Learning from the Best

I made my way to the Global Coaches House on Wednesday for the morning talks. I chose it as the theme was coach development, which as a relatively new coach is something I am keen to continue.

The coach development pathway

Kim Cardile spoke about spending time developing as a coach, something that not many make time to do, we are too busy coaching and planning to have time for reflection.

Dream it, Plan it, Do it, is a goal setting phrase that is commonly used by coaches and businesses.  To make the phrase as effective as possible we need to add an extra line ‘Reflect it’ then repeat the whole process.

Dream it, Plan it, Do it, Reflect it.

Kim then spoke about factors of success she believes are essential:

• Knowing yourself
• Being ableto assess situations with clarity
• Knowing how to connect in order to maximise results.

These factors are used on a daily basis within coaching sessions when you are required to adjust your plans depending on the situation in front of you.  These factors are also needed when planning longer-term solutions to programmes and life itself.

Two points were raised following this, one by Kim about the need to break habits in order to become better. An example of this was discussed by Colin Jackson in his commentary of the 110m hurdles, he spoke about getting into a rhythm.  Gold medallist Colin Jackson has achieved this by clocking almost identical times during the games, but to improve he will need to risk upsetting that rhythm.

The second idea from Peter De Villiers: ‘Not always what you see, but where you look from’ links the initial idea and the factors of success. A very simple example is when looking at technique in the gym, if you observe from a different place you may see a different problem.

The last area touched on within this talk was the different types of coaching, Kim has developed a system called CMAP (Coach Management Assessment Programme).  It is a series of questions that work out whether you are a Transformational, Transactional or a Conservative Leader. Using a sample of questions we identified out our coaching styles and discussed the type of coach and understood the need to be flexible depending on the situation in hand.

Philosophies of Coaching

When Frank Dick introduced the philosophies of coaching he developed two key phrases:

‘How you make your journey is shaped by you as an individual’ and

‘In all of time there is only one of you’

Jim Crakes has been forming his own philosophy for many years and shared many stories of his time as a coach.  ‘Your general beliefs that give a set of guide posts to which you live your life’  This is how Jim describes a philosophy, something he believes everyone should think about and know his or her own.

Jim believes there are four points that are required in discovery:

• Persistence
• Encouragement
• Consistency
• Passion.

As coaches we need to have these and instil them into our athletes and fellow coaches to be the best we can be. He spoke of a time when he studied the Tarahumara tribe in Mexico, they found nothing out of the ordinary physiologically.  The reason they were excellent long distance runners was that they had made it their lifestyle. This point is something that stood out when Kim spoke about habits and also Kelvin when he spoke of physical literacy.

Russell Smelley who has been an adversary and good friend of Jim’s spoke about when they first met.  Russell was a young coach who felt he needed to win everything to become better, overtime he discovered that growing people made him a better coach, something in the current winning mentality age I feel has been lost.

Russell spoke of the coach being the normality in an athlete’s life and that we need to understand our athletes and everything should be about their needs not ours as a coach. Athletes have the best chance of success if they trust and have a long term relationship with their coach.  Jess Ennis and Tony Minichiello have worked together for years and now reaped the reward with a gold medal.

Jim left us with two final points, as an agreement we should make with ourselves and our athletes:

1. Be impeccable in your word
2. Always do your best
3. Don’t make assumptions
4. Don’t take it personally.

He concluded his speech by making all the coaches join him in reciting Rudyard Kipling’s ‘IF’.  It is a poem that many people have used over the years and that as one GB hockey player tweeted last night after losing 9-2 to Holland in the semi final “I read ‘IF’ before the game. Now it seems more apt than ever.”

 Quest for Physical literacy

Kelvin Giles was introduced by Frank saying as coaches we need to look at least one step before when trying to solve a problem.

Kelvin is trying to improve physical literacy in the next generation of athletes, not an easy task. He spoke how we are in the X-Box generation where children have reduced fitness levels, increased injury risk and obesity due to a sedentary lifestyle.

Kelvin has worked with elite athletes and showed video clips of their inability to move correctly in simple tasks such as landing on two feet. He has developed a system to test and then improve movement literacy, which can be used with elite athletes but more importantly with children, as they are the future. If we don’t invest in their movement now we will have a generation of athletes that are injury prone.

Movement literacy is not just for athletes, everyone moves and needs to be able to produce, reduce and stabilise forces to perform everyday tasks such as getting into a car, standing up and walking.

Our bodies need to be:

• Flexible at the ankle
• Stable at the knee
• Flexible at the hip
• Stable in the lumbar vertebrae
• Flexible in the thoracic vertebrae
• Stable in the cervical vertebrae.

Otherwise our body will compensate to solve problems, if during training we cause a micro trauma to muscles and don’t allow it to heal we can then cause compensations which lead to macro traumas and eventually catastrophic tissue failure, potentially career ending injury.

Athletes need to earn the physical right to increase their training, this can only be done once there has been a permanent adaptation. With young athletes we need to let them discover for themselves, this will take patience to allow them to grow as athletes without making them robots. Usian Bolt is an example of someone who has discovered his running style rather than been taught it.

The experience of listening to so many top coaches was phenomenal, I was able to learn a lot and have taken home many points to reflect and act on.

Duncan Buckmaster