First things first a very belated Happy New Year to Everyone!  I hope you are all set for a fantastic 2015!

New Year’s Resolutions

 

I am going to resist the temptation to talk about goal setting and the statistics that show that 80% of people fail to stick to the resolutions they set for themselves (and by themselves) beyond the 31st January (Research quoted in the on-line blog mindfulyourownbusiness.com).   The link is HERE if you do want to read the full article.

 

It’s tough at the Top

 

Today I would like to talk about Sport Specialisation.  While January might mark a traditional time in the year to set new goals which may or may not be realistic I am surrounded by families that are putting a lot on the line to realise some pretty big goals of their own- becoming a professional athlete.

 

In the main sport that I work in of Tennis, it’s really tough to break through the lower levels of the professional tour as there is simply a limited pot of prize money for the top men and women to compete for.  The Challenger and ITF circuits (which are the second and third tiers of the game) pay out much less than the ATP tour.  It’s not until you are well inside the Top 100 and can consistently get into the Main Draw of the Grand Slam ATP Tour events that you can really start to earn a living.  But at the same time once you do, it’s a really good living!

 

So coaches and parents are always looking to get ahead of the competition and give their players/children the best chance of making it. Now there are two schools of thought here.  One is to specialise early in the sport you aspire to ‘make it’ as a pro in; the other is to diversify and play a range of sports until you are in your teens.

 

To summarise the current literature I am including a great review my colleague at British Tennis sent me on the topic.

 

Early sports specialisation defies logic! by Arran Peck

 

A recent article in The Huffington Post, an American news aggregator, highlighted the growing trend of young athletes specialising in a single sport at increasingly younger ages. The author posited that if the goal of the parent or coach is to develop the stand-out adolescent player, then early specialisation is intuitive & can be successful. If however the goal is to maximise the child’s athletic talents, then both academic & anecdotal evidence suggests that multi-sports participation & late specialisation increases the likelihood of success.

 

A recent study in the Journal of Sports Sciences found that young athletes who competed in 3 sports at ages 11-15 were significantly more likely to compete at an elite National level in their preferred sport than their single sport peers. In a second paper from the same journal, young males who competed in multiple sports were found to have better gross motor coordination, greater muscular strength, explosive speed & were physically fitter than those specialising early. Dr Martin Toms, Senior Lecturer in Sports Coaching & Performance Sociology from the University of Birmingham quoted recently “if your child was only offered one subject at school, you would worry about their academic development & the missed opportunity to learn new skills – so why is early specialisation in sport perceived as appropriate or acceptable?’

 

The long term athletic development guidelines produced & disseminated by the LTA encourages multi-sport participation until late adolescence to minimise the risk of social isolation, over-dependence, burnout & injury – while as a practitioner you may not be able to limit the total volume of tennis time your young players are exposed to, you should include (within your programme) or facilitate (external to your programme) a mixture of fundamental movement & general athletic skills and resist the temptation (and pressure) to reinforce specific sports skills at the earliest ages.

 

McCaw Method

 

For those of you who follow my Facebook page (please remember to like it!!) you may also want to check out McCaw Method. Alistair McCaw is a big fan of young athletes playing a range of sports until their early teens and supports his view with research into Olympic Sport athletes.

 

But what about the 10’000 hours?

 

How does this fit with 10,000 hours? (as that’s 3hrs/day from 8 to 18 years old to achieve pro status).  You can’t hope to get 3 hours done a day in a sport if you’re still playing 3 sports???

 

Or you could look at it as 10 years to break inside Top 100 from 14 to 24 years- as most players will not break the Top 100 until this age now. 

 

Are all the sports additive to the hours behind the expertise needed?  Can the ‘hours’ simply include any purposeful activity that is related to sport that will contribute towards expertise.  So for example, if I spent the whole day at an elite Tennis Academy for 9 hours my day could include:

 

• 3 hours in the class room
• 2 hours Tennis
• 1 hour Basketball
• 2 hours Strength & Conditioning
• 1 hour Mental Skills

 

Would only the two hours Tennis count towards my 10,000 Hours?  My view is that any deliberate and purposeful activity that is related to the dream goal of becoming a professional sportsman or woman is counted.  So all of the above in my book would count.  The trick is to know how much Tennis each individual needs to be able to achieve a basic level of competence so they can compete in the sport and get a bit of success. But you have to get the balance because although we all enjoy competition, I have previously talked about the presure that can quickly be created when you over emphasise the importance of winning!

 

At Gosling Tennis Academy, for example, APA are involved in talks with the Coaching and Sports Medicine staff to discuss (and refine) the optimum amount of Tennis that each full-time Academy player will play at any given time.  This will usually range from zero to four hours of Tennis per day.

 

Gary Lyons commented on this: The importance of desire to want it

 

“The desire to want to put those 10,000+ hours in is the fundamental “talent” in the first place. Again it’s what separates out those destined for amateur vs. professional status. You can’t make someone do 10,000+ hours, they have to be born (and yes nurtured by good coaches) with a burning pit of desire in their stomachs to succeed, to strive where others fall by the wayside. And then hope they have the right genetics and natural ability to complement their inherent drive. The stark reality is that 99.9% of junior tennis athletes will fall to the wayside given there are only around 1,000 pro tennis players globally coming out of 100,000s kids in advanced tennis programmes. Pro tennis needs rapid re-evaluation at Futures and Challengers to widen the base so more have the opportunity of becoming pro, and then being able to break even once they get there given only the top 200 are doing so presently.”

 

What’s my position on this?

 

Well firstly, I do buy into the concept of children having some natural ‘talent’ towards a given task.  Want proof? Check out these random clips of children doing what they do best.

 

Dancing

 

Martial Arts

 

Weight lifting

 

Note: there is also a lot of aspects where children model the behaviours of adults that I think can be potentially dangerous.

 

For example, I don’t agree with Deadlift meets done in this way.  I think some times the sports performance arena that the adults ‘perform in’ needs to be modified so the children can ‘play’ in it.  I would be emphasising (and rewarding) technique with young children over load lifted.

 

 

However, my point is that I think there are children who are just born with a DNA make up that makes them seem to:

 

a) have the potential to do something better than a lot of kids from the very beginning

 

b) learn something new at a faster rate

 

But I also believe in the importance of being in an environment that fully supports the enrichment of that talent. Parents are the biggest influencers as well as coaches. I dare say all those young children in the clips above have been copying parents and coaches from a young age.   A good book to read is the Gold Mine Effect.  It talks about how talent hot beds thrive in completely differently culturally influenced environments.  You have the Jamaican sprinter, Ethiopian endurance runners, Russian tennis players, Korean Golfers etc and each culture has a slightly different environment which inspires success after success.

 

 

The most important thing is to enjoy what you do

 

In a recent interview Roger Federer, winner of 17 Grand Slam Titles in Tennis (in case you have been living on another planet), talks about the role of parents.  He says how important is it to get the balance between being supportive and also making them feel the pressure that it is important they always give their best.  See the full article HERE.

 

I (Daz Drake) personally believe in the following:

 

The 10’000 hour rule is an average, not the norm.

 

Some people who are more ‘talented’ will get to expert or elite level sooner and/or will need less hours to get there.  For those people truly capable of being elite they will almost certainly be able to play multiple sports up until 14 and still make it in 1 sport when they are older.

 

The question I often ask myself is, is it because they played 2 or 3 different sports that they were then more able to succeed in 1 sport? Or is it simply that they are such supreme competitors (with exceptional athleticism and sport skills) that they could have got to the top regardless of what they did??

 

I personally feel that playing other sports is important for a variety of reasons.  I do believe that playing other sports can accelerate certain athletic skills to a higher level that perhaps another sport cannot.  For example, while Tennis is outstanding for developing multi-directional movement (agility), it won’t develop running technique anywhere near as good as going to your local track & field club.  It won’t develop foot eye coordination, like football would do, or ability to work as a team like in rugby.

 

I do believe that the wider and deeper someone’s movement vocabulary is the more easy it will be for the child to acquire the more specific advanced skills of a sport later down the track.

 

Most importantly to me, I know that muscle pattern overload/over use is extremely likely if you keep hammering away at the same movement patterns inherent in one sport, over and over again.  So even if I did believe that the key to getting great in one sport is to just play one sport (which I don’t), I would enforce that the athlete plays a few other sports, simply to work the muscles a little differently, and give the overworked ones a rest!

Talent Identification- Does it work?

 

Most businesses spend 2% of their time recruiting and 75% of their time managing their recruiting mistakes!  In sport we also have situations where we recruit our ‘crop of current top talent’ and invest money in them, when there may be other kids out there with more potential that we never saw because their current performance was not as high.

 

I could risk upsetting a lot of people here so I will simply ask you to watch a great illustrated talk by the author of the GoldMine Effect on Talent ID.  I agree with his views on the difference between Current Performance and Future Potential.  How to you find potential in something that looks ordinary AT THE MOMENT is the secret!!  That is why I really enjoy working with my partners at Gosling Tennis Academy because they always focus on helping their players realise their own potential and try their absolute best to make it possible for everyone to try and do that by removing as many barriers as they can.

 

1.  What you see is not always what you get!!!

 

2.  Never overrate certificates and underrate character

 

 

I hope you found this article useful and I’d love to hear your thoughts:

 

Remember:

 

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Want to stay Lean over Christmas??

 

As you may know this time of year is when APA are busy helping some of our Professional Tennis players prepare in their pre-season.

 

 

But equally it’s also a time where even athletes have a lot of temptations as we approach the festive period with lots of family gatherings and parties.   So it’s important they keep on top of their nutrition.   If you are an athlete in training over the Christmas period, or are a normal person just looking to watch what you eat over Christmas then this post is for you.

 

Be Strategic with your Starches:

 

I’ve previously talked about the APA principles of nutrition HERE known as the 6 Pillars of Nutrition which are based on the work of Dr. Mike Rousell.

 

A big part of having success in maintaining lean mass is related to your strategic use of starches and so paying close attention to how much, what type and when you have carbohydrates will be key this Christmas.

 

So how much Carbohydrate does the Government recommend?

These guidelines are based on Recommended Daily Allowances for a typical Adult male, advised to consume 2000 calories per day.

 

 In caloric terms 270g of Carbohydrate equates to 1080 calories, or over 50% of your energy needs

 

Fat: 70 grams = 630 calories 
Protein: 50 grams = 200 calories 
Carbohydrates: 270 grams = 1080 calories
Fibre: 24 grams = 48 calories

Total: 1,958 calories 

 

For an athletic population on a Training Day the RDA might look a little different:

 

It has previously been recommended to consume around 5g/kilogram of body mass of Carbohydrates during periods of high volume training.

 

Guideline Daily Amounts (GDA) for average athletic male adult (80kg male) 3000 kcal

Fat: 70 grams = 630 calories 
Protein: 160 grams = 640 calories 
Carbohydrates: 400 grams = 1600 calories
Fibre: 24 grams = 48 calories

Total: 2,918 calories

 

What do the Experts say?

 

These days experts are discouraging such large intakes of carbohydrates for athletic populations, with a bit more emphasis on a more balanced intake of protein and carbohydrates.  Athletes might have up to 300g protein and 300g carbohydrate per day.

 

Dr. Mike Rousell has recommended to have around 60-80g (up to 100g in large athletes) per Starch meal on training days. These meals will take place at breakfast, during workout shake, and in two meals following the workout.  So you’re looking at recommendations of about 240g-400g on training days depending on size of athlete.

 

On non-training days he advises a starch meal at breakfast (60-80g) and five further non starch meals at all other times (20g) so around 180g per day on non-training days.

 

He also advises around 50g of protein per meal, eaten at each of the 6 meals in the day.

 

But don’t just count calories!!!!

 

If you use Apps like My Fitness Pal to count how many calories you eat but you don’t pay attention to what type or when you eat them you’re missing a big piece of the puzzle.  For a great blog on why ‘A Calorie is Not A Calorie’ click the link.  This blog talks about calorie counting but also when to have Carbohydrates.

 

What type of Carbohydrates are best?

 

There are two main types of Carbohydrates:

 

1. Whole grains (starches): also know as ‘complex carbohydrates:’

 

Include foods such as porridge oats, wheat based cereals, rice, pasta and potatoes and can be consumed when the demand for energy from the body is high.  They release their energy more slowly.

 

Whole grain

-A whole grain is a cereal grain that contains the germ, endosperm, and bran, in contrast to refined grains, which retain only the endosperm.(Wikipedia).  

 

Vegetables– are also a form of complex carbohydrates but can be eaten in abundance because they contain only around 26 calories/100g so should be eaten at lunch and dinner!

 

2. Simple carbohydrates: 

 

–Simple carbohydrates are sugars. All simple carbohydrates are made of just one or two sugar molecules. They are the quickest source of energy, as they are very rapidly digested.  Think sports drinks, confectionery, cereal bars, and fruit.

 

Fruit– is technically a simple carbohydrate — but it also contains fibre, vitamins and antioxidants. The fibre in fruit helps slow the digestion of carbs, which is why your blood sugar doesn’t spike as much after eating fibre-filled fruit like it does when you gulp down a fizzy drink or a chocolate bar.

 

As you will see below you can eat all of the different types of carbohydrates but it’s about eating them at the right time!

 

When should you eat Carbohydrates?

 

Most experts now agree that nutrient timing places a big role in weight management.  It is generally agreed that the best time to eat carbohydrates is:

 

1.  Breakfast- complex (60-80g)  

2.  Snacks- simple (fruit)  

3.  Workout-simple (50g workout shake)  

4.  Post-workout Meal-simple (within 30 minutes) and complex (60-80g within 2 hours)  

 

Training days:

 

So on training days you will have complex carbohydrates at breakfast and in one or two meals following your workout.

 

Non-training days:

 

On non-training days you just have complex carbohydrates for breakfast!!

The rest of the day can be fruit for a snack and vegetables at lunch and dinner!!

 

 

The key take away message is to make sure you are strict with your intake of complex carbohydrates and simple sugars on non-training days!!!!!  It really is the key to stay lean over Christmas.  If you want to pig out a bit more on Carbohydrates then make sure you do some training before your Christmas dinner.

  

Want to lose body fat???

 

 

If you want to see how I did this when I lost 9% body fat check out the 3 month  Fat loss training programme HERE,  HERE and HERE

 

A big part of my own success in stripping body fat was related to my strategic use of starches.  This is a more extreme version of carbohydrate manipulation but the principles are the same.  The only difference here was I made a decision to remove complex carbohydrates completely on training days for the first two weeks.  This is not advised for athletes who need to complete high training volumes and high intensity exercise.    But it can be applied at specific times when fat loss reduction is required.

  

Good luck with your eating over Christmas!

Dear Coach,

 

if your life is anything like mine you probably can’t believe it’s officially December next Monday!  Well with so much going on you probably haven’t realised there are only two weeks left to get the Level 2 1st4sport Certificate in Strength & Conditioning Early Bird Price.

 

Click HERE to get the EARLY BIRD Price

 

10/11 JANUARY and 21/22 FEBRUARY 2015 at Gosling Sports Park 9am-5pm

COST: £370 BEFORE 12TH DECEMBER 2014

£470 THEREAFTER

 

Here are my top 4 reasons for doing this qualification:

 

1.  It’s unbelievable value- £370 for a Level 2 Qualification is one of the best value qualifications on the market!

 

2.  You get 16 CPD points from the Register of Exercise Professionals (REPS)

 

 

2.  Unlike some qualifications, you don’t need to do a Level 1 first!

 

3.  You are qualified in 4 days of intensive training, plus 4 weeks of coaching in your work place.

 

And what is more, if you’re having trouble getting 4 weeks of coaching done, I’ll even offer to let you do it under my supervision at my own work place!

 

Bottom line is that if you’re looking to get into the industry, then this qualification will enable you to gain the skills you will need to be able to deliver S&C programmes, and hopefully get that job you’ve dreamed of.  The Level 2 qualification is ideal for coaches looking to gain the skills and experience to  assist the Lead coach in professional organisations.

 

So what are you waiting for? Book now and kick start your Strength & Conditioning Career.

If you haven’t read the first blog post then read it HERE.   For this final instalment I want to talk about two further points:

• Observing performance
• Giving and receiving feedback

 

These two points are actually secondary for me when I’m interviewing a prospective coach because I believe that the passion to inspire an athlete by creating a great training environment is what I look for first.  The technical knowledge to know what to observe and give feedback on is something I feel I can teach more easily.  But if you can do both then even better!

 

Observing Performance

 

A big part of your role as a coach is to observe performance.  You observe the athlete’s performance and evaluate it.  First and foremost you have to set up a great training environment to ensure that the athlete is giving you an account of their best effort. If you have failed in achieving the first task then there is no point observing something where the athlete is not trying.

 

So observation has to be an integrated approach starting with mental effort (i.e., their mindset to give 100%).

 

A good checklist to apply is observe performance and provide feedback in the following order: Drill, then Will, then Skill

 

Drill– are they doing the drill the correct way? So are they using the correct equipment, are they following the instructions?

 

Will– overall does it look like there is Mental & physical hard and smart (engaged) work taking place?

 

Skill– are they using the correct techniques to get the outcome?

 

This process applies for all athletes.  But we do need to consider the different needs of different levels of athletes.

 

Observing Advanced Athletes: the mouse in the room

 

Have a look at my previous blog where we observed and analysed the Snatch Balance (aka Drop Snatch) below:

 

 

Now clearly in this type of setting you need to know your stuff.  The athlete is highly motivated and the Drill and Will is being observed properly. You need to have a good level of technical knowledge and you need to know what the fault is that is creating the failed lift when you are observing performance.  The slight heel lift of the left foot is the ‘mouse in the room.’  It’s a small fault but it makes a big difference to an elite athlete’s performance.  This heel lift is the skill that needs to be addressed.

 

Observing Novice Athletes: the elephant in the room

 

Again observation skills are really crucial here as there are some much more obvious dysfunctional motor patterns that can be observed here that require feedback.  With novice athletes there may be several things you have observed that you want to give feedback on.  In a previous blog I talked about how novices provide inherent variability in their performance (which creates a great learning environment).  So the tendency might be to try and correct all the movements by raising their awareness to all of them.  But another approach suggests we should keep them focused on the task outcome and limit how much feedback we give them.

 

So how much feedback should we give?

 

Forgive me for going off on a tangent but I have recently been inspired by the views of a pragmatic educationalist called Sir Ken Robinson.  For me I see a lot of parallels with coaching and teaching, and it’s in the way we teach (and give feedback) that we can really make an impact on the athlete we are working with.

 

 

This lecture is in the context of education and children but I think it applies to any learning.  If you don’t want to watch the whole lecture, the key point he makes is that ”children are learning organisms.  Children don’t need to be helped to learn for the most part.  They are born with a vast veracious appetite for learning.  Children just pick things up.  Of course you nudge them, you correct them, you encourage them. Children’s appetite only starts to dissipate them when you educate them and force feed them information.  Children learn any way.  But the conceit of education is that we can help them learn it better than if they were otherwise left to their own devices.(if we do it the right way)”

 

He talked about the flipped classroom approach: where you don’t teach them everything.  You get them actively involved in teaching themselves and teaching each other.

 

Ives & Shelley talk about the need to develop a ‘non-awareness’ strategy, which relates to the same idea of letting the child take control of their own learning through discovery learning.

 

So what is Discovery Learning?

 

In summary we can view the role of the coach as guiding the athlete to optimal performance through giving them a clear instruction on the intent we are looking for, and a few attentional cues BUT letting them solve the movement problem!

Now this may be quite a lot of information to digest.  This is specifically focused on skill related feedback.  On a more global sense I have found the check list below very useful when considering the relevance of any feedback I want to give.

 

Coaching Skills – Feedback	Observations
Coach to provide BESST feedback
Black and white
Simple and clear, success-failure boundary, giving a sense of urgency as it is or it isn’t.   The task and its processes offer ‘No wriggle room’.
Effort emphasized
Effort emphasised e.g. “Well done. You worked hard for that.”   The simple message to be reinforced through feedback is effort grows talent
Specific
Not ‘Great point!’ but ‘Great determination to get behind the ball.’
Solution-focused
Praise = ‘Well done, you kept your hand in front which helped you to …”   Encouragement = “Just keep your hand in front.”
Theirs!
Encourage the learner to give and ask for feedback

 

I hoped you found this blog interesting and will challenge your thinking the next time you are about to observe performance in one of your athletes!

 

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