We talk all the time about culture, but what exactly is it? Wade Gilbert defines it in his coaching book “Team culture has been defined as a pattern of shared assumptions that guides behavior . . . Culture comprises both the obvious artifacts of the team and the less obvious norms and rituals.” In other words, culture is the way we do things around here. Read more
Expectations are annoyingly tough to define. You often find yourself navigating the fine line between goal crushing euphoria, and the slippery slope of the seemingly insurmountable odds of reaching the peak of the tallest mountain. How can you possibly attempt to handle the expectation when you know that one misstep will send you careening down a crevasse of the internal, “I told you so?” Read more
Focus clearly only on what needs to be done to get training results that translate into competition performance. This demands a laser focus on the training tasks that are meaningful. Eliminate the nice to do activities that make you tired but don’t make you better. Never forget that less is more. Find out what works for your athletes and keep fine-tuning and tweaking that to achieve continual adaptation. Beware of variety and variation for the sake of variety as that is often a slippery slope. Read more
Wow. It has been a long time since my last post! As you’re probably aware, lots of changes the last few months. So let’s dive right in. Without further adieu, here are my top goals for the coming Olympic year. Read more
A colleague of mine shared this article by Martin A. Schwartz entitled “The Importance of stupidity in scientific research“. Naturally it got me thinking how important being stupid is in coaching. Read more
With a new year upon us there has been lots of talk about goals over the past few weeks. After all, it’s about the time of year when many non-athletes have already given up on their New Year’s resolutions. In track and field our year started months ago before the first day of training, but a new calendar year still marks a good time to assess our progress and a last chance to make changes if needed. Read more
The process of getting to be the best is not a straightforward linear path, it is a process and it takes time. In my forty-four years of coaching I have seen that many are called to walk the path but few actually choose. Yes you read that correctly. Many are called but few choose. The opportunity is there for many but few will make the choice because it is a difficult path that requires moving out of their Comfort Zone. Read more
We talk a lot about having our athletes get out of their comfort zones to move forward and progress. How about us? As coaches we all have our comfort zones. Some of us are good in certain areas. Some of us can prepare an athlete for a league or a district meet and then are out of our element when we have to prepare for a state of national competition. In short we all have our comfort zones. Read more
This is the time of the year when many athletes are posting their New Year’s resolutions. You won’t find that here. I’m not a big person for New Year’s resolutions. For me, the new year starts in October when I begin training. January 1st is in the middle of the year, with months of training behind me and many more months ahead.
I’m also not a big goal person in general. I tend to think that specific goals are mostly needed when you do not know what direction to go. Sure, I want to throw over 70 meters, but writing that down on a piece of paper is not going to help the matter at all. My biggest goal is vague: I want to throw as far as I can. As long as I work my ass off towards that goal, everything else will fall into place. I know what direction I am heading, the question is only how far along that path I will proceed this year. And in many ways that is out of my hands.
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