The pre-conference workshop was 5:15 on Thursday and I made sure I left about an hour ahead to beat Boston traffic into Northeastern. Art has hosted the BSMPG for years and is having pre conference workshops to stimulate learning and allow great people to network. The main interest I have is seeing the cross-fertilization of ideas from different people. If we have the same cult year after year we inbreed. We need fresh ideas, even if we don't agree with the speaker. I find the best speakers share areas that I don't have experience with and while they may have different conclusions or methods, it makes me think about what areas can be explored.

Three speakers spoke last night, they were Dr. Marchese, who has his own clinic up in Woburn. Fergus Connolly, a high performance advisor out of Ireland, and Val Nasedkin from Omegawave. Each session was under a half hour or so and this was not easy to do.

Dr. Marchese- The dirty secret is that when an athlete isn't getting better in the ...Keep Reading

Yesterday afternoon I was in Hasely Crawford Stadium in Port of Spain Trinidad watching over three hundred track & field athletes of all ages train but I could have just as well been in London, Brisbane or back home in Sarasota. What I saw was a bunch of drills and exercises; it was obvious in most cases the drills were just imitations of what someone had seen on YouTube or learned at a workshop. Drills and exercises without purpose and context are nothing more than busy work, just stuff. If you use drills know the purpose of the drill. Know why you are using the drill or exercise at this time with these athletes. Just doing work and getting tired is not training. There must be a purpose and direction to everything you do to prepare the athlete for the demands of competition. Drills often get the athlete better at the drill and do not transfer to the actual event. I have learned over the years that less is more. Fewer drills and exercises done with a specific purpose that the ...Keep Reading

Last weekend my track and field team brought home their 6th district plaque in 7 years. Obviously, this is a difficult task to accomplish and I couldn’t be more proud of this group. The weather has been horrible all spring with wind, rain, and lots of snow. In addition we lost a couple of our best distance runners this year/last year due to relocation out of town. Outside of track my family has been dealing with a medical crises that has tested my faith and resolve on a daily basis. A younger version of myself would have probably folded up the tents. However, we stayed the course as a program and the team has ended the season on a high note finishing second at conference and districts. I am proud of this group because they have worked hard all year by battled along side of me day in and out. The captains have been strong and my assistant coaches have been even stronger.

In difficult years strong assistant coaches are a must. They can help you play good cop bad cop with the kids. ...Keep Reading

Mike Young did a great interview with Andreas a while ago, and I wanted to get more into detail about why I believe Andreas will be one of the new blood that will trickle down to new coaches. He is perhaps one of the most generous coaches in sharing, and he deserves all the accolades he gets now. He has paid his dues and I am one of his fans. I looked at some of the questions and can only comment on areas I see that have clear causation and wanted to expand on some of the information that I think all of us can learn from. This post is a combination of having lunch and learning, and a few follow up emails and phone calls. Much of what I have learned from coaches like Dan and Vince has resonated differently but some of it is right on.

"an aggressive takeoff angle, closing down into and over the hurdle as well as continuously moving his limbs over the top of the hurdle."

So what is an aggressive take off angle? I think the word choice is perfect. At first people want a number and that ...Keep Reading

Numbers are not good or evil, they simply are hosts to context. A lot of hype and commercialism now with technology and training with people monitoring and looking at player tracking data. When I was young I got a magic set when I was young and being a product of the 1980s, I thought I was going to be the next David Copperfield. I am a fan of magic still, and love seeing street magic in New York, but it's not that the hand is quicker than the eye, it's usually the art of deception is the art of misdirection. Cleaning 120 kilos is good, but if it looks dangerous and your vertical is still sub 30, perhaps the context needs to be reviewed a bit. The reason I am a fan of video analysis, is that we can see the truth behind the numbers. A raw 40 yard dash running 4.4 in the middle of training is far more impressive than the 4.39 that is after weeks of test preparation. A 37 inch vertical in the middle of a football season with huge practice loads is far more impressive than the youtube ...Keep Reading

Just getting in hours will not do it. Anyone can go through the motions, huff and puff and look like they are working. Just doing work is not good enough; you must train with ICE – Intensity, Concentration, Effort. If you consistently achieve a high ice score eight to ten on a ten-point scale. A score of ten being frigid, ice cold then you will the workout. If you can consistently win workouts then you give yourself a chance to perform in competition, remember there are no guarantees. Champions are champions everyday, when there are no crowds, no coaches, and no teammates, just you against the clock or the weight. It is all about the will to prepare.

Jacques Piasenta helped develop world class athletes in France for decades, and his Physical Education background is a huge component of that. Lately we are seeing a lot of powerpoint slides of gurus talking about talking. Cues, magic words, internal and external influences? Don't believe the hype. Instead of listening to people who are filtering their impression of coaching, listen to those that develop athletes and a good foundation is physical education. Not health education, but getting children to be more educated, not just having them move better with a few drills or skills. When I was in college I went the more adult side with the department of physical education, exercise, and wellness. I was slightly jealous of those on the physical education side because they were getting to work with kids and getting experience I thought was foundational. When getting education, choose wisely and leave the magic word people for others.