There was a lot of positive feedback from our previous post on the differences between coaching vs. training.  Thank you for that!  Then, a couple of weeks later, I came across a post by one the best coaches around, Martin Rooney, and he had some great insight and comparisons.  Here is his take….

 

After spending time in Germany, I discovered the Germans don’t even have a word for “coach” in their vocabulary.  The word “trainer” is broadly used and can be interpreted a number of different ways.  This fact reminded me even though the word coach does exist in English, it is misunderstood and poorly defined.

When I asked people what the term “coach” meant to them, I was surprised to receive a bunch of negative interpretations.  In sport, “coach” can conjure up an aggressive Little League dad yelling at an umpire while only concerning himself about his own kid or getting a win.  When applied to business or life, I was told the word “coach” can represent a person that attended to a weekend course in order to get paid to help others, but can’t seem to help themselves.  And in relation to the gym, some people imagined the drill sergeant using pushups to punish a client for a poor performance.  These viewpoints troubled me about the use of the word “coach”.

According to the dictionary, the word “coach” is defined as either “separate parts of a train or horse-drawn carriage,” or “a person who is responsible for managing or training a person or team.” This definition is grossly inadequate. Being called a coach is one of the most honorable and respectful titles you can be given.  Until there is a better appreciation and understanding for the term; however, there will be no reason for current coaches to change current beliefs or seek out new skills.

Since negative connotations abound and coaching is a difficult concept to define in a sentence or two, I wanted to compare it with training to help you to understand my personal definition about coaching.  As you will see, training and coaching are related, but they are not the same thing. Here are 12 comparisons to help illustrate the potential difference between a trainer and a coach:

A Trainer Lights a fire under someone.
A Coach Lights A Fire Inside Of Someone.

A Trainer affects the hour they are with someone.
A Coach affects the hours they are not with someone.

A Trainer Hopes To Get Through The Session.
The Coach Hopes To Get Through To Someone.

A Trainer Forgets The Job Is Not To Remind People About Problems.
A Coach Remembers The Job Is To Solve Them.

A Trainer Stretches your legs.
A Coach Stretches Your Limits.

A Trainer Counts Your Reps.
A Coach Discounts Your excuses.

A Trainer Is concerned with How Much time you put in.
A Coach is concerned with How Much You put into the time.

A Trainer wants you to do your best.
A Coach wants you to do better than your best.

A Trainer is concerned More With How, Where and When.
A Coach is Concerned More With Who, What and Why.

A Trainer Works For A Paycheck.
A Coach Works For A Passion.

A Trainer Develops and Delivers Your Workout.
A Coach Creates and Cultivates Your Purpose.

Training is Something You Do To Someone.
Coaching Is Something You Do With Someone.

 

Years ago, circa 1990, in a galaxy far, far away, I started out training people in a local YMCA.  I was in charge of a new Nautilus room (wow, you will never hear those words in 2015!).  It was a good gig:  show them how the state-of-the-art machines worked, count their reps and make sure they didn’t injure themselves.  Fast forward to the mid 1990’s, where I was a “personal trainer” fresh out of college.  I designed programs, counted their reps, and made sure they didn’t get hurt.  I look back at those days and realize they were necessary steps, but, I was just a personal trainer.  In retrospect, I almost feel like I was short-changing my clients.  At the time, I thought I was doing an okay job, but I could not be more mistaken.  I was just a trainer.  Now, I am a coach.  What’s the difference, you ask?  Here is my take….

Almost all gyms have a personal training department; they are asked to train, to sell and get results.  Sounds good to me.  They meet their quotas, train some folks, go home and do it again.  By the way, the attrition rate for trainers is ridiculously high.  The average trainer leaves his/her job after only 12-14 months.  So, where is the disconnect?  I believe, they haven’t mastered the art of coaching yet!

The biggest distinction that I feel separates a trainer from a coach is the personal relationships that develop with coaches.  I made some unbelievable friendships when I owned and operated my personal training business, but nothing like the relationships that I have developed since I evolved into a coach.  In fact, I keep in contact with several of my previous clients to this day.  I realized very quickly, that while someone may initially hire a trainer to get them stronger, leaner, faster, bigger, the reason they continue to hire you is because of the relationship that organically develops.  Now, instead of the workout itself, I like to focus on the Big Picture items:

How can I move people from needing activity to choosing activity to LOVING activity?

How can I help someone find their awesomeness?

How can I help as many people as possible, in as many ways as possible, as often as possible?

At the risk of offending trainers who are reading this, the profession can learn a lot from the coaches of the world and less from the trainers of the world.  It is great to be knowledgeable, get someone to lose weight or set a PR in the bench press.  But, is there more?  Can you go farther, go deeper?  Can you challenge someone in all areas of their life, not just the physical?  Are you memorable, or forgettable? I forgot about almost of my coaches once I became an adult; it was no fault of their own, but no one really coached with passion and caring.

The real training happens between the drills, between the sets, between the sessions:  It is where the genuine lessons are taught, the true knowledge and wisdom is delivered and friendships are forged.  There is NO better feeling than hearing from a parent, coach or the athlete that we made a difference in some aspect of their life, especially if it comes several years later.

So, to illustrate this point another way, from one of the legends in the field, here is the great Vern Gambetta:

Coaching is not something you do to the athlete; it is something you do with the athlete. It is a cooperative venture, a partnership. Never lose sight of the twenty-four hour athlete concept. The athletes we work with train for two to four hours a day. It is a fundamentally unbalanced equation because the other twenty to twenty two hours have more of an impact on the athlete’s success or failure in their chosen sport than the training time. It is easy to fall into the trap of training not coaching. Training only pays attention to the actual workout; manipulation of sets, reps, heart rates, maximum lifts etc. Coaching on the other hand develops the whole person, mentally physically and socially. Coaching is working closely with the athletes to define their goals and give them the tools to be able to achieve their goals. Coaching is a creative process that takes imagination and enthusiasm. Coaching empowers the athlete to take a degree of responsibility for their actions. As the athletes career progresses the athlete should assume a greater degree of responsibility so that coach assumes more of an advisory capacity. Frank Dick, former chief coach of Athletics in Great Britain, put it best when he said that during the course of athlete’s career the coach’s role evolves from that of a guiding light to a mirror. Coaching, like parenting, teaching, and managing provide the roots to grow and the wings to fly.

 

Now that I have your attention, there is just a touch of sarcasm in the title of this post!  The State of Youth Sports is the lifeblood of author John O’Sullivan.    He gets it:  We are in big trouble and need to change the pattern in youth sports….now.  Instead of giving you my opinion, here is a great read from his site.  I agree 1000% with everything he says.

Brian Macdonald:

• Everything helps everything. I heard this first from the one and only Tony Poggiali while he was coaching a team we were training at the time. Such a short phrase but it packs a huge punch. I really took this to heart and starting integrating it into my daily routine. For me, it all starts with simply waking up at a decent time and making the bed. This minuscule task already puts me in an improved mindset to be more productive around the house. Getting errands done around the house frees up time for continued education (research articles, podcasts, etc.). If you haven’t picked up on it, a chain reaction occurs. This has made me considerably more productive on a daily basis. A lot of times, the obstacle to get over is just getting started. Amazing how something as small as making the bed can change so much.
  • It’s not about the money. Many people make the mistake of basing success, and quality of life for that matter, off of their yearly income. Anyone who makes the leap into the strength and conditioning field knows (or should know) money is not the driving force. If you enter this profession with the aspiration of making six figures, you need to re-think your career path. Coaching is all about passion, you either have it or you don’t. If you don’t, it is not the career choice for you, because the athletes we train deserve everything we’ve got to give as a coach. They deserve a passionate coach who loves what they do and care deeply about making them a better person and athlete physically, mentally, and emotionally. I love what I do and legitimately care about my athletes and helping them excel as human beings.
  • I am incredibly lucky to be at Adrenaline Sports and Fitness. I literally can not envision myself doing anything but coaching. Not a day goes by which I am not thankful for the opportunity given to me by Tony to do what I love. He facilitates an environment that allows me to be myself and form my coaching style based on my personality. I truly respect Tony as a coach, business owner, and friend. He is an inspiration to the coach I hope to be someday.
  • I am officially off the market. I married my beautiful wife October 10 and am an extremely happy man. I have so much respect for who my wife is and what she stands for. She drives me to better myself on a daily basis and keeps the structure I need in my life. I am a better person and coach because of her.
  • I am just a big kid, and proud of it. In order to get through to our primary demographic (9-15), you have to be on their level to be able to communicate effectively. I can’t communicate with a 9 year old the same way I do with a 19 year old. That is common sense to most, but easier said than done.

 

Neil Platt:

• Square pegs don’t fit in round holes. 2014 was a crazy year for me personally. I finished school, moved to Cincinnati, worked four different jobs, and finally found
  where I want to be. All along the way I spent a lot of time trying to make things
  happen rather than just letting them happen. We’re all guilty of this to some degree. Whether it’s trying to force relationships, make more money, get a better job, be
  happier, and so on and so forth; all we really end up with is more frustration and less
  of what we really want. This applies to our athletes as well. The same things (or
  training protocols) don’t have the same effect for everyone. Not everyone will adapt or
  improve from the same training stimulus, so it is up to us as coaches to realize
  what is working and when/where changes need to be made rather than trying to force
  all athletes to do the same thing.
• Sometimes we need to meet athletes where they are. This applies to the
  previous topic but I wanted to expand on this one a little more. There are times when
  our athletes come in and you can tell right off the bat something is off; they
  don’t have their usual bounce, or energy level. Keep in mind we normally work
  with our athletes after they’ve spent an entire day being told what to do by their
  teachers, parents, coaches, guardians, or whoever. This can wear on them mentally
  and sometimes the last thing they want to do is come in and be told what do for
  another hour. On those days, it is more beneficial for everyone if we meet the athlete where they are. Rather than trying to force them into a speed or heavy lifting
  session, maybe those are days when a game day or mobility session would be more beneficial. Brian wrote a great article about the benefits of our game day’s so I’ll spare you all of the details, but the point is, even on days when we meet them where they are we can still get in a quality session.
• Loaded carries and the associated variations were my favorite exercise of the year. I never really got into loaded carries as an exercise until this past year and I was really missing out. They’re super simple to do – just pick up something heavy and carry
  it. Pretty difficult to screw it up but it’s challenging. Looking back at the different programs I wrote this year, I noticed I there was some variation into nearly every session. I love them not just for fitness enthusiasts but athletes as well. A majority of athletic events involve bracing yourself against either physical contact or gravity as a means of changing direction, jumping, landing, or moving somebody out of the way. A heavy carry forces you to activate nearly every muscle in your body to stabilize yourself and move. Having strong stabilizer muscles (such as your core and middle/upper back area) is a great way to help prevent against injuries and a heavy carry will help you achieve just that.
• I’ve got along way to go to be the coach I want to be. I’ve worked as an assistant and intern for a few years before I became a full time coach and I can tell you that I’ve
  got a long way to go. The experience I’ve gained in the few years I’ve been active
  in this profession has taught me I know (almost) nothing. The road to becoming a successful coach is a long, winding, turbulent one that’s full of ups and downs and
  twists and turns; but it’s these failures and successes that lead to more and more knowledge and in the end being a better coach.
• I am doing what I’m supposed to be doing and I’m doing it where I’m supposed to. I have always been an avid sports fan and fitness enthusiast so the fact that I’m able to make a career out of it is mind blowing to me. I always knew I wanted to do something
  in the sports/fitness world but I wasn’t sure what. Twenty-six years later I’ve found it, coaching. Every day is something different. Protocols and sessions may be the same
  but it’s a new learning experience every day and I absolutely love it. I enjoy teaching
  our athletes and seeing them progress day in and day out. There is nothing more gratifying to me than when a kid has that “ah-ha!” moment and they get it. All of the
  hard work they put in has paid off and it all makes sense. Whether its how to cut
  properly or proper form on a lift, I love every second of seeing them struggle and then
  get it. Getting to work with the kids (and adults) at Adrenaline is something I am extremely grateful for. The support I get every day not just from Tony and Brian, but
  the entire ASF family is amazing. You all make coming to work every day something I can’t wait to do. I look forward to seeing and continuing to build relationships with
  all of you for many years to come!

Tony Poggiali

• There is no greater job in the world than being a coach.  There, I said it.  If you are a coach/teacher, you understand.  If you are not a teacher/coach, it is a tough sell:  long hours, no money, little praise, little to no job growth, etc.  BUT, if you want to MAKE A DIFFERENCE, if you want to make young boys and girls into men and women of high character, develop into unbelievable fathers and mothers, awesome sons and daughters, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, and contributors to society, then coaching is the way to go!  From one coach to another:  WE LOVE YOU [icon name=”smile-o” class=””]!
• Many of you know my daughter.  What you may not know is that there was a real chance we may have never met.  Since we did, and for the last six years, I have morphed into what, I hope, my legacy will become:  The best father I can be.  She is all I think about, and has taught me more than I could ever imagine.  Those lessons of fatherhood have directly translated in to becoming a better coach.
• Along those same lines, I have never wanted to know so much about so much.  The process of learning is just as fun as the outcome itself:  the acquisition of something new.  This profession is so dynamic, and what you think you know one day may change the next.  Over my 26 years of coaching, my training philosophy has changed multiple times, thanks to this maniacal curiosity to learn.  Now, I have come to the conclusion that knowledge is the accrual of information, while wisdom is the discarding of information; the latter being the state of knowing what you don’t know.
• Running a business is, by far, the hardest thing I have ever undertaken.  Grinding every day just to break even has become a daily ritual.  While we had our best year ever in 2014, I am still striving to become better, as a business owner, who happens to coach (not the other way around).  To the outside world, it looks pretty fun, and it is, but it can be brutal and keep you up many nights.
• Without a great team around you, you will fail.  From the past coaches, to the current coaches, to the behind the scenes ladies who keep me in line (Thanks Suzanne and Becky!!), and to each of you who have become our/my second family, this is the reason ASF is a great place.  We believe there is “awesomeness” in each of you that step foot in these four walls and appreciate the opportunity that you have allowed us to share.  Thanks for reading.

 

 

 

 

You’re physically and mentally tired. Muscles burn and joints ache. Your heart is still racing from the hour that was just spent training. Whether you worked on your strength, power, agility, speed, or just general fitness, you left it all out there. Now that the easy stuff is done, it’s time to get to work.! What? That’s right, what you do in the facility – all the blood, sweat, and tears – is the easy part. The hard part is what you do the other twenty-three hours of the day. How you spend your time between training sessions is what determines how successful your training will be. This is the time for rest and recovery and it begins the second that training ends.
Recovery between training session is the key to your success. This includes a long list of strategies to help you maximize your efforts. It includes nutrition, hydration, massage/myofascial release, and low intensity work.

• Proper nutrition is vital. Athletes and fitness enthusiasts alike need the right amount of calories, fats, protein, and carbohydrates to ensure adequate growth and repair following training. For a quick review of nutrition, I recommend you check out this quick list http://adrenalinesf.com/parents/nutrition-tips-athletes/.
• It would be great to be able to get a massage following a training session but this is hardly feasible for most of us. Instead, try “rolling out.” The pain felt while rolling across a piece of foam is only temporary and it’s well worth the feeling of relief after you are done. Getting stiff and sore muscles to loosen up can make a world of difference on your next training session.
• Low intensity work (like a mobility session) or some light cardiovascular work can also be a useful tool. Elevating the heart rate a little bit and getting some blood flow through sore muscle tissue can help clear some of the nasty by-products of training by the way, lactic acid does not cause muscle soreness). A light jog or bike ride can really help the legs feel fresh and remove that “heavy” feeling. Mobility is something everyone can benefit from utilizing. After most of our strength training days we will do some mobility work with the athletes. For those that are in-season with their sport and dealing with the daily grind of practice, we may even have them do a full training session of just mobility. It’ can be painful and unpleasant at the time but the muscles generally feel relaxed and a little more fresh upon completion.

One of the most important aspects of rest and recovery is activating your parasympathetic nervous system post-exercise. While you are training, your sympathetic nervous system is in full gear. Your sympathetic nervous system is basically your “fight or flight” system. It heightens arousal, pupils dilate, your respiratory rate increases, your heart beats faster and with more force, blood flow increases to your muscles and decreases to other organs, sweat glands become more active, and so on. This is great when you are training but it makes it very difficult to relax and recover. If your sympathetic nervous system is left on for too long, it can start to damage different systems throughout your body. On the other hand, your parasympathetic nervous system is essentially the opposite. It relaxes the body’s different systems. Respiration slows, your heart rate comes back to normal, sweating ceases, blood flow returns to normal. All of this is essential if you are going to recover fully from a training session. There are several different techniques for activating this system and finding the right one for you is an important aspect of your training. There are diaphragmatic breathing techniques (belly breathing) which focuses thought on deep, rhythmic breathing in a relaxed state to help clear the mind. Meditation to help focus the mind and reach a relaxed state works for some. Yoga and stretching has been shown to help some achieve this relaxation. Finding your own way to relax is crucial to your training success. Tony can be seen floating above his house in the lotus position.
The final piece to the puzzle is rest. Getting a proper amount of rest (sleep) is absolutely crucial for achieving optimal results. Sleep is when the good stuff happens. Neurological repair and growth occurs, mental fatigue is alleviated, positive hormonal changes occur (growth hormone actually spikes during sleep!), tissue repair and growth take place, and the list goes on and on. John O’Sullivan and Mark McClusky point out that sleep is the ultimate performance enhancing tool that nobody really takes advantage of (I highly recommend watching their conversation, it‘s insightful and very thought provoking). The amount of sleep needed differs from person to person, but the general consensus is somewhere between 7-9 hours.
Training, whether it be for athletics or general fitness, is not an easy thing. That’s why not everyone does it. Only a select few of you are willing to make the sacrifices necessary to do it. Time spent in the facility is a small piece of the puzzle, what you do with the other twenty-three hours is what makes you successful.

For those who are visual learners, check out this simple graph below. As you train, you drop below your base fitness level. As you rest and recover, you return to your base fitness level and even “overshoot” your original fitness level (“supercompensation”). This overshoot represents your improvement from training.

Wu- Wei:  The concept of Effortless Action

“If you can’t move, you can’t help us.”

Coaches may not say that exact quote, but that is the bottom line.  Every sport revolves around the ability to move, including running, throwing, cutting, catching, pushing, pulling, crawling, climbing, etc.  These primal, fundamental patterns are ingrained at young ages and nurtured throughout the developmental stages of pre-pubescence to professional levels.  Why do some seem to move with little to no effort while others seem to struggle?

I can only offer this explanation as conjecture, but it seems that the more a kid plays,  the earlier a kid plays, and the more variety of playing, the better athlete they tend to be.  I have no scientific proof of this so don’t look for any references, but I have the luxury of our “lab” at ASF and anecdotal experience  to lean on.  For those of you who grew up in the 80’s and 90’s, you likely remember how your “training” was the backyard.  There was always that one kid that was faster than you. In fact, it was my informal introduction to speed and agility:  Small = fast…or you get destroyed!  I am more and more convinced that it was those after school games that introduced young kids to the trifecta of early athletic exposure (young, frequency, variety).  Those kids tend to be the best overall athletes as they get older and display Effortless Action when it comes to sport performance.  For years, they were honing their skills to the point that everything appears to come easy.  However, it only appears that way because of the years and years of Deliberate practice, albeit unintentional.  They have reached a state loosely based on a concept called Wu-Wei, in which there appears to be a state of non-doing, non-effort.  It is a concept that master musicians, among others, tend to display.  They just seem to flow through a performance as if they are not even trying!  It is an awesome sight to behold.  What do you think?  Is there anything that you can relate to this state of effortless action?

On a somewhat related thought, I love this quote from the great Vern Gambetta:  Human motion is beautiful to observe. The older I get and the longer I coach the more I have a sense of wonder at the intricacies of the connections, rhythms, and varied tempos of running, jumping and throwing and all the various permutations. The bodies ability to constantly self-organize, to adjust according to the movement problem it has to solve is amazing. The wisdom of the body is wondrous and infinite; there are no limitations – just possibilities. As coaches we need to focus on the possibilities and take advantage if the wisdom of the body. Think connections and flow to facilitate what the body can do, don’t get in the way.