In the athletic realm, I think there are two ends of the spectrum when it comes to competition. One end would be considered competitive and would include things like professional sport. the other end to me would be recreational sports or even just play in a field or park. I think both of these types and everything in between are important for athletic development and time should be dedicated for all of these levels of competition.
It is very common for me to see a lot of competitive stuff in practices that mimic games, but I think sufficient time also needs to be alotted for athletes to play and "mess around" almost. From what I've seen, this part of sport is severely lacking from the past and I think the current trend is tedious and boring for the athelte which is one reason for burnout. During play time, atheltes are encouraged to try skills they normally wouldn't or play different positions and learn the game from another "angle". All of this is beneficial to me even though I used to be a "strickly business" kind of person as an athlete. Now that I coach, I can see the benefit of play time and the amount of learning this way is invaluable and hard to achieve in other areas of practice.
Thank you for reading and let's try to incorporate unorganized play time into our practices a lot more frequently.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Gender Tested Athlete
Listed are two articles about a current gender "scandal"/situation regarding a very talented 18 year old runner from South Africa. The first is an ESPN article posted about the situation some reactions from people close to her. The second was posted from yahoo sports and shows an ill effect of the situation- the runner's decision to not compete.
http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/beijing/blog/fourth_place_medal/post/Semenya-withdraws-from-race-amidst-reports-she-s?urn=oly,188930
From gently following this the past few days, I can honestly feel for this athlete because of the attention given to sexuality. Whether male, female, or "intersexual" the fact of the matter is, this person is a hell of a runner (World Record Holder) which is being severly overshadowed by all this legal stuff. I understand the importance of distinguishing a gender in this case for records and competition placement standards, but the media involvement especially directed towards her family is unnessesarily absurd and absolutely saddening.
Born with this type of disorder does raise the question: How are these athletes going to be treated by the IAAF and other international governing bodies? I'm not sure I can hypothesize the outcome in this case, so we'll have to wait and see ourselves...
Implications of this decision could be a turning point in sport. The decision could either maintain a strict boundary between male and female based on specific medical testing to determine secondary sexual characteristics and the concentration of hormone levels within the body, or could "open the flood gates" for more borderline athletes and increase the temptation for steroid use to obtain a competitive advantage. Thank you for reading this week, and thank you Paul for sending one of these articles over to me this morning for review!
http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/beijing/blog/fourth_place_medal/post/Semenya-withdraws-from-race-amidst-reports-she-s?urn=oly,188930
From gently following this the past few days, I can honestly feel for this athlete because of the attention given to sexuality. Whether male, female, or "intersexual" the fact of the matter is, this person is a hell of a runner (World Record Holder) which is being severly overshadowed by all this legal stuff. I understand the importance of distinguishing a gender in this case for records and competition placement standards, but the media involvement especially directed towards her family is unnessesarily absurd and absolutely saddening.
Born with this type of disorder does raise the question: How are these athletes going to be treated by the IAAF and other international governing bodies? I'm not sure I can hypothesize the outcome in this case, so we'll have to wait and see ourselves...
Implications of this decision could be a turning point in sport. The decision could either maintain a strict boundary between male and female based on specific medical testing to determine secondary sexual characteristics and the concentration of hormone levels within the body, or could "open the flood gates" for more borderline athletes and increase the temptation for steroid use to obtain a competitive advantage. Thank you for reading this week, and thank you Paul for sending one of these articles over to me this morning for review!
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Exercise Duration
With a lot of attention driven toward exercise selection, volume (sets x reps), and %weight to use, I realize exercise duration has been a bit overlooked. Exercise duration is a very important part of a workout because duration of activity affects hormone regulation, blood glucose levels, and many other important bodily functions.
I think that after about an hour long exercise session, your body is in a mostly catabolic state, meaning hormones made for breakdown are being released. Therefore, I don't really think you are getting much productive work done after about 60-75 minutes. Personally, I have never had a team in the weight room for more than 90 minutes including everything from warm-up to conditioning. In addition to hormone regulation, muscle glycogen levels are an easily exhaustable resource for quick, powerful movements directly embedded in the muscle. This energy is used for powerful actions or at the beginning of any exercise. This means, if we are exercising for over an hour, glycogen is depleted from the system and there is no longer any left for use in the muscle. To compensate for this, we use energy from other sources and are therefore less efficient.
The biggest mistake I am seeing is when teams hold a full practice session and then head into the weight room for a workout session. The team is not getting anything out of that workout and you are wasting their time. The message I want you all to have here is get your work done in the weight room or on the field and get out. Efficiency is the most important thing in an athletic practice. Set a couple goals for your practice sessions and adhere to the time frame you have laid out to accomplish these goals. In the weight room, you shouldn't be doing something if it takes more than an hour to complete, condense the program by asking questions about what is really important and what can be left out.
I think that after about an hour long exercise session, your body is in a mostly catabolic state, meaning hormones made for breakdown are being released. Therefore, I don't really think you are getting much productive work done after about 60-75 minutes. Personally, I have never had a team in the weight room for more than 90 minutes including everything from warm-up to conditioning. In addition to hormone regulation, muscle glycogen levels are an easily exhaustable resource for quick, powerful movements directly embedded in the muscle. This energy is used for powerful actions or at the beginning of any exercise. This means, if we are exercising for over an hour, glycogen is depleted from the system and there is no longer any left for use in the muscle. To compensate for this, we use energy from other sources and are therefore less efficient.
The biggest mistake I am seeing is when teams hold a full practice session and then head into the weight room for a workout session. The team is not getting anything out of that workout and you are wasting their time. The message I want you all to have here is get your work done in the weight room or on the field and get out. Efficiency is the most important thing in an athletic practice. Set a couple goals for your practice sessions and adhere to the time frame you have laid out to accomplish these goals. In the weight room, you shouldn't be doing something if it takes more than an hour to complete, condense the program by asking questions about what is really important and what can be left out.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Guest Blog by Meli Mathis
Today's blog comes from Meli Mathis, a local rowing coach and blog follower. She gives an interesting perspective to "recruiting" in a somewhat non-traditional sport, but brings up some very good points, How do we get non motivated kids into sport? I was very excited to hear her thoughts and interest in writing a blog for me so here it is for all of you, enjoy:
The ultimate team sport is also the ultimate obscure sport. I coach rowing, which is not very popular, nor is it a very accessible sport for most. The latter leads to the former. So the question becomes how do you get kids interested in a sport that they have likely never seen or heard of? Especially when rosters need walk-ons to be complete.
In my case, I had seen rowing boats on the Potomac River as I was driven to school each day from kindergarten to 8th grade. I have always been a water person: I was on swim team and am now a lifeguard, so it was another water sport to try. For some kids that is an intimidation factor: there's a swim test to join rowing teams. But I disagree. The real question is how to get kids even interested to take that swim test, and join a sport that practices off campus with little visibility. My high school and collegiate teams used several methods. The first few were the usual suspects of all the clubs: hanging posters, flyers, and trying to recruit friends' younger siblings. The other techniques were a little more aggressive.
Every spring in high school, the varsity rowers would take two rowing machines (ergs) to the feeder middle school for two days during lunch. We would challenge the 8th graders to row 100m races against each other (those take less than a minute to complete). We stirred excitement for our sport and their impending move to high school. One of the out of the box tactics was wearing our uniforms to school in early September. Most sports have jerseys, rowers wear spandex unisuits http://www.jlrowing.com/stwoun.html . Needless to say, we stood out among our fellow students dressed in jeans and t-shirts. While the older students were used to this, the freshman were not. So again, we piqued their interest and reminded them of the previous Spring when we had taken over their lunch hours. These tactics combined with letters sent to every freshman's parents made for good turn outs at the crew informational meeting. Collegiate recruitment is even more aggressive, at least at my alma mater. Once freshman receive their IDs, they are ushered from one building to another, where their parents are waiting. Enroute, the varsity rowing teams have several boats in slings with oars in the rigging creating a slight maze. The older rowers attempt to talk to every student who looks like a good candidate for becoming a walk on, as many of the older rowers were walk-ons themselves they give personal testimony. This gets the idea of rowing into the freshmen minds from their first minute on campus, but there's more. My former school requires a swim test in order to graduate. Since you must take swimming classes if you cannot pass, the test is administered the day after move-in to allow those who need to enroll in Introductory Swimming to do so. The rowing coaches run the swim tests and hand informational cards to freshman who look particularly athletic. Those cards would lead to nearly 300 freshman attending a meeting about the sport and team where some myths were confirmed and others dispelled: yes, there are morning practices; no, you will not fall overboard - this sport happens on the water not in it; yes, you will be able to eat as much as you want in the dining hall and still lose weight if you commit to the training regimine.
Based on my experiences, I have to wonder if there are any other sports that require such aggressive marketing tactics to attract potential new athletes, and if so, what techniques do those coaches use? Are there any I can steal now that I'm a coach and want to recruit the best possible new athletes?
The ultimate team sport is also the ultimate obscure sport. I coach rowing, which is not very popular, nor is it a very accessible sport for most. The latter leads to the former. So the question becomes how do you get kids interested in a sport that they have likely never seen or heard of? Especially when rosters need walk-ons to be complete.
In my case, I had seen rowing boats on the Potomac River as I was driven to school each day from kindergarten to 8th grade. I have always been a water person: I was on swim team and am now a lifeguard, so it was another water sport to try. For some kids that is an intimidation factor: there's a swim test to join rowing teams. But I disagree. The real question is how to get kids even interested to take that swim test, and join a sport that practices off campus with little visibility. My high school and collegiate teams used several methods. The first few were the usual suspects of all the clubs: hanging posters, flyers, and trying to recruit friends' younger siblings. The other techniques were a little more aggressive.
Every spring in high school, the varsity rowers would take two rowing machines (ergs) to the feeder middle school for two days during lunch. We would challenge the 8th graders to row 100m races against each other (those take less than a minute to complete). We stirred excitement for our sport and their impending move to high school. One of the out of the box tactics was wearing our uniforms to school in early September. Most sports have jerseys, rowers wear spandex unisuits http://www.jlrowing.com/stwoun.html . Needless to say, we stood out among our fellow students dressed in jeans and t-shirts. While the older students were used to this, the freshman were not. So again, we piqued their interest and reminded them of the previous Spring when we had taken over their lunch hours. These tactics combined with letters sent to every freshman's parents made for good turn outs at the crew informational meeting. Collegiate recruitment is even more aggressive, at least at my alma mater. Once freshman receive their IDs, they are ushered from one building to another, where their parents are waiting. Enroute, the varsity rowing teams have several boats in slings with oars in the rigging creating a slight maze. The older rowers attempt to talk to every student who looks like a good candidate for becoming a walk on, as many of the older rowers were walk-ons themselves they give personal testimony. This gets the idea of rowing into the freshmen minds from their first minute on campus, but there's more. My former school requires a swim test in order to graduate. Since you must take swimming classes if you cannot pass, the test is administered the day after move-in to allow those who need to enroll in Introductory Swimming to do so. The rowing coaches run the swim tests and hand informational cards to freshman who look particularly athletic. Those cards would lead to nearly 300 freshman attending a meeting about the sport and team where some myths were confirmed and others dispelled: yes, there are morning practices; no, you will not fall overboard - this sport happens on the water not in it; yes, you will be able to eat as much as you want in the dining hall and still lose weight if you commit to the training regimine.
Based on my experiences, I have to wonder if there are any other sports that require such aggressive marketing tactics to attract potential new athletes, and if so, what techniques do those coaches use? Are there any I can steal now that I'm a coach and want to recruit the best possible new athletes?
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Execution
In my experience, and after hearing some opinions of other coaches more experienced than myself, I have come to the conclusion that coaching comes down to execution. By this I mean, it is more important and you will be more effective coaching a bad idea/concept correctly than you would be when poorly coaching a great idea/concept. In short: Good coaching (bad ideas) > Bad coaching (good ideas)
When you are making programs for the team or athletes you coach, remember your effectiveness always comes down to your coaching!
When you are making programs for the team or athletes you coach, remember your effectiveness always comes down to your coaching!
Friday, September 4, 2009
All Models are False, Some Models Are Useful
School has started....again! I always love this time of year for many many reasons (college football, beautiful weather), but one of the many things I like is everyone back on campus for another year of learning and overall growth. One of the classes I am taking this semester is Theories of Human Development: Prenatal until Early Adolescence. In this class we basically discuss everything that happens through maturation in these stages of development. Wednesday was my first class meeting for the semester and therefore became my first learning experience.
After a briefing on the course syllabus and other general expectations, we spoke about the theories we would be using and such. Prefacing these theories was a quote by G.E. Box that said "All models are false, some models are useful". What this quote is saying is that in our society we are always trying to organize things in a model to fit all, but in reality there are not many ways to do this. For example, we discussed the calendar year as one model that was completely made up and false. In this model, there can be an argument for a day's worth of time(sun up and down), but all other time constructs are made-up! Who's to say an hour is 60 minutes and a year is 12 months? All of this was made up by our predecessors, but has become something we live and in some cases swear by.
In development and coaching there are a lot of models that are telling us an athlete should be doing something or should be a certain height, but there is really no model that fits all. Therefore, it is up to us to determine individual differences that are present and changes that can be made (the art of coaching). My professor gave a unique analogy that a restaurant menu is like a model and each meal on the menu was the terrain held within the model for you to practice. He said: "Don't eat the menu!" Meaning do not live by the model... When athletes are put into a system and expected to behave, grow, or develop in a certain way and they do not exactly match the model there is no need to criticize them, they are just "choosing" a different meal. Take the model for what it's worth and harness their individual differences within the model.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Growth Through Struggle
I have never been a fan of tatoos, and personally would probably never get one (maybe in a midlife crisis situation or something like that). Yesterday I was riding the train and I saw a guy with a tatoo that read "Growth Through Struggle". As a coach that believes in constant growth, this tatoo struck me. Also, from being a coach I realize that sometimes nothing is easy and many times we are struggling to make any kind of progress. So "Growth Through Struggle" will now be a nice little thing I think about in the upcoming year when things seem to be going nowhere.
If you are ever in a situation this year where you feel like you are progressing slowly or not at all, remember "Growth Through Struggle". Sometimes athletes will take longer to learn something than you originally think and some may struggle to learn more than others. I encourage you to push forward and be patient. One day you will show up to practice and these athletes will amaze you because everything will fall in place and they have been learning the entire time (just at a slower pace)!
If you are ever in a situation this year where you feel like you are progressing slowly or not at all, remember "Growth Through Struggle". Sometimes athletes will take longer to learn something than you originally think and some may struggle to learn more than others. I encourage you to push forward and be patient. One day you will show up to practice and these athletes will amaze you because everything will fall in place and they have been learning the entire time (just at a slower pace)!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
