TCBOOST SPEED MYTH #1

IF YOU WANT TO GET FASTER IN YOUR SPORT, THEN YOU JUST NEED TO GET STRONGER AND MORE POWERFUL AND IT WILL TAKE CARE OF ITSELF.

It is unbelievable to me that we continue to come across collegiate and professional athletes who have never trained for speed.  They may have done agility ladder work, sled sprints, hill sprints, parachute sprints, you name it, but they have never truly trained in a way that will significantly improve their measurable sport specific speed of movement.

I believe the sport and coaching community has made a very unfortunate assumption in working with athletes from youth through professional.  That assumption is that the athletes they are coaching understand and know how to properly move on the field.  That they know what the acceleration phase should feel like, how to execute a great first step, how to decelerate, change direction, transition into the top speed phase, even how to jump and land.  It is as if we assume that these are core competencies everyone has and we just tell them to go sprint around this cone, run across the field and back, do some suicides and then we focus on the skill of the given sport. 

The truth is that sprinting, cutting, multi-directional movement and jumping are all skills that need to be taught.  We start teaching 6 year olds how to dribble a soccer ball and hit a baseball without every teaching them how to run?  The thing that amazes me is that most of the time they are never taught.  They go from grade school, to junior high, to high school, and possibly to college and beyond without ever being taught how to execute the skill of acceleration, the skill of top speed, the skill of deceleration, the skill of cutting. 

We have had amazing results with our athletes by teaching them the skill of movement through progressive drills, film analysis, whiteboard diagramming, potentiation work, and proper coaching cues paired with the development of high levels of absolute strength, power and speed-strength.  

Achieving Your Goals- Part 2

Continued from Part 1 - 

Often goals stop at just writing down the goal. Here is the trap a lot of my personal training clients fall into. I want to lose 20 lbs. in 4 months, now what? In order to succeed, there needs to be a plan in order; a step by step how-to. What do I need to do to make this happen? What must I NOT do in order for this to happen? Who in my life can I trust to help me and who is NOT going to aide me? The book Bring Your “A” Game does a great job of illustrating the proper way to outline a goal, as well as improving self talk and controlling controllables. Here is general outline I walk through with my clients when discussing goals prior to training. For each goal, identify positive and negative actions that will influence the outcome.

Ex. Goal: Make the high school basketball team

Why do I want to achieve this goal? I love playing basketball

When am I starting this goal? May 6th

When do I need to reach this goal? Tryouts are Nov. 1^st

What actions will positively affect this goal?

1.     Take 500 shots a day

2.     Work on my ball handling everyday

3.     Improve my conditioning level

What actions will negatively affect this goal?

1.     Becoming academically ineligible

2.     Breaking the schools code of conduct

3.     Choosing to hang out with my friends before homework and practice

Who can help me achieve my goal and how?

1.     My coach can help me with my skill work

2.     My teammate Tom will help me practice.

3.     My Teacher will help me with tutoring so I can stay eligible to play.

Who is NOT going to help me and why?

1.     Some of my friends who only want to party

Be as specific with the list as possible. Refer back to the list often, especially when the journey becomes a struggle. Focus on the controllables during times of adversity. When I was a junior in high school, I had a coach tell me to think about all of my athletic goals right before I did my hardest sets in the weight room. Right when you think you have nothing left, think about where you want to get and what it is going to take to get there. I no longer train thinking about playing varsity basketball, but I still visualize where I want to be and what I need to do to get there. Instead of being inside a hot gym in the middle of summer, I’m visualizing in my car at 5 am before I coach my first group and I know I won’t be done until 7:30pm. While this article is not the end all on goal setting, use it to reevaluate your own goals, find someone to support you, and create a complete commitment to succeeding.

Achieving Your Goals - Part 1

"Goals determine what you're going to be." - Julius Erving

Goal setting is something that has been written about extensively. The accepted acronym is SMART.

Specific: Goals should be simplistically written and clearly define what you are going to do.

Measureable: Goals should be measurable so that you have tangible evidence that you have accomplished the goal.

Achievable: Goals should be achievable; they should stretch you slightly so you feel challenged, but defined well enough so that you can achieve them.

Results- focused: Goals should measure outcomes, not activities.

Time-bound: Goals should be linked to a timeframe that creates a practical sense of urgency, or results in tension between the current reality and the vision of the goal.

I have heard this phrase from high school teachers, college professors, coaches, and all the way to current day employers. Professional athletes refer to goals in interviews all season long. Successful entrepreneurs reference goal setting as a way to increase motivation.

Ray Silverstein from entrepenuer.com writes, “Make sure your goals are concrete, concise and attainable. Instead of, “I want to make a lot more money this year,” specify “I want to increase my revenues by X percent (a realistic amount) by the end of the year.””

Making a goal and having the ability to reach that goal are two separate things. There must be an absolute commitment to the goal in order to achieve it. In an article titled Motivation Through Conscious Goal Setting, Edwin Locke finds “High commitment to goals is attained when a) the individual is convinced that the goal is important; and b) the individual is convinced that the goal is attainable (or that, at least, progress can be made toward it).” In team settings the goal is often a championship. For young athletes, the end goal might be to play professionally or earn a Division I scholarship. In order to properly goal set, there should smaller obtainable goals, or steps, along the way: win the first game of the season, make the 7^th grade team, win the conference, be a starter, etc. These can all be steps on the journey to that end goal.