Young players don't respect coaches

Interesting article from TheAustralian.com.au on Toni Nadal, the coach to tennis star Rafa Nadal, who is also his uncle. 

"But he sees among young players a lack of respect to coaches and a wariness of the unrelenting hard work and absolute commitment as reasons why 34 of the past 35 Grand Slam titles have been won by four men."

"Coaches come for players with water, with food - many times I see the player go to the court for practice and the player goes with nothing and the coach has the bag. I have seen many times players who talk to his coach so bad. "

The article resonates particularly for any coach working with Federation supported programmes and athletes. In our efforts to  go the extra mile for performance, we can inadvertently create environments where athletes end up with entitled behaviour. They can end up dependant on staff to take care of them and find solutions to problems vs learning how to manage themselves, even if that means making mistakes during their development years.

This reminds me of a discussion with Kiwi/British Coach Ben Bright on the path many young Aussis and Kiwis forged in the early years of triathlon, coming to Europe with nothing, and finding their way as professionals, racing for food and lodging. The modern generation of athletes have more support, but there can be a downside to that support, that they miss these formation development experiences.

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AuthorJoel Filliol
TagsRafa Nadal, Entitlement, Ben Bright

Reflections & Expectations - Gambetta

Vern Gambetta has a post on his Functional Path Training blog with some lessons and reflections from 2013, a couple of which I have highlighted below, which resonated with me:

"Every year that passes just keeps reaffirming that everything that is old is new again."

"Just because something did not work in the past does not mean it won’t work now - different time, different people, different place and different circumstances."

"Master the basics and never abandon the basics. Everything is built on basics."

Read the full post and follow Vern on twitter @coachgambetta

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AuthorJoel Filliol
TagsVern Gambetta, Reflections

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AuthorJoel Filliol

Why Crossfit works...but really doesn't. The randomness of adaptation, and why beginners just need change.

Athletics coach Steve Magness has a nice article at his Science of Running blog, on intervention training studies and why many 'new' protocols might 'work' in the lab, but might not be giving the full picture in the 'real world'

"Too often we get caught up in isolation, and forget the complexity and interaction that surrounds the isolation."

In summary, we always respond to short term change, but that doesn't mean that change is in the right direction for the longer term for our performance goals. 

This is a real problem with applied sports science research and it's application for coaches, and why while keeping current with the latest research is a good tool for coaches, changing programme direction as a result of research may not be a good strategy over the longer term. 

Follow Steve on twitter @stevemagness

Posted
AuthorJoel Filliol

Top 13 of 2013 - Squad Review

Our 2013 Squad review is here

Top 13 of 2013 - Squad Review
At the end of the year, it's been great to reflect on the last 12 months, with just few of the achievements from the athletes part of our team. In alphabetical order -

The Top 13 of 2013

Read the rest on JoelFilliol.com

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AuthorJoel Filliol

The 53 Greatest Lessons 2013 Taught Me

I'm usually more interested in experts who are out in the field practising their craft at the coal face, compared to professional presenters/speakers, however on RobinSharma.com there is a post about 53 lessons learned, which has some thought provoking points applicable to coaches. Here are a few I selected:

"Success has less to do with hard work and more to do with massive focus on your few best opportunities."

"Real leaders have the guts to have the hard conversations."

"Self-belief is so incredibly important. Because if you don’t believe you can achieve a vision/goal, then you won’t even start to do the work needed to achieve that vision/goal."

"Our biggest enemy is our own self-doubt. We really can achieve extraordinary things in our lives. But we sabotage our greatness because of our fear."

"You rarely go wrong when you trust yourself."

"Small little details done excellently and consistently stack up into something the world sees as Mastery."

Any coach can see something applicable to their coaching context in that list.

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AuthorJoel Filliol
TagsRobin Sharma, Lessons Learned

Career Advice For Students Who Want To Work In Sports: DON’T

Sefu Bernard has a post on his Thellabb.com site based on an interview/quote with Mark Cuban based on the following question:

“How can I work in the professional sports?”

The advice Cuban gives is that professional sports is very difficult to get involved with due to the demand, so don't bother.

I see the same question from athletes and coaches - "how can I become an elite coach" or how do a 'turn pro' - my answer is the same as the conclusion of Sefu's article:

"Persistence pays off."

Follow Sefu's coaching education site on twitter: @TheLLaBB

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AuthorJoel Filliol
TagsSefu Bernard

Lessons Learned as a Performance Coach

Propel Perform has a guest post from Sports Performance Coach Jorge Carvajal about a conversation he had with a young coach about lessons learned. He had these three pieces of advice: 

“Trust your abilities as coach!”

“The athlete needs to be sold.”

‘’Be an economist with you program design!”

Read the full article to get the context behind Jorge's answers. 

Follow Jorge Carvajal @carvperformance

Posted
AuthorJoel Filliol
TagsPropel Perform, Jorge Carvajal, Lessons Learned, Mentorship

The Key to Preventing Overuse Injury in Runners is Load Management

Craig Payne's Running Research Junkie site has a good article that cuts through the BS on running injuries, and the various ways coaches attempt to avoid injuries. The article touches on several variables: the training programme, foot biomechanics, stretching, strengthening, running shoes, and running form, looking at evidence in each area to reach the following conclusion: 

"You can not decrease the load in one tissue with changes in running technique, running shoes, strengthening or foot orthotics or any other approach without increasing it in another tissue."

"It all boils down to: load management."

Essentially, all tissues have load limits, these can be managed, and loads shifted between areas, however ultimately simplest way to manage these loads is the external load of the training programme. Some athletes have lower load limits before injuries occur than others, and our job as coaches is to progressively increase the load limits in our athletes with minimal injuries due to exceeding these limits. 

Follow Craig Payne on twitter.

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AuthorJoel Filliol
TagsRunning Research Junkie, Craig Payne, Injury Management, Load Management

Beijing 2008 Reflections with Joel Filliol and Simon Whitfield

I've started a small side project on elite coach education started on a new site: http://www.elitecoach.me/ and via twitter @ https://twitter.com/elitecoachme 

It's a work in progress, as I find resources that I find useful, I'll add to the site.

Starting off with a video from a 2008 post-Beijing talk I did with Simon Whitfield: 

This video is the Beijing 2008 Olympic Reflections talk I did with two time Olympic medallist Simon Whitfield, in November 2008, held at PISE in Victoria BC Canada.

Source: http://youtu.be/8cGOJiIMVfA
Posted
AuthorJoel Filliol

The Kings and Queens Philosophy

Joseph Lightfoot has an article on the athlete-centred approach of British Cycling - described as Kings and Queens:

“We put the riders in the middle; we’re just the minions around them giving them expert advice.”

“Having the riders in the middle having ownership and having responsibility for what they’re doing is one of the key things that we try to promote. And it seems to work.”

“The ‘athletes are kings and queens’ with everyone else there to support them. That philosophy runs through British Cycling and Team Sky.”

Many federations, teams and governing bodies claim to be athlete-centred, and in some cases coach-driven. In practicality, it's tougher to implement, and rare to actually pull this off, as these bodies often struggle with communication and resort to authority, which is easier to implement than athletes having a true voice in the programme. 

When programmes aren't athlete centred, coach driven, there is often a lot of wasted resources, as these resources aren't driven by needs or problems to be solved, but instead are 'check-list' based, driven by funding bodies too far from the coal-face, which means many of these resources don't meaningfully contribute to athlete performance.

The Kings and Queens model is ultimately the best one for senior experienced athletes, and should be scaled for developmentally athletes, teaching them to learn how to drive their own programme, while still leading them in the right direction.

Lightfoot's article has some suggestions on how this model applies to programmes with more limited resources, and how to make it work.

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AuthorJoel Filliol
TagsJoseph Lightfoot, Kings and Queens, Athlete Centred, Coach Driven

Coaching: Hazardous to your health?

ESPN has an article on the stress NFL Head Coaches face, for many to the detriment of their health. While not many endurance coaches face the same pressures as big money professional sports coaches such as in the NFL, the 12 month a year, 'no off-season' nature of endurance sports can mean many coaches don't unplug and take a break.

While many endurances coaches also participate in the sports they preside over, thereby keeping a level of fitness, the principle of taking care of ones self remains important to maintain and continually improve coaching standards. The same principles apply as with athletes, regeneration breaks are important for coaches to re-fresh creativity, for critical reflections and to gain new perspectives. 

"I'd lose on Sunday, and I'd spend three days worrying about what I had to do win the next game," he continued. "And the enjoyment of a win would last a half-hour. But I'm not unique. I know two Hall of Fame coaches who came to me and talked about going through similar problems. I told them that there's only so much you can do. It's like an engine. You can blow up a Porsche if you drive it too hard, and a football coach is no different. You have to find a way to turn it off."

Leading into Olympic Games, a principle that often comes up in preparation meetings, is the coaches and staff arriving at the games fresh, fit and ready to perform, in much the same way as athletes must do.

Another great quote from the article is the following:

"you can't worry about every little thing in your preparation that you end up chasing ghosts."

This stands in contrast to the current in-vogue 'aggregation of marginal gains', or, put another way: don't lose sight of the forest for the trees.

Posted
AuthorJoel Filliol
TagsCoach Recovery, Coach Stress, Marginal Gains

Trent Stellingwerff: on the belief effect

Athletics Illustrated has an interview with physiologist and coach Trent Stellingwerff on the 'Belief Effect', delving into psychology working with athletes and coaches. 

Trent works for the Canadian Sports Centre Pacific, the multi-sport sports agency, supporting Olympic sports in Victoria, and Vancouver.

I had the opportunity to work with Trent when based in Victoria - he's one of the few scientists that understands the practicalities of implementation of research into athlete programmes, and gets the coaches mindset, and specific challenges coaches face. 

In this interview Trent discusses the complex relationship between athlete and coach belief in their programmes, particularly in the face of the desire for more practise to be 'evidence based'. In reality often coaches and athletes are 'ahead' of research but believe in their practise, whether there is evidence to support what they are doing or not - see the continual use of altitude training world wide, despite the relative dearth of strong evidence that altitude training 'works'.

This isn't to say coaches should ignore evidence or not question their practises, but that belief is a very important element of coaching, and likewise athletes must believe strongly in what they are doing - and for both athletes and coaches the ultimate evidence base is performance - even if we know performance is so complex and multi-factorial that drawing links to a specific intervention is not usually possible in any case. 

"However, as an applied sport practitioner I am not concerned about bias – I want to leverage all the bias I can get into “belief”.  And that belief is included in myself and belief by the athlete and coach. To me this is not fraudulent.  If I have done my homework (e.g. studied for 20-plus years, looked at all the research papers, reached out to my international network for insider information, done some internal research and trial/error) and I truly believe in an intervention, I want the athlete/coaches I work with to know that I am convinced this will help them, that I have done my homework, and that they are in good hands with me – that they have a strategic advantage by applying new knowledge into a new intervention. In this situation, we have both evidence and belief maximized – which is perfect in the applied sport sciences as both have been shown to improve performance separately."

Follow Trent on twitter. 

Posted
AuthorJoel Filliol
TagsTrent Stellingwerff, Belief

Impostor syndrome? It might be a sign you're getting better at your work

Oliver Burkeman has an article on Impostor Syndrome, something that many freelancers, including coaches can feel:

"Impostor syndrome – the feeling that you're a fraud, and any day now you'll be exposed – is presumably even more common than surveys suggest: after all, it's not the kind of thing to which people like to admit."

"The only solution, many experts say, is for higher-ups to talk about their own insecurities much more."

This can be particularly relevant in a world with access to so much information, once a coach gets enough knowledge and experience to understand how complex each individual athlete and situation can be.  

"The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt," said Bertrand Russell.

If as a coach you don't occasionally lay awake at night pondering the sessions to be delivered the next day, you be find the quote above applicable to you. 

However coach that does feel some doubt, according to this article, it might be a sign the coach is on the right track. 

Posted
AuthorJoel Filliol
TagsImpostor Syndrome, Psychology