It’s about that time again when athletes are near a peak in Track and Field. Ideally the hard work in GPP is rewarded with higher views on the podium and records being rewritten. More than ever I am seeing problems with athletes in taper because the GPP was spoiled by long times off for vacation (Daniel Andrews), inconsistent training because of extracurricular activities, and bad lifestyles. You
All that Glitters
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I like your idea of a “regeneration pyramid.” I never looked at it this way but man does it make sense.
I dislike your idea of one sport, one art, one free choice. It feels a little too….dictatorish.
My favorite way of explaining it to recruits and athletes is this…
College is full of choices. Unlike when you lived at home YOU now get to make all the decisions. Each of these choices you will face in you daily life as a student/athlete can be lumped into 4 categories (Sport, Family, School, Social). You can only be GREAT at 3 of them. If you try to be GREAT at all of them, you will be POOR at all of them.
Choose wisely because your ability to reach your true potential rests in the balance.
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People are more than welcome to change the sport, art, and free choice but don’t ask me to to get you under 12 seconds (HS female) in the 100m when you are banged up from club soccer and on fumes because you sing in the school chorus and take latin while trying to earn a black belt.
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I also think the twenty four hour schedule is a little harsh, maybe a good guideline, but I see people make out a schedule of what they are going to do from x a.m. until x a.m. and it lasts about a week then they go nuts. You said that humans are an organism, like plants in a garden. Organisms grow and adapt better when they are put into situations that they are not adapted to. I think a continuous monotonous schedule would cause a person to become stale and bored, variety is the spice of life, and without a day or two when a person can go out with friends or go be alone in a place with “negative ions” to refresh and recover themselves I think that you are doomed to failure. We are not robots, we are humans.
Other than that I agree entirely on the get better over the summer, and the regen lab is a really cool idea.
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People are more than welcome to change the sport, art, and free choice but don’t ask me to to get you under 12 seconds (HS female) in the 100m when you are banged up from club soccer and on fumes because you sing in the school chorus and take latin while trying to earn a black belt.
*Ahem*
PWNAGE to the latin speaking vocally talented soccer players out there!!!!
Ha, sorry just suffering from a dull conference taper week, haha.
All in all great post Carl. It all goes back to the question, “how good do you really want to be?”
My immediate follow up to that question without waiting for a response is this:
“I’m not interested the answer to that question right now. What ever response you give me, it will not hold an ounce of weight to the answer you give me when you return to campus in September. So how bad to you want it? Show me in September when you face the gauntlet (staple of the first day of preseason for me) on day 1, show me during Saturday morning stadium sessions that will reflect how much sleep you’ve gotten on a Friday night, show me by the amount of hours you register in study table, show me by how tedious you are with your pre and post practice routines, but more than anything, actually show YOURSELF how good you want to be…”
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KeymasterI follow a similar philosophy. I ask my athletes to commit to excellence in something. If they can’t or don’t want to do it in track then I encourage them to pursue other options and let them know that being mediocre in 10 things will never be as satisfying as being excellent (could be personal excellence) in 1-2 things.
ELITETRACK Founder
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Just a quick post with a couple of points, because that’s all I have time for.
First, I’ll take my approach any time because I just believe I am better or will become better. No offense intended its called competitive drive. I don’t think there is a single person that can do anything better than I can and it doesn’t matter the number of tasks. This is the expectation I lay out there for my athletes as well. Having the desire and will to be better than anyone else is probably the most important attribute to becoming highly successful whether you are capable or ultimately doesn’t matter as will and desire can overcome laziness and stupidity.
Second, There is no need for such specialization this is what is being misinterpreted by gurus and clubs. The need to do only one sport, and do it from childhood.
Third, This relates to cccp21 (Brandon’s) post, the soviet union did not specialize athletes in the way many people perceive as they were introduced into institutes of sport for school where they received a whole lot general training in relation to their latter specialization. The current framework we are looking at is an East German approach minus the PEDs being spoon fed in early childhood.
Fourth, I have planned around vacations as long as two weeks without much problem. If you aren’t adapting, you aren’t trying and that’s my opinion.
Fifth, Any system or process will get stuck in local optima if it cannot adapt and change state.
Lastly, I am not trying to harsh or mean or demeaning to anyone. I am outlining my philosophy and how it works. I have an athlete who went to college under a member of this forum who I will not name since they read more than they write. I also like the coaching staff as much as I like the athlete. This athlete hasn’t come close to the same numbers she achieved in HS under me and I think coaching staff is qualified because they have done well with other athletes and I don’t think everything is fault of the athlete who trained under me. I came to the realization the athlete and the coaching staff together are not a good fit.
BTW this athlete did club volleyball 3-4 nights a week for 75% of my season and I never had injury or problems with her being spent at meets, because she told what she was doing in VB ball practice and I monitored like any other athlete. She still had similar volumes throughout the season as other athletes. Not to mention she ended up being our MVP and top scoring athlete although she never broke 14s in 100m or 28.5s in 200m in her sophomore year, but ran sub 12.9s and 26.3s as a junior and senior. BTW, she still had Band and Choir obligations as well. If anything suffered it was her ACT which she scored a 26 on.
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What did she end up going her senior year in the 100m and 200m? We must see an improvement beyond the norm to consider this a good example.
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If you ever watch the show 24′ on FOX network you know the character Jack Bauer. This man is trying to save the world and rid us of all that is evil and untrue. The one thing you never see Jack Bauer do in the 24hr time fame is poop, pee, eat or hydrate. My point is as stated in the article, humans are not robots nor TV daytime reality characters. The 24hr pyramid – 8 hours of sleep, 6 hours of school, 4 hours of study, 3 hours of sport, one hour social. A bit rigid with all that is going on in middle to late adolescence’s with family, holidays and part time jobs with “significant other”. Their needs and desires are for independence and personal responsibilities with parents, teachers, coaches and bosses. It’s a growth and development stage, each athlete is unique and each athlete will mature at different rates. There is no such thing as a fixed recipe for victory and as a coach I will not allow success or failure to drive me and my athletes’ to an ingrained or unaltered fixed mindset. If you believe in them and teach them hard work, smart work and discipline they will want to do the “right thing” for you, their teammates and most important themselves.
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Carl let me restate, I need to clarify her junior year of 13.3s and 26.9s. It’s hard to find improvement in females beyond their sophomore years when they are near full maturity. the best part is the other females improved at nearly the same rate.
I expect excellence because I expect them to improve themselves in everything that matters to them, not what matters to me.
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I follow a similar philosophy. I ask my athletes to commit to excellence in something. If they can’t or don’t want to do it in track then I encourage them to pursue other options and let them know that being mediocre in 10 things will never be as satisfying as being excellent (could be personal excellence) in 1-2 things.
Where is your decathlon mentality Mike? Be good in 10 things and great in at least two!
I like this blog… only thing I can understand is not coming back leaner and in great shape after the summer. Sometimes you gotta take a little time off and avoid that burn out that college seasons give you, but I guess your right because after a 3 weeks in the summer if I don’t start training hard I will freak out because I want to get better.
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Just a quick post with a couple of points, because that’s all I have time for.
First, I’ll take my approach any time because I just believe I am better or will become better. No offense intended its called competitive drive. I don’t think there is a single person that can do anything better than I can and it doesn’t matter the number of tasks. This is the expectation I lay out there for my athletes as well. Having the desire and will to be better than anyone else is probably the most important attribute to becoming highly successful whether you are capable or ultimately doesn’t matter as will and desire can overcome laziness and stupidity.
Second, There is no need for such specialization this is what is being misinterpreted by gurus and clubs. The need to do only one sport, and do it from childhood.
Third, This relates to cccp21 (Brandon’s) post, the soviet union did not specialize athletes in the way many people perceive as they were introduced into institutes of sport for school where they received a whole lot general training in relation to their latter specialization. The current framework we are looking at is an East German approach minus the PEDs being spoon fed in early childhood.
Fourth, I have planned around vacations as long as two weeks without much problem. If you aren’t adapting, you aren’t trying and that’s my opinion.
Fifth, Any system or process will get stuck in local optima if it cannot adapt and change state.
Lastly, I am not trying to harsh or mean or demeaning to anyone. I am outlining my philosophy and how it works. I have an athlete who went to college under a member of this forum who I will not name since they read more than they write. I also like the coaching staff as much as I like the athlete. This athlete hasn’t come close to the same numbers she achieved in HS under me and I think coaching staff is qualified because they have done well with other athletes and I don’t think everything is fault of the athlete who trained under me. I came to the realization the athlete and the coaching staff together are not a good fit.
BTW this athlete did club volleyball 3-4 nights a week for 75% of my season and I never had injury or problems with her being spent at meets, because she told what she was doing in VB ball practice and I monitored like any other athlete. She still had similar volumes throughout the season as other athletes. Not to mention she ended up being our MVP and top scoring athlete although she never broke 14s in 100m or 28.5s in 200m in her sophomore year, but ran sub 12.9s and 26.3s as a junior and senior. BTW, she still had Band and Choir obligations as well. If anything suffered it was her ACT which she scored a 26 on.
*********** Hello,
From what i was told basically the Soviets had children trained from childhood(more or less) in Gpp(SPECIFIC gpp). As they made the “cut” they incresily trained “specifically”.
Brandon Green -
Participant
*********** Hello,
From what i was told basically the Soviets had children trained from childhood(more or less) in Gpp(SPECIFIC gpp). As they made the “cut” they incresily trained “specifically”.
Brandon GreenI wouldn’t call anything I know of soviet training models specific gpp. The soviets had a better grasp of maturity and moving athletes from programs they previously seemed suited for to a different one.
What you are saying seems to be following the same lines of Dr. Yessis’s interpretations of scientists which differ from those of Grigori Raiport and athletes in the soviet model such as Bubka.
It is also more inline the East German model which was different from the Soviet model with a heck of a lot more doping in the East German models.
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[quote author="cccp21" date="1241230367"]
*********** Hello,From what i was told basically the Soviets had children trained from childhood(more or less) in Gpp(SPECIFIC gpp). As they made the “cut” they increasingly trained “specifically”.
Brandon GreenI wouldn’t call anything I know of soviet training models specific gpp. The soviets had a better grasp of maturity and moving athletes from programs they previously seemed suited for to a different one.
What you are saying seems to be following the same lines of Dr. Yessis’s interpretations of scientists which differ from those of Grigori Raiport and athletes in the soviet model such as Bubka.
It is also more inline the East German model which was different from the Soviet model with a heck of a lot more doping in the East German models.[/quote]
********** Hello,
Grigori Raiport(from the only book of his i read “Red Gold”)was a “sport psychologist”.
From what i understand he had another book out which i would like have gotten hold of.
Perhaps the information therein is the one to which you are referring. I was a client of Dr. Yessis in the 80’s and i get some of my perspective from him. Some is from Jay Schroeder which is a completely different paradigm. The same with Andrew Charniga.
Ben Tabachnick had a story to tell as well.Ben did tell me the East Germans were in general much more heavily “doped” than the Soviets at all levels.The “specific” Gpp to which i mention is the one that Ben refered to in his book that was co-written with Rick Brunner. Basically that the “Gpp” programs were becoming more individually and sport specific as time wore on.
Brandon Green -
Participant
Carl let me restate, I need to clarify her junior year of 13.3s and 26.9s. It’s hard to find improvement in females beyond their sophomore years when they are near full maturity. the best part is the other females improved at nearly the same rate.
I expect excellence because I expect them to improve themselves in everything that matters to them, not what matters to me.
“It’s hard to find improvement in females beyond their sophomore years…” Huh???
Maybe we should change that to:
“Many high school girls fail to reach their ultimate potential because the science teacher / track coach has limited abilities.”
I just watched a family friend’s daughter display great potential as a freshman three years ago only to go nowhere from there. Why? Her coach sucks.
What might your athlete have run if she had less on her plate? Unfortunately, we’ll never know.
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