Rules to coach by

there are two types of coaches 1) Those who are teaching and want you to know what they know; 2) Those who stand up and want you to be impressed by what they know*  caution, beware of both. We should listen to the experts but always trust our own instincts as a coach an athlete and parent. The litmus test is to understand which coaches truly believe in what they are saying and which ones are trying to sell a program, or system . We need to be critical coaches  regarding everything Human Performance and we should focus on the differences not the one size fits all model.

It is a fact that every athlete is the sum total of what has and has not  happened to him or her in their life, we are the sum total of what we have done and have not done in our life, with that in mind when a team of 21 hockey players or a team of 40 rowers come together to achieve a common goal, coaches need to focus on how each athlete will express and respond to the world and their current environment in different ways (climate, food, rest, stress, nature, medications, training or lack of training etc)

Physical Viability “we become the athlete we train to be” This is the ability to survive and thrive or crash and burn the ability to be adaptable or become adapted in routine.  Teach athletes to become adaptable rather than adapted could be the difference between being injured or surviving to play another day.

Athlete Appropriate before “Sports-Specific”. This rule focuses on age, training and derivatives. As parents and coaches we should focus on taking care of the person in front of us rather than trying to match the athlete to the sport. We need to watch out for the marketing science and buzz words “Train like the Pros” or gravitate towards programs that list off professional athletes as members.  Fact, “don’t worry about training like the pros until you are one”, basically what kids are doing is making sense of the world in which we give them. It is important that kids are exposed to many different activities, music, dance sports, art…. Training Derivatives focus on Competition (absolute specificity, playing the sport) Specific Training (close to the sport(s) as possible) Special (one sport focus *not for the youth) and General Movement Training (run, jump, throw, balance…) Our job as teaches, coaches and parents is about guiding the athlete in training and learning. Some parts of learning are not always easy or fun for kids but are essential in the learning process. As we progress and look at the professional athlete as a model we must understand it’s all about entertainment, money and winning and for the individual professional athlete it’s about survival. The pro athlete can be replaced at anytime and when that happens they are out of a job. Rule.  Athletic Balance, focuses on gravity and movement, force production, balance and force reduction and how most injuries happen when we are reducing force. The pearl with rule #4  is what athletic balance should look like. Athletic Balance is dynamic, reactive, responsive, explosive, athletic balance is cooperative, adaptive, trainable and rarely if ever about rooting to a single static spot. References Bruce Lee “One should seek good balance in movement and not stillness”

Rule 5 More movement training and less isolated muscle training. As athletes we should spend most of our time training movements not muscles with the respect to improving performance. If the baseball pitcher wants to be a better thrower then he should throw, hockey players that are weak skaters should ice skate. Training movements not muscles gives the athlete the ability to improve the mechanics of their respected sport(s) train movements not muscles for consistence athletic performance.