Tim wrote to me in response to yesterdays post: “Vern do you subscribe to the theory that you coach all athletes the same. I recently attended a one day learning seminar with some highly sought after coaches and they were preaching, it doesn’t matter if you have a soccer athlete, baseball, hockey and a football athlete all in the same group you just train them, a push is a push a pull is a pull a jump is a jump…” I absolutely and positively disagree. That might work when you are running a commercial training center and you have to put a bunch of different athletes together to make it profitable, but that is not coaching, that is CROWD CONTROL. Each sport has unique demands, each position in the sport has specific demands, each individual brings something different to the sport and you also need to address injury prevention. In strength training I do pulling movements, pushing movements, squatting movements and rotational movements with every sport. The mode and method varies from sport to sport and individual. For example now with my volleyball team we have 12 players starting to squat with a bar (Well into the third year of training), but they are not all going the same depth. Four athletes are using the Hexlite Bar for their leg work, because I do not want to load their spine. Some of the freshmen are using sandbags and some are using bodyweight. Yes it is confusing, but to me that is coaching. It is not confusing to them, because each day the goal and objective is communicated to each athlete verbally and in writing. It would be too easy to fit everyone into the same box and let the survivors prevail. I want all the athletes I work with to get the best from me and to thrive not survive.
