Coaching the so called “problem child”

 

                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

 

Directing your Child in Sport:

 

                To start, I would like to let everyone know, all of my articles are purely anecdotal and opinionated based on my years of experience as a coach.  Being involved as both a strength and conditioning coach that works with many individual sport athletes and as a past wrestling coach; I wanted to touch a little on some of the differences I have noted from my involvement from team based sports.   To clarify, the term individual sport does not mean one does not work within a team.  The strength of any individual lies in their training partners or team, but when they step on their perspective field of play, they are individuals.  I believe what I have found is extremely interesting and would love to see further research on the topic by people that are far smarter than me and who would also most likely be individual sport athletes themselves. 

                For those of you that do not know me, I am fairly crass in my approach and you will quite often hear me joke about the social skills of the individual sport athlete.  This is a generalization that I have adopted over the years and does not account for all of these athletes.  In my experience, I have noted that there are some different social aspects between the individual athlete and the team based athlete.  I do not know if some of these athletes are drawn to their sport because they like to beat to their own drum, if they are so driven that they do not want to rely on others for their successes or failures or if they just happen to love their sport.  Before I go any further, I want to ensure you that I don’t care what sport your child or you did yourself, I just care that you were involved in sport.  I truly believe in the power of sport in terms of shaping one’s life, regardless of the level in which they may have played. 

                To get back to the title, I am now at the age where all of my friends are cranking out kids and as we know, there is never an easy answer as to what is the best sport or discipline to put them in.  My thought is to expose them to a mixture of both team and individual sports and see what they enjoy the most.  When people ask me which sports to put their children in, I always recommend they encourage a mixture of both individual and team based sports.  Here are the main sports I believe to help build your kids not only into better athletes as they age, but offer life skills that may not be picked up in math class.

Soccer Benefits:

·         Promotes socialization of the kids.  We live in the most technological time in history and between practice and games we can guarantee there are a few hours per week the kids are not looking at a screen to communicate. 

·         It is played primarily outdoors.  Sometimes even when it is raining or cold outside.  So parents should bundle up as well.

·         The cost relative to some other sports is reasonable. 

·         The daily physical activity requirement for adolescents is about 60 minutes a day.  Sure some kids stand around and pick their nose as I did dreaming of doing something else, but it is better than picking your nose while playing on your parents iPhone or ipad (for obvious reasons).

·         There is an element of body control, body position, hand eye coordination, footwork, team work, team bonding etc.   Whichever path your child may chose; this may serve as a stepping stone.

Swimming Benefits:

·         You may save your kids life.  I do not think I have to break this down much more, but learning water safety is an important aspect of life!

·         The more we can get kids used to moving their bodies functionally in space, the better.  Even if it is underwater! 

·         You can start at a very early age and most lessons encourage the parent to be in the pool with their kids at the same time.

Taekwondo Benefits:

·         Most great schools have an amazing coach to student ratio.  My friend Tony Kook of North Shore Taekwondo has approximately one instructor for every 5 to 6 kids.  Although his philosophy may differ from other schools, most of them keep to a fairly good ratio.

·         The setup of most individual sports (specifically martial arts and wrestling) involves a group of kids sitting in line facing toward their instructors.  Unlike team sports, there are very few distractions, specifically if your child is hyper or easily distracted.

·         The format of formed lines allows for those with shorter attention spans or learning disabilities to view those in front or beside them should they get lost.  Couple this with a good coach to athlete ratio and you will see a great progression of success.  This style of coaching also commands a certain level of attention by the athletes and makes it easier for the coaches to oversee the group.

·         One of the key attributes of any of my elite athletes (regardless of sport) is having the combination of suppleness, body control/awareness, balance, hand and foot speed, and discipline.  All of which are key aspects of this martial art.

·         Many martial art schools are doing a great job of building confidence in youngsters and aiding in giving them the tools needed to deal with societal pressures and bullying. 

·         Respect!  Part of being a martial artist is respecting your parents, instructors and fellow man.  The earlier this is engrained, the better! 

·         Discipline in any sport is a very key defining factor.  The belt system acts as not only a great goal setting tool but forces the discipline of the athletes to continue to hone their craft even when they are not in classes.  This is something I am looking to steal and make my own in our industry for our young athletes of all sports!

Gymnastics Benefits:

·         Plain and simple, gymnasts at the highest level are some of the most freakishly amazing athletes in terms of strength, power and flexibility.  Having said that, I am not telling parents to push their young ones to be competitive gymnasts as it is one of the most grueling and physically demanding sports in the world.

·         Body position and awareness.  There is a pattern here if you haven’t noticed.  Body position and awareness are skills that are difficult to teach and the earlier our athletes figure this out, the better! 

·         Tumbling, balance and jumping mechanics are cornerstones of understanding one’s body.  The ability to figure out how the body should move in space is a great tool that will speed up progressions as your kids advance in their perspective sport. 

·         Concentration!  I am no expert here, but regardless of one’s attention span; I like to think standing on a raised beam forces some level of concentration for anyone.   It also forces a little critical thinking.  There is a potential consequence for not paying attention and it cannot be blamed on anyone other than the individual doing the movement.  I know this may seem harsh, but think about how many times you see a kid walking on a dark street dressed as a ninja while listening to their headphones.  Are they thinking of consequences?  Are these two relatable?  I like to think to some degree maybe. 

Before I conclude, I would like to note my observations and success that I have had with some of my kids that have been labeled to be learning disabled, attention deficit disorder, hyper, autistic etc.  (I realize you can’t lump all of these in one, but there are some similarities in terms of learning styles).  Because the majority of my work is done in either a team session or one on one, I have seen how behavior can change in these kids.  I have noted that these kids tend to respond well to set patterns.  We all learn in different ways: whether it is visual, audible or kinesthetic but how you tie it all together is what will help you achieve the best results.  I will be touching more on this in a future article.

As always, there is more to this than what I have written and there are many other great sports or activities that may offer similar benefits as the ones mentioned above may.  Of course all of these sports have their cons, but the concept behind them is solid in my opinion.  I feel compelled to write this as I am blessed to work with athletes from all walks of life and I can honestly say that the majority of the top athletes I have worked with did not just specialize in one sport since an early age.  They have filled their tool boxes with physical literacy skills learned at a young age.  At the end of the day, the goal of youth athletics is to encourage physical activity, teach team work, set and achieve goals, make commitments to others, social interaction and to have fun.  Please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions or comments!

Yours in Strength,

Joe McCullum

Director of High Performance Training and Staff Development

Level 10 Fitness Inc.

joe@level10fitness.com