Coaches Seeking Help
One thing that slows down a lot of coaches is their
pride. They feel like they have all the
answers, or at least they want to make everyone else around them think that
they have all the answers. There is no
way on earth that we can all be experts in everything. I mean think of all the different aspects of
strength and conditioning:
·
Nutrition
·
Recovery
·
Olympic weightlifting
·
Powerlifting
·
Strongman
·
Kettlebell work
·
Dumbbell work
·
Biomechanics
·
Physics
·
Rehabilitation
·
Injury prevention
·
Anatomy
·
Mobility
There are more, but you get the picture. Can you really say that you are an expert in
all of these categories? Or are you the
person that believes you are good enough?
I’m not, and you aren’t either.
Our athletes, young and old, trust us with their goals and dreams, and
we owe it to them to find out every detail that might help them achieve their
goals.
Personally I use the knowledge of others every chance I get
from books, articles, and talking to them in person. I am lucky to be friends with some incredible
coaches and professors, so I get to ask them their opinions quite often. Heck lately I have reached out to a few
people to aid me with a couple of my elite athletes. I’ll give you a couple of examples.
Jordan Cantrell ran into some small injuries last training
block that slowed our process a bit.
Some people would have continued on with the same programming hoping
that Jordan would just get over those injuries.
Not me, I took a three-step process to lessening the odds of the
injuries returning. Here’s what I did:
1. I sent him to a
professional. Too many coaches try to
pretend that they are physical therapists.
I always find this funny. I don’t
want to be a physical therapist, or I would go back to school. I am a performance coach. I get people stronger, correct their movement
patterns, and increase their athletic ability.
I can do things that physical therapists have no idea about. Let’s stay in our lanes coaches. Dr. Howard is my physical therapist that I
work with here in North Carolina. I sent
Jordan to him immediately when he started to experience some glute
problems. I’ve also sent Jordan’s next
workout to him for his expert opinion. I
want him to tell me if the workout is written in a way to prevent his glute
issue.
2. I have also
reached out to my man Dr. Brett Contreras, who all of you know as “The Glute
Guy”. He is going to help me with a
protocol to make sure that Jordan’s glutes are J Lo approved. Does this make me a bad coach because I think
that others might know some things that I don’t? No way, it makes me a great coach. I’d say that this one quality is the very
thing that helped me reach the top at such a high rate. I am always learning, and I am never
satisfied with my level of knowledge.
3. I even ask other
weightlifting coaches their opinions on programming and technique. Every single day I get to bounce ideas off of
Coach Don McCauley. He has helped raise
me in this sport from my first days are MuscleDriver USA. He continues to help me with spotting and correcting
faulty movement patterns. He has several
cues and drills to correct technique.
Coach Sean Waxman is my go to for Biomechanics and team
culture. He has helped me transform our
team culture in the last year into what it is today. He called me once, and I didn’t pick up. Then he texted me, and said, “You need to
answer this call.” Only Sean would do
that to me, and he was right. I
definitely needed to listen to his thoughts on my team culture. It was going down, and it was going in a
hurry. I was ignoring it, and it was
ruining my team. I made some hard
decisions after that call, and they were the best decisions that I have ever
made.
He often sends a text giving me insight on my various
athletes. I normally implement 99% of
his suggestions, and they have all worked.
This is the kind of relationship that all coaches need to have. In weightlifting especially, we need to help
each other. At the end of the day, we
are all trying to improve Team USA.
Coach Dave Spitz and I have talked at length about this very thing. As coaches in America, it benefits all of us
when Team USA does well. That brings
more notoriety to the sport, and it qualifies more and more of our athletes for
bigger competitions like the Olympics.
In the last year, I have coached Hunter Elam to some big
improvements. We are now working on the
consistency of her jerk. I have taken
advice from Coach Waxman, Coach Spencer Arnold, and Coach Mike Gattone. I have implemented pieces from each of them,
and we are already noticing improvements.
We have some incredibly talented coaches in America, and we need to use
each other for major improvements to take place.
Let’s take Olympic Weightlifting specifically, and let’s
look at some of the areas that coaches are responsible for:
·
Recruiting
·
Funding your club
·
Making a living coaching the sport that you love
·
Biomechanics
·
Physics
·
Programming
·
Correcting faulty movement patterns
·
Verbal cues to correct movement
·
Drills to correct movement
·
Competition Preparation
·
Coaching at a competition
·
National level coaching
·
International level coaching
·
Obviously teaching the progressions of the
snatch, clean, and jerk to a beginner
·
Choosing proper accessory work
·
Correcting asymmetries
·
Team/Club Culture
·
Recovery
·
Nutrition
In a lifetime, you will never master all of these
elements. If you think that you have,
then you’re the problem. I will be on my
deathbed still trying to improve as a coach.
My athletes deserve this much dedication because they trust me with
their dreams. Your athletes are doing
the same.
Last week as we were at the Youth Olympics, the other
athletes were sharing with my three boys the rumors that they have heard about
our team. We heard things like:
“Don’t you just max out all the time?”
And
“You guys take lot of supplements to get so strong.”
From the mouth of babes in the case teenagers comes truth
meaning these young ones don’t have a filter.
They just repeat what their coaches have told them. I think that it is so funny when other
coaches spread rumors and gossip about our team. I have an open door policy to all the coaches
in America. If you want to learn what we
do, then come visit or call me. There is
nothing that I would keep secret. Guys
we are Team USA in my book.
We don’t max out all the time. Not even close! Right now our
young athletes and most of our senior athletes are experiencing a short
accumulation phase as they prepare for the AO2.
Here’s day one:
Day 1
|
Week 1
|
Pull+Snatch+2sec pause in Catch
|
75% 9x1+1 (60 sec rest Between Sets)(work up on last two
sets)
|
Front Squat with Belt
|
75% 2x4, 80% 2x3, 85% 2x2
|
Snatch Grip Deadlift from 2" Deficit
|
5RM, then -10% for 2x5
|
DB Leg Curls
|
4x10
|
Unilateral Farmers Walk
|
3 x 40yd ea arm
|
Their coaches are only seeing the PRs that we post, and they
don’t know about the work that goes into the process to produce the PRs. They would rather just think negative
thoughts like “they must max out all the time” or “Coach Mash is too hard on
them”. Instead of spreading hate and
rumors, I suggest coming to visit. We’ve
had five athletes qualify for Team USA spots already this year, which is more
than any other club in America. That
means that there are a lot of coaches out there that haven’t performed as well. If I were you, I would be learning instead of
hating.
Every time I am around great coaches like Dave Spitz, Sean
Waxman, Kevin Simons, Spencer Arnold, CJ Martin and Kevin Doherty, I am asking
them questions and listening to what they say.
Coaches like Ray Jones and John Broz are filled with knowledge, and they
are all willing to share that knowledge.
It’s up to all of you to reach out and learn from these coaches. Quit making excuses for your shortcomings,
and get to work learning and expanding your toolbox.
Here’s my offer to all of you. I will consult any of you that will donate to
my non-profit team. For a donation of
any amount, I will answer any of your questions in a phone call or email. Simply go to:
I will give this offer to any of you that donate any amount,
and this will be on top of the other benefits that you might receive. I want to help as many of you as
possible. I want to help all of our
athletes in the US because I want to see Team USA dominate. I formed my non-profit for this same
reason. In this case, you can help our
athletes reach their goals, and in turn I will help you and your team reach
their goals. Thanks for reading:
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