In the field of strength and conditioning, it can be very challenging to find your value and be confident with that value. There is an endless supply of contradicting methodologies, ideologies, and variations, especially when working in a high performance sport environment; whether that be from sport coaches, physiotherapists, higher management, or other S&C colleagues. There are a lot of S&C coaches out there that have big egos and think that there way is the best and only way, which is a problem with the industry itself and could probably use it’s own blog post – so I’ll save that rant. Taking value for yourself and your work as an S&C coach requires integrity, an open mind, and a focus on what the specific goal(s) for your athlete(s) is.
I have recently just finished our off season hockey training camps that consisted of a large volume of individual athletes looking to improve their performance, which always tests my values as an S&C coach. From recruiting, organization and management, programming, monitoring progress and coaching, I get a lot of outside input, complaints, success, and pressure; this often has me questioning the value of the product I am providing. In order to provide value for myself and for my athletes I have taken an approach of open mindedness – taking input from other coaches with programming, reviewing previous experiences by doing a gap analysis, and having continual open communication with the athletes to ensure they are valuing what we do and also themselves. With having a more open mind to accepting more feedback and input, I feel that this was by far our most successful camp.
In previous camps I had decided not to add cleans into my programming, despite coaches and athletes asking to have it put in. I had decided that due to the technical difficulty of the exercise and having such a short period of time to teach and produce enough positive gains from, I had left them out and chosen alternate exercises with the same product. This year I found a way that I was happy to add in the lift, although not for every athlete (mainly older athletes), and was happy with the outcome. I feel this built some morale with coaches and the athletes got more value out of our camp this year. In turn I find myself with more value and a greater feeling of accomplishment.
Recently I have been working with a russian/Japanese pro hockey player trying to get a new contract in north america. He came to me with a very different background and experience with training and we found it difficult at times to get on the same page with the vision of his development. Being open to his wants but keeping my integrity on what I know will get him to achieve his goals, we have been able to make massive improvement in his performance both on and off the ice and I now have his full bought in attention to the program. Coming over with no contract nor any direction, he now has been offered big contracts in Europe and will be attending a training camp in North America. Taking the athletes values, while sticking to yours can be a fine line, but if common ground is achieved, you will have the greatest results produced.
Now that this summer has come to completion I am looking forward to doing a more in depth gap analysis on this years camp as further my knowledge with this through the HPCTL program.
Sean, thanks for the blog. Yes I have often wondered if there is a correlation between bicep girth and ego for S&C coaches. Apologies for the joke, but likely egos are ripe across all coaching and perhaps due to engrained beliefs that are developed over time. Sometimes our belief are hard to give up and it may be attributed to the degree of ego that emerges or is perceived as part of coaching. Anyway, I kind of liked how you introduced your blog.
It would be good to add some evidence of the changes that you realized under different training methods. How much did the athlete improve and I suppose ultimately how would / did these improvements effect hockey performance? The challenge here is that the result of the conditioning program may not be realized until a later date in the future. Do you follow up with the athletes in their training? Or tracking of time lost in practice due to injury? I ask as I think that S&C is foundational to an athletes preparation and good programming often enhances both recovery and performance. The challenge that you have is balancing what the client wants and you own beliefs of what might be a better way of training. There is probably a bit of give and take, however, the proof is in the pudding so to speak. That is, creating and or tracking evidence that the intervention applied had the desired impact… and how do you know?
Hi Sean. There may not be a bigger truism in any profession than to say that fragile-egos often outweigh healthy egos. In my experience those with fragile-egos usually have a reason for it. My last post on the “athlete archetypes” suggested that we are capable of behaviour across a spectrum. So, the athlete or coach who displays egotistical behaviours in one setting may be very different in another. Reflecting on my own experience, I can say that some of my strongest relationships with athletes started off very rocky with what seemed like oppositional and defiant behaviours. I learned that trust and self-confidence are the fundamentals to nurturing a healthy-ego. My feelings are that in the era of social media, we tend to have more polarization both in terms of our view on ideas and people. We also hear a lot about coaches who are ego-maniacs. My personal experience is that the large majority of coaches I meet are hungry to learn, hungry to collaborate and are highly respectful of others and their ideas. No question there are a few who are less so. The question then becomes, how do we deal with these individuals? I also reflect (frequently) that when I’m feeling more insecure and/or unsure of my skills and knowledge that I tend to perceive and feel more negativity in my environment. I have worked hard to find mentors in my life who have healthy egos, not fragile egos. I found two of these mentors late in my career. Per Aagaard, a researcher from Denmark, is someone who I try to model myself after. He always has a smile. He signs his emails with “hugs, Per”. He is warm and caring. He isn’t afraid to say: “I don’t know the answer to that”. He always listens and he is supportive. At several points in my career I have felt more of the fragile-ego behaviours staying at the surface but when I pick strong mentors, connect with my truth and my journey, become comfortable with saying “I don’t know”, and approach my profession with curiosity I am almost always in a better state of mind about my own day-to-day activities and the responses from others. Finally, on the last point, curiosity leads you to wonder why rather than defend. You decided not to use power cleans and coaches wanted you to. Isn’t that interesting? I wonder why they felt that way? I wonder if they are right that power cleans are important …. hmmmm, why don’t we find a way to test this or assess this question? Things type of questioning allows me to connect with the scientist in me and to approach challenges with curiosity.