A review of the first ever GAIN Deep Dive on Foundational Strength
I always write a review of my experiences at the GAIN conference. This is part of my reflective practice.
As I was hosting and co-presenting on this ‘mini-GAIN’ held in Devon, I thought someone else would be better placed to reflect. Mark Sheppard wrote this review of the Deep Dive.
Coaches from 9 different countries came to Devon
“Having known James Marshall for at least 8 years I am familiar with both his work and his philosophy. I know it has been shaped by the 9 years that James has attended the GAIN conference held in Houston, USA.
To have Vern Gambetta share the experience and knowledge accumulated over 50 years of coaching I could see the impact this has had on James and others in the group who have previously attended these events.
Vern explaining his ‘Train movements, not muscles mantra
There is a saying ‘stop learning and you stop living’. Staying curious and open while being grounded in good science and the evidence of good practice are tenets of both Vern and James.
Throughout the two days whether in the theory or practical sessions there was a clear rationale for the information shared. We were all encouraged to participate and contribute through the collective experience of those in the room from different disciplines and sports.
Gambetta Athletic Improvement Network (GAIN)
James showing how Indian clubs help strength and coordination
‘GAIN’ is very much a network. which I understood better as the workshop progressed and subsequently as a WhatsApp group was formed amongst the attendees afterwards.
Listening to the ‘GAIN’ podcasts reinforced this dynamic. Hearing people share their journey in physical development and high performance coaching where the driver is what works best for my athlete, their ability and the demands placed on them is a welcome relief from the tsunami of self-promoted, ill-informed claims found on the internet.
I came away with a clearer overview of what a well-designed programme looks like:
Appropriate to the age/gender/ability/sport.
Progressive, imaginative and
grounded in sound fundamentals.
I reviewed what I was doing and reshaped the structure of the sessions I was running with my developmental tennis players (10 – 16 yrs old). I am excited to see the impact this will have on the athletes and private clients I currently work with. I feel I have refined the tools I have been using to greater effect in the time I have with the people I work with.
‘Athletic Development’ in my experience is lower down the food-chain in most sporting environments. Buy-in from athletes, parents, and coaches is key, and educating and providing supporting information to these stake-holders is an important element in my coaching role.
Having the wealth of information shared over the two days from both Vern and James was having access to a deep well which I know I will be drawing from for years to come.
GAIN regulars Donie Fox, Matt Grainger and Jason St Clair Newman helped out.
Human-beings are complex, multilayered, adaptive systems of physiology, neurology, culture and belief systems. It’s what makes this work so interesting.
Knowing there is a support system out there to support one’s own coaching journey through this minefield has been my biggest Gain (pun intended).“
Mark Sheppard
More learning opportunities
Thanks, Mark for sharing. If any other attendees had a comment, please leave below. This was the first Deep Dive, but we shall be running others. Please contact myself or Vern if you are interested in attending or hosting.
In the mean time, I am preparing for GAIN in June, where I am looking forward to once again learning from great practitioners from around the world.
I have learnt lots in 2019, but here are some of the key things. Some of them I should have known before, but have drifted away from or been blown off course.
Thanks to all the members of Excelsior Athletic Development Club for helping me improve my coaching this year and inspiring me to try harder. Thanks also to everyone at GAIN for helping me clarify my thoughts and sharing their experiences.
I hope to navigate 2020 better than 2019, avoiding rocky shores, dealing with the changing winds and enjoying the journey.
Lesson 1: Have faith in
the children
Our end of term gymnastics display showed how adaptable and creative young people are, if given the opportunity. Despite illnesses, and parents forgetting the display was on, the children pulled together, stepped in to help each other and got on with it.
Three great boys, all very different, helping each other.
Our club members come from different backgrounds have different experiences and have vastly different personalities. Yet, they still manage to work together, express themselves and have fun. It is an absolute delight watching them put it all together.
It shows what a community of people cando, when working together, and no one is trying to ‘WIN’.
Lesson 2: The Mark #1
Eyeball is the best technological coaching device
I have spent more time watching and observing this year. People might be thinking that I am sleeping on my feet, but my brain is taking in all that people do. How people move, what they like doing in warm ups, who they congregate with, where they get stuck.
By watching, I can then intervene, encourage, educate or praise according to THEIR needs, rather than my own master plan (if I had one).
Here Adanna and Grace are practising aerials. I gave them some tips to help after they tried.
You can wander (and wonder) around various conferences, or social media, looking for answers or ideas, but I have found that many are right in front of me if I look carefully.
The coaching process is sometimes specified as
PLAN
DO
REVIEW
I am now thinking that
OBSERVE
DO
REVIEW
PLAN
Is more of what I believe. Where the DO is experimentation within safe parameters, and then build the plan from there.
Lesson 3: Avoid the
major catastrophes but allow the minor mistakes
I got asked to describe my leadership style by a minor bureaucrat last week. I couldn’t think of an answer immediately. An HR person implied that ‘command and control’ is bad and to mention the GROW model.
Yes, but if you see someone about to collide with another person, shouting ‘STOP’ is definitely a command. So is, ‘Please evacuate out of the rear exit as we have a fire in the building.’
On reflection, I thought that I don’t have a leadership style, nor do I want one. It might be out of fashion next season.
Instead, we have to adapt to the situation and the person in front of us. By allowing them to make minor mistakes, but stopping major catastrophes, we give the person the opportunity to learn for themselves. If they keep making the minor mistake, we can guide them or show them a different way.
I have learnt that perfectionism gets in the way of progress. It is easy to waste time on things that don’t matter in pursuit of the overall goal.
Lesson 4: Joy is the
fuel that drives our engines
Life can get heavy. We can get sucked into a vortex of ‘Performance Pathways’ or learning about ‘frontal adverbials’ and forget about the joy of movement or reading for pleasure.
There is a time for rigour, discipline and knuckling down to get enough repetitions to master a movement (as Archie demonstrates here).
But, if we just do that, we squeeze the joy out of WHY we are learning and moving and playing. We become lifeless automatons, doomed to an existence of spreadsheets.
An aimless life filled with Hedonistic pleasure would also be dull.
Having a purpose, pursuing that dream, and enjoying the journey with others are what matters.
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.
A review of Jerome Simian’s workshops on physical preparation for sport.
I had to choose between different “strands” of coaching topics at the IFAC conference in Loughborough. A difficult choice, not wanting to miss out on some excellent speakers. I chose to attend Simian’s because of a quote I heard on the HMMR podcast:
“I have an obligation to results, not an obligation to methods.”
This resonates with me as I wanted to hear from someone who
has to get results from the athletes he works with, or he won’t get paid. He
has “skin
in the game.” This is different from someone who is promoting a model
on paper, in print or to a captive audience.
I was all ears and ready to learn from someone I had never
met before.
I shall give an overview of Simian’s theoretical approach,
plus details on his practical applications and my experiences as guinea pig in
several of them.
Fundamental Physical Preparation: A Systematic Approach
“The best ones have the strongest fundamentals.”
Working on fundamentals
Simian recounted watching Serena Williams warm up. She hit between 80-120 shots just leaning into her backhand. Her excellence may be related to her persistence that allows her to then dictate what the ball does.
This fundamental approach guides Simian. Athletes usually
come to train with him because they have a problem to solve. He receives no
funding from a Governing Body, so he has to find a solution to help the athlete
that hasn’t been found in their usual training.
“Will the environment you provide be stronger than the environment they
came from?”
I like this concept: if we aren’t increasing the stimulus,
how will the athlete adapt and get better?
Simian then quoted Michel Pradel:
“The aim of physical preparation is to go beyond the level of motor
ability that can be achieved by the sole practice of the chosen activity.”
General to Specific Exercises
Linking back to what Martin Bingisser had talked about in
the previous hour, Simian highlighted exercises from two different events from
General to Specific (see below).
Figure 1 100m
General to Specific
Figure 2 Women’s
discus General to Specific
If you look at how this is set out, take a moment to reflect on the importance of “traditional resistance training”. A lot of heat and noise comes out of journals, social media and conferences, but very little light.
Simian then says he uses a system of thinking, rather than specific methods. This allows him a framework within which he can choose different methods (exercises, drills, outside sources) that help him to adapt to different athletes and their needs.
He did give an overview of different periodisation models and why he uses Zatiorsky’s adaptation model. In a nutshell, it is about managing fatigue better, so the athlete is better prepared at the end of the workout or day to then train again.
He uses a Heart Rate Variability app with his athletes as he has found that was the simplest and most effective measure of fatigue. It was the best marker of the Parasympathetic nervous system that is linked to overall stress.
But, I think this part of the seminar was of less relevance
than his system of training.
General Physical Preparation Planning Principles (GPPPP?)
Simian says that he
doesn’t create an athlete specific programme immediately. Instead “there
are certain things every athlete ought to be able to do.”
Each athlete goes through the system to start, this then allows Simian to gain a better understanding of how they move, what limiting factors there might be, and also what makes the athlete tick.
This graphic shows the progression of thought. Looking at what the limiting factors might be, training in core athletic activities, then some specialisation according to the sport (the context).
Then comes strengthening of the fundamentals and sport specific factors. Finally another look at what any limiting factors might be.
A systematic hunt of the limiting factor and its improvement
This seemed to be the crux of Simian’s approach (as
discovered in the practicals).
“Muscles have to handle each other around the joint. An injury in one
may mean the loss of control, or too early a deceleration in a throw”.
The art for Simian was to find out where the muscles were
lacking, and then find a solution to improve it. He then gave examples of
throwing actions and how injuries to different parts affected the overall
throw.
One thing I took from this on muscle activation:
Acceleration/
take offs- muscles activate from proximal to distal (centre to limbs).
Deceleration/
landings: the reverse, so distal to proximal (feet, ankles, knees to hips).
Simian was very good at comparing the athletics throws and
how they differ due to the different rotations. More rotations allow a longer
path of acceleration, with hammer throwers rotating over 40 metres.
In his work with Kevin Mayer (Decathlon World record holder) Simian has done a great job of analysing the movements, the events and joining the two together. The level of detail and understanding was impressive.
Now to the practicals: looking at assessment of athletes and
potential solutions.
Jerome Simian explaining the hurdles
With a group of over 20 coaches, Simian had a young volunteer take part in the practicals to be assessed. I was lucky enough to be pushed forward by Martin Bingisser and so ended up taking part too. This was a mixed blessing.
The review to follow is therefore from the perspective of a participant, rather than a passenger.
Now to the practicals: looking at assessment of athletes and
potential solutions.
Simian used the hurdles picture to assess our ability to do
repeated rebounds over them. He gains information from this to then
ascribe/prescribe further exercises in the gym.
LC and I did this several times each.
(N.B. At no point in these workshops did Simian ever demonstrate; it took a lot of time and explanation to get things right. I got tired repeating the exercises, many of which were either new, or not something I practise regularly. Information taken from my stumbling efforts was tainted with lack of skill.
As a coach are you assuming deficit of strength (imbalances) when really skill is deficient? It is easy to jump to conclusions.)
Simian’s feedback to LC was that her back was collapsing
during the rebounds, so more strength type supplemental work was needed.
His feedback to me was that more springing practice was
needed, so doing the hurdles exercise will help me get better. Strength didn’t
appear to be the issue.
Back strengthening exercises
Assessing back movement
We then spent the next hour in the gym with LC as the subject, looking at back strengthening progressions. They were as follows:
Assessing LC in the Roman Chair– showed tightness around T12 which leads to poor rotation (problematic for a thrower). Simian then pressed down on her lumbar spine and got her to extend. This isolated the thoracic spine (T Spine) to enable more movement.
In order to get a contraction in the T Spine, he tried to get a relaxation in the rectus abdominus. He rubbed LC’s tummy as a cue and then said “relax that”. Her movement improved, so he changed her position on the chair so she had more flexion at the beginning.
Once the movement was correct and the range had increased, he added a light barbell to her shoulders. LC had to hold for 6 seconds, then slowly lower down again.
The key point was to only extend the spine after hip extension. All sports (except golf) require this sequence, rather than spine extension followed by hip extension.
Sprinters who pop up
too soon may have weaker spines. It is easy to hold the spine erect upright
than in horizontal.
The next series of exercises
were off the Roman Chair and progressed as follows:
Good Mornings- LC was still hinging at T12, so a lighter load was needed. The maximal load was being taken at T12, rather than across the spine.
Hip Hinge with barbell in front (Romanian Dead Lift, RDL). Trying to extend the spine throughout the whole movement.
These exercises help athletes keep an upright chest when running without a pelvic tilt. If the pelvis anteriorly rotates when the chest is high, it creates too much “backside mechanics” leading to over striding.
Snatch grip deadlift– hips and shoulders rise together. If the hips rise first, it shows too early a knee extension. The extension should be: hips-knee-ankles in that order.
Feet elevated snatch deadlift- harder to control. Slow up for 5 seconds, then down for 5 seconds.
At no point was “Lift Heavy” used as a cue. The progressions were greater range of motions with greater technical difficulty. “The lighter weight I can use to get an effect, the better.”
Simian said that once LC had got competent in these
exercises then he would progress her through greater speed and exercises such
as pulls and snatch that encourage that speed.
“If to do an exercise properly, you have to solve the same problem that
you do on the track, then it’s probably a good exercise.”
Here was where Simian was excellent– he knew what the problem in the event was, and then used exercises to help isolate certain parts of that event and improve them. Problem solving and skilful movement by the athlete were essential parts of the process.
For a start, I am not sure I have achieved this, but there are a few things that you can do to help make yourself and your coaching better.
Learn- observe, participate, read, practice. Not just from the usual key texts, if all you do is read the same 3 books as everyone else, you will do the same as everyone else. Look outside your usual sphere of influence, try different things, listen to what your athletes are telling you.
Analyse– look at what your athletes do when they move, don’t come with a prepared programme to hand out, see what they can actually do. Look at what the sport requires in the game, using both top performers and beginners as benchmarks. Don’t take an exercise as gospel because Tiger Woods does it. Try to understand why he might do something, and then see if you need to do that.
Share– share your ideas and opinions and thoughts with others. Physiotherapists, biomechanists, physiologists, coaches will all see the same thing as you, but from their perspective. This will add colour, depth and clarity to your own vision. This should help prevent group think, but also be aware of summating that information into a workable package for your athletes.
Review- constantly, all the time, after every session, every day, every week, every month, every year. The mini reviews will help you adjust things before your next session. But the bigger reviews require time and no distractions.
Take the time out away from the immediate pressing issues of the day and sit down with a blank piece of paper and a clear mind. Revisit where you want to go, think what you need to get there. Think what you have done and then match the two. Where there are gaps, look to improve.
1.Athletes, especially young ones, have so much happening in their lives that our influence is minimal. Coaches need to realise this.
2. Periodisation planning is flawed in group settings in all but the most controlled environments (see #1). Every athlete doing your sessions has eaten, slept, socialised, studied and travelled differently from their peers. All of these influence the effectiveness of your programme.
3. Children are simply unable to throw. Parents would rather send them to an athletics or tennis club than play with their kids in the park. Time spent throwing stones into a river or the sea is time well spent. Encourage your athletes to play with their parents.
Children learn to throw on their own
4. Fitness testing is overrated. I know that 16-18 year old girls are going to be weak. Measuring them and telling them what we already know is unlikely to motivate them.
5. Exploration and problem solving tasks lead to high engagement. For example, Pike head stands are hard, but help develop control, balance, strength and mobility.
Doing them looks cool, kids want to be able to do this. They practice in secret without being asked. Or, you could tell them to do 2 x20 ab curls and 30 seconds of plank…
6. Fartlek training (Speed Play) should be athlete led. They learn the rhythm of running as well as adapting to the undulating terrain and different environments. Why are college lecturers prescribing this on a treadmill? It ain’t fast and it ain’t fun.
7.Collaboration works better than competition for most kids. Parents have different views and some are obsessed with rating their children against others. UGH! Gymnastics displays to showcase their newly developed skills has proved popular with our members.
8. Growing and developing assistant coaches from within the club is better than asking for outside help. It takes more time, but we have benefited greatly this year from internal help. These volunteers understand our work ethic and culture.
Always ready to train
9. I would take our group of athletes in our “Strength and co-ordination” sessions over any “professional” group I work with. These 9-13 year olds ask great questions of me, themselves and of each other. They come to each session prepared and ready to work.
10. A mix of: • Free practise • Partner work • Specific skills • Structured group work is how our gymnastics class has evolved. If we have some of each element, the class runs smoothly. Too much of any one aspect and we lose cohesion.
11. Listening to a good tune for 2-3 minutes after driving to a coaching session helps me transfer to coaching mode. I then start the session fresh #1 at present is “Lack of Afro’s Cold Blooded”
Mark 1 pen and journal
12. Technology is over rated. All my best coaching interactions have happened from face to face contact.
Listening, observing and learning from our athletes has been the best part of this year. I reflect after each session in my coaching journal using the Mark 1 pen and journal.
Thanks to everyone who helped
These were my reflections. My coaching improved in 2018 thanks to many people helping including:
Barry Phelan, Karen, Craig and Alex at Orchard Gymnastics.
Vern Gambetta and everyone at GAIN
Keith Morgan and Marius Hardiman for all things Weight Lifting
Simon Worsnop for helping set up our Athletic Development Coach course
My wife Sarah and all the athletes for keeping my feet firmly on the floor.
Taking this golf example from Wade Gilbert’s “Coaching better every season” for coaches and players to help focus on what matters most. The golf coach ended up with the appropriate acronym PAR.
Passion: Nurture love for the game of golf and competing.
Achievement: Strive to achieve our competitive and personal goals.
Respect: Demonstrate genuine regard for self, others, and the game of golf.
The process of sitting down and discussing what is important and what shapes your coaching plan is the take home message. Just copying this acronym is unlikely to work with your players.
“Why wait for a disaster to have a really open and frank conversation?”
Wade Gilbert
Wade Gilbert asked this at the GAIN conference in his presentation on reflection and debriefs for coaches. (This was two days after the Grenfell tower disaster where many people were asking the same thing).
Wade said that systematic reflection could be the separator between good and great coaches. He then took us through a series of exercises to help us start the process of reflection.
Exercise 1: What is quality coaching?
We wrote down one word that best captures what we think is the essence of coaching. We then held it above our head and looked for anyone else in the room with that same word (mine was empathy).
This exercise can be done with athletes too. It teaches the athletes to reflect in their training and realise that “you don’t just show up and have something done to you.”
Wade often refers to John Wooden, and he quoted from the “Wooden revisited” study. Almost everything that came out of Wooden’s mouth was teaching. He had an “economy of talk” with key instructions he used.
Wooden also had incredible attention to detail when planning his sessions.
Planning your sessions well and giving fewer instructions, but better ones, will improve the athlete experience.
Defining coaching effectiveness
Wade then quoted from a study he did with Jean Cote focussing on coaches’ knowledge.
It looked at 3 components:
Coaches’ knowledge
Athletes’ outcomes
Coaching contexts
More to coach knowledge than technique
If the coaches’ knowledge doesn’t transfer to successful athlete outcomes then it is redundant. This knowledge was broken down into 3 areas and the outcomes into 4 areas.
(How many NGB coaching courses refer to the 2nd / 3rd areas of knowledge?)
By using reflection and debriefs the coach can become more self-aware and understand better their relationship with others.
(A few years ago I did an excellent course called Leadership through emotional intelligence which I recommend highly, “The Chimp Paradox” is also an excellent book to help you with this.)
Exercise 2: Coaching strengths and gaps
Greg Gatz and me
Here we worked in small groups and evaluated our strengths and gaps which were divided into the 4 parts of the season (see Wade Gilbert coaching process).
We then tried to find someone whose strengths matched our gaps and vice versa. I chatted to Greg Gatz (University North Carolina) about how to make our gym sessions “Game like and demanding”. We are going to share some fun challenges between our 2 groups of athletes to help create this at some point in the week.
This was a good opportunity to practice “purposeful and systematic reflection”. It was especially useful as we had been on “receive” mode for 4 days and time for reflection and discussion was most welcome.
Do Simple Better
Reminder before coaching
This phrase became a bit of a mantra after GAIN. Rather than looking to add the “shiny new thing”, it was a reminder from Wade that doing the simple things better often worked wonders.
An example of how to improve practices is to write down “advanced noticing cues”: what everybody should be looking for at the beginning of the session. Look for leverage points that make a difference and.
This also makes athlete and coach evaluation easier and more pertinent because we have something to evaluate against: “did you manage to keep that bar close to your body?” “Did your hands and head make an equilateral triangle in headstand?”
Exercise 3: Post practice reflection sheet
We were given a checklist from Wade’s book which has 17 different questions to ask under 4 areas:
Set challenging & specific practice goals.
Keep athletes physically and mentally active throughout practice.
Give athletes choice and ask them for input on practice design.
Create competitive gamelike practice activities.
It is a simple tickbox exercise and can be done very quickly. I had Tom Hardy, one of my assistant gymnastics coaches, do one “live” on my coaching in one of our sessions. He picked up on 2 points that I had missed and so I adapted for the next session.
Critical Reflection
These simple exercises were useful and easy to initiate. Wade then said the next step was to “think about how we think”: meta -reflection.
The goal he set us was to “Understand and challenge mental models of coaching and athlete development.”
Reflective practice helps this journey
He quoted from John Medina’s “Brain Rules”: “we do not see others with our eyes, we see them with our brains”.
Deliberate reflection would allow us as coaches to move along this continnuum.
Part of the innovation process is “It’s okay not to finish things.” This may help retain information as proposed by the “Zeigarnik Effect”. Finishing a task then allows the brain to relax and switch to a new task. Having things unfinished may allow the brain to work subconsciously on solving the problems.
This seminar was a perfect way to spend the final Saturday morning of GAIN. Our brains had been filled up with new and challenging ideas and information, what matters most is how we can transfer that knowledge to athlete actions.
I have spent much more time focussing on scheduling tasks since this seminar 5 weeks ago. My idea is to do 1-2 things each month at different points of the season that will allow me to develop as a coach. This then will help the athletes at Excelsior ADC.
“If I want to get better, I need to know what better is.”
Wade Gilbert at GAIN
Wade Gilbert gave an excellent overview of the coaching process and becoming a better coach at his GAIN seminar.
This also served as an overview of his excellent book of the same name.
His talk was split into 4 parts:
Envision: Pre-season
Enact: In-Season
Examine: End of Season
Enhance: Off Season
He gave practical examples of what has worked from great coaches, and quoted liberally from many books. A good coach is “a teacher with a high energy level.” Said Tony Dungy in “Uncommon”.
Envision: Preaseason
Vision, values & standards
This is the time to set out where you intend to go in the upcoming season. Having a vision of where you want to be is essential to have a successful season.
A good coach will have a vision and be able to outline core values and corresponding behaviour standards for themselves and the team.
Standards ≠ Rules
Wade said it was better to look at the best principles that underpin successful teams and organisations rather than best practices.
Principles endure and can transfer to your team, practices are more likely to be environment, people and context specific.
No need for Iron Fist
“Accountability doesn’t require an Iron Fist, just a mutual understanding of what’s being asked and what’s at stake.”
Having behaviour standards for how you start training and competition help you become successful This can often include rituals at practices and competitions and serve as value reminders.
A great coach will be a visionary: “you have to be able to see round corners, see what athletes could become and see things that aren’t there yet.” It is important to outline this vision and bring people with you.
Enact: In- Season
“Never mistake activity for achievement”
meeting athlete needs
Said John Wooden. It is common to be busy in season but becoming a better coach and team is hard.
Wade emphasised the importance of athlete learning and motivation in getting the team to perform better. Prior knowledge can help or hinder the learning process, whilst motivation directly influences learning.
Coaches who use guided discovery and give immediate feedback can help their athletes learn more effectively.
Athletes will be motivated to learn more when they are within a “sweet spot” between challenge and accomplishment. Too easy and they get bored, too hard and they get frustrated. “Stretch learning” is where the athlete can almost touch the end “with support”.
This is something I have tried to incorporate within all our club sessions, balancing the need for a sense of accomplishment and “getting tired” with a sense of challenge and slight frustration at not being there yet.
stretch learning at Excelsior ADC
For example, we might be working on handspring preparations which require shoulder mobility and the ability to “pop”. The drills are easy and can be done by everyone whereas the whole skill is technically difficult and be done by a few.
I then follow this with a simpler skill such as through vault, so the gymnasts can then unleash themselves and get rid of any residual frustration.
The challenge of the activity may have a “High perceived risk, but low actual risk.”
How you give feedback also affects learning. Wade used a push versus pull analogy.
Push (solving problems for someone else) ↔ Pull (helping someone solve their own problem).
Both methods have merit, but that could be situational dependent and as athletes develop, pulling is more beneficial.
Quality practice design
As this is where most of the interaction between coach and athlete usually occurs, it merits more detailed attention.
Wade talked about “Practice efficiency” which he defined as “Do less better”. He outlined the following features of quality practices:
Purpose
Variety
Competition
Game Speed
Have you evaluated your practice design recently?
Wade then moved onto competition coaching. He quoted research that looked at successful competition coaches who spent time “listening to the match” and had “complex problem solving competences.”
They could react to the live situation effectively and adapt.
Encouragement is often undervalued. Genuine praise for quality performance leads to athletes performing better and having greater enjoyment. Athletes in these environments raised their effort levels and rated their coaches as more effective.
3 roles for coaches
The coach then needs to wear three different hats and have 3 different skill sets to be effective.
Whilst most coaches will be good at one of these, it is rarer to find people comfortable with all three.
Examine: End of Season
“It’s like having a bazooka to kill a mosquito”
Having evaluation tools available to use doesn’t mean we have to use them.
(I would question how many coaches do a formal end of season evaluation: many justifiably run for the hills or slump into a heap exhausted. Some may have a chat in the bar at the end, and then gear up for more of the same next year).
James with Wade and his book
Wade gave some good advice on how to evaluate your own coaching using a “strengths based approach.” (His book has got some great checklists in there). Here are a couple of questions to ask yourself:
What are my coaching strengths?
What was your best day of coaching this past year?
Why was this the best day?
This can form the first of three parts of your end of season evaluation.
Coaches: magnify their strengths.
Programme: analyse the practice design and preparation
Athletes: reinforce values.
I like this because it is achievable for coaches who actually coach, rather than academics pontificating from their Ivory Towers!
Enhance: Offseason
“Charge your battery before you charge someone else’s”
Coaching is hard work. Dan John described feeling at the end of the week as if he had “been pecked to death by a thousand crows”. I describe it as “starting the session like a grape and finishing like a raisin”: there’s not much left in the tank!
At the end of an emotionally, intellectually and somewhat physically demanding season, coaches need to spend time enhancing themselves.
recharging the batteries
Wade talked about “starting the day on offence”: get up and look after yourself before the demands of others are placed upon you (I adjusted my morning routine 2 years ago).
The offseason should be partly spent on wellness (refreshing) and then setting up new routines that are sustainable in the long term to allow you to reload.
Part of this time is to spend time with people who will help you achieve your goals.Wade quoted from Pep Guardiola’s book about changing the culture of your team.
“Focus on the believers” and do more with them. They will help spread the infection of your culture like a virus.
This was a great thought to finish on. Wade’s talk had lots of practical advice in it that can be implemented immediately, as well as some longer term philosophical ideas that can be reflected upon.
I have previously written about “effective preseason planning” for the nuts and bolts of training. This seminar was more about the coaching effectiveness and I have written a plan to implement over the next few months.
I recently spent 5 days in Houston, Texas at Vern Gambetta’s GAIN conference. In this post, and those to follow, I shall attempt to share some of the main ideas and reflections gained whilst there. This should be of interest to fellow coaches and some to parents of athletes too.
Opening address and overview by Vern Gambetta
Vern set up this conference 10 years ago looking to harness ideas on athletic development from professionals with different backgrounds. Sports coaches, athletic trainers, physiotherapists, strength and conditioning coaches, Doctors and physical education teachers were some of the people in attendance.
By looking at the same problems with different sets of eyes and brains, many different solutions can be found. This was summarised by Vern as
“Making connections to foster meaningful change and innovation.”
Conversation with Surgeon, Navy Seals trainer, wrestling coach
This was my 6th visit to GAIN and the highlight for me is the intelligent conversations with passionate people. Rarely do I get spend time with people who are experts in their field willing to share ideas and ask great questions without trying to sell me something or tell me how brilliant they are!
Vern’s opening address was a passionate call to arms to become better as coaches so that we can help our athletes better. This means sharing ideas and analysing what we do, rather than just follow herds or folklore.
He suggested that deep ignorance was a problem in the world today. We should look for the blank spaces, the holes in the knowledge. The answers may be there. “The right question is intellectually superior to finding the right answer.”
Vern wanted to us to focus on possibilities when working with athletes:
What can they do?
How can we get them to do it?
Do no harm!
Beware of being seduced by data
E.O. Wilson said “we are drowning in information, while striving for wisdom.” The onset of data analytics means we can gather ever more numbers. This can be seductive and we can then train to improve these numbers.
Vern emphasised that we should coach the athletes in front of us, rather than the numbers on the spreadsheet. Because you can measure it, doesn’t make it meaningful (more on that later from Dr Joyner).
The internet has become a problem: parents, coaches and athletes are often unable to filter out all the noise.
Call to action
“We are more likely to overcome our struggles and difficulties to find out what we are looking for when we are willing to take others with us on the journey.” Simon Sinek.
Vern’s concept is to create robust, resilient and adaptable athletes. His mission is for the athletes to eliminate all physical limitations.
This was a much needed jolt in the arm for me. Setting up the Excelsior Athletic Development Club has been a harrowing process. I have started to run parent/ volunteer workshops to help them understand what we are doing. Those that have attended have given great feedback and I need to do more.
Not everyone “gets it”, the prevailing wind is for parent driven competitive tournaments for 7 year olds and “win on Saturday” mentality. Rather than fight this tsunami, I am attempting to build something different and give hope to the future.
GAIN 2017 allowed me to spend time with people who reassured me that I wasn’t alone in this endeavour. Thanks to Vern and everyone who attended for helping me get better.
