The journey makes the champion. Part#2

Lessons from the dominance of east Africa runners for young Kiwi athletes

In most sports, the obvious exception being Rugby, NZ cannot compete with other countries in a battle of participation numbers and programs of such extremes so as to filter for outliers; genetic freaks of nature.  Our sports must play by different rules.  To drive our young athletes to extreme fatigue; to assess them against an ‘ideal’ and support them accordingly (or not) is to pitch us into a war we can never win.  So it is that sports such as tennis and swimming find themselves falling further and further behind historical levels of achievement.  I should preface quickly by saying I work in both of these sports so I am familiar with organisational models, as well as coach values and attitudes.  I don’t make these statements lightly or blindly.

In the above model, participation drives not only the development of sporting skills and capabilities but it also drives basic athletic development.   Certainly, there are sports and countries with excellent and longstanding positive attitudes to the importance and role of athleticism, but the prevailing practices of early specialisation and very high time on task are displayed in high injury and drop out rates.  Those that are left standing have the stuff of champions, so the model says.  In NZ, we have practiced, and still do in the majority of clubs and bodies, the same ideas.  Our coaches believe there is a correlation between high outcomes and the development of adult behaviours during childhood and the possibility of achievement in open grade and adult competition.  Examples of non-sporting achievements, such as the academic and musical accomplishments of the gifted, are given to support the ideology.

This thinking is catastrophically false.  To begin with, sport has an athletic foundation – more basic movement skills and capabilities are needed with which to participate and drive the development of specific sporting skills.  There is no such physical foundation, beyond basic sensory abilities, in music or academic programs.  The practices of the gifted are also not useful guides for those closer to the middle of the bell curve.  The basis of their achievements is not merely the countless hours on task but also that their gifts reward these hours of practice.  Each of us has an upper limit on how large a dose the brain and body can assimilate and adapt to.  It is the nature of the gifted, those at the right edge of a population bell curve, to be able to cope with and adapt to more and not the other way around.  The third lie of the outlier model is drop out.  The catastrophic levels of drop out in sport and exercise tells us, if we care to listen, that when it is no longer fun or interesting it is no longer of use.  At what age would we ideally like participation to peak at?  The answer is late twenties to early thirties.  More than a decade beyond the time our current practices achieve.  By itself, that should be food for thought; grist for the mill of change.

I could talk for hours on this subject but I suspect you are probably already glazing over so I will wrap this up with a question: what do we believe is the most important outcome of sporting programs dedicated to the ideal of excellence?  The answer is to maximise participation when it is of greatest value.  That is not during childhood but during adulthood.  If we wish to produce champions, our children must stay involved for a lot longer.  The current ideology – fit the kid to the ideal – destroys any hope of this.  Instead, we need to see them and treat them as they are.  Help them to be the best version of themselves.  With that idea and perspective in mind, we will make different decisions.

an extended discussion about ownership

I posted, recently, an idea that came from a conversation with one of my participants. She has been a good student but she became a great one when she decided she wanted more from her training - when her level of ownership increased.

This next thought is part2 of that discussion. There is a view among adults that the obvious connection between doing and outcomes renders the coach or sporting body responsible for those outcomes.

This idea implies that I have control of the student. Clearly, I am an influence but that's not the same as control. I don't make decisions for them. Indeed, the importance of ownership means I must avoid as far as practicable taking ownership and responsibility away from them. My job is to provide a learning framework and a safe environment that nourishes. Outcomes depend on levels of engagement and time, both of which are out of my control.

If you're struggling with levels of engagement in a young person, you could consider reducing efforts to control and giving them more responsibility.

http://sportperformancenz.blogspot.com/2018/08/if-survival-is-problem-ownership-is.html

article review: what all runners can learn from the East African masters

Fascinating and insightful dissection of the running practices and biologic markers of east African runners.  It suffers, unfortunately, from the reductionist view point of scientists and concludes with little by way of an explanation for why they're so successful.
The basic reason is numbers.  Sport, like every other human v human contest, is a battle between participation statistics.  Large participation numbers expand the possibility of genetic outliers and that's what's been happening in east Africa for 50 years now.  What do I think the east African outliers are to explain their dominance?  Psychological resilience and fractional gains in biomechanical efficiency.  The Africans are very small and light, and have terrific spring at the same time.  They produce easy power and they're extremely efficient.  Superimpose these basic functional characteristics on high participation numbers in extremely demanding programs, and it's a certainty that you're going to strike genetic gold.

original article: africa-calling-runners-can-learn-east-african-masters/

What is ‘high gear’ and why is it an important target for many young female athletes?

Intensity of movement and quality of movement are not comfortable bed fellows. The basic reason is obvious: the harder I work, the harder it is to maintain fine control.  Athletic development and sport have the ultimate goal of maximising both but practice requires that we separate them to ensure that the contamination of fatigue and intensity doesn’t impair skill development.  The reverse is also true and we need to ensure that practice also involves opportunity to ‘open the throttle’; to push the boundary of how hard we can work.

It’s uncommon for female athletes not to understand and buy in to the importance of finesse and control in athletic endeavour (low gear) though it can be a challenge for boys.  Conversely, boys take risks and embrace competition, and this means I don’t often have to ask them twice to rip into something at full noise – high gear. 

True 100% is hard to achieve, even for experienced athletes.  What most of us think of us as 100% effort can be as low as 70-80% of what’s possible.  There are several reasons why but not the least of them is regular practice and a clear sense of purpose.  In short, we can’t be concerned about what others might think or be restricted by low self-perceptions of ability if we wish to properly work in high gear.  All athletes need a balance of intensity and control in their physical conditioning.

Clearing up a misunderstanding about improving ‘balance’

Balance involves localised muscle reflexes.  Our joints and surrounding soft tissues sense position and a sudden change in position, sufficient to destabilise the body, causes reflexive activation of muscles to keep us stable.  As we age, these reflexes tend to soften leading to more falls.  The reflex itself can be strengthened by practicing small stabilising actions, e.g. standing on one leg, but what the reflex actually expresses is tissue strength.  Of the two components: the reflex, and the muscles activated by it, tissue stiffness and strength is the biggest factor.  Isolating or subtly provoking the reflex, for example ankle balancing, is far less effective in improving balance than a whole movement program involving control of body position: big movements like aeroplanes, single leg squats, and step ups strengthening function on many levels including balance.  Note: where the feet and ankles are concerned, spend more time moving barefoot.

If survival is the problem, ownership is the solution

One of my young female participants asked me last week what she could do to improve her throwing for water polo.  I replied that she was already strengthening the correct structures and movement patterns.  One week later she set new personal bests in the gym by way of effort, execution, and performance.  What changed?  The answer was ‘purpose and ownership’.  S (let’s call her that) has a specific want and she decided so herself – no one else informed her it was important.

The reason I raise the example of S, is parents and coaches regularly express a desire for their children to achieve more but don’t know how or under what conditions this might occur.  S provides the answer.  When the child wants an outcome and is willing to take ownership for driving the process toward it, we are on our way.  Why?  Positive psychology (more about this shortly).  New outcomes require positive energy and that’s what ownership brings.

Survival mode is a bad thing for children

Children in relentlessly demanding sporting programs can fall into ‘survival mode’: “I have a lot of work to do and getting it done is my priority”.  Developing a strong work ethic is vital but it shouldn’t require an expert to recognise the problem a survival mentality creates.  Childhood is first and foremost about learning.  Joy and adventure depend on an individual making and owning their choices in an environment with suitable variation.  In my experience, survival behaviour almost always occurs in environments in which the child is given little control but is instead instructed on what to do more-or-less all the time.  The obvious question to ask about such circumstances is: what is the agency for change?  Repetition begets capacity for work but it isn’t of itself a stimulus for improvement.  Where children are concerned change requires children to discover for themselves what they’re capable of.

Strengthening the hamstrings. Part3of3. The Nordic curl

The Nordic curl is the holy grail of hamstring strengthening exercises.  Few exercises display such high effectiveness in the reduction of sporting injuries (research link below).
The Nordic curl is also one of the safest and simplest exercises to use (video at bottom).

The preventive effect of the nordic hamstring exercise on hamstring injuries

video: the nordic curl