S B Coaches College - Get Your Athletes to "Eat their Vegetables"




		Get Your Athletes to "Eat their Vegetables" *Joe Bonyai, CSCS*

Don’t expect your athletes to “eat their vegetables” all the time if you don’t offer them “dessert” once in a while.

I relate a lot of what I think coaching should be to examples of good parenting. Parents are basically performance life-coaches. Some of us can remember how our mothers had to mix our veggies with mac ‘n cheese or promise us something sweet after dinner if we obeyed. Well, I hope yours did. The same rules can be applied to weight room. Mixing a little of what our athletes like with a little of what we know is beneficial will keep them healthy and more importantly, motivated.

Every coach finds themselves in different situations with different athletes and clients. Not every coach-client or coach-team relationship is the same, and I will make some generalizations based on my experience. With that said, I learned pretty quickly that for every two athletes who would run through a wall if I asked them to, there’s one who just doesn’t get it. If you find yourself in a similar situation, in order to get these athletes to do what you want, be flexible enough to give them what they ask for. The art of coaching is the way in which you handle poor attitudes and slow progress. Without feeling like you’re “giving in”, you can redesign programs to incorporate your athletes’ requests, which I’ll get to in a minute.

Honestly, it’s easy to forget that the “ilities” (flex-, mob-, stab-, etc), and “icities” (capac-, elastic-, etc) are our interests, not necessarily our athletes’. We may think they’re in our athletes’ best interests, but we can’t explain to our clients everything from the kinetic chain to the kitchen sink, especially if we work with teams.

In the weight room, all coaches want to create “nutrient dense” routines. On paper, our programs look great with a balance of multi-joint exercises that abide by the latest functional training manual or methodology. A difficulty in implementing such programs is that they won’t always boost the esteem of our athletes, especially in the short-term. It’s easy to contend that athletes shouldn’t be concerned with aesthetics or “feeling the burn” because they’re athletes, not fitness models. They’re also people - and there’s a good chance that if they don’t feel good about your program they’ll either 1) stop working with you or 2) go behind your back to the campus fitness center and get their “burn”. Take these ideas into consideration. We don’t know anything if we don’t know our athletes.

There are many ways to restructure your programs when your athletes aren’t receptive, for whatever reason. Two easy ways to do so are: 1) reevaluate the way you “sell” your program and 2) incorporate exercises that your athletes like or think are beneficial for their goals or performance.

In some cases, you may not need to change your design, but instead alter the way you explain the program to your athletes. If you work with athletes who aren’t aspiring exercise science professionals, you already know that many of them don’t care about the “ilities” and “icities”. We can’t talk to most of our athletes like we talk to other coaches; instead we should be creative enough to adapt our coaching style.

Coaching female athletes presents many opportunities for coaching-creativity. If your females want a tighter stomach and backside, explaining to them the symbiosis between the glutes and lower abdominals in regards to pelvic control will do little to convince them that your program is better than any from a magazine. A well designed program should develop the core and glutes anyways, so don’t be afraid to tell them a little of what they want to hear. Remember to explain your program to them in respect to their interests. Find out what your athletes’ personal goals are and see if there are ways you can “sell” the program that you’ve already written. Athletes will look forward to a program if they feel they’ve had some input into designing it (even if you didn’t change a thing). Incorporating our athletes’ point of view is the best way to appropriately mend the separation between coach and athlete.

In other scenarios, you may need to find ways to incorporate exercises that originally didn’t fit your plan. Olympic lifts, squats and pull-ups can be ego-shattering for inexperienced (or lazy) lifters, so including exercises and drills that they look forward to may make them receptive to more technical lifts. You should NOT raise a white flag and ditch your core lifts. Compromise. If you’re like me and still can’t stomach the idea of sending your athletes aimlessly towards the dumbbells and EZ-curl bars at the end of a workout, here are a few ways to mask some “nutrition” with their “dessert”.

Dilemma: You cancelled the “gun show”.
The fix: These exercises appear to target the arms, but are limited by the capacity of larger muscle groups

DB Pullover-to-Extension

Jungle Gym Pillar-Triceps Extension

DB Split Squat Biceps Curl

DB Pitcher Squat Curl-to-Press

Dilemma: “Pillars, chops, and lifts burn everywhere…except my abs.”
The fix: Include core exercises that still focus on pelvic control and resisting extension, while still bringing the pain.

Physioball Dynamic Pillars

PB Roll Out

Knee Tuck Hands On Knee Tuck Feet On

Leg Lowering

Start Single-leg Lowering Double-leg Lowering

Ab-wheel/ Jungle Gym Roll Out

Those are just some ideas. Most coaches probably have a sense of these concepts already. Listen to your teams or clients. If they like throwing the med ball, do it. If they ask for the agility ladder, figure out a way to include it. If your teams respond better to competition and games, use them. Be flexible enough to understand what will keep your athletes looking forward to working out, even if that means adjusting your program. Your athletes’ effort and attitude will go a long way to solving problems when the numbers don’t quite add up.

Joe Bonyai is currently an assistant strength and conditioning coach at Springfield College in Springfield, MA where he is completing his Master’s degree in Exercise Science and Sports Studies with a focus in Strength and Conditioning. Prior to attending Springfield, Joe graduated from Gettysburg College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Health Sciences. At Gettysburg, Joe was a four year starter on the baseball team where he earned first-team all conference and academic all-American honors. Prior to attending Springfield, Joe completed full-semester internships at Velocity Sports Performance and Athletes’ Performance in Tempe, AZ. Joe is certified through the National Strength and Conditioning Association. Joe can be contacted at jbonyai@spfldcol.edu.