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Better Coaching
There is a lot of confusion and misinformation about exactly what is
coaching. What does it involve or require?
As a professionally trained and experienced coach, I want to answer
that question for a number of reasons. First, it will serve as a
guide for anyone wanting to start or improve his or her coaching
career.
Second, it will help racers understand that, in spite of the fact
that one or more coaches can no longer help you, there are still
coaches out there who can help you. Then it will serve as a guide
for athletes, clubs, teams, and sponsors in selecting a coach or
determining his/her potentials.
What Coaching Is Not
A surprising number of exercise physiology and other sports science
college professors believe in the simple-minded concept that
exercise physiology (EP) is coaching and coaching is exercise
physiology. More and more people outside of these colleges and
programs are finally beginning to learn that this is not true.
EP is a very important tool that a good coach must have a good
working knowledge of and will use on a regular basis. But it is not
the only important tool that a good coach must use on a regular
basis.
Over the last 35 years, I have seen a lot of young people come out
of these college programs with masters and PhD's in EP believing
this simple-minded idea. They have always beat upon their little
chests, boasting, "I'll learn you boys how to coach", and then learn
the hard way that they don't have the foggiest idea what coaching
really is but they aren't one.
I have seen a lot of these people get embarrassed and even hurt
people because they believed this simple-minded idea about coaching
and tried to be a coach without being properly prepared. All of this
is because we have too many college professors teaching things they
only assume but don't really know much about. It sounds good to them
so they teach it.
One such EP in So Cal with his little PhD recruited 23 of the 35
best women in So Cal. First, anyone can recruit 23 of the 35 best
anything in a circuit and win races without being a coach. Any good
team manager with a pocket full of money can do that.
But, the best coach can take nobodies and turn them into somebody's
on the podium.
He boasted that he would learn us how to coach and then he put all
23 of his women in the hospital, did so much damage to their bodies
that they will never be able to participate in competitive sports
again, and was told by the court that he would not be prosecuted if
he promised to never coach again. He learned us.
I knew a very good EP at the OTC in Colorado Springs that believed
the same concept about EP being coaching when he first got out of
college. He wanted to learn us how to coach and boasted about it. He
challenged the national coaching staff to a coaching contest using
the eight best individual pursuitists in the nation for team
pursuiting. He gave the coaches the four best and he took the next
four to make his point even more clear. He worked with his four
athletes in his lab with all of his equipment for two years and took
them to nationals to learn us all how to coach.
I realize that not all of you know that there are not that many
really good pursuit teams in the US. At that time, there might have
been three or four good pursuit teams in the US, at best. There are
not that many athletes who really work on team pursuiting.
Therefore, the absolute worst he should have done at Nationals was
second or third.
His team got seventh. They got spanked and he learned us.... that EP
is not coaching and coaching is not JUST EP.
I even had a person tell me that he could be a coach because he read
a book on EP. I cannot believe what some people believe. Could this
person even comprehend the number of books, lectures, and other
material I had to go through to learn how to coach? And the real
education starts in the field with learning how to use all of that
knowledge.
Theory sounds great but practical application gets the job done.
Then there is the myth among some intellectuals that coaching is for
dummies. They believe that coaching is a manual labor type of job
that doesn't require any intelligence. But let's analyze that and
see what coaches really do:
We gather information, analyze information, and make decisions based
on the analysis of that information. We call that thinking, you
know, like CEO's, scientists, and other intelligent people do. So, a
coach's primary job is thinking.
People are beginning to learn that the more intelligent coaches tend
to rise to the top. I believe that coaching in the 21st Century will
become more recognized as an intellectual profession. To be
competitive, you will have to cumulate a vast supply of intellectual
tools. We call that learning. The more of these intellectual tools
you have, the better your chances of success.
Some people like to argue that there are very good coaches who do
not have that much of an education as a justification against
learning more.
Their argument is true but grossly ignorant because, if you take the
same individual with and without the additional intellectual tools,
the one with the additional tools will be the better coach. My point
is that any coach can make themselves better coaches by learning. No
matter how well my program did, I always listened to other coaches
to see if I could learn more to be a better coach. Why would I not
want to improve my chances of winning?
The Modern Coach
It is only a matter of time until being a retired jock and coaching
based entirely on your personal experience will no longer be
adequate for success.
More and more jocks are obtaining better training for coaching and
making it more difficult to beat them. What training does a coach
need? Surprisingly, you can obtain most it locally and don't have to
travel to the OTC for coaching programs.
You can actually get better training for coaching in most local
colleges without enrolling into a coaching program. I will show you
the courses you need to take and what to get from them. I will list
these below.
You can even take most of these courses during your off season and
you can take them audit so you can improve your knowledge without
having to worry about a grade. You can also find colleges, which
offer these courses via correspondence. Be careful with these and
make sure the college is accredited.
The only real reason for most people to go to the OTC is to get
cycling specific knowledge and ideas. You can also get that from a
number of books including this book and learn from the comfort of
your home. It is a nice experience to go to the OTC, if you can
afford it.
For those of you who can't afford the time or money or you just want
to coach weekends for fun, don't worry, I will teach you enough in
this book to be reasonably successful with that. Don't let the
following scare you off from helping others.
Science Courses
General Science
There are any number of basic science and even engineering courses
that will help you. In my coaching, I have used my studies in
engineering (I started college in engineering), physics, chemistry,
biology, and human anatomy.
The engineering and physics are obvious for helping you deal with
the mechanics of the bicycle and aerodynamics. A major mistake
engineers and physicists make in studying the function of the
bicycle is that they forget to include the human being as a
functioning part of the bicycle. This requires understanding the
science of Kinesiology or biomechanics. These people have come up
with some unreal ideas for modifying the bicycle over the last few
decades.
Chemistry and biology are very helpful in understanding the function
of the human body at the molecular level. Human anatomy is important
for understanding the structure and mechanical function of the body.
These are also prerequisites for some of the following biology
courses.
Exercise Physiology
Sounds foreboding, doesn't it? It isn't. All you are doing is
studying the function of the human body in relation to rest and
exercise. Most people can learn it.
If you can't find a good course in EP, a course in regular
physiology beats learning nothing. It is a very valuable tool and I
used it a lot. I used it to improve on the standard training program
and provide my riders with a better program.
It was also very handy for understanding medicine when dealing with
doctors for my family and myself. Most doctors appreciated me having
the knowledge. EP is fun and very valuable tool but not the only
major tool you will need.
Kinesiology or Biomechanics
This is a very important tool that I have used a lot. In a nutshell,
it is using human anatomy and physics to understand the mechanical
function of the human body.
This science is important in all sports but, especially in cycling
because of the complex physical interaction between machine and
man/woman. This has been a very valuable tool that I have used in
developing riding techniques and discipline, understanding the
differences between people of different ages, sexes, and sizes, and
developing special riding techniques to improve the efficient use of
energy and for recovery while riding. I'll teach you most of the
stuff I have developed with this book.
Tests And Measurements
This course teaches you how to design tests for such things as
strength and flexibility. It teaches you how to know exactly what a
test does and does not evaluate. This is an excellent tool I used to
evaluate my athlete's fitness levels, strengths and weaknesses, and
to evaluate a race for tactical purposes and the fitness programs
required to prepare for that race.
After all, a race is a form of test and knowing which fitness
characteristics a race "evaluates" is very important to a good
coach. I had specific races in So Cal that I used to tell me
specific things about my riders' training programs. You would be
amazed at how many riders will tell you they are doing something
when they really are not.
A good example is the Manhattan Beach Grand Prix. It is great for
telling you which of your riders have been doing their interval and
acceleration work because there are two 180 degree turns every lap.
The ones who had not been doing their interval training found
themselves standing beside me after about five to ten laps.
I had a saying that you can't hide from the coach. I will find out
how you train because your body can only do what you train it to do.
I'll put you into several different races based on the fitness
requirements for those races and your body will tell me exactly how
you train. It works.
Athletic Training
Athletic training is basically the fundamentals of sports medicine.
A good athletic trainer (AT) will know more about sports medicine
than most doctors who hang up the sports medicine shingle.
I really used this science a lot in developing my training programs
and warm-up programs to help prevent injury to the athletes. Because
of this science, in the five years I coached the LART, I never had
one training related injury. That is very unusual.
I also used AT to help athletes recover from injuries, illnesses,
and overtraining. There were doctors, especially orthopedic doctors,
who consulted with me on helping athletes recover from injuries or
surgery once they found out that I knew this science.
Sports Psychology
This is one of the single most valuable tools I used in coaching.
The way you think will determine how you train and compete. How you
train and compete will determine your success. This is the single
biggest mistake EP's make in assuming that they are coaches. They
approach the athlete as a biological machine.
It is a human with a mind that must first be dealt with.
I learned a long time ago that, if we had a machine which could
replicate a human being to where we could make an exact replica of a
person down to the atom and we could replicate an athletes body nine
times and put ten different heads on those bodies, in two years or
less, we would have ten very different athletes as far as abilities.
If we replicated one person's head and put it on ten different
bodies, their athletic abilities would be surprisingly similar
within two years or less. It is the human mind that drives the body
and makes it do what it does. What the body does is what determines
how it will develop. How you think is the single most important
aspect of sports. It makes you, you.
I have told you about the races we won and the many placings we took
but my most prized trophies are the people who were a little better
off as people because I coached them and taught them to think
differently about themselves. I proved to them that even they could
be winners.
Did I tell you about the teenager who was so much trouble that his
parents and teachers were convinced there was no help for him and he
would be either dead or in prison by the time he was 21? The last I
heard, he was a very nice person married to a nice Belgian girl and
racing bicycles in Europe.
How about the introverted pudgy little black boy from south central
LA who's single mother brought him to me because he was hanging with
gang bangers. He was in such terrible shape that even after six
weeks of training he got lapped after only two laps in his first
Criterium on a three quarter mile course.
Some people told me I was wasting my time because he wouldn't last
two weeks. I told them that, if he lasted two weeks, he would get
two weeks worth of coaching and I didn't want to hear any more about
it. One and a half years later, the lean mean racing machine was the
best Junior in So Cal and won three different Criteriums in one two
day weekend.
The last I heard, he wasn't in jail, he wasn't lying dead in the
streets in his own blood, and he wasn't a junkie. He was a junior in
college.
Or how about a very introverted super geek who would have been the
last selection for any high school sports team in the nation? He was
the only rider on my team that stayed with the program for three
years and wasn't consistently placing in the top six as at least a
Cat 3. After three years, he didn't have one placing. He didn't
quit, so I didn't quit.
Other people thought he was a waste of my time and told me so. To
some, he was a joke until his fourth year. He won three races and
took six top six placings. When I left LA, he was doing the absolute
worst job for an extreme introvert; he was a salesman. That is
coaching.
These are my most prized trophies and sports psychology is the
single most valuable tool you must learn to use. You have to help
people change the way they think. You have to think like a champion
to become a champion. The best you can be is the best that you
believe you can be. It works.
Coaching Courses
Principles or Fundamentals Courses
These are really great courses. I took three of these courses. They
teach you two very important things.
The first is how to custom design a training program for an athlete
based on their current fitness level and characteristics and their
short and long-term goals. The value here should be obvious.... even
to an EP. :-)
The second thing this course teaches is how to custom design and
modify (great for program growth) a program to meet the needs of the
athletes and goals of the team.
It teaches how to custom design training events for proper fitness
develop. These courses are great for both team and farm programs. I
used this stuff a lot. I am trained to design, manage, and improve
any sports program including college, professional, and national
programs. This was one of my most used and valuable tools. See my
chapter on Farm Programs.
Youth Coaching
I spent an entire semester class learning how to coach young people
from ages six to 18. We studied their changing physiology,
psychology, sociology, parents, and more.
It was great and I used it a lot for my Junior team. BUT, I also
used this course a lot in learning to understand the differences
between coaching men and women and the different ages such a
masters. This helped me to better understand coaching pregnant women
because of the growing young person inside of her and its molecular
growth requirements. This is a very important tool for those of you
who want to coach Juniors.
Athletic Administration and Sports Organization
This covers the business end of sports programs. It is very valuable
for larger programs. It is basically how to manage programs for high
strung and ambitious humans we call athletes. We were even trained
in sports facilities design and management and how to coordinate
different types of sports programs to maximize the efficient use of
a facility. Boy, would I like to get my hands on a Velodrome. :-)
Coaching Other Sports
Most people understand that there are cross training benefits for
athletes but don't know that there are also cross training benefits
for coaches.
You would be amazed at how much has been developed in other sports
that we can use or modify and use in cycling. Why reinvent the wheel
when someone in another sport has already done it? Learn from other
sports.
I have been trained in at least the fundamentals of coaching,
managing, promoting, officiating, and participating in 15 to 20
different sports and sports disciplines. I feel that every
professional coach should learn to coach at least two to three
different sports.
Sport Specific Coaching
These are programs where you learn about a specific sport that you
want to coach. They get much more into detail on a specific sport.
You can get these programs from the governing body, books, and
special clinics. I have heard that there are now colleges that offer
courses on coaching bicycle racing but as I write this chapter, I
haven?t heard which ones offer these courses. They could help you
learn more about the sport very quickly.
Experience
This is a very valuable tool because you learn what works and when
to use it. Success is the culmination of education and experience.
You just jump in and start learning.
I went to California to do my coaching because it was the hottest
and fastest racing circuit in the nation. My strategy for showing my
ability as a coach was to jump into the biggest lake with the
biggest fish and start swimming. If you made it to the top, you were
good. It works.
In a nutshell, that is coaching. Well, do you still think that EP is
coaching and coaching is just EP? I hope not. I hope you have a
better understanding of coaching, what you will need to be a coach,
and what to look for in a coach pending your goals and fitness and
experience level.
Unfortunately, in bicycle racing, professionally trained coaches are
few and far between. That is one of the reasons for my new eBook; to
make more of this information available to more riders, coaches, and
team managers.
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