Remember above all else talent willprevail. The cornerstone of a great program is a system of talentidentification and acquisition. In the American non system it isrecruiting. Now you got them what do you do? Some people are smartenough to leave them alone and let the talent rise to the top, this isvery Darwinian and is typically in sports like professional baseball.The scary part is that sometimes the athletes are so talented that nomatter what you they will prevail. I went to a presentation at ASCAfrom the coach of an American record holding sprint swimmer that blewme away. The weight training program was right out of the 1970?s, abody building program that Arnold would have been proud of, the swimprogram in the water training was more like what you would do with anopen water swimmer. Truly amazing, but I see this all the time. Surethere are many roads to Rome,some are more direct and some more circuitous. The scary part is thatit is 2007, we do know better. There are scientific principles that arenot refutable, there is also good practice. Neither can be ignored. Iam amazed that people lose games because their players get slower andhurt, but there is never a connection made to training. It isparticularly ironic that many of these people preach that they do notwant to do anything in training that might cause the athletes to gethurt. They never sensitize them in practice to the demands of the sportand expect something miraculous to happen on Saturday or Sunday. Let?sget real and pragmatic and take a educated proactive approach totraining the athletes we work with. Everyone can get better if aided bya systematic sequential and progressive training program.
