All posts tagged Athletes

A Leader’s Oath

by AdamRingler on January 25, 2012 in Blog, Coaching with No comments

The ladies came together gathering around the central pillar in our weight room to receive feedback from our strength & conditioning staff regarding the outcome of their mission. They circled up standing shoulder to shoulder while their hands were still covered in chalk and sweat still pouring down their faces. They look eagerly towards us awaiting to receive their mission outcome. We make it a habit to debrief the team and the individual leader for every session (or evolution) we lead our athletes through. In this session, Whitney stood proudly in front of her teammates having lead her squad through the 60 minutes of challenging feats of strength & power.

“Give it up to Whitney for having the courage to lead the team today”, I command. The teammates hoot and holler while applauding and acknowledging Whitney’s trial of fire through our leadership program.

“Let’s Debrief. Whitney, give your teammates one thing they did well today and one thing they need to improve on before our next session.” I said. She turned to her teammates and commented that her squad did a great job communicating coaching cues to each other while navigating through a new lift, consisting of new exercises. I nod my head while listening to her.

Whitney then addressed that the team needed to do a better job at hustling from one exercise to another. I paused as I listened to the words Whitney was saying. “Their were moments where I was coaching you to jog from one side of the weight room to the other and not every single athlete was responding”.

I affirmed her statement by nodding along as she was recalling the tough and physically challenging 60 minute session. I held a long pause, to draw the team’s focus, before moving along. “Teammates! Give your team leader one thing she did well today and one thing she needs to improve on before her next opportunity to lead.” I asked the team.

The teammates were quick to respond on Whitney’s ability to to “see the room” and offer vigorous partner coaching to every single one of them. Tonya, one of Whitney’s teammates, quickly added “Although I wasn’t Whitney’s partner during this lift, she was always pushing me to do better; even while she was struggling through an exercise, her focus was on improving her teammates.”

“Tonya, You’re absolutely right” I said. I scanned the team and made individual eye contact for a few moments with every athlete. “What’s one thing she can improve on before her next leading opportunity?” I inquired. The team fell silent and soon after, the eye contact strayed.

“If you’re too afraid of hurting someone’s feelings, you’ll never be confident in your ability to lead” I said. I attempted to get the ball rolling by addressing our fundamental strength & conditioning belief.

‘”Whitney, you’re responsibility is to make sure our teammates accomplish the mission. Your mission today was to ensure every athlete abide by our four weight room standards. You identified that several of your teammates did not respond to you coaching. Their response falls upon your ability to lead; as its your sole responsibility to complete the mission.”

She responded with an affirming nod and continued to listen.

“Use my staff to help communicate your message. If you see teammates not responding to your command, confront the teammate to walk in lock-stop. I promise you that I’ll back you 100% during the session.” She again nodded understandingly.

I asked the rest of my staff to contribute their feedback regarding what they witnessed during the lift. In an instructed and educated manner, they sandwich their responses to the team of athletes. They start by reinforcing or praising a few positive elements of the session. Our staff then follows the positive reinforcement with future-oriented instruction that identifies elements of the lift where the athlete could improve. My team then encourages them with motivational praise ergo conveying our confidence in their ability to perform the skill correctly.

“What are we saying today” I enthusiastically command as I reach my clutched fist into the middle of the circle. “Shocks on three”, Whitney responded. In a violent eruption Whitney yells out “one, two, three” . The team roars will a loud and defining “SHOCKS!”

It’s all in a days work, and coincidentally, it all transpires in final moments of each session. I believe these last 5 minutes allow for the greatest growth of an athlete. Perhaps, more importantly, it allows for the greatest opportunity for the growth of a leader.

You’re a Ferrari Driving Only 35 MPH

by AdamRingler on October 11, 2011 in Blog, Coaching with No comments

It was a particularly gloomy day in Wichita, Kansas but that didn’t stop the hustling of our Wichita State athletes from flying through the weight room like a precision strike missile set upon it’s destination. I love days that this. The atmosphere in the weight room was perfect; one part fantastic momentum from a great weekend sweep; another part great senior leadership; and equal parts of both competitive & hungry freshman and sophomores eager to move up the depth charts. This makes for a great environment to train and an even better one to coach under.

This atmosphere is akin to having a freshly hand-washed 2011 Ferrari, turbo charged, and eager for top speed drive. The road conditions are perfect with freshly paved cement and a straight away stretch that begs for putting the pedal to the metal. What a great day for cutting loose and opening the speed up.

Stephanie was one of my more gifted athletes; she was one of the most talented athletes I’ve worked with. On the court, she was a complete show stopper; dominant, aggressive and eager to put the team first. I cannot reiterate the capabilities and talents Stephanie had. My job is to help her realize how dominant she really is.

Stephanie had only one downfall to her game; herself. The session was coming to a enthusiastic finish and I noticed Stephanie wasn’t herself throughout the lift. ”Steph!” I said questioning. “Let’s talk when you finish foam-rolling”. She nodded. Moments later, Stephanie came into my office with her workout card in hand and sat down in front of my desk.

As I commonly do, I motioned for her workout card and she slid it across my desk. I sat bewildered as I read through her latest lifting session. After drawing comparisons from her previous six weeks of lifts, I noticed that Stephanie didn’t attempt to progress in either weight or reps during this last lift.

“Stephanie, is there any confusion about what my expectations are?” I said sternly. She looked back at me and repeated “The team looks up to me during the sessions because I am their go-to on the court”. She added, “I don’t want to fail in front of them so I didn’t add weight to my lifts today. I don’t want them to see me struggle, or possibly worse, fail.”

I handed the workout card back to Stephanie and added to the conversation “Steph, you’re an amazing athlete capable of so much more; I wouldn’t tell you otherwise if I didn’t believe in these words with full conviction” I said. ”You are a top speed Ferrari but are deathly afraid to take it above 35 MPHs. Believe in yourself. Believe in your preparation” I added.

“You’re teammates are counting on you to push yourself to your full potential and any failure to do so hurts the team” I said. ”I know you were trying to protect the team by securing their confidence in you, but in reality, you’ve cheated yourself an opportunity to let it rip”, I said.

Stephanie gathered her belongings and collected herself before leaving my office. She responded “I understand what you mean about being capable of so much more. My team needs me to lead and part of that means that the need to see me confident under stress.”

I nodded and I repeated our leadership creed, ”A leader accomplishes the mission first, and protects their teammates second. Your mission is to prepare yourself to the demands of the sport. Do not forget what the mission is.”

The next lifting session I witnessed a transformation in Stephanie. I want to write that I didn’t know this transformation was possible, but that would be a lie; I knew Stephanie had more to give than what she ever believed. After all, she’s a top speed Ferrari. It’s up to her to continue pushing the pedal to the metal.

Coaching & Training Mental Toughness

by AdamRingler on June 19, 2011 in Blog, Training with No comments

Factors determining Mental Toughness development

To prepare our athletes to be both physically and mentally tough, we have identified a need to train our athlete’s minds as well as their physical bodies. We hold many one-on-one meetings to discuss goal setting, challenges, and realistic expectations of training. It is during these one-on-one meetings that we can begin to build the foundation for the four C’s of mental toughness training.

Challenge

Some athletes consider challenges to be learning growth-opportunity, whereas other athletes may be likely to consider a challenge as a threat. Those who embrace challenge may have a mindset for self-development whereas those who avoid challenge may do it out of fear of failure or aversion to effort (Dweck, 2007). During our meetings and training sessions, we setup the environment where athletes embrace challenging scenarios as a “learning opportunity” rather than a “test”. This allows for athletes who struggle or lose to embrace an ideology that their “learning” from the experience.

Control

Some athletes believe that they can exert influence over their environment or that they can make a difference and change outcomes. Whereas, other athletes feel helpless and perceive that outcomes of events are fixed and out of their control. Our staff tries to empower athletes by giving them simple choices over their environment, i.e. the music, exercise selection, or warm-ups. We do not allow the coaches to direct every single decision where as we want the athlete to take ownership over the control of their workout.

Commitment

Athletes differ in their likelihood to persist with a goal or work task. Some athletes, in the face of difficulty, will persist till the skill or task is completed. Other athletes may easily become distracted, bored or divert their attention to competing goals. We setup environments where we break down goals or commitments to micro-goals. We coach our athletes to climb Mount Everest “one step at a time”. Often times, athletes can lose commitment to a goal or task when the result looks too overwhelming or too far away (Goleman, 1998).

Confidence

Athletes that have high confidence have the self-belief to successfully complete tasks which may be considered too difficult by individuals with similar abilities but lower confidence. At Wichita State, our staff does everything in our power to build the confidence of our athletes through proper progressions and challenges. As Harter (1981) wrote about in her research titled “A Model of intrinsic mastery motivation in children”, an athlete’s perception of competency or ability to succeed in a task is highly influential on their intrinsic motivation for that particular task.

We never accept excuses

At Wichita State, our athletes have learned to accept responsibility and not make excuses for performance. If our roles as coaches is to prepare athletes for the challenges of tomorrow, than a realistic and transferable skill is accountability.

We don’t allow athletes to make excuses for themselves nor their teammates. We also don’t allow athletes to accept any excuses. This has created a culture where athletes are consistently honest with each other and everybody is held to the same accountable actions as everybody else.

Teaching athletes how to work “ruthlessly hard”

We receive a lot of athletes who have talent that delivered them division one scholarships. The downfall of that statement is that these athletes have relied off of their talent versus their work ethic. We aim to change that continuum in the direction of relying off of their ability to work extremely hard. Talent gets you to the starting line; work ethic delivers you to the checkered flag.

It is not uncommon for our staff to physically challenge athletes to do what they believe is impossible. Conditioning sessions are perfect environments for teaching athletes how to work “ruthlessly hard” as a team.

Leadership. It’s a 24/7 Responsibility

by AdamRingler on February 15, 2011 in Uncategorized with No comments

The Strength of Many is Greater than the Strength of One

Being a leader isn’t a temporary job. It’s not season position or a typical nine to five. It isn’t a trait that you can turn on or off at your disposal. Being a leader is a permanent characteristic that defines a person. Coaches often ask for my advice when trying to develop leaders out of their athletes and I often admit that there is no better environment to cultivate leadership growth than the strength and conditioning weight room. I also find it humbling that many other coaches, much my senior, seek my knowledge and expertise about leadership development. I credit this personal development to expert mentors who’ve groomed and developed world class leadership experiences for myself to foster in. I only mention this because leadership is not always a natural process. As humans, our basic mode for survival often predisposes us to selecting the easiest path of least resistance. The path of least resistance, however, does little to naturally develop leadership qualities that transfer over to the competitive arena.

At Wichita State, we believe in developing leadership qualities through the combined efforts and struggles shared by a team. There is no better environment for producing natural challenges that test the physical and mental wherewithal, then the strength and conditioning department. At Wichita State, there are three foundational principles that all Shocker athletes abide by.

1) We Are Mentally & Physically Tough

2) We Don’t Make Excuses And We Don’t Let Others Make Excuses For Us

3) We Work Hard

These are our most basic levels of principles that I expect out of every single one of our shocker athletes. From the star athlete to the walk-on redshirt, nobody escapes without meeting those expectations. You would imagine a strength coach to be overly concerned with developing physical strength; however, I am not impressed by amazing increases of physical strength. I’m concerned and impressed by the increases of mental strength. Wichita State athletes are bound to become both physically and mentally stronger through systematic training programs. Shocker athletes will not make excuses for failing to prepare nor will they accept the false excuses given by fellow teammates. Finally, Wichita State athletes will go above and beyond and work extremely hard to accomplish their goals.

Decisions are made by thinking about the team, rather than oneself.

Those selected individuals who are being groomed as team leaders have even higher expectations from our strength and conditioning department. It is my belief that successful team leaders lead by doing two things;

1) Accomplish the mission

2) Protect The Team

First, without a second of hesitation, successful team leaders accomplish the mission through any adversity that is faced. What I mean by this is that successful leaders, no matter the circumstances, consistently get the job done. If a task is given to a leader, it is executed. If I asked the leader to fulfill a particular role, they do it. If I ask them to confront a teammate, they confront. Successful leaders do whatever it takes, to accomplish the mission given to them.

Secondly, successful team leaders protect the team. Understand the orders of these are absolutely critical. Make no mistake; the most successful leaders will sacrifice feelings and emotions for accomplishing the mission. At the end of the day, leaders execute in order to accomplish the mission. Good team leaders, however, also protect the team by saying what others don’t want to, and demanding expectations that others won’t.

Leaders protect the team by several different means. Successful leader protect the team by demanding nothing but the best out of every single teammate. They don’t allow for excuses to be made nor do they make excuses for others. Leaders also take responsibility for when a plan does not go smoothly. We groom our leaders after a defeat, to address the team by taking responsibility for the loss. A teammate’s failure to follow directions or execute a plan is collectively the responsibility of a team leader. Leaders also give credit to the team when a plan is properly executed. They naturally take responsibility and credit for the failures and give credit to the team for victories. Make no mistake; successful leaders will confront others if they are not carrying out the expectations of their responsibility to the team. Leading is about being comfortable with being alone. Having the mental strength to stand alone and carry the pressure and burdens of accepting responsibility for defeat and having the ego and capability of giving away credit in times of victories.

We prepare our Wichita State athletes to be great team leaders and great team mates. Be certain, we prepare our shocker athletes, every single day, to fill either role.

It’s Not About The Bike

by AdamRingler on November 27, 2010 in Uncategorized with No comments

Lance Armstrong Training for the Tour De France

I recently read a great book co-wrote by Lance Armstrong titled, “It’s Not About the Bike” in which Lance writes about his battle with cancer, the physical and emotional recovery afterwards, and his preparation to compete for the Tour De France. In his writings, he talked extensively about the rigorous of the competitive cycling world and how he felt his entire athletic career prepared him for one of his greatest and most demanding competition ever – his competition for his own life.

With the title of the book being “It’s Not About the Bike”, it made me think about the weight room and all of the strengthening and conditioning that we’re doing. It’s easy to be consumed by the numbers, the strength gains, the mobility gains. It’s often we look at athletes and see increases in sprint speeds, increased throwing velocities and a whole gamut of other quantitative measurements to back our hard work. However, some times I walk away and think, “It’s Not About the Weight Room”. Maybe we’re doing more than preparing athletes but rather preparing individuals for the hardships of life. I structure my sessions to be a physical battle against themselves. It’s a challenge every time an athlete walks in, and they must decide whether they are going to compete on that god given day. By doing this, I feel like I’m creating an environment similar to those experienced later through life lessons. Will there be struggle later in life for these athletes? Certainly. Will there be demanding times with people demanding the impossible? Absolutely.

I think what we’re doing from a strength and conditioning perspective far exceeds just the strength gains and ‘numbers’ that coaches often want to hear about. It’s must deeper than that. ”It’s Not About the Bike” nor the “Weight Room”. It’s about the struggle outside of both. It’s about strengthening the body and the mind to deal with the hardships; be it job loss, a lost loved one, or a battle with cancer. Don’t ever forget that strength coaches strengthen more than simply the body – rather it’s our responsibility to strengthen the mind and the spirit as well.

All posts tagged Athletes

A Leader’s Oath

You’re a Ferrari Driving Only 35 MPH

Coaching & Training Mental Toughness