Over the past 5 or so years, I have been running Movement workshops for sports coaches and p.e. teachers. The participants have enjoyed learning how to teach movement and basic gymnastics that they can then share with their players and pupils.
Players who are stronger, more agile and more adaptable can pick up their sport’s technical skills a lot more easily than those who are weak, uncoordinated and over-drilled.
I have put together three tutorials that consolidate the workshops that I have run in person and they are now available online. The introduction video is here:
Introduction video
You can purchase the membership here. It only costs £30 for 2 hours and forty minutes of content.
These tutorials will allow you and your players to develop their bodies and minds in a safe, progressive, imaginative and fun way.
were the opening remarks from Vern Gambetta at the GAIN conference in Houston last week. He set out a vision for the conference that I took to heart.
What are you currently doing?
What do you want/need to do?
Gap analysis: what is necessary to close the gap?
I have some personal reflections and tasks to do as a
result. Below are some more general points that may be of interest.
1. Decision Making: Len Zaichkowsky
Breakfast with Vern, Len and Peter Vint.
The author of ‘The Playmaker’s advantage’ talked about developing excellent games players. The performance separators between the good and the great were an athlete’s ability to:
Search for cues.
Decide quickly and accurately.
Execute flawlessly.
As coaches, we need to then design practices that help develop these qualities. Len called it ‘Overspeed training for the brain.’
Tight area drills and small sided games are two ideas that
can be used.
If you remove thinking and decision making from the players in training, how can you expect them to produce on the field?
2. A Hard Look at Evidence: Dr Grace Golden
‘The path to informed expertise and reasoning is not certain, it’s a
journey.’ Grace is an Athletic
Trainer and course leader at Oregon University.
She crammed 3 hours of information into a one hour seminar which was
enlightening.
She gave an overview of definitions of evidence, and how we
can gather it to inform and improve our practice. In the UK there is much talk
of ‘Evidence
based practice’ which is usually interpreted as ‘Only do it if you read it in a
journal.’
This has never sat well with me, because my own observations, reflections and feedback from athletes that I coach have influenced me as much (if not more) than studies I have read. Of course, if I only rely on my eyes, I am subject to bias.
Grace said we need to filter the evidence to counter this bias. She gave a hierarchy of evidence, with randomised controlled trials (RCTs) at the pinnacle.
The Parachute RCT control group?
However, due to ethics and logistics, RCTs may be unsuitable or unfeasible. She gave the example of studying the efficacy of using parachutes when jumping out of a plane.
Who would want to be in the control group that didn’t get to use the parachute? There has been no RCTs studying parachutes, but we all agree that they are a pretty good idea.
Evidence based practice
Grace showed how medicine has moved from evidence based practice to evidence informed practice.
Evidence informed practice
The assessment, treatment and then reassessment of interventions lead to informed practice. ‘Evidence doesn’t make decisions, clinicians do.’ Haynes (2002).
Grace then spent some time on the art of questioning. She said that informing yourself is not about acquiring knowledge. We are drowning in data (or funky exercises). Increased knowledge can make us more ignorant. We ignore what we see and hear in front of us.
A key point was to question our questions. Allow athletes the time to question us and
for us to think and respond.
3.
Planning: John Kiely and Eddie Jones
‘The plan is the outcome of the process, not the central part.’
John Kiely.
Several of the presenters mentioned planning. What was interesting was that all looked at it as more of a framework, rather than a detailed, longitudinal work.
John was talking about rethinking adaptation and gave a detailed critique of Selye’s work on stress adaptation and how it had been appropriated for sports. The periodisation concept puts the plan at the heart and centre of what is being done with the athlete.
John suggested a different approach.
The plan is the outcome
Philosophy:
The coaching teams; belief system, created by the blending of critical analysis
of evidence, experiences and opinions (See point 2).
Process:
The set of linked actions designed to track, analyse and review relevant
information (lots of ways of doing this) from coaches and players and other
sources.
Plan:
The training detail emerges from the process outputs and the hard constraints
imposed by logistics and competitive schedules.
John likened the detailed planning as kind of like writing a letter so Santa. It is more of a soother for coaches, than something that is likely to happen. (Gary Winckler said something similar here).
Rant alert:
My #1 bugbear when working with NGBs is being asked to send my ‘Annual periodised plan’ to a spotty youth straight out of University without any idea of what the coaches are doing, or what the players do outside of my sessions. It is a total fiction and a waste of my time. It does allow the spotty youth to ‘show nice graphs’ to justify their job.
Rant over.
Relying too much on the plan can reduce your agility. Planning isn’t an excel spreadsheet and we need to move away from thinking that a good programme is a well- executed plan. This was an excellent seminar.
Eddie Jones on planning
Eddie Jones gave
an overview of some of the things he has done with Japan Rugby and now England
Rugby. He said that you have ‘Got
to plan and get on with it,’ and that ‘It’s better to have a good plan today
than an excellent plan tomorrow.’
Working within the confines and pressures of International
fixtures are examples of the ‘hard constraints imposed by logistics and
competitive schedules.’ John mentioned.
Eddie said
that as a head coach it is important to plan, but don’t get fixated. Don’t let
tradition suffocate you. ‘Traditional
thinking stops you from changing. It takes COURAGE.’ to try something
different.
‘You can’t love something if you are copying something else.’ Eddie was very keen on infusing the plan with
passion and purpose.
4. Selling the message to players: many presenters.
Trying to dodge Jim Radcliffe
My personal bias maybe meant that I was tuning into any tips on how to present evidence or explain the purpose of what we do and why to the athletes I coach. But, many of the presenters did mention this.
Grace Golden suggested sharing your verbal pitch with athletes. Draw a picture of what you are trying to achieve. She said that not empowering the athlete to engage in the process was a mistake. They need to have a voice.
Greg Gatz showed his ‘Carolina Performance Newsletter’ and communication noticeboard at the University Of North Carolina. He uses these to share success stories and create buy in.
Bill Knowles talked about ‘Inspiring stories of world –class recoveries by average athletes’ was as important as stories of world-class athletes.
John Kiely shared four points from science that underpins the art of coaching:
Build Awareness: Education (gradually).
Signal competence (with humility).
Build belief and promote expectation.
Consciously design processes, environments and messaging.
Be YOU, but your best possible You (don’t be a charlatan).
John said that people respond to signals of competence, so think about your communication very, very clearly.
Eddie Jones talked about creating a vision and making the athletes feel part of something special.
Len Zaichkowsky said to treat your clients like gold and have your passion be contagious.
One of many impromptu discussions. This one on neck strength with Andy Stone and Dean Benton.
Vern Gambetta said that ‘Culture is the greatest scalable opportunity for a competitive advantage.’
This last section is something I shall be developing at our club over the next couple of months.
Summary
Many people ask ‘What
is GAIN?’ The headline speakers draw new people in; they are an
eclectic bunch, with new speakers from different fields each year.
However, the reason I returned
for an 8th time is the quality
of attendees. The chance to share ideas and learn from professionals from
many different countries, disciplines and sports is unique. I know that if I
have a problem or an idea, then I can get in contact with one of the people I
have met at GAIN and get an expert answer.
Andy, Jason, me and Dean reflecting over Tacos
Some of the best
people you have never heard of gave me food for thought, so thanks to
everyone who sat by me at meal times, or was training at 0530 in the morning
with me.
I am looking forward to helping our athletes over the upcoming months, helping other coaches on our coaching courses.
I am constantly asked on the best ways to get started in Strength & Conditioning Coaching. This post will helpfully answer most queries and help you on your way, even if there are few paid S&C jobs at the end!
Understand what it is to be a Coach first
The discipline in which you Coach is of secondary importance to your ability to Coach.
Do you naturally share information with others?
Do you communicate well with people outside of your own peer group?
Do you have an innate desire to help other people fulfil their potential?
If so, then Coaching could be for you.
Learn your trade before looking for S&C jobs:
Advice from my old weightlifting coach Keith Morgan.
Earn their trust
I am often asked “what qualifications have you got that let you do your job?” It is not about the qualifications (although a sound scientific and practical knowledge base is invaluable), it is about learning and understanding the coaching process.
What works, what doesn’t; when and how to apply different aspects of training; developing your own coaching philosophy and style; learning to work in adverse conditions and environments; working with different coaches and athletes and abilities; trying out things on yourself.
Coming straight from University, it is unlikely that you will have this depth and breadth of knowledge. Similarly, reading a book, or a list of journal articles, and never having applied them, will not prepare you for coaching hairy arsed warriors on a cold Thursday night in December.
Gerald Ratner (he of the jewellers) said the same thing. He said that he draws on his experience gained on the Market Stalls when he was 15. He said that some chief executives of retail companies have never worked on the shop floor- and it shows.
Here are my 5 tips:
Research the Coaching opportunities available to you. 90% of Coaching in the UK is part time and unpaid. 80,000 level 1 football Coaches are “qualified” every year, but there are very few people making a living from Coaching football. S&C Coaching is very much smaller than that, so have realistic expectations and paid S&C jobs rarer still.
Start small and start local. The sooner you start the practice of Coaching the better. Self reflection, the learning from mistakes, the networking with other Coaches are all essential parts of becoming a successful Coach. Local teams, clubs and schools will trip over themselves to accept if you offer free help. 30 weeks of working on a Tuesday and Thursday night in the cold and dark will soon make you realise if you are cut out for it or not. Better to learn that way and for free sooner rather than later.
Be careful what courses you pay for. Paying £000’s to sit in a University for 3-4 years, without any practical experience, being taught by lecturers who have very limited Coaching experience is not the way to become a good Coach. It may be part of it, but remember that Universities are businesses and they are competing for customers. Similarly, going on a 2 day kettlebell instructors training course is not much help either.
Learn, learn, learn. Libraries and the Internet are great resources for learning. You tube is great if you aren’t sure of an exercise. You need to be reading all the time. Books are better than the internet because it takes time to acquire and direct the knowledge.The problem is filtering all that information which is why it is useful to…
Find a mentor. Learn from someone who has been there, done that and made thousands of mistakes. I pick the brains of 3-4 people whom I trust and have helped me along the way. All are vastly more experienced than I am. They can point you in the right direction of which books and journals to read, whichcourses to attend and help you with problems that are bound to crop up.
Strength and conditioning at University
Practical work on level 1 course
I recently delivered a 30 min talk to sports science undergraduates on S&C jobs and careers. I tried to emphasise the fact that you are a coach, and therefore need to work on your coaching skills. Some of this can be done in a theoretical manner, but I honestly believe that you have to get your feet wet and start to coach. You can then reflect on your performance, adapt what you do, try again and hopefully improve.
There seemed to be a “what course can I go on to get a certificate?“mentality. Well, the course should help you understand underlying coaching principles, it should help you with the technical aspects, and it should allow you to coach and reflect and get feedback on your performance. That way you learn and develop.
There are some certifications out there that cost a lot of money, but fail to help you develop. There really are no shortcuts, best start straight away and become a better coach incrementally. There are few paying S&C jobs out there, so you had best love the coaching.
I have redesigned our S&C coaching courses to better reflect the needs of sports coaches. They wanted a 1 day course introducing Athletic Development principles, then to add modules of learning on specific topics.
They have proved very popular and I am delighted to be able to help the coaches help their teams.
“What should I be asking to get the information I need?”
This excellent question came from Mark, one of the coaches on our last CPD workshop in Devon. You have a blank sheet of paper, you have a new group of athletes: where do you start?
Here are 10 questions you might want to ask (in no particular order).
How much time do I have with them?
What is their current level and volume of training?
What else do they do (outside of the sport)?
What facilities/ equipment do I have available (available is different from mandatory)?
What are the Needs to do vs Nice to do for their age/ stage and sport? (from Gambetta).
How can I integrate training into other aspects of their life?
How can I organise the session to minimise down time (different from rest time which is necessary)?
Where do I want them to be in 12 months?
Where are they now and how can I measure that?
What unique aspects of the sport are there that might influence my session? (e.g. trampolinists & cricket fast bowlers do repeated movements on one side which affect their back).
This is a start and then you can plan from there. I work from the ground up, rather than try backwards from the “ideal situation”.
It is also important to remember that change takes time: sports coaches, athletes and parents need to be nudged and trust allowed to develop.
Has anyone got any other good questions to ask at the start?
“Skill learning isn’t just skill learning, it’s preparation”
John Brierley in his skill acquisition lecture on our level 3 coaching strength and conditioning for sport course.
Ever see the 5 sets of 5 programme for squats, power cleans and bench press? Dull as dishwater!
If we want our athletes to develop, we need to challenge their skill. If we fail to do that they get bored.
John’s theme was how can we make ourselves redundant as coaches: “It’s not our responsibility to keep control of their learning.” Instead, we need to “Get people to be in love with the activity” and then that stands them in good stead later on.
That’s coaching. How do you coach in the gym? Is it just handing out sets and reps and increasing the weight?
Do you crank up the music to create “atmosphere” and remove the human contact between coach and athlete?
These were the questions John was asking us as coaches. If we are to be successful (and by that I mean getting our athletes performing in the arena) then we need to improve our coaching, including motor skill acquisition.
Motivation and motor skill acquisition go together
Juggling is fun
If we get the athlete motivated, then they are more likely to acquire the skill.
This comes down to structuring the practice well, using the right level of task difficulty and then using the correct cues and feedback.
We spent some time doing this as a group as John broke out his Mary Poppins bag of coaching aids.
We had to perform a juggling task, test it, then do 2 minutes of practice with some video feedback, rest, then practice more. We then retested at the end.
There was minimal chat, some cues such as “think drainpipe rather than teapot” and short focussed practice. The idea was that by looking at the video, and trying 1 or 2 cues, we could improve.
(Duncan proved to be a juggling whiz, so whilst we were dropping tennis balls, he was progressing from 2 to 3 balls, to mishaped objects, to juggling clubs: John was well prepared with stuff!).
This structure was similar to the micropractice work we did in December.
“People are never as physically tired as they are mentally“. We can give the athlete breaks in practice when the skill is hard to achieve. Rest them physically, but work on something else.
I apply this with athletes as just when they are looking comfortable or familiar it is time to move on (temporarily) to something else. Boredom sets in otherwise, and the learning stagnates.
Decision making counts
Skill rarely happens in isolation in sport. Instead, it is the decision making that counts. “Don’t take the decision making out of it“. Practice needs to be variable:
Short, long or medium length.
Shooting/ rehearsing dominant/ non-dominant.
Slower vs faster.
Change the environment and context.
As we set down our learning pattern, we won’t remember the rep, but we will remember the context in which we practiced.
How do you structure your practice?
Is it the same every time?
Are your athletes getting better at some pre-programmed activities?
How do you know if that can then be applied to the sport?
I left the course with a lot of questions I have to ask myself, and I was the lead tutor!
Summary
John’s wealth of experience working in football and athletics enabled him to share practical examples of challenges within teams and high pressure situations.
His approach of “how to get everyone working together” was insightful and useful for all the coaches.
“Less is more” seemed to be one of the themes of the course: simpler, more effective cues. Have fewer exercises, but coach them really well, and change the context and environment in which we practise them.
Marius and Andy had emphasised this on the first weekend of the course too.
The rest of the weekend was spent looking at how all the pieces of the puzzle fit together: planning the year, the month the week and the individual session.
I wanted the coaches to be asking the right questions of themselves and of their athletes; perhaps most importantly
How can I help my athletes improve their performance where it counts? The competitive arena.
If you would like to host a course at your school or club, please see what we offer here
Last week I was lucky enough to attend a workshop at Exeter University led by John Brierley . This was part of the Transformational Coaching programme organised by Paula Jardine and led by Wayne Roberts.
John has a massive range of experience, including being the Team Leader of Athletics at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi, and fitness consultant to Birmingham City FC for 4 years.
John imparted 90 minutes of useful information, and was able to answer many questions that I had. It was especially useful for me as I am working with a lot of track and field athletes and their coaches.
A few of the points that I found useful:
Learning the culture of the organisation is as important as just nuts and bolts knowledge. Having lots of knowledge without understanding can lead to rapid unemployment.
Agents in football: what do they do? They could be a lot more useful than just wage brokers. They could be lifestyle consultants and actually earn their money helping footballer’s families settle and adjust to new towns and countries.
Prozone at Birmingham City FC- how it was useful, and how data got interpreted differently by Owners and other players. Inexperienced Coaches are often emotionally attached to data or the latest gadget. Experience helps filter new information into the system.
After looking at sweat rates when playing in Kuala Lumpar and the UK, because players wore more layers in the UK in winter, they actually sweated more. Hydration should be emphasised all year round, not just in the summer.
We then spent quite a bit of time talking about UK Athletics. For 2012 the target is 10 medals, despite never having won more than 4 in any Olympics. That is a big ask. The other aspect is the ongoing state of injuries, and what is causing that. Lack of conditioning, over playing, over competing?
Changing the culture of Athletics (or any sport) is difficult. What often goes on is “sports practice” which is not necessarily the same as “preferred practice” or “best practice.”
This was a most beneficial evening for me, thanks to all concerned. John was my MSc supervisor at Brunel University, and always offered practical, professional and thoughtful advice.
What are you doing as a Coach to improve your knowledge?
I am looking at three main areas-
Technical knowledge– the nuts and bolts of what works and why.
Coaching skills– How to apply this knowledge in a fashion that athletes engage and participate.
Innovation– how to progress the above two to keep the athletes and myself moving forward.
As I get more experienced as a Coach, I find it is less about the first point, and more about the 2nd two. Einstein said “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” He seemed to know a thing or two about research and development.
Vern Gambetta has been writing about coach development here. As part of my Development I will be participating in the GAIN programme in Houston next month. This will be an opportunity for a really intense focus on all aspects of Athletic Development with a group of highly experienced coaches.
The other main part of my development currently is the Transformational Coaching programme at Bath University. Here Will Roberts is helping lead a group of Coaches through some self reflection, via small groups, some seminars and reading.
It is interesting how these very experienced coaches talk about learning, reading and development from all different areas. I see a lot of young coaches who come from a purely Academic background and unless it has been published in a lowly journal with a subject n=5, it can’t possibly work!
In response to my review of his book last week, Frank Dick kindly replied:
“Guess my greater focus on detail is now partly some disillusionment in the approach of a new generation of coaches. My perception is that the detail is just not there. It is as John Wooden said. “If you only practice the tricks of the trade, you’ll never learn the trade”
In the age of the Internet and the Workout of the Day being downloaded, young coaches might be confusing information with knowledge. With too much information and no filter, it is easy to make mistakes. As I become more experienced, and learn with Coaches from different backgrounds, my filter gets refined.
I am constantly asked on the best ways to get started in Strength & Conditioning Coaching. This post will helpfully answer most queries and help you on your way, even if there are few paid S&C jobs at the end!
This excellent question came from Mark, one of the coaches on our last 
John Brierley in his skill acquisition lecture on our level 3 coaching strength and conditioning for sport course.