I’m writing this blog from our Training Camp in Warm Springs Georgia. This is the 5th time we are coming to Warm Springs before Christmas and it has become a tradition every year. We are using this time to get an intense training block in before we head into a recovery week over Christmas.
Warm Springs is a small town about 1.5 hours south of Atlanta. The Rosevelt Centre was the staging camp for the 1996 Paralympic Games and all the Facilities are fully accessible. Every year we book a Camp Lodge that has 12 individual Rooms which lead to a Common Room with a Fire Place and TV.
The internet is slow but that is okay and forces us to stay offline more often and talk to each other. We generally train twice a day and take a little trip to Atlanta halfway through the camp. We have 3 meals a day that are catered to us and we provide the cater company with a meal plan that was developed by our nutritionist at the Sport Centre.
It’s at those meals were we often sit and chat not just wheelchair racing but many other aspects in life. It’s were people open up about family and friends and experiences they had in the past.
Having the opportunity to be with the athletes for an extended time gives me a real good chance to develop deeper relationships and getting to know the athletes better. I have one on one meetings and we spend hours planning the season and brainstorming ideas for workouts and equipment changes.
Every year I invite other athletes from Canada and different countries. In the past we had athlete form Switzerland, Nigeria and Great Britain. This year we have a visiting Athlete from the USA and her coach. The athlete and her coach are fairly new to the sport and they get to learn a lot at our camp.
I truly enjoy sharing our training plans and experience with those athletes and coaches and through dialog there are always new things that challenge my views on training and coaching and often I learn things that I would of not learned if it was just our group at the camp.
Once we return to Canada we have a deeper bond due to all the experiences we went through and often this carries momentum through the winter preparation months which can be very hard on all of us but knowing the athletes and their personalities helps me better understand on how to keep them motivated and be understanding of the challenges they might face.
Hello Ueli! That sounds like a lot of fun! It is a great idea to pick a small town to do your training camp. I found in the past that having training camp in big cities tend to have the team distracted and separating into smaller groups to do activities. There is nothing like a good remote place with nothing much to do to get people to put down their cellphones and interact. One of my most memorable training camps took place in Gimil, Manitoba. One of the players had a house with a huge backyard and pool so everyone drove in and camped in the backyard. I was the coach so I had the privilege of sleeping in a bed inside the house. The unfortunate reality is that everyone is so busy and I rarely have team building activities outside of the badminton context whether with other coaches or my own players. One of the things I am really enjoy about my new club is that the bosses take the time to engage the coaches. For the first time ever, I will be attending a Christmas staff dinner this weekend. It is something small but so meaningful to know that you are appreciated and part of a team.
It is also fantastic that you had a chance to brainstorm with the athletes. There are only so many hours in a day and it is impossible for a coach to focus on only one player. At the elite level, an athlete should know their weaknesses and be proactive in looking for ways to improve that weakness. With my more advanced athletes, it becomes more of a partnership with both us of working to make them better. I really like it when someone tells me that they have been on youtube the night before and want to try something new. Many brains are always better than one!
Thanks for the comment Phyllis,
Yes truly..Life is all about moments. We don’t remember the everyday things later on but we always remember the things that were just a little special and I believe it’s there were real team bonding happens. Yes training is important but all the social activities can not be underestimated when building our athletes. Hope you had a Wonderfull Christmas and a happy New Year.
I went on this training camp with my athlete, the Ueli and the Canadian guys are great, I had a great time in the quiet surrounds of warm springs. Ueli is a great coach and a great guy, I hope I have a friend in him for life, I learned a lot from him!
Thanks Paul,
We missed you this year and I’m looking forward to see you around the track this season. Maybe in Switzerland ?
Hi Ueli,
It is really interesting the social cohesion and bonding that can occur within a team context when athletes are taken out of their normal day to day environment. I have recently had the pleasure of travelling with the Vancouver Whitecaps’ Alberta Academy players to UBC for a training and showcase week. With it being the first time we have travelled with this group it was fascinating to observe the dynamic between players and their social interactions, with the players spending a sustained period of time together as a group and with other players from various parts of Canada.
I would agree that our coaching staff learnt things about our players that we otherwise would not have known if we would not have travelled or spent time with players and coaches from across the country.
Just to mentioned, it literally rained sideways in Vancouver for the whole week, bet that didn’t happen in Warm Springs!!
Thanks for the comment Matt. Yes I think it is so important to get to know your athletes on a personal level. So much depends on how their social environment works and spending time with them at training camps can really give some great insight.
PS: This year the weather was not to great either. We even had snow at some point which is extremely unusually for them. We still got all the training in though just had to layer up a bit.
Ueli, interesting blog and comments on how training camps are influential to coach athlete relationships. I truly believe that training camps are a much need milestone for athlete development., yet little research exists to demonstrate how camps impact athlete development. I recall the book Bloom, Developing Talent in Young People, wherein he made a connection between camps and talent development.. https://www.amazon.ca/Developing-Talent-Young-People-Benjamin/dp/034531509X Other research into deliberate practice has also revealed camps as a developmental milestone, but as far as I know, this has not been examined as a its own variable on athlete development. Anyway my anecdotal perspective on camps is that they are a critical milestones for athlete development and I would hypothesize that camps offer athletes a transition from practice to deliberate practice. I did find an article on google scholar (abstract) indicating some similar observations that you have made regarding coach and athlete interactions. http://journals.humankinetics.com/doi/abs/10.1123/apaq.9.3.249.
Thanks for the feedback David, I do wonder if it makes a difference for Para Athletes versus Able Bodied athletes since Para Athletes. Training Camps are for sure a great way of hitting new milestones and I truly believe it can help with performance. I also found that having the camp at the same time of the year helps with the monitoring peace as we are able to compare to previous years by doing the same type of workouts in the preparation phase.
Hi Ueli,
I love that the slow internet forces you to be more present! It’s a little tangential to your post, but I’m always curious in learning about what other coaches (especially those who coach individual athletes) do in terms of technology at practices/camps/competitions. I know a lot of team sports have a turn-the-phone-off rule when you enter the venue, but I don’t find that to be as common in individual sports. What do you do?
Chris
Thanks Christina,
It’s a very good point you make. We actually started the rule of no cellphones when we are eating our meals. This is a rule we have at home with our family and it was well received with the athletes as well. I had to remind some of the athletes at first of the but now everybody is respecting it. Otherwise I’m not to strict on the phones since the millennial generation just lives online and I think to a certain point it gives them comfort and relaxation.