This morning I dropped a container of blueberries and they fell all over the kitchen floor. At this point I could have one of two things…gotten pissed off at the fact that I had to take the time to clean up the mess or laughed at my clumsiness and picked up the blueberries. I initially started to get frustrated and then realized that it wasn’t wasting the time or energy getting upset at such a miniscule thing.
I think this was a simple lesson that so many of us as coaches and athletes make day in an day out. We get upset and mad at a little thing that we couldn’t do or upset at an athlete for a mistake that they made. I’m all about doing little thing right and holding yourself and athletes accountable for doing little things, but I think we have to put things in context as every situation depends. If an athlete is making a mistake for a lack of effort, I will probably get upset and tell the athlete what they need to do and how their lack of effort isn’t going to help them succeed. But if they make a mistake but they are working hard, you have to realize that it’s not worth getting really upset over. Tell them what they did wrong, correct it and praise their effort. Too many coaches lose sight of the big picture and get upset over every mistake. If you scream and yell at every single issue that comes up then athletes will soon tune it out and when you really need to make a point about something it will go in one ear and out the other. If you don’t correct these things they will come back to haunt you, but realize that every mistake isn’t intentional and isn’t the end of the world. It will be better for your health, sanity and your athletes will respect you as well.
Primary qualities of Leadership
1. Perfection of detail
2. Personal supervision
3. Detailed knowledge of the business at hand
4. A strong physical leadership presence
5. Ability to set a personal example
6. Ability to communicate/explain orders
7. Commitment to ensure that orders are correctly executed
-General Patton
Brijesh and I have numerous things that we can share about what we are currently doing from programming, motivation, coaching, testing, etc… but we wanted to take a moment and ask for some feedback. If there are any topics that you would like to hear please shoot me an email at shawn@sbcoachescollege.com
The topics in our field are endless but we want to make sure that we provide you with content that you want.
Shawn
Thank you to my former intern for writing an article about his experience as a strength and conditioning coach in Hong Kong.
Shawn
International Strength and Conditioning Coaching
Andy Martin, CSCS
I recently returned from a trip overseas to Hong Kong where I worked as the strength and conditioning coach for the Winling Basketball Club in the Hong Kong Basketball Association. As strength coaches, adaptability is one of the foremost skills required to be successful; be it to different athletes, different administrations/front offices, etc. I found this to be especially true while coaching overseas. While I am sure that each country has its own special challenges, I believe that some of the lessons I learned may be universal when coaching internationally.
Hong Kong Basketball
For those of us that have had a chance to coach athletes in the US, specifically basketball athletes, we are fortunate to have seen basketball played at a level that has been and continues to be the premier level in the world. In some countries, due to a lack of grass roots basketball programs, the level of basketball is much lower than we are used to in the US. That isn’t to say that young kids in Hong Kong don’t play basketball, in fact it’s wildly popular there, but they are rarely taught fundamentals that we take for granted because we are so exposed to them growing up. Hong Kong normally does not fare well against the other national teams in Asia.
With that said, the players are still very athletic. Some of them had some experience with “working out”, but none of them had any experience with actual sport performance training. So the task became to identify and correct any movement deficiencies, and design and implement training protocols to athletically develop the younger players and protect the health and performance of the older players. The experience as a whole was a wonderful opportunity, and I would not hesitate to go back overseas to coach, but there a number of challenges that I faced during my time there.
Breaking Down the Language Barrier
Before going over, I knew absolutely no Chinese. I still don’t know much, but you will naturally pick up some words/phrases simply from being exposed to the language on a daily basis. Most everyone could speak some English, and nearly everyone could understand English, but any team meetings or exchanges were almost exclusively in Cantonese. Only one player on the team was actually fluent in English, so immediately I was working against a language barrier. Also, I was informed that Cantonese is a harder version of Chinese to learn than Mandarin, so learning the native language was not a realistic option.
If possible, learning the language of the country you will be coaching in is ideal. However when this is not a practical option, try to learn at least the basic words and phrases that you will be using on a regular basis. Learn how to count, and learn basic instructional phrases that you will use during workouts, like yes/no, stop/go, and good job. A large part of the strength and conditioning process is building a relationship with the athletes, and even though you may not be fluent, displaying an effort to communicate with the athletes in their native tongue is a great start to building that bridge.
Overcoming Facilities/Scheduling Challenges
For the team that I was working with, a number of the players also had regular day jobs. This poses a scheduling problem, since the players will not always have time to come work out, and when they do the times will change from day to day. In addition, our off-court workouts were in a commercial gym, just like a large gym chain in the US. So the issue becomes you may have athletes coming in at different times during the day, and you are trying to put them through workouts while also battling the normal gym crowd for equipment. This is where the “art” of strength coaching comes into play in a big way. Being able to rotate between 1-5 athletes, at different points of a workout, spread out all over the gym, can be an incredibly difficult task. Therefore, organizational skills and the ability to adapt exercises when dictated by available equipment are invaluable skills. Ideally, you would be able to put your athletes on some sort of schedule and have your own facilities to be able to control the workout environment. But when this is not the case, you must be able to make due with the time/equipment you do have and still ensure that your athletes are progressing.
Facing Cultural Opposition to Progressive Training
Chances are if you are coaching overseas, that the athletes have most likely never gone through a progressive resistance training program. At least in the HKBA, players must be either born in Hong Kong, or naturalized as a citizen. This differs from many other leagues in Asia and Europe, where teams are allowed to import players from other countries. The particular problem this posed in Hong Kong was that there was only one real cultural outlook on “working out”. Setting aside the health aspect, most gym-goers in Hong Kong had a very bodybuilding mindset. They were not concerned with muscular strength/endurance, and especially not sport performance, but simply that they had very defined musculature. There were some very strong, muscular individuals, but most showed signs of some pharmacological assistance.
With this being the culture surrounding working out, it is difficult at first to get the players to understand why foam rolling is important, or why you spend 10-20 minutes on neuromuscular/core activation. If it’s not tricep pressdowns or bicep curls, it will take them some time to get on board. This is why an effective strength coach has to be able to educate his athletes as well as develop their program. You have to be able to convey the benefit of the exercises you select as it translates to on-court performance. If you can do that, and get the athletes to understand why you do certain exercises and why the whole workout isn’t spent doing bench press and curls and crunches, then you will have a much easier time getting the athletes to push themselves and really develop.
Adapting to Foreign Cultures/Building Relationships
Coaching overseas is just like any other opportunity in that it gives you a chance to make personal and professional relationships. Especially with basketball, which is probably the most popular sport in the world (aside from soccer), there are coaching opportunities to be had in a multitude of countries. If you can demonstrate that you can not only blend into a foreign culture, but also be a valuable asset to an organization, then you make yourself marketable to teams in any country that may need a strength coach. Coaching internationally can be a valuable and eye-opening experience that I personally feel makes you a better coach because you gain a new perspective on how to deal with athletes. Not just different personalities, but completely different life experiences.
Today we have a guest post from a current intern, Justin Roethlingshoefer. Justin is a young, eager motivated and hard working strength coach who has a bright future ahead of him. He’s put together a very good article on an aspect that many coaches don’t get. Enjoy!
B
There is a time in everyones life that we can think back to a coach that really made a difference. Not just in your skill level, fitness level, or quest for a championship, but in determination of who you as an individual was becoming. What was it that made that coach so much better than any other coach that you had throughout your career? Was it that they cared more, were more knowledgeable, had more playing experience, had better equipment or programming? There have been several studies and questions asked regarding this topic, but there have been several basic trends that have stayed constant. It was once said to me by a very respected and successful coach that “an athlete does not care about what you know, until they know how much you care.” In other words it means an athlete will not respond or buy into your system until they feel you actually care about them as a person, athlete, and individual as a whole. If this is missing then coaching is going to be an uphill battle for you. Continue reading
This post is long overdue as I haven’t written anything new in a while. The summer has been going great…busy but great. I’ve been planning on how to integrate a large number of freshman athletes into what the upperclassmen have been doing as well as getting them ready for the rigors of college athletics.
It’s a challenge and a question I often get asked about…”How do you handle your freshman/newcomers?”
It’s not easy to integrate, teach and get newcomers (freshman and transfers) ready..especially when the season is right around the corner. You want them to be ready for the season, but you also want to set them up for future success through properly progressive training that emphasizes foundational training.
There are a number of things that I want to teach our newcomers and feel are necessary to set them up for future success:
1. Teach them how to work hard - kids think they work hard, when in reality they have no idea of the intensity level they need to bring on a day to day basis for success. They say “can’t”, complain, and show discomfort and defeat too easily on their faces. These are habits that need to be changed.
2. Build Work Capacity - the volume of college athletics is extremely high and these athletes first need to know how to work at a high intensity and tolerate the workload so they can perform day in and day out.
3. Develop mobility and stability – this is a big one that you never stop working on, but I’ve rarely seen a newcomer that possessed the needed mobility (hip, ankle, t-spine, shoulder) to properly learn movements and the stability (foot, knee, lumbar, scap) needed to perform these movements with precision. Newcomers need to learn how to position their body to perform movements safely and in the most efficient manner to stay healthy and have improved performance.
4. Teach them to be independent - it’s inherent that you as a coach will spend more time with newcomers teaching them every facet of your program, but how much time are you teaching them to be able to do it on their own? You can’t set everything up for your athletes, count their weight, count their tempos, write their weights in and clean up after them…they will eventually have to do it on their own. This goes into the actual system that you implement, but teaching them to be independent allows them to self sufficient which makes your job easier and teaches them how to think and act for themselves.
5. Emphasize doing things really, really, really, really well! – You’ve got one real opportunity to teach your athletes and that is from the start. You’ve got to emphasize doing things PERFECT from the beginning…foam rolling, joint mobes, warmups, core work, landing mechanics, sprint mechanics, lifting technique, and recovery routines. Every time you slip in getting them to do things well from the beginning, you aren’t ingraining solid habits in them. If you teach your newcomers, they will teach and reinforce it to the newcomers when they have been established within the program. This builds a culture within your program.
These are just some of the things that I like to emphasize with newcomers to my program. I believe that if we emphasize the early development, that it will make things easier down the road. When you invest time into these athletes, they will be able to help you teach the new crop of athletes that enter your program.
Once again, sorry for the delay in this post.
B
Do you push your athletes to higher levels or make excuses for them?
Is it Ok if your athletes miss workouts or miss reps because they are tired?
Is it Ok if your athletes show up a minute late or don’t record their loads accurately?
Is it acceptable if your athlete doesn’t follow the program strictly because they don’t feel like it?
Are you raising the bar for your athletes or bringing it down so they can achieve?
You as a coach have a personal responsibility to make your athletes better. Better can be in different ways…it can be physically, it can be emotionally, it can be mentally, it can spiritually, and it can be socially. Most of us as coaches, focus on the physical part but need to understand how we prescribe our training sessions, the environment we create, and how we hold our athletes accountable play a big part into making them better mentally, spiritually, emotionally, and socially.
For our athletes to achieve more in sport and in life, we as coaches need to raise the bar. Meaning we need to hold our athletes to a higher standard.
We need to try and get them to believe in achieving more and not settling.
We need to get them to understand how they think will effect how they perform.
We need to get them to understand that every little thing matters.
We need to get them to understand that not everything is going to go their way and it’s up to them to decide how to respond to the situation.
We need to get them to understand that if they have desire, effort, intensity and do it consistently that more times than not, they will be successful.
Are you raising the bar or bringing it down?
If you are raising the bar for your athletes; are you raising the bar for yourself?
B
This is a common question that gets posed to my athletes. I ask them what are you doing to make yourself better.
Are you working as hard as you can to make yourself better?
Are you encouraging and pushing your teammates to make them better?
Are you eating breakfast every day and getting more fruits and veggies in your diet?
Are you getting to sleep on time and focusing on your recovery efforts?
I ask my athletes these questions to put ownership on them and realize that they are the ones who control what type of results they are going to get out of the training program. The better results they get from their efforts, the greater their confidence and ultimately the better their performance. If you believe in yourself more and believe you won’t fail, you will perform at a higher level and won’t let distractions and disappointments in your way.
But we as coaches also have to look at ourselves and ask ourselves “What are we doing to make ourselves better?”
If we are asking our athletes to sacrifice their time and energy to becoming better, we must ask ourselves to do the same.
Are we reading more to increase our knowledge base to better help our athletes?
Are we attending conferences to pick up more tools that we can use in our toolbox?
Are we training and seeing how effective our programs are?
Are we calling, visiting and or emailing other coaches to find out what others are doing?
Are we learning how to be better coaches, communicators and educators?
Are we investing in ourselves to better help our athletes?
Getting better is a two way street. You have to raise the bar on yourself if you expect your athletes to do the same.
The more we can help ourselves, the better we will be able to serve our athletes.
What are you doing to make yourself better?
I’ve recently been reading about mindsets and how that affects your behaviors and ultimately your performance. My first experience reading about fixed mindset vs. growth mindset was in a newsletter written by Brian McCormick. The notion of defining mindsets comes from Carol Dweck, a psychologist at Stanford, who authored the book Mindset.
Dweck distinguishes those with a growth mindset and those with a fixed mindset:
Those with a fixed mindset believe that their talents and abilities are simply fixed. They have a certain amount and that’s that. In this mindset athletes may become so concerned with being and looking talented that they never fulfill their potential.
People with a growth mindset, on the other hand, think of talents and abilities as things they can develop—as potentials that come to fruition through effort, practice, and instruction.
These are Dweck’s Mindset Rules:
Rule 1:
Fixed Mindset: Look talented at all costs.
Growth Mindset: Learn, learn, learn!
Rule 2:
Fixed Mindset: Don’t work too hard or practice too much.
Growth Mindset: Work with passion and dedication—effort is the key.
Rule 3:
Fixed Mindset: When faced with setbacks, run away or conceal your deficiencies.
Growth Mindset: Embrace your mistakes and confront your deficiencies.
With those rules, it is clear to see why people with a growth mindset succeed while those with a fixed mindset often do not live up to their potential. The key to becoming great at anything is a willingness to learn, to work hard and to acknowledge your shortcomings/weaknesses to become better at whatever task you decide to take on.
These lessons can easily be applied to the athletes and clients we work with. There will be athletes who have a fixed mindset that they won’t be able to accomplish a certain task or a finish a certain drill/exercise, while those with a growth mindset realize that they may not succeed the first time but will keep trying and learn how to get better at the drill to make themselves better.
We have to teach and educate our athletes about these kinds of mindsets and encourage them to have growth mindsets to really achieve success.
What kind of mindset do you have? and what kind are you preaching to your athletes?
Don't Overlook Teaching Your Athletes How To Think
As a strength and conditioning professional we must wear many hats. In our roles we must train our athletes to not only be better physical specimens but additionally we MUST make our athletes better people! I can not even begin to tell you how many times I have had to help an athlete with something outside the world of strength and conditioning. I have dealt with athletes and their family issues, helped with job hunting and even been to weddings of some of my former athletes. As I tell you this understand that I see my job as an educator. I work for Robert Morris University which is an institution that educates students and I am just a cog in the inner workings of RMU.
When I began my career as a strength coach I truly believed that my job was to make my athletes stronger, leaner, more explosive and create less injuries in these athletes. I still believe that this is a major part of my job at RMU. As I have aged I have really began to appreciate how educating my athletes will make them much better in their sport as well as in their lives. An obvious question you might be asking yourself (other then why do I read Todd Hamer’s articles?) is what does any of this article have to do with critical thinking? To answer this question we must figure out what critical thinking is?
