? Unequivocally yes. Why – because it was a coordinated program that was integrated into the fiber of the player development program. I saw the same thing the last few years under the direction of Dean Benton with the Brumbies in Super Rugby. An unbelievably integrated program with everyone onboard and it showed up in results on the field. Was it sport science? Yes the sport sciences were part of it, but it was a unified effort of the whole performance team. Time will tell where all this will go.
Where did we lose our way?
In doing research for my new book I have been looking at the decline of physical education in the schools and the effects this has had on the process of developing athletes. When I started teaching in 1969 this was the model program, a famous physical educator and coach Stan LeProtti developed it. This is a boy’s gym class from La Sierra High School Carmichael California circa 1960’s. These are not the athletes this is a gym class! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yQth3QEXtA No cup stacking, no heart rate monitors, no machines just education that was physical. It was demanding and competitive, there were five levels of achievement signified by the color trunks that the students earned. It makes you wonder where we lost our way? Where did standards and expectations get lowered? We need to wakeup fast; we are sitting on a time bomb of obesity and diseases’ of disuse from our hypokinetic society. The results will bankrupt the healthcare system. We must reinstitute mandatory daily physical education as a major step in the right direction. Of course there is a problem there because there are few colleges and universities that train physical educators anymore, but there are also solutions to that. We need action now! Just to sum it one of the swim coaches I work with told that yesterday one of the gym classes at the local high had the students walk to Dairy Queen for the class activity – this speaks volumes! Let's find the compass, orient to true north and get back on track.
Searching
Looking for the answer? Gertrude Stein had it right when she wisely said: “The answer is there is no answer.” Despite those words keep searching because it is the process of searching that results in continual learning. By the way if you think you have the answer I suggest you look again.
Can Do
Focus on what you can do. I get so tired of listening to coaches talk to athletes about they can’t do. Find out what they can do and help them to do it better. By focusing so much on what they can’t do you take away what they can do. I am not saying to completely ignore your weaknesses, by all means work on minimizing them and bring up to the level of your strength, but in the process do not take away the strength. From a coaching perspective tell them what they need to do. Create a learning environment where mistakes are learning opportunities, where they are stepping stones rather obstacles. You learn to get better by pushing the boundaries.
Hard Work
Everyone works hard. How is your hard work different than someone else’s? Are you doing anything different that will separate you from the pack? Are you doing it better? It is more than time on your feet accruing more miles or chasing a black line at the bottom of the pool. You could train a monkey to do that. The challenge is to make what you do special, to make it fit the individual, to eliminate the fluff and focus on the need to do. Have a crystal clear image of the goal and keep that image in front of you at all times. Do not compromise; make everything you do fit the pursuit of that goal. It is not doing more, it is doing it better – half as much may be twice as good!
Connections
Forget posterior chain, glute medius, transverse abdominis and all those other reductionist, mechanistic ways of looking at the body. Instead, step back and look at the whole kinetic chain. Look at how everything is connected. Look at how the parts interact and work in synergistic patterns to solve movement problems. To analyze motion look at how everything links, syncs and coordinates. See if there is a flow, a rhythm that allows natural use of gravity and ground reaction forces to produce or reduce force. Look at movement as a big dance with varied rhythms and tempos. Look at how all systems of the body work together continually to produce efficient movement. Just like it is futile to isolate muscles the same is true with trying to isolate systems of the body. Everything is neural everything is metabolic. Once you understand the connections in the body then the key is to connect the training of the body to the activity being trained for. To make that connection demands an understanding of what the body can and cannot do relative to the demands of the sport. Recognize that everybody is different; everyone has a unique movement fingerprint that allows them to do what is necessary for them to achieve the desired action in the sport. Too many times we try to fit the athlete to the sport instead of adapting the sport to the athlete. Make connections and you can’t go wrong!
What’s Happening in Coaching?
Where are the coaches? There is a crisis in coaching. Who and where are prospective coaches being taught how to coach and how to teach? Sport and Exercise science has replaced physical education in college and university programs with a curriculum heavy on the sciences and no emphasis on pedagogy, how to teach. Over the past two months I have seen numerous examples of this. As an Australian colleague of mine observed, most young “coaches” today could not organize a drinking contest in a brewery. Being able to explain all the substrates involved in muscle contraction or knowing what genetic signals are being turned off or on may be important in the laboratory but on the track, the field, the pool or the court it comes down to the ability to coach, to teach, organize and motivate. That is fundamental pedagogy, who is being taught that anymore? We need to wake up. The exercise science/wellness oriented college curriculums are turning out personal trainers, personal training is NOT coaching. Coaching is teaching, organizing, and leading. Coaching is knowledge of fundamental skills and how to teach them, it is understanding progressions and age appropriate training. Coaching requires dedication, commitment & working until the job is done. It is not a two-hour a day proposition where you show up “coach” & leave. 90% of coaching is grunt work & it is the grunt work that often determines success or failure. Coaching is something you are, not something you do. It is not for the faint of heart or dilettantes. Just because you are certified does not mean you are prepared to coach. Most of the certification programs with the notable exceptions of US soccer and Skiing require no proficiency in teaching. Most programs involve sitting in a classroom for days and looking at slides and video in a mind numbing exercise in futility. To be certified as a coach you need to show you can coach not just take a paper and pencil test. We must wake up and do something to rectify this. Coaching is the lifeblood of sport. Just look at the alarming rate of injury in sport at all levels, look at the poor fundamental sport skills at the highest level of sport, those trends did not happen by chance. The injuries and poor skills are closely tied to the decline of trained coaches. All of you who care must take action. Pressure your sport governing body to upgrade and add rigor to their coaching certification programs. Go to your school boards and ask hard questions about who is coaching the children in the school system. We can and must improve coaching because coaching matters. And coaching makes a difference.
Speed To The Max
Last fall I did my seminar on speed at Leeds Metropolitan University in England hosted by Brendan Chaplin. Brendan had it all videoed and now it is available for purchase. In this seminar/workshop I share my experiences of 44 years of coaching people to be faster both in terms of Linear Speed and Multidimensional speed and agility. I think you will find a very useful resource because I share my experiences of what worked, what did not work and my questions going forward. Go to http://tinyurl.com/pnwvq5z to view the trailer. Order it now while there is a special offer: The price is £147 for 5 days only. Then it’s £237.