Assistants coach
I've been working on this post for a few days now because I'm not sure where I want to go with it.
I spent two days last week observing a local high school wrestling team coached by three friends of mine. Like I said, I like to go outside rowing to pick up coaching advice and help, and I looked at this as a great opportunity to get some ideas on how to run a larger team with a limited number of coaches.
Four things stood out during these two days, along with an indisputable fact.
Assistants coach: I know that I've seen this at some programs, but it's a thought that's really never occurred to me because only twice have I been in a position where I could have an assistant. During the first days practice, one of the assistant coaches ran the technique drills that the head coach wanted the team to focus on. The head coach and he got together and discussed what drills should be done, and then the assistant ran that portion of practice. This allowed the head coach to wander through the team, picking out individuals to work with.
Granted, this is something that would be difficult to do on the water, but would be very easily implemented on land. Usually when we're working out on land, I'm leading practice. I think this is a great switch because it gives your assistants an opportunity to lead and you can see how they function while in charge, and secondly, because it's ultimately your technique that the program is using, you can make sure the athletes are doing exactly what you want them to do.
Coach with an edge: I believe that Mike Teti had it right when he said, "I'm not a tough coach. I'm honest." Paraphrasing him, but that's the basic idea. And I've taken that philosophy and run with it. I don't believe that I need to be tough. Rowing is a very difficult and demanding sport. Everything we do is either a full body workout or designed to be one, so exhaustion comes easy. I've never felt the need to be, "The toughest coach ever," or any useless title like that because I believe this sport is tough enough as it is. I am also not a screamer. In fact, I've been accused of being a brooding coach - I stand there very quietly, talk when needed, but mostly just watch. When I do yell, it's either because things are going very well, or because I want your attention and yelling constantly makes it difficult to know when I'm mad or just being normal.
That being said, I liked the edge I saw in the wrestling room. The coaches were laughing and joking around, and very approachable, but you knew that they meant business. They weren't afraid to get in the athletes faces when practice was lagging on the second day. But they made their point and then moved on.
One of my difficulties this past year was finding a balance between treating my athletes like adults, and still having a solid presence in the room. In many ways I felt that I was too diplomatic with how I ran practices and the season, giving the athletes too much say at times, and not coming down as hard as I should have from time to time because I opted to try and appeal to a sense of maturity.
Fun can help drive practice:* I'm putting an asterisk by this one because of my "fact." What I saw on the second day of practice was a wrestling team that just wasn't into practice. Normally when I have a team like this, I tend to get on their case a bit, either by addressing it during a break, or getting on them during the workouts. If things go very poorly, I've added some work to the end - always land work - because "I don't think we did any real work today," or I've cut off practice. I know some coaches don't believe in that, but I don't see the need to crash course our way through practice if it's not going to be effective. One thing that I learned early is that there needs to be a reason behind what you're having the team do, regardless of what it is, and, "Because it's practice time" doesn't cut it for me when we're not mentally into it. I will say that I've only cut practice short twice in my 8 years so I don't feel that it's an option I reach for often.
Anyhow, practice was lagging, and the head coach decided to fix this by pairing off the team, and having them going 30"-45" bouts with each other, working on a specific move, but going all out. This changed to the team loosening their shoes, and then wrestling each other to try and remove the others shoes. After about 10 minutes of this, the team came back together and you could see a different in how the team was working. Everyone seemed to be on their toes more. There were still issues with some of the guys, but there was a renewed energy in the room. I've never really thought to break up a practice with a game. More on this in a bit.
Correct punishments: My soccer coach used to call them "motivations," and I agree with him. Motivation to work hard. Motivation to not have to run. My rules about motivation work.
* Must be short and intense
* Must be consistent - reasons for doing it
* Must not be something we normally do - within reason.
That last one is a bit fluid. Nothing gets the heart moving and gets attention quite like 25 burpies or star jumps. But never the erg. I've been to a lot of programs where the erg is hated because coaches use it as a punishment. That to me makes no sense. When we ran for soccer, we never ran miles or medleys or Brazilians. We always ran "geometrics" or "directionals" - same thing. Always. I believe you're doing detrimental damage to the psyche of your athletes when you use the erg - a machine there to help improve your athletes - as a punishment. Now they associate the erg with bad, not good, and that's how they'll treat it. I worked at a program where coaches did this. To no surprise the 2k tests and distances tests were terrible each and every time. Why? They hated the ergs, and erging was torture and a matter of survival, not improvement. My team excelled on the ergs because I used them properly.
The same was true in the wrestling room. Talking with the coaches, they treat things the same way. Punishment comes in different forms than rowing, but punishments or motivations were always something that were different than the normal workout cycle. Th athlete understands that working out is to get better, and motivation is to remind them to push. The association between workouts and motivation is that if you don't work hard, you'll be motivated.
Fact*: Ok, here's the fact. The right mentality from the athletes is required to execute practices and programmatic goals. Without the right attitude, nothing gets done, or what does get done is sloppy, uninspired, and not something that you can build upon. Attitude starts with the coach, but at some point the athletes have to either invest or leave. A lot of what I observed at the wrestling practices were possible because the majority of the athletes, especially the older or experienced ones, bought into the coach's program. Because they did, the rest of the team - for the most part - followed suit to the best of their abilities.
I spent two days last week observing a local high school wrestling team coached by three friends of mine. Like I said, I like to go outside rowing to pick up coaching advice and help, and I looked at this as a great opportunity to get some ideas on how to run a larger team with a limited number of coaches.
Four things stood out during these two days, along with an indisputable fact.
Assistants coach: I know that I've seen this at some programs, but it's a thought that's really never occurred to me because only twice have I been in a position where I could have an assistant. During the first days practice, one of the assistant coaches ran the technique drills that the head coach wanted the team to focus on. The head coach and he got together and discussed what drills should be done, and then the assistant ran that portion of practice. This allowed the head coach to wander through the team, picking out individuals to work with.
Granted, this is something that would be difficult to do on the water, but would be very easily implemented on land. Usually when we're working out on land, I'm leading practice. I think this is a great switch because it gives your assistants an opportunity to lead and you can see how they function while in charge, and secondly, because it's ultimately your technique that the program is using, you can make sure the athletes are doing exactly what you want them to do.
Coach with an edge: I believe that Mike Teti had it right when he said, "I'm not a tough coach. I'm honest." Paraphrasing him, but that's the basic idea. And I've taken that philosophy and run with it. I don't believe that I need to be tough. Rowing is a very difficult and demanding sport. Everything we do is either a full body workout or designed to be one, so exhaustion comes easy. I've never felt the need to be, "The toughest coach ever," or any useless title like that because I believe this sport is tough enough as it is. I am also not a screamer. In fact, I've been accused of being a brooding coach - I stand there very quietly, talk when needed, but mostly just watch. When I do yell, it's either because things are going very well, or because I want your attention and yelling constantly makes it difficult to know when I'm mad or just being normal.
That being said, I liked the edge I saw in the wrestling room. The coaches were laughing and joking around, and very approachable, but you knew that they meant business. They weren't afraid to get in the athletes faces when practice was lagging on the second day. But they made their point and then moved on.
One of my difficulties this past year was finding a balance between treating my athletes like adults, and still having a solid presence in the room. In many ways I felt that I was too diplomatic with how I ran practices and the season, giving the athletes too much say at times, and not coming down as hard as I should have from time to time because I opted to try and appeal to a sense of maturity.
Fun can help drive practice:* I'm putting an asterisk by this one because of my "fact." What I saw on the second day of practice was a wrestling team that just wasn't into practice. Normally when I have a team like this, I tend to get on their case a bit, either by addressing it during a break, or getting on them during the workouts. If things go very poorly, I've added some work to the end - always land work - because "I don't think we did any real work today," or I've cut off practice. I know some coaches don't believe in that, but I don't see the need to crash course our way through practice if it's not going to be effective. One thing that I learned early is that there needs to be a reason behind what you're having the team do, regardless of what it is, and, "Because it's practice time" doesn't cut it for me when we're not mentally into it. I will say that I've only cut practice short twice in my 8 years so I don't feel that it's an option I reach for often.
Anyhow, practice was lagging, and the head coach decided to fix this by pairing off the team, and having them going 30"-45" bouts with each other, working on a specific move, but going all out. This changed to the team loosening their shoes, and then wrestling each other to try and remove the others shoes. After about 10 minutes of this, the team came back together and you could see a different in how the team was working. Everyone seemed to be on their toes more. There were still issues with some of the guys, but there was a renewed energy in the room. I've never really thought to break up a practice with a game. More on this in a bit.
Correct punishments: My soccer coach used to call them "motivations," and I agree with him. Motivation to work hard. Motivation to not have to run. My rules about motivation work.
* Must be short and intense
* Must be consistent - reasons for doing it
* Must not be something we normally do - within reason.
That last one is a bit fluid. Nothing gets the heart moving and gets attention quite like 25 burpies or star jumps. But never the erg. I've been to a lot of programs where the erg is hated because coaches use it as a punishment. That to me makes no sense. When we ran for soccer, we never ran miles or medleys or Brazilians. We always ran "geometrics" or "directionals" - same thing. Always. I believe you're doing detrimental damage to the psyche of your athletes when you use the erg - a machine there to help improve your athletes - as a punishment. Now they associate the erg with bad, not good, and that's how they'll treat it. I worked at a program where coaches did this. To no surprise the 2k tests and distances tests were terrible each and every time. Why? They hated the ergs, and erging was torture and a matter of survival, not improvement. My team excelled on the ergs because I used them properly.
The same was true in the wrestling room. Talking with the coaches, they treat things the same way. Punishment comes in different forms than rowing, but punishments or motivations were always something that were different than the normal workout cycle. Th athlete understands that working out is to get better, and motivation is to remind them to push. The association between workouts and motivation is that if you don't work hard, you'll be motivated.
Fact*: Ok, here's the fact. The right mentality from the athletes is required to execute practices and programmatic goals. Without the right attitude, nothing gets done, or what does get done is sloppy, uninspired, and not something that you can build upon. Attitude starts with the coach, but at some point the athletes have to either invest or leave. A lot of what I observed at the wrestling practices were possible because the majority of the athletes, especially the older or experienced ones, bought into the coach's program. Because they did, the rest of the team - for the most part - followed suit to the best of their abilities.
Comments