Is it possible to self-coach yourself to greatness?

How easy is it to self-coach? The lessons learnt from being both a coach and an athlete.

Of all the great athletes today, how many are without a coach? I would love comments on this as I can only think of a very few. Ryan Hall the USA marathon runner first comes to mind. He opts for more of a "faith" based approach. Hey...whatever works! But the majority of successful athletes that dominate top level sport today, not only have a coach but a whole entourage of support. That is because it is very difficult without the right person. (It's also very difficult with wrong person)!

I was pondering about the above problem after a particularly frustrating discussion with someone about not overtraining and reflecting about my own difficulties of overtraining and injury, something I still battle with. Observation of enough athletes does often make me wonder why it is so easy to override seemingly very simple information about overtraining and injury. The number of really talented athletes I have seen that have sabotaged success because they couldn't control effort level does really make me sad, perhaps because it is so avoidable and I can empathise!

When we don’t learn from mistakes.

It's important to make mistakes for learning. Making mistakes once is a good thing, but replicating that same mistake, not so good. I’m talking about training mistakes, not skill acquisition. I have seen many athletes who know all this and should know better, fall by the wayside because of overtraining and injury and is a huge problem in the "self-coached”, because that "drive" is a function of personality rather than just not knowing.
In endurance athletes particularly, the instinct to train high volume at an "almost always hard" effort level (very little "extremely hard" and very little "easy") and to keep going at all costs is a major mental factor to success but it is also the very attribute that can destroy if not managed appropriately. Learning to self-direct that energy appropriately is certainly possible but I believe it is hard and requires a huge amount of self-discipline, the ability to be objective and at times override your own personality.

I talk a lot here about the overly “driven” and self –motivated athlete but of course there is the reverse, where someone needs a good kick up the backside. Past a certain sporting level, I don’t see this very often though.

Presently, I spend my time switching from coach to athlete, not ideal but I do find the switch easier and easier to make the more I understand. Being a coach and learning to be a better one, is quite a humbling experience and actually it’s only taken 34 years, but I’m finally starting to listen to my own advice and getting some very nice results. Perhaps a personality lobotomy thrown is as well.

I view my role as a coach to get the best out my athlete, both physically and mentally.
From the moment they walk through the door, you observe and watch them, from putting down their bag and warming up to the end of session. This allows me to sum up their physical and mental state, especially when they don't think I'm watching! You then have to be able to cherry pick bits of information that are relevant to that person and communicate it to them simply! Then, adapt, adapt, adapt throughout the session. So, of course the knowledge base has to be vast in terms of sports science but also human psychology and the theory of learning. The more you know, the larger the pool from which you can extract. Oh yes and TRANSLATION skills!!

I’m becoming more familiar with the “unspoken” language of human! Learning to decipher what people say or don’t say, as more often than not, people do not always say what they mean.

E.g

“I’m fine” means “I feel like I’ve been run over by a bus”

Conversely for another person

“I feel like I’ve been run over by a bus” means “I’m fine” 

 So…..a good coach (I still have a long way to go), has a lot to process. Self-reflection that is necessary for performing is essential for any athlete, but the deconstruction of self sometimes needed for changing behaviour is often too much for most and would be counterproductive. Using someone to redirect the energy associated with those personality traits that are needed for success in a given sport then becomes a necessity. If you can offload the responsibility of sifting through the maelstrom of sports science and program design to the right person, you free up an enormous amount of energy.
My current bodybuilding (fitness model) training program has been outsourced to someone I trust and have to say it is a real luxury.  I don’t have to think about anything, other than lifting tin! I think it is fair to say, the only time I felt I achieved any kind of sporting success was when I had a coach, whose main role was actually to hold me back, and protect me from myself!!

I'd be very interested to hear about those of you that have managed to coach yourself to a high level and what worked and didn't. Comments very welcome.

Project 1: Overloading on overload

Attempt no. 2 on the Fan Dance route. 
Weight carried: 14kg made up of water bottles and dumbbells 
Pack: 45L Daysack

The only downside of wearing a slightly smaller, more appropriate sized backpack was it looks considerably unimpressive for the amount of weight I felt I had to lug up Pen y Fan. There was a LOT of huffing and puffing and swearing and dry retching, because I had eaten a full english breakfast slightly too late in the morning.

I wish I hadn't eaten eggs and bacon for breakfast

Are we there yet?

I wanted to trial the route with "overload". The Fan dance load for women is 25lb (11.3kg), so I decided to do the route with 32lb (14.5kg). The rationale being that training should be done both with heavier and lighter loads at different training intensities and volumes.

The conclusion: It is hard and not my greatest idea.

In terms of metabolic cost of carrying extra load, one review on the physiological strain of load carrying showed during weight carrying showed the average energy cost per kg load at first decreased (1.1 W'kg-1 for the first 5.4 kg load) but then increased (6.3 W, kg-1 for the next 5 kg load) with increasing loads. The average energy cost per kg load for the first 5 kg was surprisingly lower than for a kg of body mass, but increased with increasing loads. It is no surprise that energy cost increases with increasing load but the anomaly of data for the first 5kg and decreasing energy cost remains unclear. I can see the use of training with "overload" for these events but the time frame for carrying the extra load needs to be adjusted as physiologically and muscularly it is much more demanding! Possibly I didn't adjust the backpack very well and I am a true advert for why packing properly and offloading the weight round the hips is recommended! There was definitely trapezius DOMS the day after, explained by walking kinematics 101; When walking, the shoulder opposite to the leg striking the ground is lifted and rotated forward, in line with natural pelvic rotation that occurs during walking. With extra load being carried on the shoulders, the trapezius then has to work "with resistance" to lift the shoulder through every stride. Essentially it is like doing "shrugs" for 4 hours! I can concur! In this particular study I have referenced below, for a weight of 5.4kg and 10.4kg using a military pack with no waist strap the extra absolute force level was 8.4N and 17N respectively. Force level of the descending trapezius therefore effectively doubled with doubling of load. The force level during load carrying using a backpack with waist strap was not significantly influenced by the load, showing that most of this weight had been transferred to the hips, leaving on the shoulder only a constant load needed for stabilisation.

CONCLUSION: Get a good backpack and pack it well. If you can tolerate carrying heavier weight do so, but for shorter durations of time to avoid injury.

Other things of note:

• My knowledge level of "how to pack a rucksack with water bottles" goes up in tandem with that of the m4 services.  

• A Chunky Kitkat and Storey Arms Burger van Welsh teacakes is good for energy and morale. 

• Helly Hanson or similar Base layer and waterproof outershell make a good "competition" day outfit. Anything more is akin to "boil in the bag" scenario.                                                      

All in all however, another good run. It really drums home how difficult it is to replicate this route. The weather, the terrain, the route, time on feet, wearing good kit and pack admin all make such a difference. In an ideal world, one would be hitting these hill all the time but in the absence of that...... creativity of good substitutes will have to make do. 

References:

 Holewjin, M. and Meeuwsen, T. (1990). Physiological Strain During Load Carrying: Effects of Mass and Type of Backpack. Eur J Appl Physiol Occup Physiol. 61 (3-4), 237-245.

Subtlety of Movement

This post was inspired by my new "bodybuilding" program which has provided me not only with new information and knowledge but a whole new insight into DOMS! (delayed onset muscle soreness).

Competing in a fitness show is obviously aesthetic, so obtaining muscular symmetry is a primary goal. Meaning, I will have to readdress muscle imbalances and motor patterns built up over years of doing sport. This is going to be no easy feat which I realised was going to take a bit more focus and thought than just going through the motions and tuning into my ipod. For most of the exercises in my program, the eccentric portion is performed to a fairly slow tempo to increase time under tension of muscle. This slower tempo of training is very different to my default and love of doing high speed training. It was quite novel to me but being mindful of small adjustments and manipulations of body positions make a real difference to muscle recruitment and where you feel a muscle being worked. There are numerous examples of this, but one familiar to most is the toes over knees argument in squatting and lunge patterns. In one such study, a comparison of performing a squat either restricted (knees in line with toes) or unrestricted (allowing freedom of knees to move past toes) showed the restricted pattern reduced the knee torque but significantly increased hip angle torque, showing that force has to go somewhere i.e into hip and lumbar spine regions (Fry et al, 2003).

There is also a nice article called "The myth of core stability" that debunks a few assumptions about how we view core stability. One good point made through example is, for instance if you want to get food to mouth, it doesn't occur by consciously instructing each muscle to activate from hand to forearm to bicep etc, the central nervous system recruits an unconscious pattern of recruitment that makes that happen. Most unconscious movement occurs in this way and not in a muscle-by-muscle recruitment pattern. The question then is can you offset that motor pattern (engram) by making that movement more conscious or "pre-tensing" muscle groups that you want to work. In fact an age old trick used by body builders is to pre tense muscle groups before lifting. Whether that translates to high velocity movement patterns like the clean or the snatch, in all honesty I'm unsure of. So, by being conscious and slowing down tempo, is it easier to re-learn new motor patterns and therefore address muscle imbalances. We'll see!

There are many ways to re-learn movement depending on the goal. In my observations of runners and coaching running efficiency, I believe there are many components to this, but one which seems to resonate with me and just make sense is to put the individual in the optimum biomechanical position for them to take advantage of natural reflexes in the body such as the stumble reflex and inversion-extension reflex. In addition to taking advantage of reflexes, making running more elastic by training the musculo-tendinous unit (MTU), also makes sense. Tendon research is a whole other area but effectively understanding tendons, energy dissipation and hysteresis (energy lost between stretch and recoil), muscles and the joints they work around and how that applies to the chosen sport is a starting point for designing any good S&C program. A lot of my understanding of tendons has come from reading Ralph Brandon's work. For example, in high speed running or hill running, the hip goes from about -20deg at toe off to +95deg at point of greatest hip flexion. This large range of motion requires a compliant tendon. A compliant tendon means it can be stretched easily with little force but of course it also recoils with less force. If the tendon is too compliant relative to muscle, it will also end up doing more "work" because that is the component that will stretch more relative to the muscle, hence the risk of developing high hamstring issues, something I understand very well! The point of all this...... is subtle manipulations of body parts can really emphasise or de-emphasise different patterns of muscle recruitment as I am finding out.

Again to use running as an example, pelvic movement follows an oscillation pattern, where movement will occur in both the frontal and the transverse planes. The pelvis acts like a lever, moving according to the contraction of muscle groups that attach to it. To eliminate confusion by lack of diagrams!! I shall summarise by saying that this lever action allows a certain degree of pre-tension to build up in muscles that attach to it such as the hamstrings thus allowing an individual to take advantage of reflexes and stretch shortening cycle (SSC) and therefore efficiency of movement. So in this way, very subtle manipulations of muscles and joints can reorganise muscle recruitment and whole body movements. Just a thought.......


References: 

Bosch. F and Klomp, R. (2005). Running: Biomechanics and Exercise Physiology applied in Practice. Philadelphia: Elsevier Churchill Livingstone.

Fry, A.C., Smith. J.C and Schilling, B.K. (2003). Effect of knee position on hip and knee torques during the barbell squat. Journal strength and Conditioning Research. 17(4). pp 629-633.

Lederman., E (2010). The myth of Core stability. Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies, 14, pp84-98.

Tendon Strength Training: Performance benefits of optimising both components of your muscle tendon units, 2003. Raphael Brandon, available at: http://www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/tendon-strength-training-7

The definition of success and the double edged sword of effort

This very short post came about from an application for a coaching apprenticeship at the World Athletics Centre in Arizona, where I hope to spend a couple of weeks in December.

As I was filling it in, I was anticipating something similar to a tax return form but actually it included a number of very thought provoking questions which I really enjoyed answering and made me think of how I view success.

So, I thought I would share a couple of my thoughts to those questions.

What does success look like to you?

Success to me means getting the maximum potential out of yourself. This can be for an individual event or a particular time frame, irrespective of winning.

It doesn’t have to be confined to sport but for the context of this answer I will keep that as the focus. Satisfaction or success ultimately seems to correlate with that feeling that you absolutely did your best. I think the feeling of disappointment ties in very much with knowing the preparation or the execution of that event was not to the expected level. You can also have feelings of disappointment from winning events and similarly feel success whilst at the same time losing. So in short, I think it is a reflection of whether you feel you did everything to obtain the goal in mind.

Success as a coach would mean I did my absolute best to maximise the physical and mental potential of my athlete. It involves a huge range of variables but perhaps a start would be a commitment to fully understand training methodology and the chosen sport and “how” to apply it to that particular athlete. The selection of appropriate short term and long-term goals and the ability to adapt is part of the very difficult question of the “how”!

What are the 3 most important factors that determine your success?

Success as a coach I think for me starts with the commitment to learn. This learning process is on going and involves constant questioning and evaluation of knowledge and the ability to be humble and open to new ideas to acquire a strong knowledge base.

Ultimately success as an athlete and as a coach will involve “non-achieving” so the ability to be honest, reflect and improve is very much part of that process.

This has been one of the biggest factors that have determined my past successes. Working and surrounding yourself with excellent people with good attitudes, is a way to fast track learning and building a knowledge base.

SENSE OF HUMOUR!!!

Just an observation about effort

Yesterday at Track Academy in Willesden Green where I am doing my work placement with young elite sprinters, we were in the general preparation phase and working on the acceleration phase. It was interesting to see that the harder the effort and the more "grunting" and excess tension, the slower the time. Use and focus of effort is so important to performance and that can be learnt. It took me years to realise that actually "trying" harder actually just sabotages performance. Learning to relax in movement and focus on the technique that will get you faster or stronger is a better redirection of energy than just plain "effort".

Having said that, sometimes people do just need a good kick up the backside!!

Project 2: Quest for the body beautiful!

I was going to save revealing this "treat" of a challenge until I start training fully at beginning of Feb but there is bizarrely some useful cross-over with Fan Dance training, so here goes.....

Project 2 will be me partaking in a UKBFF Body fitness contest around April/May, which is basically a body building contest where I will be competing under the category "Ladies BodyFitness", so less steroids and more fake tan I think. At the moment the fear is more about the fake tan than the complete deprivation of food or any social life but I expect the reality will kick in soon enough.

My first shock tonight was having to prep,weigh and cook food for the week and actually assume a bit more responsibility for proper nutrition than I may have otherwise. I felt the below was appropriate whilst I was trying out my "cook skinless chicken 800 ways" recipe book!

I'm lucky to have Tirrel Grant from City Athletic write my programs (www.tirrelgrant.com).

He is a seasoned fitness model and put me through my paces today for my first session. It was excellent but I did want to kill him. It's tough, very little rest. (Very little chocolate as well whilst we are on that note). The next 6 weeks or so will be based around a 3 day whole body split to build muscular endurance and to just get used to the training and nutrition. We are super-setting and using a tempo of lifting which increases the time under tension of muscle groups, so effectively you are doing a lot of "work", hence the sweating, increase in heart rate and accompanying tourettes.

These Muscular Endurance sessions should in theory be excellent for "loaded" march training so we'll see how I go with it.

I also promise not to post endless photos of my daily menu, which would bore me to tears so I will have to find something else to report about. Coming from a sporting background and functional training, the goal of obtaining perfect symmetry for aesthetics is definitely out of my comfort zone. I am anticipating posing and walking in heels is going to be a bit of a challenge and probably very undignified, as I inevitable fall flat on my face whilst trying to do my quarter turns. Hence the following photo of training, where I still can't shake the desire to "get back to basics" and basically just use an inanimate object to pull/push/climb on!

assuming the position

Project 1: The Fan Dance training begins.....

Today I trialled a workout designed with the below objectives in mind. I did this in my local park, looking an absolute twat carrying an 75L backpack, wearing boots and spandex. All in the name of sports science!

Training Objectives:

• Induce optimum adaptations for the aerobic and anaerobic energy systems, in a similar way to what you can expect on the Fan Dance route. 
• Get used to the backpack + weight and get the glutes working to offload the lumbar musculature. The nature and architecture of these stabilising muscles mean they will inevitably fatigue under movement with heavy load so the more we can do to get the powerful gluteus maximus to work, the better. 

I learnt......

1. My backpack admin was similar to that of a 15yr old Duke of Edinburgh contender (think objects falling off, tied on etc). I chalk this up to lack of caffeine.

2. To try and avoid dog poo. I didn't do this well.

3. I also learnt that it was not a very pleasant exercise and even my ipod malfunctioned from shock and sweat.

The idea for this exercise was born out of utter boredom and contempt for treadmill walking, with the question of how best to replicate running up Pan Y Fan, when you live in London! I have to say, incline walking on a treadmill doesn't really seem to do it for me. For the purposes of the Fan Dance, walking at an exact speed at an exact elevation isn't going to cut it. The nature of this undulating route means both the aerobic and anaerobic systems are going to be constantly interchanging. In terms of training energy systems, how best can you replicate this?

The accumulation of lactate is going to be the biggest problem here! So.......the science bit.

1. We need to induce adaptations that will optimise oxidation of lactate.

2. Encourage use of lactate as a fuel substrate as certain organs/tissues/muscles can use a variety of different substrates to produce energy (ATP). There is some evidence that Myocardial (heart) muscle can use a number substrates including lactate. (Chatham, 2002)

I'm not going to pretend Biochemistry and Metabolism are simple, suffice to say, we don't really know the extent of how metabolism and genes are upregulated and downregulated (epigenetics) to control what and how fuels get metabolised in individuals. So I will do my best to answer this question with the information I do know.

In my opinion, a careful combination of high volume/low intensity (aerobic) and low volume/high intensity training (e.g HITT/Tabata)(anaerobic), will induce the adaptations we are after. The time frame is approximately 4-6 weeks for this to occur. Aerobic training will increase both the number and mass of mitochondria and capillarization of skeletal muscle increasing the lactate threshold, so lactate will accumulate less quickly. In this way, aerobic training has the benefit of increasing the rate of recovery, both short term and long term.

In the presence of oxygen, lactate will also be "shunted" back into the aerobic pathway to produce more ATP for more work.

Too much high intensity training can be very fatiguing both on the musculoskeletal systems and on the central nervous system so a careful blend can keep overtraining and injury at bay. In terms of priorities of goals, staying injury free is at the top of the list.

There is also increasing evidence that Fast Twitch Type II fibres can be trained through high volume/low intensity training to be more "oxidative" which will slow the accumulation of lactate (Teene, K et al, 2007), a good thing for strength endurance events. These muscle fibres are predominantly designed to generate a lot of power but fatigue quickly compared to slow twitch Type I fibres.

Energy systems, Metabolism and Biochemistry are whole science's on their own, but I believe it is important to understand what and why you are doing what you are doing. Make your training relevant, specific and make it count.

Training

1. Caffeine yourself up properly. I like to stick to roughly the legal limit for a performance enhancing effect!

Primary ingredient for success

2. Bergen + weight (10kg) and boots.

3. Choose a hill about 10-15% elevation and take a 100m section that includes the peak and a plateau of about 40m. <

4. START: 70-100 walking lunges, uphill.

TIP: It is very easy just to bend forward from waist, which makes you think you are going lower but for the purposes of this exercise and off loading lumbar muscles, drop your body weight into a "mid" range lunge, staying upright.

If you are familiar with a "good morning" utilise the forward hip movement when you stand up straight i.e pushing hips forward to get good hip extension, engaging glutes.

>As you bring rear leg through, spend a good second or so on one leg to challenge stabilisation and to get strong on one leg. 

5. Straight into a jog or walk to the top of the hill, over the crest and jog across the plateau.

6. Run down fast.

That is 1 circuit. Mine took approx. 2mins 30s. 

Simple but effective!

You can take 30s rest but aim to do the circuits continuously for 60mins. Doing this "loaded" with good technique should also train the stabilising muscles of the trunk really well so actually a separate "core" workout will not be necessary. Keep trunk strong and upright in the walking lunges and not too much leaning forward will ensure glutes are in the best "portion" of the length-tension curve to "work". This will prevent lower back muscles from getting overworked. 

You can manipulate the start/stop sections of the hill and/or length of each segment to find what works best for yourself. 

References

Chatham, J.C. (2002). Lactate - the forgotten fuel. The Journal of physiology, 542, 333

Teene, T., Alev, K., Kaasik, P. and Pehme, A. (2007). Changes in fast twitch muscle oxidative capacity and myosin isoforms modulation during endurance training. Journal of sports medicine and physical fitness, 47(1),124-32.

Before we begin - A little bit about motivation and the power of the excuse

I used to believe that heart, spirit, drive, hunger, motivation or whatever you choose to call it was enough to override fitness. In truth you need both in varying doses for most physical challenges, and both are trainable. I was once told some good advice when I was boxing competitively, that went along the lines of "you best have a really really good reason for doing this, because you will be faced with times when you are going to need to answer that and you will have to have a very good answer!" Very true.

And like all things, you can put a mathematical spin on it, where there is a direct correlation between exertion and difficulty answering that question!

Which brings me to the next observation of athletes and that is the "power of the excuse"! Generally people hate excuses but I have to say I smile when I hear a long list being reeled off for why a goal wasn't obtained. Perhaps the reasons are genuine or perhaps not, but above all, it reflects someones strength of self belief. They still believe they can do that thing and they have that hunger and the instinct to finish. It is when, the excuses stop that makes my heart sink. I have seen it a few times, when people lose that will to "fight", they don't want it enough and just ..... stop.

So my best advice before engaging on any arduous training and when you are lying face down in the metaphorical bog (for me that bog will be real!) is the following....

1. Have a very good answer for why you want to do it.

2. Make excuses! (for why you didn't achieve your goals).

I think my motivation for doing the sporting things I have done (and I have had to question this a lot) is more about understanding my own physical and mental limits. It is, as this blog sums up, an experiment about how training can change those limits. That is what I tell myself on a good day. On a bad day I just think I'd rather have a cup of tea and/or whisky (see below)!

Just give me a minute

I hope you can answer that question