Some Thoughts on Excellence
Here I am, back again after a little break. Last week being away on leave and the week before was an interesting one.
Being before my leave i was under the pump making sure everything was done and the athletes were clear how on how their prep would be done while I wasn’t “on tap”.
This led me to rushing my thoughts and as such I ended up not being happy with my weekly piece. In the end i decided to can it and not publish. That was tough as I pride myself on consistency. But I also pride myself on quality and as such made a call based on the strongest thing of value an easy one.
The trip away was great. I was looking forward to getting away of course but i was surprised just how much clearer my thoughts became after just 2 days of completely switching off. You think you have a clear thought pattern but it appears that with a little bit of rest and recovery you can in fact be a lot better.
The other benefit of course is you are testing your systems. Are your athletes able to function at full capacity without you around. I am pleased to report that this was a resounding YES !
The System :
Success in sport isn’t just about a one off PB. It’s about sustainable success.
How you do that comes down to one thing. The strength of your system.
One of the most successful teams of recent times in Rugby League is the Melbourne Storm and that has been put down to a few things, but mainly the thing that everyone talks about is the “Melbourne System”.
They have over the years lost a lot of great players due to salary cap pressure. This pressure came about due to the ability of the system to allow a player to seemlessly fit into the way the club worked and develop at a rapid rate.
What time you arrived at training. How you ate. What you ate. How you learnt the plays and then practiced them in training. How you prepared for game day. How you executed your recovery protocol. How you engaged in post-game analysis and gave feedback to the coaching staff. WIth a top 30 roster including players of varying experience and skill level that’s a lot of moving parts and the easier communication flows the better the result will be.
This is what the “next man up” mentality is all about. If a player gets injured, the next man up can fit into the system with ease and know exactly what they have to do. There is no second guessing. The system taught them how to think and what to think.
At HPT this is what we strive for. If a new athlete arrives on the squad, the system should be able to take over and we support each other to spread the word. When does the program come out, what feedback do we give, what are the coach’s expectations, how can i help a teammate.
These sorts of things are documented on our website of course (under resources) but in truth we learn best from each other. We ask a question to the person next to us in the squad lane. We throw a question up on the group chat. We grab a newbie and mentor them for a few weeks just to make sure they know the lay of the land.
Comparison :
As a whole, sport can be the greatest thing on earth for a human to take part in. The trouble is, it can also be quite toxic to your mental health. Comparison is rife and with social media it is only becoming more of a problem.
We start to think that because someone is quicker than us that they have it all. That somehow they are a better person. Here we are slogging it out, seemingly not getting anywhere, and there they are with it all at their feet.
This brings two problems. It trivialises the hard work and sacrifice that those above us on the finisher’s list have put themselves through. And it doesnt recognise that in fact you are going a lot better than you give yourself credit for.
Be driven to better yourself each day but remember that being faster doesn’t make it easier. In fact it makes it harder. Now you have the pressure of a performer to live up to !
Sports Science Replication Crisis :
On a recent podcast (Ep. 468 - That Triathlon Show) they spoke with Joe Warne PhD who operates out of Dublin University. Specifically, the Sports Science Replication Centre.
It seems, you see, that whilst we have a lot of research being done by a lot of great scientists, we are stuggling to establish a high level of trust in what is coming out.
In fact, when the centre did a replication test on a number of studies, the success rate in replicting the same results is as low as 25%.
This is a huge cause for concern as apparently the sports science system is rewarding the quantity of papers produced over the quality.
What this means :
Check just what it is you are trying to achieve by chasing gains that might not be worth it.
Make sure the study size is decent.
Make yourself an experiment of one. Do rigorous personal testing that can be directly verified in like for like situations. Don’t just take the word of the paper as gospel.
DO NOT blindly follow advice from ChatGPT. If published papers struggle to replicate results, goodness only know what rubbish AI is spitting out.
Until next time,
Coach