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

 

A Coach is a Coach is a Coach?

A Coach is a Coach is a Coach?

                After receiving my 900^th email requesting information about some of our staffs hockey “sport-specific” knowledge, I decided to change from writing about my exploits with pain, work and life and switch gears to coaching.  I completely understand the questions that are being asked by these parents as their greatest source of information is usually under informed coaches, other parents or the internet pumping them with sales pitches.    My full-time career involves working as a strength and conditioning coach and personal trainer and depending how you look at it, they are one and the same.  I am just starting my 13^th year in this field and also volunteer as an assistant coach to local club and high school football, wrestling and rugby teams.  The beauty of my job is that I get exposed to all different walks of life from many diverse backgrounds.  I have worked as an assistant strength and conditioning coach at the University of Utah where I was fortunate enough to work with 16 different teams and coaches, many of our national teams and athletes, professional athletes from Kabaddi to the NFL, NHL and more; though my passion lies with working with development athletes.   What I am hoping to share with you is a brief collection of thoughts that I have amassed from spending numerous hours with different coaches, management teams, therapy staff and athletes.   What I have found is quite simple; we all have different coaching styles, but the fundamentals are the same through almost every sport and individual I have worked with.

                I am going to open with something I learned from my friend and a great mentor Jim Miller.  Jim was the Canadian National Wrestling Coach for years and is the owner and operator of Jims Gym in Parksville.  “The best coaches are thieves; we steal/learn from each other, take the good stuff that can be incorporated into our systems and scrap the rest.”  I may have butchered that quote, but you get the gist of it.  Please keep in mind, if you are using someone elses ideas, it is important to give credit where credit is due.  The day the learning stops or you let your ego take over is the day that your job loses meaning and momentum.  Learning isn’t always just about what you should or should not do; it’s about making decisions as to what will fit within your given system at that moment.  Every group and individual  athlete, housewife, rehab client or weekend warrior is different and if you don’t treat them as such you may be doing them a disservice.   As coaches, we should hold our values and traditions tightly without the fear of change.  Over the years, my philosophy has not changed much but my methods are ever evolving. 

Before I get into it, I would like to thank some people that have helped shaped my philosophies and have made me a better coach.  Barry Callaghan, Giulio DeCotiis, Ian Macdonald, Gianni Buono (wrestling), Mike Morgan, Rick Majerus (basketball), Earl Henderson, John Buchanan, Craig Rigsby, Alex Gerke, Ron Mcbride (football), Doug Barker, Jimmy Martin, Tom Larisch, Tim Murdy, Tony Healy, Ian Hyde-Lay, Quentin Fyffe (rugby), Tony Kook (tae kwon do), Bob Joncas (snowboarding), Tina Moberg-Parker, Al Clark (sailing), Chris Doyle, Joe “Big House” Kenn, Jason Veltkamp, Mark Uyeyama, Cheyenne Pietri, Anthony Findlay, Scott Vass, Carmen Bott, the Level 10 Fitness team (strength and conditioning), Greg Kirk, Ben Suen, Isabel Grondin, Clayton Cross, Jay Innoue (therapy) and all of my clients, teams and friends that have supported me over the years.  I apologize if I missed some of you, but I am trying to keep this under 10 pages!

What I have stolen and made my own:

·         Everyone is an individual (even in team sport).  The strength of any team lies in the effort and cohesion of each member.  Some people like to keep to themselves, some share all, some are nightmares, some have learning disabilities, some are highly skilled, some are not, some are strong or fit, some are not and your ability to bring them together is key.  This may differ a little in individual sport, but I can’t think of too many individual sport athletes that have not made it without the help of other team mates pushing them on a regular basis. 

·         There are plenty of grey areas.  I know many coaches that like to try to have set systems with no leeway and I completely understand why.  But there are always circumstances where those systems will be tested and your reaction to it may be the difference between success and failure or an athlete buying in or fading out.

·         We all learn from our shortcomings or failures far more than we do from our success.  We can’t dwell on the past, but if you can’t take an educated look at your shortcomings and make adjustments, you enter a downward spiral.  The exception of mediocrity and fear of change fast tracks us to averageness.

·         The strength of your team or athletes heavily lies on the strength of your support staff.  This includes management, strength and conditioning, therapists, receptionists, assistant coaches and all other support staff.  One weak link in the chain can make a bigger difference than you may think.  One of the greatest aspects of my playing career and two years as a strength coach at Utah was the fact that everyone in the University was in support of each other.  Other teams and athletes, receptionists, janitors, everybody! 

·         Understand the rules and regulations like the back of your hand.  This applies heavily to the strength and conditioning coach as well.  A few examples may be: we need to know the governing body’s rules for weight cutting sports, banned substance lists, work to rest ratios etc.

·         Time management.  In the private industry for strength and conditioning, I usually have one hour with my clients.  I have to have the ability to place the most pressing issues on the fore front whether it is spending more time on technique or on the table.  In many of our National team settings, we have a short duration with the teams and coaches must triage their time effectively to get the most out of it (skill work, tactics, positional work, recovery work, strength and conditioning, therapy, team building etc.).

·         We must have the ability to break down all points but only cue what is needed in any skill or technical sessions.  Over cuing can be equally as detrimental sometimes as under cuing and at the end of the day, athletes need to be able to figure out certain things on their own (with our guidance of course).  When we are in a group setting, this becomes very difficult as not everyone will learn at the same speed. 

This is a loose guideline that I use:

o   You must know the technique from both the ground up and top down.  Not all athletes will learn at the same speed.  Some may need more visual cues, some may need audible cues, and some may need kinesthetic cues.  As a coach it’s our role to figure out which, if any combination to use.  If you have not used the VARK guide to learning styles, I suggest you try it.

o   Explain and demonstrate the movement (minimal time speaking depending on age and group size).  If you feel like you are leading a lecture, you probably are.

o   Have the athletes execute the movement.  While they are working, combine your observations with what your predetermined thoughts may have been. As an example, if I am teaching a young group of athletes a bodyweight squat, I can assume I will see their heels come off the floor, knees buckling, excessive trunk flexion etc.

o   If a large number of the athletes are struggling with technique and are showing similar issues, repeat your original cues then add new ones in order of most importance without overwhelming the group (this process may take many attempts).

o   If only a few athletes are struggling, walk around and cue one thing with each one as they are doing it until they can correct it.  If the group is large, I may say “if ‘X’ is happening, do ‘Y’ to correct it and repeat”.

o   Given we are in the most technologically advanced stage in history, I would suggest filming movements as often as possible for instant feedback.  In the strength and conditioning world, mirrors may suffice for your developing athletes.

·         Your ability to progress and regress movements is key.  For every technique, there are many progressions.  Where you start within the progression is dependent on the group or individual you are working with.  If I am working with a younger or untrained athlete, I may start at the beginning without fear of jumping forward (I will never hold an athlete back based on age alone unless I feel there is a risk of injury involved) and with an older trained athlete I may start near the top (without the fear of working back).  In the strength and conditioning industry, many coaches put specific movements on a pedestal (Olympic lifts, squats, deadlifts etc.) and force their athletes into something they have not quite physically qualified to do yet. 

·         If something doesn’t look right it probably isn’t.  Having said that, there are some athletes that have the ability to put themselves in the right positions at the right time all the time with technique that may not fit what you have coached.  We need to have the ability to decide if this is a potential precursor for injury or if the athlete’s body type or style is forcing them to modify.  We have all coached athletes with unconventional technique that have been successful and how we deal with this should be on an individual basis.

·         Picking athletes based on size or body shape, test scores or past success over the best athlete because they do not fit into a specific mold.  This also includes moving athletes to different positions.  There are always athletes that are too big or too small that wow us in the sport world and their chance to do so lies in your open mindedness.   

·         Talk to other coaches as much as possible.  Most great coaches are more than happy to share with you and love to talk shop.  Take advantage of it! Read other historically successful coaches books.  Along with that, I read books that relate to people, business, teams, war etc.   History repeats itself and so do people’s behaviors.  Like it or not, if you coach you will be dealing with a lot of people and every person you meet may give you a small bit of advice that can help you in the future.

·         Some may argue this point, especially with new coaches, but I am not a huge fan of certifications.  I see the need for them, but when one comes out that couples experience with knowledge and a teacher that is not hung over for the course, I’ll be into it.  Personally, I put my professional development funds to learning from others in the industry rather than certifications.  I would rather spend a few days with another coach and pick his/her brain over a weekend.

·         Raise the bar for your standards.  Find the bare minimum you are willing to accept and encourage your athletes or clients to jump over it then repeat. 

·         If you do not believe in the mind body connect, you may be in the wrong industry.  Part of being a good coach is noting when your client or athletes are shit kicked, unfocused, tired or spaced out.  In camp or tournament settings, this can be a huge issue.  I do not just mean in terms of work on the field of play if you are working with a team.  A few examples may include: If you have to use the same place for meals, ensure variety is available (trust me, I ate hedgehog for 3 weeks in Russia-and not the delicious chocolate kind), if you are in a large accumulation phase make sure that part of their recovery work includes some fun games or team building activities. 

·         Not everything can be quantified.  Trying to find absolute numbers for everything will make you batty.  Not everything needs to have an explanation or a number attached to it.  Use the sport science principles to your advantage but do not be afraid to steer away from them. 

·         Put your best coaches with young kids.  Part of my big issue with sport in Canada is the lack of a development model.  You can talk about the LTAD plan as much as you like, but if you do not have a charismatic, enthused and skilled coach with your younger athletes you are just letting them get away with bad habits earlier.  It seems a lot of people in my industry are drawn to working with elite athletes, and don’t get me wrong I love it too!  But, if you can work with a group of kids, keep their attention and make them better you are one of the best coaches I know.

·         Encourage feedback from all of your team members (players, coaches, therapy staff and management).  It’s called a team for a reason and if you treat it like you are the captain of a ship, you will go down like the Titanic (which I have never seen, but I know the outcome).

·         Lastly, give a shit about everything you do and everyone you coach.  Caring about who you work with and taking pride in what you do goes a lot further than your ego will ever take you.

There is no cookie cutter answer as all situations are different.  There is no formula for success and dreaming will only get you so far.  These are just a few points that I have gathered and wanted to share with you all.  As I receive feedback, this will be modified. 

I have been blessed to work so many different walks of life and I am happy to say I have learned something from all of them. 

Although we all come from different backgrounds and may work with different athletes or clients, to answer the title, coaching is coaching….

Yours in Strength,

Joe McCullum

Director of High Performance Training and Staff Development

Level 10 Fitness Inc.

Email: joe@level10fitness.com

What’s missing in our industry?

Sharing is caring

I don’t sleep well, I never have.  There is always something pressing in my mind at the time where I would like to be falling asleep.  Lately, my thoughts have been somewhat cheesy by my own standards.  I started thinking if it is possible to affect change in people’s attitude to the point where they actually give a shit about what they are doing.  I am pretty lucky to work with a great group of people that I like to think are pretty driven, but there is always room for improvement, including from myself.   My collections of thoughts come from years in the industry and learning from both mine and others mistakes.  This is just a few to start…

Ask yourself the following questions:

·         Are you confident enough in your knowledge to share it with not only co-workers but others in the industry?

o   If you think you are doing something “innovative” or “new” in this industry, you are probably wrong.  Just because some dipshit Guru hasn’t written about it yet or sold his soul to YouTube, doesn’t mean it hasn’t been done.   Instead of trying to hide your “secret method” try sharing it with others to get their feedback.  Every person we work with is different, and learning from others in your industry will help hone your skill set.  Having said that, we need to learn from both the good and the bad, and if you have an ego, it makes it hard to find out the flaws in your system.

·         Are you thankful for your clients that make your job a possibility?

o   One of my hairstylist clients told me you need about 600-700 regular patrons to maintain a busy schedule.   Our physiotherapists estimated about 400 plus clients.  Personal trainers, strength coaches need about 40-60 regulars.  Can you see where I am going with this?  Piss off one of those 40 clients that may see you 2-3 times a week and it puts a big dent in your schedule.

·         Are you driven by the fact that the results your clients achieve can be life changing for them?

o   If you are driven by the results your clients achieve for the sake of your own benefit, please become a stock broker.  Don’t get me wrong, your client’s success will build your referrals and in turn make you busier.  Having said that, there are a lot of trainers that are more driven by publishing the success of one client instead of all of them. 

·         Do you put your client’s needs ahead of your own?

o   Clients are not paying to hear about your weekend.  It is their hour!  We are not psychologists or whatever Dr. Phil is, but we can be there to offer support and advice when it is asked.   Save your weekend stories for your buddies.

·         Do you call, email, text or whatever instagram is your clients to see how they are doing occasionally?  Or receive and respond to their calls, emails, texts or whatever instagram is in a timely manner?

o   There is something special about the little touches you put forth to your clients.  Do not mistake that with touching your clients inappropriately.  A simple message seeing how their rehab is coming, how they felt after a tough workout, how their birthday was will go a long way in separating you from your competition.  Our time away from the office is just that, our time.  You need to find a way to show some level of customer service so that phone calls, emails etc. are answered and followed up on relatively quickly. 

·         Do you put the same amount of effort into your preparation for your clients as you do on social media?

o   Social Media is MEDIA now.  If you are not using it in your industry, you are behind the competition.   BUT, it consumes many people to a point where it is taking away from time that could be used more beneficially.  Look at the time you are putting in creeping peoples Facebook pages and see if that time can’t be used to actually make you better.  Then creep on the weekends….

·         Do you volunteer with anything?

o   This is one of the first questions we ask new applicants to the company.  “Do you volunteer with anything”?  Personally, I like to know that fellow employees are willing to offer their time and skill outside of the work environment.  We are only as good as our community will allow us to be!  Aside from the personal reward, it is an opportunity to build relationships and build up your actual REAL hours of working with people.  Which is kind of a big deal in our industry.

·         Do you take every aspect of life from coaching to business as a learning opportunity?

o   There are very few, if any scenarios that haven’t been played out in our industry already.  The more you understand the concept that we are a people driven industry, the more you will realize the importance of every conversation you have. 

·         Do you take care of yourself physically, mentally and emotionally?

o   When your day is spent helping others, it becomes difficult to help yourself.  I still find it difficult to balance the physical, mental and emotional aspects of this job and I am in my 13^th year of doing this.  No matter how busy your day may be, you need to find time for self-preservation.

·         Do you have the willingness to refer your client to someone else within the industry if you are unable to help them with their goals?

o   We can’t answer all questions and we can’t help all populations, specifically in rehab settings.  There is a time and place where you may need to be honest with yourself and your clients that you are unable to help them at this point in their sessions.  Building a network of good doctors, coaches, trainers and therapists will help you give your client the best opportunity for success.  I have referred clients in the past (sometimes outside of our company) to others in the industry and at some point, they all return. 

·         Do you show up late for your sessions?

o   If you show up late, you are dead to me.  It shows you think that your time is more valuable than your clients.  Give yourself plenty of time to get to your sessions, if you can’t achieve the times you have set, give yourself more time!

As always, these are just some of my opinions.  If it pisses you off, we can hug it out at a later date.  Please feel free to contact me should you have any questions or comments at joe@level10fitness.com

Yours in Strength,

Joe McCullum

Director of High Performance and Staff Development

Level 10 Fitness

 

The Pit Falls of Tradition in Sport-Part 2 (Speed Kills?)

To touch on my previous post, tradition is a fundamental concept that should be embraced at arm’s length.  We must have the ability to understand where traditions come from, what time period and how if at all, can it benefit what we are doing today.  From a sport performance standpoint, I am going to touch on the tradition of strength and conditioning coaches drawing much of their athlete training from track and field. 

We can all understand the value of cross training for our multi-energy system sports and how we would draw on sports like weight lifting, track and field and power lifting to increase performance.  As an example;   these athletes are amongst the strongest and fastest athletes in the world, so if it works for them, it must work for us right?  My concern lies in how much time and effort should be spent on utilizing different methods to build better athletes vs. better sprinters or weight lifters and in what combination we use these.  For the sake of this article, we will start with some of the issues I see with Track work.  Do not get me wrong, I utilize many of the strategies from all of these disciplines in my athlete training.  The goal here is to question if and how much is of use vs. how much we use based on the fact that we have always done so.  To be clear, by using track and field methods I mean encouraging your athletes to wear spikes and training them as if they are prepping for top speeds as a competition on a regular basis or utilizing the majority of your on-field or court time working on sprint work.

·         Track and field athletes are judged on time or a measurement of distance.  At the elite level how do these athletes get better in their sport?  Think about it for a minute….THEY MAKE GAINS IN THE WEIGHT ROOM!  They’re not shaving tenths of a second off their times because they are just getting more technical or by miraculously sprinting faster.  

·         There are very few variables in track and field.  You may have to contend with weather or different surfaces, but for the most part everything in your training can be predicted and modified based on the needs of your INDIVIDUAL athlete.  Track and field has a very defined season and the amount of races an individual may have can be predicted well in advance.  Team sports require the collective effort of the group dynamic which does not make planning as easy.  You have to contend with injuries, different abilities/positions/body types/weather/opposing teams etc. 

·         The needs of an elite athlete in a multi-energy system require: change of elevation/direction, acceleration/deceleration in all planes of movement, contact and potential for repeat contact, needs of position (should an offensive lineman do the same speed work as a receiver?), weather variables, practice variables, distances covered in average bouts or bursts (energy system requirements).  Having said all of this, I understand the need for track workouts in terms of movement efficiency, energy system and central nervous system development, but we also have to consider why we are doing something other than the fact that track athletes are fast and powerful.  The majority of sports other than the ones listed in the opening paragraph require the athletes to be able to move efficiently in short bursts to close gaps and clear or avoid defenders.  How much are you preparing your athletes for this vs. time spent on the track?   The majority of track work that I incorporate is focused on starts and start variations with an emphasis on efficiently moving from a static or dynamic position to a powerful step(s) over a short distance (under 10 meters).  From here we look at what the dysfunction is first and if there is none, we move to longer distances as needed.

·         We have skewed the need for data as a main performance indicator.  There is definite value in knowing who your fastest athletes are.  Having said that, think about how often your athletes reach top speed in their perspective sport or position.  Is their 10 meter time more important for their sport than a 40meter?  If so, how much time do you intend on spending on the latter?  The NFL combine puts a large amount of merit into the 40yd dash which in turn has athletes training for the 40yd dash vs. working on specific skill work or other important factors of the game. 

·         The running mechanics on the field of play do not always mimic that of the track athlete.  Some sports require a tremendous amount of contact and/or the use of a stick, racquet or ball.  It’s understandable in sports that only one person has contact with the ball at any given time, but what are those surrounding them doing?  We must also take a look at the stride length of someone that is sprinting on a track vs. a ball carrier in rugby that may have to incorporate the 5 “D’s” of Dodge ball-“dodge, duck, dip, dive and dodge.”

·         Different body types for different sports and positions.  I touched on this earlier, so aside from the comment I made, think about the difference in body type from say a power forward and a point guard in basketball or a lock and a prop in rugby.  All will have completely different mechanics based on strength, power, limb length and general athleticism.  Are you modifying what you are coaching for their positional and energy system needs? 

It is not my intention to take away from what track athletes do for their sport.  As both strength and conditioning and sport coaches we must draw from other sports, take what we can use when it’s applicable as opposed to doing what everyone else is doing or we have always done.  As far as I am concerned, we are still in our infancy stage as strength and conditioning coaches for multi-energy system sports, thus the need to question everything we do and let the results speak for themselves.  Remember kids, don’t just think outside the box, question what is in it first, weed out the crap then build your own box coupled with the mistakes and successes you have learned from yourself and others.  As always, this is my opinion and I welcome all comments and criticisms. 

Yours in Strength,

Joe McCullum