Anti Goal of Coaching: Part 2
Upsetting the mental and physical outputs
My most read piece of all time is Anti Goal of Coaching.
But it’s an incomplete story about poor coaching and the negative outcomes it can create.
Part 1 discussed the mental downsides your players deal with, but did you know it can also affect their physical outputs? Let’s dive in.
Are you Making your Athletes Weaker?
The wrong kind of feedback, tone, or relationship with the athletes will mess with them in more ways than one.
If you think you’re just messing with their head, you’re wrong.
Put the athlete in a sympathetic dominant state and you’ll:
decrease their power and strength outputs
throw off their body’s normal “firing patterns” for optimal movement
increase their chances of injury because of the firing pattern issue
And I know what you’re saying… “Drew, they’re playing the game, they are already in a sympathetic state and that can increase focus and physical output…
Yes, you’re 100% right about that. But there is a dichotomy at play. The game is stressful on athletes, it will heighten physical output and focus but go too far in that direction by say… Losing your mind on a kid that was just trying his best to make a play…
and…
You’re going to push that sympathetic state too far out of the functional range.
Now that we’re back on the same page, let’s address the elephant from the bulleted list… What the heck is a firing pattern?
What’s a Firing Pattern?
A firing pattern is a sequence of muscle contractions based on what kind of movement is being executed by the body. The image below outlines the correct and incorrect patterns for hip extension. Hip extension is the push phase of sprinting, skating, and jumping.
Firing patterns get thrown off due to stress, muscle imbalances, and tough contact in games and practices.
When they fire correctly the body is in a state of explosion. The body uses the biggest muscle first and transfers it outwards. When the athlete is stressed, it creates a state of implosion where smaller muscles compensate for what bigger muscles should do.
Wrong order of firing= Less power, less force, greater chance for injury.
They all can be managed but not controlled. The goal of a coach is to not directly contribute to the stress of the athlete via poor coaching interactions.
How Can I Fix Them?
You wouldn’t believe how many of your athletes have glutes that aren’t working optimally.
Start at the top of this pyramid to attack the issues.
Structural
Chiropractic care is essential for athletes that put their bodies in irregular shapes, take contact and physically exert themselves. If you think of your body as an electrical system(which it is)… Contact can turn the power off in some areas of the body. Chiropractic care is the first step in turning the power back on.
RPR
The second step in turning the power back on is flipping the switches. RPR does this.
RPR is a system of self-administered breathing and neurological drills to make instant and measurable improvements in performance. It allows YOU to reset harmful compensation patterns that can cause pain, increase the risk of injury and limit your potential.
Compensation patterns are the main cause of non contact injuries in sport as well as every day aches and pains that limit performance. Using RPR, you can shift your own body out of these patterns and reduce pain, restore range of motion and help your body become more resilient to injury.
Athletes are time crunched so why introduce something new? As coaches and athletes we have never seen such profound benefits from something that takes so little time. The RPR Wake Up Drills take about two minutes to complete and should become part of every athletes warm up and day-to-day routine. They can be taught in person or over Zoom.
Use RPR everyday to maximize performance and minimize injury.
Use RPR before paying for traditional traditional treatments (chiropractor etc.) If the problem persists then it is time to seek further help.
RPR has a place in every gym, training facility, household, school, college and pro sports team
If you want to be taught the system you can visit their website or reach out to me.
Glute Iso’s
Once the switches are on, we need to send signals to that area. Glute isometrics send and strengthen the signal.
You can try the level one glute iso workout here
3D Contralateral Circuit
Once we can get a signal there in isolation, then we want to send a signal there with full-body, athletic movement.
You can get that workout and the glute iso program from Matt Van Dyke here:
Empowered to Help
You’re now upskilled to help your athletes preserve their:
power
strength
bodies from injury
If you’ve done harm with coaching that causes stress, undo it with these tools.
If you’ve received value from this newsletter, consider a few ways to help me out.
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