In Spite Of, Not Because Of

Remember above all else talent will prevail. The cornerstone of a great program is a system of talent identification and acquisition. In the American non system it is recruiting. Now you got them what do you do? Some people are smart enough to leave them alone and let the talent rise to the top, this is very Darwinian and is typically in sports like professional baseball. The scary part is that sometimes the athletes are so talented that no matter what you they will prevail. I went to a presentation at ASCA from the coach of an American record holding sprint swimmer that blew me away. The weight training program was right out of the 1970’s, a body building program that Arnold would have been proud of, the swim program in the water training was more like what you would do with an open water swimmer. Truly amazing, but I see this all the time. Sure there are many roads to Rome, some are more direct and some more circuitous. The scary part is that it is 2007, we do know better. There are scientific principles that are not refutable, there is also good practice. Neither can be ignored. I am amazed that people lose games because their players get slower and hurt, but there is never a connection made to training. It is particularly ironic that many of these people preach that they do not want to do anything in training that might cause the athletes to get hurt. They never sensitize them in practice to the demands of the sport and expect something miraculous to happen on Saturday or Sunday. Let’s get real and pragmatic and take a educated proactive approach to training the athletes we work with. Everyone can get better if aided by a systematic sequential and progressive training program.