Training Facilities and Equipment
What do you need? The answer is rather simple – not much. In many cases less is more, less because the coach is forced to use their creativity. When it comes to more, the primary question is need to have or nice to have? Start with a bare room and a chair; add a grass field for other work. Exhaust all the possibilities with those combinations. Improvise; use your imagination and creativity. Olympic champions have been trained in similar environments. Build upon that, add some medicine balls, dumbbells, maybe some stretch cord. Various height boxes for step-ups, sandbags, weight vests, possibly a climbing rope. If you are working with Football,
See the illustrations as an example – dumbbells, a medicine ball, a box, a bridge to run hills and a parking lot. Not perfect, but it worked.( That is Sarasota Bay in the background. The picture was taken in late December!)
I have observed programs that use equipment just because they have it. It does not necessarily contribute to the training, but if it costs $3,000, that is a compelling reason to use it. I have seen weight rooms so packed with equipment that you literally had to climb over equipment to get to other equipment. That is not functional from an organizational perspective or a training perspective. Remember less is more, the more tools the less the focus on the athlete. Remember the focus should be on the athlete.
posted by Vern Gambetta @ 3/10/2006 08:26:00 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Vern,
Nailed it. I think some times the "science" culture tries to outsmart biology or "discover" the short cuts.
Reality though is that moving and getting better at it is pretty simple. A simple approach allows uncluttered and focused thinking - two things essential to performance.
Training is not about "What kind of cool thing can I have people play with today"... Its about "How can I help this person grow?"
Just my two cents - Thanks for your thought provoking post!
That's not true Vern. I just came back from a conference and this guy who owned a human performance center told us how every athlete needs to drag a sled between their legs and use reverse hyperextension machines & power cleans. He even bragged how his 11 year olds are doing it! He has to be right, after all he quoted Matveyev and Verchoshansky ad nauseum (a criteria for bozosity?). What was interesting was his before and after shots. No matter what sex or sport, they all finished up with these huge olympic lifter style quads!
Vern: my toughest job these days is convincing kids that getting in shape is not that complicated. The first thing they need to be able to do is manipulate their body weight. Boys especially want to spend their life in our weight room benching or doing curls yet they can't do 10 pullups (some can't do 2) and they can't do 30 pushups. Give me the Presidential Fitness test from my youth again over the "fitness" magazines these kids read.
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