Ever wondered why you aren’t getting through to your athletes or peers? You have listed the references, provided the data, and shown a few charts, just like your undergraduate lecturers told you to. They would be proud.
‘Scientific papers, however well-written, rarely carry the emotional weight of a good story. Stories have been the prime means of imparting knowledge and warnings throughout human history. Even in today’s data-rich world, they hold a visceral clout that no amount of graphs, charts or figures can replace.’ (New Scientist #3372).
And there aren’t many well-written scientific papers!
Do you doubt this? Think of The Bible: it’s full of stories and parables that stand the test of time (I’m not a Christian but I can remember a lot of the stories).
Will anything you say and do stick in the memories of the people you are trying to influence as much as the tale of The Good Samaritan?
Chief Storyteller
Sweden doesn’t think so. Its Viable Cities project has hired Per Grankvist to help influence the population to become Carbon-Neutral by 2030.
His job title? Chief Storyteller.
‘When it comes to climate change, storytelling is much more important than the transmission of facts. Just bombarding people with facts doesn’t work, and neither does shaming people.’ (The Big Issue #1498).
Grankvist writes stories that show how people might be living in 2030. Boring people, doing boring things, just like me and you. It’s a human touch that we can relate to.
Every coaching course that I have ever attended has stressed the importance of communication. But they seem to talk about different forms of transmitting data, rather than the nuts and bolts of whether the athletes receive, understand and then desire to change.
Keep stories short and relevant, humour helps
Storytelling with your athletes
I don’t gather up the young gymnasts that I coach, sit them around the fireplace and read them a story of Hercules or The Great Gama.
I do use examples of how people have overcome obstacles and how they managed to change and learn a new skill.
In our club Instagram posts, I try to share who the people are in the videos and a little of their background. We emphasise that these aren’t superhumans, they are ordinary Joes and Janes trying to do extraordinary things.
In our club newsletters, I share a longer piece at the beginning of each month, an idea that I took from Arnold Schwarzenegger’s excellent newsletter. The theme is always the same: our club was set up to help young people develop over the long term. We are there to support and encourage them on their journey rather than win this Saturday.
Parents are living day to day, week to week, crawling towards the school holidays when they have to then juggle childcare. They don’t need facts about thousands of hours of training and periodised training plans (who does?).
Fruitless task
But, seeing a child, or an adult just like them, and hearing their stories, might help influence them.
I am like King Canute,fighting against the tide of step-counting, early-specialisation, bodybuilding, fad-diets and mindless jogging that is endemic in our society, And that’s just the p.e. teachers!
So, telling stories helps explain what we do and why.
What stories can help explain what you do? Think Flash Fiction rather than Tolstoy.
Be succinct, omit unnecessary words, and be genuine.
The stories are there to help your athletes, not to impress your peers on social media.
Here’s an example of me using storytelling to introduce a healthy eating plan for athletes.
In his book, Livewired, neuroscientist David Eagleman illustrates how the neurons in our brains look similar to plants with roots. Like plants (or kittens), those that are enriched grow more than those that are deprived.
Neurons change depending on the movements that children do
Children who are exposed to a limited form of movement, such as treadmills, exercise bikes and machine weights, will develop their neurons more than those who just sit at home watching screens or get transported everywhere by car.
No thinking required.
This ‘normal’ enrichment is fine if the only physical challenge you are going to face is jogging around a pitch in your p.e. warm-up and then standing in a queue waiting for your turn to kick the ball.
However, a movement rich learning environment will help your child’s neurons flourish.
Movement rich environments include gymnasticsand athletics (if the children practise all the events), or tennis (when they are a bit older).
In a less varied environment, such as swimming or football, movement can be enriched by including a multi-dimensional warm-up that changes every week to produce a varied stimulus (that’s what we do in weightlifting).
Puzzle-solving makes exercise fun. (Freestyle gym class).
Best still: having a variety of different activities each week, plus time to explore and play.
That’s why James set up this club: to provide a movement rich learning environment that helps minds and bodies. Our strength and coordination sessions are not just press-ups and sit-ups (we never do sit-ups and our press-ups are limited) like some adults think children should be doing to the exclusion of all else!
We have a variety of movement puzzles to solve and exercises that challenge both strength and coordination.
No sit-ups are required to develop ‘core strength’
This is also brain training. The enriched brain is better able to cope with the high-speed, multi-directional, complex-decision making movements that occur in team sports.
Are you going to enrich your child’s brain or let it wither with disuse?
Further reading
For p.e. teachers and sports coaches, try our warm-up and assessment p.e. puzzles here
For parents, either join our club, or watch our Willand p.e. videos to see lots of puzzles
I was asked last week, ‘What’s your process for choosing books?‘
A selection of books from the library
I was flattered that someone thought I had an organised decision-making process rather than the random choices that catch my eye. But, on reflection, I do have a process and when I shared it, my colleague said it was worth sharing. So here you go.
1: Have good recommendations
I never choose a book by its cover and I rarely read a book that is recommended by someone who doesn’t read much. There is often a wave of hype about an essential populist book that every coach ‘must read.’ I wait for the Tsunami to subside, and the book price to fall, and then see whether any of my ‘trusted readers’ have read it.
There is a danger of an ‘echo chamber’ here, but I find that those people who read more have a better perspective than those who just read what everyone else is reading.
Recommended by an athlete and a parent within the same week!
My trusted readers include Jane Graham (The Big Issue), Clare Wilson (New Scientist), Mandi Abrahams (Castle Books, Anglesey), Vern Gambetta (GAIN) and Andy Stone (GAIN PE).
Between them, they read a lot of books from different perspectives. If they say something is good it usually is.
Atomic Habits (pictured) was recommended to me by an ex-athlete, Sophie Jefferson, before Christmas. It is a few years old now, so it was in the library. I borrowed it and a parent, Steve Baylis, recommended it to me. Neither has recommended a book to me previously but I am glad they did.
I also pick up recommendations from other books: e.g. Ursula Le Guin recommended Beowulf and Sylvia Townsend (pictured above) in her book, ‘The Wave in the Mind.’
2: Buy or borrow?
The second part of my process is related to budget and space. Where I can, I borrow. The books above are all borrowed from the library. They can order them in for a small fee (£0.85) and even purchase the book if they think it might be of general interest.
Where the book is too niche, or out of print, I add it to my reading list and might buy it second hand from Abe Books if I have the budget. Newer books, usually reference, I might put on my birthday/ Christmas wish lists and hope that nice people give them to me. This gives time for the prices to drop and the paperback versions to be published.
I try to read a mix of fiction, education and historical/ biography. This year I aim to re-read more of the excellent books about coaching and learning that are on my shelves: there is much to be gained from revisiting books a few years later.
That’s it, that’s what works for me. Reading is my preferred method of learning (apart from doing) and it is a very cheap form of entertainment.
In an age where time is precious and life seems too hectic, the process of choosing a good book and settling down with it seems more important than ever.
It’s the time of year where I reflect on what I have read so far and share my best books of 2021. These have included some stone-cold classics, some long-forgotten gems, some new thinking and only a few duds.
I am selective in what I read: time, like The One Ring, is precious. I have a few trusted bibliophiles who recommend what to read and I mix that books derived from a trail of reading essays and journals and the always good book section in The Big Issue.
It’s hard to recommend one or two books, so I shall split them up into sections, the full list with a short summary is at the bottom. The lists are biased towards those books that are well written, i.e. original, concise, use relevant examples and often just because they are humourous.
Top 5 Fiction Books
Forgotten Gem
Fishmonger’s Riddle: A.E. Coppard. A collection of wonderful short stories set mostly in 1920s rural England. Coppard is a master storyteller.
Island: Alistair MacLeod. A sublime collection of short stories set in Cape Breton, Canada. Wonderful prose, rich story telling about a time not so far past but seems like it has gone forever.
Animal Farm: George Orwell. Too close to the bone with the current political climate but what a masterpiece.
Dune: Frank Herbert. Epic SF novel that I last read 35 years ago. It starts of brilliantly but fizzles out in the last 50 pages.
We: Yevgeny Zamaytin. Dystopian novel set centuries into the future where the population’s every hour is scripted. Written in the 1920s, it is frighteningly prescient.
(No, Don Quixote and Middlemarch didn’t make my top 5. These are my choices not what I think I should be seen to recommend!)
Top 5 Thinking/Ideas
Non-partisan and constructive
If You Should Fail: Joe Moran. A refreshing read about how life cannot be measured as a success or failure. Life is for living, with it’s ups and downs. Great examples, well referenced and concise. A welcome change from all the ‘you can do it if you try hard enough‘ pick-me-up books.
Think Again: Adam Grant. Ideas on how to rethink what we do and how we think. Well laid out with useful anecdotes and examples. It shows the difference between arrogance and curiosity as well as how to develop our analytical skills.
Essays: George Orwell. The Everyman edition of Orwell’s essays for The Tribune and elsewhere. Huge and varied, always interesting. A ‘dip in and read’ type book and one to keep.
End State: 9 Ways Society Is Broken and How We Fix It.: James Plunkett. Thought provoking, non-partisan and optimistic. Worth reading if you want to try and improve your community.
How To Read Numbers: Tom Chivers & David Chivers. Superb, readable and relevant book about understanding statistics and how they are manipulated. 22 short chapters that are well illustrated and explained. A keeper.
Top 5 books if you like quality writing
Fantastic variety.
A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: George Saunders. A brilliant book that analyses seven Russian short-stories and gives thoughts on how that transfers to other writing. Very clear, and pertinent points that would make dense reading if not broken up by the stories. Enjoyable.
Nomadland: Jessica Bruder. Investigative, embedded journalism about the disenfranchised citizens of modern day USA. Superbly written, well-researched. Unputdownable.
The Contemporary American Essay: Ed. Phillip Lopate. Lots of great writing by different authors in this 600 page book. I loved reading the different experiences and ideas that people have. Highly recommended.
Creating Short Fiction: Damon Knight. A very practical book that has useful writing exercises in each section. The deceased author wrote lots of SF. His points are articulate, relevant and often humorous.
Yeager: Chuck Yeager & Leo Janos. Page-turning, ripping yarn that details a life well-lived. Fantastic read about an amazing individual who took advantage of every opportunity that came his way.
The Full List of books I have read in 2021 with synopsis
Don Quixote de la Mancha: Miguel Cervantes. Epic, dense novel that is worth the time invested into reading it. Funny,revealing and surprisingly relevant today.
Solutions for Novelists: Sol Stein. Extremely useful book about creating novels that have pace, character and conflict. Stein breaks down the information clearly and uses extracts to illustrate his points. Very good.
The Old Ways: Robert MacFarlane. A description of several walks, and two sea voyages, that the author took on his own or accompanied by others. Not what I thought it was going to be. The writing is good but the book lacks a common thread.
Dreams and Wishes: Susan Cooper. A collection of lectures that the author gave from 1976 to 1994. The Dark is Rising is prominent in most, so fans might like it. The love of story telling and language and the importance of giving our children a chance to read is prevalent.
The Complete Walker IV: Colin Fletcher and Chip Rawlins. Funny and informative, this extensive guide to all things walking from 2002 has dated only in some of the equipment reviews. The underlying principles of how to look after yourself and what to take, are well written. The authors use their vast experience to detail what is important, and what is less so.
Keep the Aspidistra Flying: George Orwell. Interesting and funny novel about a self-destructive man who doesn’t want to take part in capitalism.
Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. Doris Kearns Goodwin. A tremendous book that is rich in detail and research. It offers many lessons to be learned from Lincoln although few people could be as magnanimous.
Island: Alistair MacLeod. A sublime collection of short stories set in Cape Breton, Canada. Wonderful prose, rich story telling about a time not so far past but seems like it has gone forever.
Mr Norris Changes Trains: Christopher Isherwood. A novel set in 1930s Germany. I disliked all the characters and forced myself through the book. The turmoil in the background is interesting though.
The Redemption of Galen Pike: Carys Davies. A short story collection, one of which was expanded to become. ‘West.’ Whimsical but realistic and a joy to read.
Skill in Sport: B. Knapp. An old one, but a good one. ‘Skill’ research here was based on a lot of simplistic tasks, but Knapp gives a clear overview on some sound teaching practices.
A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: George Saunders. A brilliant book that analyses seven Russian short-stories and gives thoughts on how that transfers to other writing. Very clear, and pertinent points that would make dense reading if not broken up by the stories. Enjoyable.
No Great Mischief: Alistair MacLeod. Wonderful, albeit sentimental, novel about Scottish Canadians in the present and their history. Thought provoking.
More Penguin Science Fiction: Ed. Brian Aldiss. Short story collection published in 1963. Authors include Asimov, Gordon R. Dickson and Harry Harrison. Of it’s time with communists and nuclear Armageddon featuring in several stories. Great collection.
Prisoners of Geography: Tim Marshall. How geography has affected the development of nations and its impact economically. Interesting overview.
Essays: George Orwell. The Everyman edition of Orwell’s essays for The Tribune and elsewhere. Huge and varied, always interesting. A ‘dip in and read’ type book and one to keep.
New Writing in Europe: John Lehmann. A summary of fiction in the 1920s to 1930s and thoughts on the novelists.
The Body Builder: B.Deane Brink. A collection of notes and essays about Robert J. Roberts who was a pioneer of physical fitness in the YMCA in the nineteenth century. Short, but some good ideas in there.
Attempts: Dan John. A collection of essays and blogs about training and managing life. I haven’t read much from John for 10 years, very few new ideas, but a good read. He communicates very well.
Animal Farm: George Orwell. Too close to the bone with the current political climate but what a masterpiece.
Free Play: Brian McCormick. A series of newspaper articles covering coaching topics such as as LTAD, early-specialisation and parenting of ‘talented’ sportspeople. Very good advice, well written with great examples.
Burmese Days: George Orwell. A novel set in pre-war Burma that is rich in detail of ex-patriot life.
A Clergyman’s Daughter: George Orwell. Easy to read, more like a sequence of diatribes against poverty, religion and the exploitation of workers in agricultural Britain.
The Wild Silence: Raynor Winn. Disappointing follow up to ‘The Salt Path’. Some good sections but disjointed with little narrative structure.
The Burning Room: Michael Connelly. A reread of a detective novel featuring Harry Bosch.
Final Words: Kelvin Giles. A collection of stimulating blog posts and ideas about coaching. Has given me food for thought.
Coming Up For Air: George Orwell. A despondent first-person novel about a middle-aged fat man who becomes nostalgic for his youth and mulls over his life so far. Set in 1938 it portrays the build-up to war and the horror well.
Move: Caroline Williams. A great overview of the benefits of moving: well -researched and well-written. It covers strength, learning, dance, breathing and stretching. All the things we do normally. Worth having.
Anatomy, Mechanics and Human Motion: J.G. Hay & J. G. Reid. A 1988 edition that has some excellent basic principles but is a bit outdated in the conclusions of the limited research.
Total Recall: Arnold Schwarzenegger. The second time I have read his gripping autobiography. The parts about his early life and hunger to succeed are excellent. He skates over his obvious flaws but it is interesting to see his terms as the Governator in light of recent politics.
Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder: Arnold Schwarzenegger & Douglas Kent Hall. The 1988 version which is half biography and half training tips. The raw energy and confidence oozes from the book that has surprisingly good common sense training advice.
Physical Intelligence: Scott Grafton. A well researched, well written book about neuroscience and physical activity. Grafton uses his hiking expedition to illustrate the points about how and why our brains and bodies have developed together. Very good.
The Spy Who Came In From The Cold: John le Carre. Classic Cold War spy thriller. The clarity and simplicity of the writing is deceptive. Very good.
Natives: Race & Class in the Ruins of Empire: Akala. An account of British history and race relations in modern Britain from the perspective of a Scots-Caribbean man. Aklala references a slew of non-mainstream, but accurate and relevant, sources. Thought provoking.
Dune: Frank Herbert. Epic SF novel that I last read 35 years ago. It starts of brilliantly but fizzles out in the last 50 pages.
Mastery: George Leonard. A super little book that has a lot of advice. It sways a bit too much into Eastern pseudo-zen towards the end, but there is plenty to take from it otherwise.
Exhalation: Ted Chiang. A collection of SF short stories, some of which are fantastic. Quality writing and thought provoking ideas.
Yeager: Chuck Yeager & Leo Janos. Page-turning, ripping yarn that details a life well-lived. Fantastic read about an amazing individual who took advantage of every opportunity that came his way.
Bookseller’s Tales: Martin Latham. A mixed bag of semi-autobiographical anecdotes that are interesting with historical and cultural accounts that are less so. Got better as it went on.
How To Read Numbers: Tom Chivers & David Chivers. Superb, readable and relevant book about understanding statistics and how they are manipulated. 22 short chapters that are well illustrated and explained.
Everest: Harriet Tuckey. A detailed, well-researched account of Griffith Pugh and his endeavours about researching human physiology. Written by his estranged daughter, it is a warts-and-all biography that pulls no punches. Fascinating because it details the human side as well as the science side.
The Haunting of Hill House: Shirley Jackson. Classic thriller about the spiritual and psychological horror affecting guests in a house.
Middlemarch: George Eliot. A very long novel that has some interesting characters. It was a good holiday read but I didn’t think it was life-changing.
Sapiens: Yuval Noah Harari. Interesting overview of the human race’s evolution through social, industrial and agricultural revolutions. Puts a lot of ideas about happiness and progress into context.
Arrival: Ted Chiang. An eclectic collection of SF short-stories some of which are superb.
The Egoist: George Meredith. A long Victorian novel that was hard-going. Too much narration and explanation with little action. A real effort to get through this.
Roadside Picnic: Arkady & Boris Strugatsky. Classic SF novel about humans dealing with aliens’ waste.
Take Your Eye Off The ball 2.0: Pat Kirwan. In depth look at what to watch for during an NFL game. I was lucky enough to grow up with John Madden as the commentator of my youth. This book is a good start for those unfamiliar with the game.
Fishmonger’s Riddle: A.E. Coppard. A collection of wonderful short stories set mostly in 1920s rural England. Coppard is a master storyteller.
Raised From the Ground: Jose Saramago. A moving novel about the oppression of rural workers in Portugal. Similar themes to Grapes of Wrath but different style.
Think Again: Adam Grant. Ideas on how to rethink what we do and how we think. Well laid out with useful anecdotes and examples. It shows the difference between arrogance and curiosity as well as how to develop our analytical skills.
Nomadland: Jessica Bruder. Investigative, embedded journalism about the disenfranchised citizens of modern day USA. Superbly written, well-researched. Unputdownable.
Essays One: Lydia Davis. Large volume on varied topics of reading, writing and observation of the author’s surroundings. Stimulating and rewarding.
We: Yevgeny Zamaytin. Dystopian novel set centuries into the future where the population’s every hour is scripted. Written in the 1920s, it is frighteningly prescient.
No Time To Spare: Ursula Le Guin. Disappointing collection of blog posts. Some good paragraphs, but not worth buying.
The Power of Geography: Tim Marshall. An excellent overview of countries and regions in the world that are affected by their geography. It gives an overview of the past and how this could potentially impact the future. Insightful.
A Secret History of Time to Come: Robie Macauley. Dystopian novel set a few hundred years after the USA was torn apart by race wars. A good, futuristic western.
The Creative Habit: Twyla Tharp. Interesting ideas on how to get into the creative mode and stick with it. Written from a dance/choreography perspective but relevant for anyone else looking to create.
Dangerous Visions 2: Ed. Harlan Ellison. Collection of SF short stories written in the 1960s.
Barca: Simon Kuper. Very well- researched book looking at the rise and decline of Barcelona FC. Good interviews and analysis, no rose-tinted spectacles here.
Shuggie Bain: Douglas Stuart. Booker winning novel set in Glasgow in the 1980s. Bleak, grim and a bit too close to home for me.
The Contemporary American Essay: Ed. Phillip Lopate. Lots of great writing by different authors in this 600 page book. I loved reading the different experiences and ideas that people have. Highly recommended.
Creating Short Fiction: Damon Knight. A very practical book that has useful writing exercises in each section. The deceased author wrote lots of SF. His points are articulate, relevant and often humorous.
Negroland: Margo Jefferson. Disappointing extrapolation of an excellent essay that I had recently read. Interesting subject matter but I tired of the style.
End State: 9 Ways Society Is Broken and How We Fix It.: James Plunkett. Thought provoking, non-partisan and optimistic. Worth reading if you want to try and improve your community.
Collected stories: John Cheever. There are some superb stories in here including, ‘The Swimmer.’ However, at 900 pages, I had to take a break a few times because there are only so many stories about suburbia one can take at a time.
If You Should Fail: Joe Moran. A refreshing read about how life cannot be measured as a success or failure. Life is for living, with it’s ups and downs. Great examples, well referenced and concise. A welcome change from all the ‘you can do it if you try hard enough’ pick-me-up books.
Thank you
Thanks to the usual suspects who have lent, given, or recommended books to me: The Hayridge Library (thankfully reopened), Mandi Abrahams of Castle Books, Anglesey, Chris Fotheringham, Vern Gambetta and Andy Stone.
Walking for fitness is an underrated (except for those who know) way of staying healthy. Not the pottering around the mall, staring at a screen, type of walking. Nor the frantic accumulation of ‘steps’ in a desperate effort to meet a nonsensical ’10,000’ number.
I am talking about brisk walking that takes you out of your normal routine. The type of walking that allows you to discover new paths and trails whilst simultaneously clearing crusty arteries and negative thoughts. The forgotten act of, ‘going for a walk,’ allows you to move in a biomechanically efficient, affordable and natural manner.
We are in an age where shuffling along with a face that looks like it has been washed in tomato soup in a desperate effort to “get fit” and then plastering it over social media to show our worthiness. ‘Park Runs’ and ‘Couch to 5k’ programmes get endorsed despite their perpetuating bad movement: slogging your way in public doing 10-minute-miles is undignified and increases the risk of injury.
Dog walkers have long known the benefits of getting out regularly. They have the added benefit of non-judgemental companionship on their excursions. The spaniel doesn’t look up at its owner and ask, ‘How many steps have you done?’ It wags its tail, sniffs, explores, defecates and urinates and moves on to the next exciting smell.
They don’t race home to post their latest walk on Strava and then compare themselves to faster breeds of dogs and skulk to their bed wishing they were a whippet.
View from the Long Mynd
Walking for aerobic fitness.
A century ago, the endurance runners of the day realised the benefits of walking. Instead of the obligatory, ‘Sunday long run’, they walked for 12-20 miles: a good stretch of the legs. In that era, walking 2-4 miles to work (or school) was commonplace so the long walk was just an extension, not a new building.
When those runners ran, they were doing so on a huge foundation of low-level walking fitness. They did not need to do slow and steady jogs: that was covered in their walking. Nowadays the sedentary office-worker emerges from their hermetically-sealed environment and runs on a foundation of coffee and stress.
They are bypassing the foundation of walking in an effort to be more time-efficient.
I am not big on measurable technology nowadays. I use a map and compass when I go for a walk (look them up, they still exist) and wear an analogue watch that can act as a backup navigation tool as long as the sun is out (point the hour hand at the sun and twelve is due south).
Shropshire ponies not using Strava
However, I did take my pulse after walking up a steep incline onto the Long Mynd this summer. For those of you that have not visited that area, it’s worth the effort. There are some steep slopes and broad heathland on top like a series of upturned teacups.
My heart rate was oscillating between 120bpm and 156bpm, carrying a light daysack. I average about 3.5-4 miles per hour. A 7-mile, hilly walk took me 2 hours, with a 10-minute drinks break by a Trig point. I was not trying anything epic, was not trying to beat a time, I was just navigating a circular route that I had not previously encountered.
It was fun. I had no injuries, no setbacks, it only cost me £9 (I bought ‘Nomadland’ in Burway Books in Church Stretton: worth visiting).
As we approach the gloom of winter, as surfaces become slippery and the guilt of comfort eating weighs down upon your shoulders, think of walking as part of your fitness routine.
I had the pleasure of coaching sports coaches at the Heinrich-Heine Gymnasium in Kaiserslautern, Germany this weekend. The focus was on the coaching continuum.
Many of us rely on just a few methods of coaching, according to our personal bias or habit but there are many ways that range from Direct, controlling to free play. All are useful and serve their purpose in different situations.
My presentations and practical sessions tried to show how all of them are used, using four different scenarios:
Spatial awareness (physical and global).
Game development and play.
Movement Framework.
Warm-Ups.
Foundational strength.
Developing spatial awareness
Mirroring the partner in an agility warm up
For example, after my first presentation that gave an overview of the three main roles of the coach and the three main needs of athletes, we spent 45 minutes ‘doing’.
I used the following coaching methods (the coaches were given handouts explaining this and the exact cues/tasks I was using before the course started):
Part 1 Problem solving, exploration.
Part 2 Guided Discovery.
Part 3: Inquiry.
Part 4 Group Task (cooperative, different roles).
This was a good way to break the ice.
I am a great believer in coaches having to ‘do‘ and practise their coaching. They don’t have to do a lot or go fast or for long, but just to try things out. This gives them a feel for the sessions and some empathy for their athletes when they start to coach.
Integrating the changes
The following four theory and practical sessions followed a similar pattern but with different information. Quoting from John Wooden, I said at the beginning,
‘You haven’t taught until they have learned.’
The handouts and the practicals gave coaches some tools that they could use immediately as well as a framework to help develop their planning and integrate into their existing good work.
There is little point in me dropping in, bombarding them with information, and then returning home with little or no changes made.
Discussions and idea sharing
Mark and Christian with Kaiserslautern in the background.
After the ‘formal’ learning and teaching had stopped, I spent the next evening and day sharing ideas, answering questions and observing some of the athletes in action. This was intellectually challenging but stimulating: I am out of practice having these discussions thanks to the COVID pandemic.
There were lots of good ideas despite the language barrier (my German is poor). I busted some myths and found some common ground. We had more discussions with Jan Christmann, the sports director, over dinner and yet more whilst hiking through the forest the next day.
The outdoors is a fantastic environment in which to share and discuss, even if the young Germans were determined to leave me behind in their biggest forest.
I watched a second-division badminton match on Sunday: that was impressive. A mixed team event, a bit like the Davis Cup in tennis, with matches only going up to 11 points. This was sport at its best: no money, no corruption, no wasted funds. Just committed athletes, umpires and supporters investing their time in their sport and experiencing the highs and lows that go with it.
Christian Stern, who had come to our GAIN Europe course, was a wonderful host and all of the coaches went out of their way to welcome me. I hope that they got something useful and can continue to help their athletes.
Good books about sports science and statistics are as rare as rocking horse dung. I have read two, back to back, that were both readable and informative: ‘Everest’ by Harriet Tuckey and ‘How to Read Numbers’ by Tom Chivers and David Chivers.
One of the problems with sports science is that it has disappeared down a cul-de-sac of its own making whereby a combination of desperation to ‘Publish or Perish’ and bad writing makes relevant and accessible information beyond the reach of the people who need it the most: the sports coach.
This results in thousands of research papers being unread and coaches abdicating any form of ‘fitness -training’ to a crew of eager but inexperienced undergraduates who lack ‘context.’ This might involve fitness testing players and disappearing with the results or inflicting gym training sessions that are easy to measure but have little to no transfer to the competitive arena.
I am talking about the 95% of the sporting world, not the rarefied atmosphere of Olympic and top-flight professional sport. Both of the books that I have summarised below offer insights into how communication and understanding can be improved between coaches, athletes and support staff.
Everest: The First Ascent by Harriet Tuckey
Fascinating and well written
I can’t remember who recommended this to me but I am glad that I made a note of it. It is the detailed account of the work done by Griffith Pugh, a Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) Doctor turned physiologist.
The headline is his work supporting and leading the first successful climb of Mount Everest in 1953. I have no interest in mountaineering as a sport but found this fascinating. The author is Pugh’s daughter and she gives a warts and all account of how Pugh was both thorough, insightful and driven, as well as irritable, aloof and absent-minded.
The book covers part of Pugh’s war efforts helping develop Mountain Warfare equipment and training programmes prior to his Everest expeditions. It then shows how his research helped with:
Cold water survival strategies (Royal Air Force).
Altitude training and acclimatisation (Mexico Olympics).
Heat exhaustion (endurance runners).
Hypothermia and exposure (Duke of Edinburgh award scheme).
All of the above still use protocols developed and suggested by Pugh decades ago,
Pugh’s work as a researcher (not as an overall human being) should be recognised and posted in mind for all scientists working to support others. Sir Arnold Burgen said of Pugh,
‘He has an extraordinary facility for dealing with quite fundamental matters of human physiology in simple terms, applying general physics to them and working them out with little in the way of specialised equipment.’
This all might sound a bit dry and geeky but Tucker brings the man to life and adds her own personal feelings that shed a spotlight on this ‘restless sharpshooter’.
Thoroughly entertaining and enlightening.
How to Read Numbers: A Guide to Stats in the News (and knowing when to trust them) by Tom Chivers & David Chivers.
Superb examples
Don’t panic: this is a book of words with just a few numbers. One of the problems with interpreting ‘science’ is understanding how statistics work. The COVID Pandemic has resulted in a deluge of numbers that threaten to drown us: we either sink or swim to safer, more familiar, shores and allow others to give us a summary.
This is partly due to bad writing and partly due to deliberate ‘massaging’ of the stats to suit a pre-determined narrative. I have got an ‘O’ level in Stats, did Stats in ‘A’-level maths and did a module on research methods (taught atrociously) in my MSc. I still find it hard to understand what is being written.
In 22 succinct chapters, the authors summarise, explain and illustrate the most common statistical methods and flaws that we are likely to encounter. It is eminently readable and enjoyable. It is a classic example of true experts understanding that, ‘You haven’t taught until they have learned.’
I learned a lot.
I couldn’t put the book down (a sentence I never thought that I would apply to a stats guide).
One chapter covers ‘Goodhart’s law’; ‘When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.’
I have seen countless physical measures become targets for poor athletes suffering at the hands of an ‘S&C coach’ or researcher. Often done without the sports coach intervening because they have been bamboozled by numbers and pseudoscience.
Sports coaches: do yourself a favour and buy a copy (or borrow from the library) of this book and start questioning the methods used by support staff.
‘When reading about (or reporting on) targets, metrics and statistics, remember that they’re proxies for the thing we care about, not the thing itself.’
British Fencing once told all its fencers that in order to represent GB they would have to be able to do a side plank for 90 seconds! An example of a measure becoming a target!
Years ago, I saw Jack Blatherwick tear apart the research papers linking weight lifting to 10m sprint performance. The researchers had amalgamated different gender/ age groups and drawn a regression line through the data. They had eliminated the confounding variables that might also affect sprint performance: men run faster than women and adults run faster than teenagers (on average).
Thanks to this book, I can now see what was happening and draw a critical eye on research papers (Dr Robin Williams wrote about dodgy sports science stats ).
I have added this book to my ‘Recommended reading for teachers and coaches’ list. It is a worthwhile investment to help you get a better understanding of how important numbers are in our everyday lives.
An experiment involving two kittens took place in a lab in the early 1960s (1). The kittens were put on a small carousel that rotated with a view of the lab. Kitten A could move its feet and the carousel spun as it walked. Kitten B was suspended in a box that rotated to give the same view of the lab that Kitten A had. Kitten B’s little paws never touched the box. He just hung and rotated.
When the kittens were released, Kitten A could navigate its surroundings and move around obstacles. Kitten B kept bumping into things and had no sense of body awareness. Poor kitty…
If you have any sense of empathy you will feel for poor Kitten B. You might even feel outraged and think, ‘how dare they?’ You might jump on Facebook to ‘dislike’ the research scientists.
Rightly so? Kittens need to be able to explore and search and learn about the environment so that they can cope in the real world.
Which kitten is going to be better prepared for life?
And yet….
Do you drive your child to school?
Do you drive your child from one organised activity to another?
Are you a Head Teacher that reduces break times and disallows playground games because of ‘health and safety’?
If you have said, ‘yes’ to any of the above, then you are replicating the kitten experiment with your child.
They are likely to grow up like Kitten B: not understanding where their body is in space and how to manipulate it around and over obstacles.
I see this all the time when young children are brought to our gymnastics club. Some have great movement awareness (not specific gym skills) and can coordinate their arms and legs. Others look like they have never been outdoors or walked further than TV to fridge and back.
You wouldn’t do it to a kitten, so why are you driving your child to a school when they could walk, cycle or take the bus which at least requires them to walk to the bus stop?
Parents say things like, ‘oh, she’s naturally uncoordinated‘.
I believe that coordination, rhythm, timing, physical strength and balance can be taught and developed in EVERY child. If they are given the right opportunity, shown some ideas and allowed to explore in their own time: just like Kitten A.
But what about P.E.?
Are you a P.E. teacher that forces children to sit in queues and listen to your lectures?
A recent study in the UK for year 7 and year 8 pupils showed that they were only ‘moderately’ or ‘vigorously’ active for 30% of the time in their PE lessons. That means for 70% of the limited time that they are in P.E. they are not ‘doing’.
P.E. teachers: take a hard look at yourselves and change what you are doing. Rounders and cricket are standing around activities. Easy to put on the curriculum and easy to supervise but they are doing little to nothing to help children develop physical skills.
The problem is that P.E. teachers are unaccountable for the physical skills and fitness of the children at school. There are no mandatory tests or guidelines like there are for maths and English. The exception is swimming.
Instead, P.E. departments are measured on their GCSE (academic) results that only a few pupils undertake. Or, they hide behind a competitive sports fixture list that keeps the teachers busy but only a minority of pupils undertake.
Solutions.
It’s not about money, resources and facilities. It’s about imagination, purpose and consistency.
Encourage children to walk (skip, hop, gallop) to school: parents can then get some exercise too.
Have local parks with safe bicycle and walking access (ditto).
Develop physical education lessons that physically educate the children rather than trying to emulate adult-organised sports.
Stop following lesson plans that say, ‘Today is cricket, explain the rules and organise a game’ that results in two children doing lots of things and the rest standing around getting bored. Instead; use one of Andy Stone’s warm-ups for 5-7 minutes before each lesson to help develop their physical literacy.
Then do some general skill and games work that involves pairs and threes rather than 15-a-side and finally have a cricket tournament at the end of the lesson block.
Or, do nothing and watch our children end up like poor little Kitten B.
References
1 Held, R., & Hein, A. (1963). Movement-produced stimulation in the development of visually guided behavior. Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology, 56(5), 872–876 https://doi.org/10.1037/h0040546
2. Beale N, Eldridge E, Delextrat A, et al. Exploring activity levels in physical education lessons in the UK: a cross-sectional examination of activity types and fitness levels. BMJ Open Sport & Exercise Medicine 2021;7:e000924. doi:10.1136/ bmjsem-2020-00092
I don’t know the answer to every question an athlete has but I know a man (or woman) who does.
I have had reason to call on my network of coaches, medical professionals, p.e. teachers and athletic trainers over the last fortnight (that’s two weeks you American readers). Athletes, or their parents, have asked me some questions that stumped me (that’s a cricket term) for an initial response. I reached out and got an expert or at least better informed, response that allowed me to help the athlete.
I may only live and coach in a village in the Devon countryside but my network stretches around the world. I am a member of GAIN (Gambetta Athletic Improvement Network) and whilst Vern Gambetta is the instigator and visionary who has introduced us all, the members (N) are what makes it an invaluable resource.
Vern Gambetta and some of the Network at GAIN 2017
Network (n): an interconnected group of people.
Network (v): to interact with others to exchange information and develop contacts.
The latter has a negative connotation with visions of exchanging business cards and looking to grasp opportunities. The key phrase is ‘exchange information.’
Here are the three exchanges with my GAIN colleagues:
Ed Ryan (USA) on concussion.
Angela Respecki (Philippines) on menstruation and female athletes (yes, it is a thing and it affects 50% of our athletic population).
Joe Prytzula (USA) on baseball injuries and early specialisation.
Ed Ryan (by email).
Below and attached I have provided some resources for you to help make the decisions based on evidence and best practices.
For a 15 yo adolescent, I advise caution. Return to play must be determined by a complete resolution of physical, emotional, and neurocognitive & neuropsychological symptoms and a normal assessment. The adolescent brain is maturing; not complete until the mid-20s.
Retirement should be considered when recovery is prolonged, symptoms and signs increase in severity, and reduction in force causing a concussion.
For a related story, I recall a national level Judoka who was in his early 20s. He sustained a couple (2-3) of concussions over his career. One evening, when going to bed in his dorm room, he sat a little too close to the head of the bed and when he reclined onto his back to go to sleep, he hit his head on the headboard. That resulted in ending his career. He never recovered sufficiently to return to contact sports, and it was over two years before his personality stabilized. He tried to coach Judo, however, the stress of being in the dojo and not being able to demonstrate was too much of a challenge.
I understand this is an isolated case, however, when this occurred the science of concussion was in its infancy. No one understood why a slight force of hitting his head in that manner had career-ending consequences. Only when the science was evident, did his case make sense.
Stay well, my friend.
Angela Respecki (On Zoom)
Talking about the latest research on female athletes that, since 2019, have actually used females as research subjects rather than extrapolating from male results or ignoring half the population altogether. Angela pointed me in the direction of Sofia Nimbus and Dr Stacey Sims. She also sent me this article that gives a good summary on the subject.
Joe Prytzula (by email, in response to a question by Vern about modern baseball training).
‘I have not been the head AT now for 10 years. In that time all of the coaches I worked with at that time have long since retired. We cooperated and collaborated with each other. We kept kids healthy- & we won. An urban public school in northern NJ USA who had the USA Today #1 top 20 team in the country. Most of the coaches today are opposed to the way we did things, and they let me know that.
They tell me times have changed. That some positions in sports (example linebacker in American Football, pitching and hitting in baseball) have evolved so much that kids HAVE to specialize earlier. In baseball for instance, our new varsity coach does not permit players- at any level- to play any sport but baseball. And it is year round. The affluent areas of NJ have extensive indoor facilities to play all winter- and they do. Yes that has created equity issues- baseball at least in NJ is now a “white” sport, but that’s another story.
This early specialization has created not coaches, but technicians who specialize in certain areas of the sport- in baseball hitting and pitching. With that comes electronic bats with exit velocity instruments, radar guns and 3D movement analysis. I’m talking about the under 12 level. At this level at least, sport is becoming industrialized very rapidly, with really no emphasis on improving coaching pedagogy. And if you don’t do that, how do you know what to do with all that data you’re getting- or what it even means?
With the industrialization has come the irrelevance of scholastic baseball. “Showcases” & commercial travel teams & leagues have superseded. The athlete is not only a widget, but is expected to have mastered the technical & tactical end of the sport by the time they get to 15 years old. Elbow pain? That’s the parents problem go to the back of the line not my problem- next. Can’t find the strike zone? Who cares- you are throwing 100mph & too bad for the batter who got hit with that pitch they should have armored up better & you’ll be recruited anyway.
As far as the training programs themselves, again I have no idea what they look like. I know we used to make sure we were powerful overhead- at the “bookends” with the hands way up over the head and behind the ears or with the hands way out in front of the body. Edges of the envelope where “muscle” can’t help you much. Tendon, ligs, fascia, joint capsules, even neurovascular bundles need to be tough as nails. Forget about performance enhancement- bulletproof them. To me, when a pitcher’s velocity is decreasing they are subconsciously self-organizing, protecting against fatigue or pain. If you can keep your athletes off the bench and feeling good they are going to keep learning and getting better. I want my bb players lean with a ripped back and hips as powerful and mobile as a hurdler.
John Pryor showing how to work the ‘bookends’ at GAIN 2017
Program design- I always felt I could be better at it. In my retirement, I’d like to spend more time hanging around you guys learning more. But I would break everything down into 3 or 4-week modules that were based on what I was seeing, where we needed to be, where we were in the school year; the game schedule, the weather, and what facilities we had access to. Even in the offseason, we never did more than 3 days per week.
They were always in circuits (I am so biased towards circuits it isn’t even funny but I can’t think of a better way at my level with the time constraints I have). 50 minutes MAX, but most times shorter. LOTS of variabilities built-in, and because of that I always found traditional assessment difficult. More interested in how they moved. But what I remember was what they looked like when they were done. Sweating, tired but looked like they had fun. They still talk about how much they enjoyed them.’
Wow (Joe has helped me a lot with understanding throwing mechanics and how the ‘core’ is dynamic.
How to Network
The breadth of knowledge and experience is huge. I haven’t mentioned the various WhatsApp groups that allow more exchange of knowledge and my regular Zoom calls with the GAIN PE and GAIN Europe groups.
Nothing beats the informal conversations and chats over pancakes at the GAIN conference, but I feel my coaching knowledge and practice is improving through access to this network.
I would suggest that a monolithic organisation or a subgroup of similarly educated people in similar trades lacks the ability to evolve and adapt effectively. It is in danger of ‘Groupthink’.
If you look to connect with people of different genders, ages, races and countries and then different professions within the same or related fields, as well as those that are specialists in others, then you can truly enrich your mind and reflect.
It’s now about, ‘What’s in it for me?’
It’s about becoming a better coach so that I can better help the athletes. Even though I just live in Willand.
If I had £1 for every time someone said to me, ‘I need to get fit,’ I would have enough money to pay for a month’s food shopping. If I had a £1 for every time someone told me about their ‘steps’ or ‘Strava’, I would have enough money to pay the Council Tax too.
I rarely talk about my training, and then only to our adult members and other colleagues who also understand training, because it is a Sisyphean task to clear out the clutter from the bystander’s mind. Training plans are easy to come by on the interweb, fads come and go quicker than you can say, ‘Peleton treadmill fiasco.’
I simply don’t have the energy or willpower to indulge in the noise.
Here is what I am currently doing and why
Knowing why you are training is important. So is defining what is ‘fit.’ Doing one single activity does not make you ‘fit’ it might make you ‘fit for purpose.’
As I get older, my focus has switched from ‘performance’ 20-years ago when I was in the mix of England training, to measurables 10-years ago, to just being able to move freely and enjoy my life now.
(For those of you around 41 years old here is my training plan from 10 years ago Yes, I did run sub 40 minutes at the end of the plan. No, I didn’t post it on Strava…)
Move freely and enjoy my life: sort of what I was doing 30 years ago.
Part of that enjoyment is learning new things: that can be walking somewhere different, or learning a new skill or stunt in gymnastics. Part of it is creating new routines like this one I did yesterday:
Making stuff up is fun
My current routine
Weight lifting: Monday. Wednesday, Friday.
Gymnastics: Tuesday, Thursday, 1 day at the weekend, plus rope skipping/ sprints.
Walking: 40-60 minutes daily, long walk at the weekend (6-10 miles, loaded, using a map).
For those at the back who aren’t paying attention, there are two main changes from my programme 10 years ago:
A lot less running (I have done enough miles in my time) and a switch from complexes to weight lifting itself.
Gymnastics: 10 years ago I hadn’t started trying out gymnastics.
The two main reasons for this are:
My children are older: 10 years ago they were both under-5 and time was precious. I started my gymnastics learning so that I could teach my children how to do gymnastics. I still practice now to keep fresh and learning (From not being able to do a backward roll, I can now land a front somersault, back handspring and am nearly able to do an aerial).
Me doing my first ever back handspring
2.GAIN: that last programme was written 3 months before I attended my first ever GAIN. That transformed my approach to training and gave me the tools to solve the problems that I was encountering with athletes (formal certifications are way off).
Some detail on the session plans
Weight Lifting. My goal is to get under the bar fast. I was progressing the load for the first part of the year, but I got slower. I snatch every session, doubles or singles. I warm up with movement off the platform, then hinge, press and overhead squat with the bar, followed by snatch balance, then work downwards from mid-thigh to hang to the floor.
I have added overhead squat and weighted snatch balance to get used to receiving the weight lower: this is quite fatiguing and I take out back squats on those sessions.
I do clean and jerk every session now too: (1+2) or (2+1). I don’t need to do a lot of cleans after the snatch. I back squat or do single leg step ups on a 20” box followed by behind the head presses one session a week. The single leg step up is challenging, that helps me when I try to change direction fast on the field (something I have to do when playing football with my son or demonstrating with the footballers and rugby players that I coach).
Gymnastics. I work on flow patterns on the floor, rolling and crawling before going into backbends, which are horrible, but necessary. I then work on balances before trying cartwheel, leap and roll variations in my limited space. The freshness is from changing the sequences and trying to do a different stunt each week.
I follow this with either 15 minutes of rope skipping, trying out new combinations or a series of shorter sprints. The act of moving fast is important (or as fast as I can go).
Walking 10 miles over hills on Dartmoor is endurance training. It’s also fun.
Walking. This is underrated except by people who walk. Years ago, Steve Magness gave an excellent overview at GAIN about the history of endurance training. Walking was a big part of it 100 years ago.
I walk briskly, about 4 mph, and in the countryside. The rhythmic quality of movement and enjoying the surroundings is food for the soul. Exploring new places ensures that my mind is focused on the route and not on the static of life. Walking for 2 hours is endurance training when without it being a chore. My eyes bleed when I see the sloggers out there doing 10-minute miles, badly and miserably. Life is too short for that.
The final part of the plan, or perhaps the first, is eating healthily. Like many others, I drank too much alcohol over the last year, not in binge sessions, but in the aftermath of homeschooling or another announcement from the government that ruined our livelihoods. As Colin, one of our weight lifters said, ‘January is miserable enough without cutting out alcohol.’
I stopped any drinking when I could resume coaching (one exception was a bottle of wine, but that was given to me by a Doctor, so it was medicinal) and had some sense of purpose again. The food plan is the one I have outlined here:
My GAIN colleague, Patrick McHugh, started to follow this plan in his recovery from cancer: he has lost over 20kg!
Summary
The Marshall Plan isn’t for everyone. But it works for me. I am not trying to copy anyone else’s goals or ideas for what I should be doing. I don’t need a charity event or competition to get me to train. I don’t need to post every meal and every workout on Instagram for social validation.
I train for me. I am an adult and know that eating healthily and exercising regularly are as important as wearing a seatbelt and flossing my teeth.
If I am in good health I can look after my family better. That is the most important thing.
