Good enough is never good enough! That seems harsh and leaves no room for nuance but watching people in my 52 years of coaching has convinced me that accepting good enough is a clear path to mediocrity. Too often good enough means going through the motions with no focus and minimal effort. It is being physically present without being there.
Perhaps I am borderline ADD but as soon as I start to answer a question or explore something new my mind starts racing with ideas that connect. Some of the ideas are dead ends but others have proved very productive.
Saturday morning on my morning walk around Lands End and then through the Golden Gate I saw the bridge and teared up. It looked different than it looked the day before. It had a golden look with the morning sun reflecting off the structure. It again looked like the symbol of freedom and tolerance that represents what the US is about. If you will, the west coast version of the Statue of Liberty that has welcomed millions into this country to pursue the American dream, including my parents 96 years ago.
Shapes was brought to the forefront of my thinking about 10 years ago when I was working with one of my swim teams. The coach kept talking about getting smaller into the wall and taller off-the-wall off the wall into a streamline. I left the workout thinking what he was really telling the swimmers was to make different shapes. This got me thinking about the whole concept of shapes and what we needed to do to impact the athlete’s abilities to make the required shapes.
Sport systems have always fascinated me, even before I started coaching. When I was in college, we played the great San Diego State Football teams coached by Don Coryell. It was obvious they had a system and played to that system and recruited players for that system. My junior year in college we had a […]
“Accidental fitness” is a great concept articulated in a recent GAIN Master Class coffee break by University of Portland assistant cross country and track coach Jack Mullaney. Essentially accidental fitness is that small edge of fitness you get from general life activities, like walking to class, perhaps working in the yard or just moving meaningfully.
I have always been an an avid reader of coaches and athletes’ biographies. Each biography gave me insights into what that athlete tick. How they approached training. How they got into their sport. How they were coached. There is so much to learn from the experiences of others on the journey to achieve the pinnacle of sport performance.
Of late I have been thinking about those who have influenced me over the course of my career. Below I have listed the people in four categories: teachers/professors, coaches, sport scientists, and athletes. Some of these people I have been able to work directly with, some I just learned from through reading their writing and some through observation.
We are living in a time of unprecedented change. This gives us a great opportunity to grow and adapt. There are two choices:
Instead of looking at ways to predict injury and search for hidden dysfunctions why not spend the time looking at possibilities to determine the athlete’s level of trainability.
