As
always, this is just an opinion piece based on my observations as both a sport and
strength and conditioning coach. Over
the years, I have directly worked with thousands of people personally and
indirectly with thousands more (consulting with fellow staff members and overseeing
their programming). I am using this as a
follow up from my last article to touch on some ideas for coaching those that
have been labeled “problem”. To start, I
want to make it clear I don’t give a shit about labels or titles. I care about helping people regardless of
what someone else may have labeled them as.
At the end of the day, if the
person in question has the time and will give me the smallest amount of effort
I am more than happy to work with them. There
have been many occasions where I have had parents or coaches tell me that their
kids are a nightmare, disrespectful, lazy etc.
And to some extent, some of them were, but by the end of it all I wouldn’t
use any of those words to describe them.
At the end of the day we should
be looking to give these kids purpose to their training and encourage them to
strive for mastery in their craft and a lifestyle change. I know that I may be physically imposing to
some because of my boyish good looks, but I feel the tools below are what have
helped me have success with these kids.
·
Speak in your regular tone. Raising your voice to gain attention gives
your audience a free license to screw around.
We have all worked under coaches or bosses that believe raising your
voice will garner respect, but the fact is it usually garners resentment. I have found that speaking in your regular
tone forces attention, especially in small groups. Having said that, there are times where your
tone should change in order to gain the most out of the person you are working
with. If you are always yelling, it
makes it tough for the athlete to decipher what you want out of them.
·
Command attention by placing yourself in an area
with the least amount of distractions.
Quite often, I am in a very crowded gym setting. If this is the case, try using a corner of
the gym where focus is forced upon you.
Have the athletes back to the distractions if at all possible. Sure, this doesn’t work for everyone, but I
have found it to be helpful. If I have a
lot of space, I try to line the athletes up in a way that allows for them to
view what others in the group are doing.
Many of these kids are visual learners and need to see a few reps first
and this helps them catch on a little quicker.
·
Many times, young kids have been labeled as “learning
disabled”, “ADD”, “hyper”, “autistic”, “depressed” or the like. Do any of these have anything positive
attached to them? These kids need
reassurance that one place they will most definitely not be labeled as anything
other than “athlete” is when we are coaching them in the gym or on their field
of play. There are no labels that I am
interested in other than “hard working” and “respectful”. And the latter comes when you show respect to
these kids by treating them all in a similar matter.
·
Try to encourage the kids to have a mentor. I am very blessed in my setting; I have
people from all walks of life training at Level 10 Fitness. Whenever I have my pro athletes or national
team members in the gym, I ask them to come and talk to the kids. They are always more than happy to do so and
this gives the kids that extra push you may be looking for. Quite often you will be surprised to hear the
stories of some of your older clients that were once labeled as “stupid” before
the above terms in my last point were created.
·
Unlike our education system, we do not have to
lump kids all in the same curriculum based on their age. Regardless of age, our athletes should be
progressed based off of their abilities, not held back by their so called
disabilities. This isn’t rocket surgery,
it doesn’t take 4 years to learn how to squat and because of this, kids will
progress faster and see the benefit of their hard work faster than they would
in other learning settings. The true
beauty of what we do lies in our ability to disguise repetition. In group settings, show the base movement you
want to teach and those that can progress may progress but everyone is still putting
in some level of work. Rarely if ever is
there a movement that is so important that we must force it on our
athletes. If there was, we would all be
amazing athletes. Whether the kid is
aware or not, progressions force goal setting and goal achievement.
·
We are all aware that everyone learns at
different paces and through different styles.
I have mentioned using tools such as the ‘VARK’ in the past as a means
to find out what type of learner you are dealing with. If you do not want to use the ‘VARK’, pay
close attention to how your athletes learn-do they respond to your verbal cues,
you demonstrating and them following, use of video or pictures or a combination
thereof.
·
I have found that using set patterns and
repetition to be very helpful in aiding in those that do not seem to respond to
your traditional style of coaching. As
an example; I may use ladder drills, squats, lunges, hip hinge patterns and
pushups in my dynamic warm ups and then use variations of the same movements in
my workouts. It does not necessarily need
to be these movements, but whatever you deem important should be repeated until
it is mastered.
o
As a side experiment for yourself. Next time you have an athlete that has been
labeled as anything other than “kid”, try putting them through a ladder routine
(I don’t care what people think of ladder drills, they have their
purpose). What do you notice, especially
in a group setting? What I have found is
they struggle with the patterns at first.
But once they are engrained, they tend to improve far quicker than
others. Sure, you can argue that this somewhat
defeats the purpose of ladder drills and agility, but if your goal is to work
on body position, elevating the heart rate and warming up the core temperature you have
succeeded. More importantly, you have
shown these kids that they can do what everyone else does, and in some cases
better. Remember, we are looking at
progressions here, and every positive step you have with these athletes is a
win in my books.
·
Use technology to your advantage. I have touched on this on numerous occasions
and if you are not using your camera to your advantage, you are missing
out. Instant feedback is a must for some
of these kids. There are some brilliant
apps available now that will even take this to a new level. If you are not using them, it is your loss.
·
One of my main philosophies in the strength and conditioning
world is to keep your strengths strong and bring up any weaknesses. For kids that need constant patterning, we
don’t want to sacrifice their strengths because we are putting too much merit into
a specific movement. It is important to
introduce new challenges while still having some familiarity.
·
Keep the focus narrow at first. Chose a limited number of movements and
progressions. Do the basics and do them
well, then progress.
·
Don’t over coach! More is not always better. It is important for all athletes to figure
things out on their own with the help of your guidance. Give what is necessary to complete the task
with the understanding that some may need more than others.
·
These kids deal with frustrated adults on a
daily basis. Showing your agitation does
not help your ability to coach. Do not
be afraid to walk away from something if it starts to go sideways. You can
always come back to it at another time.
When I start to get frustrated because an athlete is struggling with a
drill or movement, I move onto a fun game to break the mood and either try to
revisit it in the session or the next.
·
Find out what interests your athlete? If it’s something obscure like that Harry
Potter Guy, get on the Google and learn a little about it.
Please
understand, these are just a few techniques that have helped me with some of
the different populations I have worked with.
The goal of this article was to share my thoughts so that hopefully one
of you may become a great role model for some of these kids that have dealt
with shit their entire life. If you can
make your one hour session with these kids the best part of their day, you are
an amazing coach and I hope that you will share your experiences with others so
they can do the same. As always, please
feel free to send me your comments or questions.
Yours in
Strength,
Joe McCullum
Director of High
Performance Training and Staff Development
Level 10 Fitness
Inc.
joe@level10fitness.com
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