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.

Some of my best tips for staying productive in the coaching environment.

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.

I’m planning on setting a lofty goal of accomplishing 365,000 kettlebell swings within a year.  I’m just looking ahead to see what a good start date would be. Nonetheless, I’ve already did my 100 today but I wanted to take a moment out of my Sunday to share an awesome song.  I’ve been having this one in my rotation for the last few weeks.  It’s a oldie, but it has some filthy bass drops.

To strip an idea down to its core, we must be masters of exclusion. We must relentlessly prioritize. Saying something short is not the mission—sound bites are not the ideal. Proverbs are the ideal. We must create ideas that are both simple and profound. The Golden Rule is the ultimate model of simplicity: a one-sentence statement so profound that an individual could spend a lifetime learning to follow it. ~ Chip & Dan Heath

What an Awesome motivational video.  I’ve actually used this coaching line from time to time because I think it illustrates a wonderful principle. Sometimes as an athlete, you may put in 211 degrees of work, effort, and time but sometimes it takes the extra degree to get results.

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.

I’ve wrote about Nike’s “Real Women” advertisements in the past via this post here.  I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, what Nike is doing for women athletics is absolutely outstanding.  Now, I could break this video down biomechanically and talk at great lengths about the exercises done during this video but that would counter the “message” that this video is sending.  What I love about this video is the work ethic and athleticism these ladies are displaying.  This is such a positive message that Nike is reinforcing for the youth of America today.

Introduction

Michael Fertik wrote an excellent article titled “Managing Employees in Their Twenties” in the Harvard Business Review last month.  What I enjoyed about Michael’s blog post was the simple to read tips about what it is that keeps talented employees in their mid-twenties within the same company.  Michael went on to write about writing about what motivates these younger employees and what I’m attempting to synthesize further is what influences younger employees to leave a company.

Looking at a topic or an article in reverse often forces readers to completely understand the topic through a different perspective.  As most coaches know, sometimes it takes explaining a drill or exercise different that allows for the athlete to ‘get it’.  This is my coaching attempt to explain this article from a different perspective.

Failing to Provide Educational Growth

Generation-Y is more enthused by having an opportunity to grow educationally rather than financially.  There is obviously some wiggle room on this one as everybody loves extra change in their pockets.  Despite small raises and additional increases to the salary, Generation-Y is more concerned with having an opportunity to learn through educational workshops, conferences, and clinics. Don’t think for a second that a small raise is enough to keep talented employees.  Generation-Y is more likely to accept lower paying positions if the position provides more opportunities to educationally grow.

Not Giving Enough Challenge

If there is a sense of learned helplessness or a loss perception of control, there is a higher chance that the talent will leave.  How do you increase the perception of control and keep Generation-Y from getting stagnant with the mundane?  Provide challenging opportunities for the employee to persevere through.  I’m not suggesting making anything tough for the sake of it, I’m suggesting throwing them into the deep end and allowing the younger people to figure it out on their own.  Allow for the younger employees to sort it out and figure it out on their own. After they conclude, give immediate feedback as post-mortems are excellent ways to accelerate learning.

Generation-Y expects to work hard and have less day-to-day ‘fun’, but they do so not for a paycheck, but to develop further marketable skills that align themselves to a further trajectory for their careers.

Not Publicly Rewarding Great Performance

Failing to give public praise of Generation-Y is likely to produce employees looking for the door. Highlight the great accomplishments of those who are exceeding performance expectations.  Failing to publicly addresses Generation-Y (who thrives off personal growth and acknowledgment) is a recipe for disgruntled employees looking for the next nirvana.

Not Inquiring Feedback or Asking Questions

The Perception of Control and Perception of Competency are two factors hugely related to intrinsic motivation of a task. Intrinsic motivation versus extrinsic motivation is the incentive to undertake an activity based on the expected enjoyment of the activity itself, rather than external benefits that might result.  Asking questions about projects or tasks related to their global picture allows for Generation-Y to feel like they are contributing to the bigger picture.  Failure to ask for feedback places a barrier between Generation-Y and ‘the power’ and results in a decrease of intrinsic motivation.  If the younger people no longer are doing the task out of enjoyment, they are doing it for extrinsic benefits (a salary) and will likely look at other companies that offer more lucrative benefits.

Not Inviting Interaction with Others

Generation-Y grew up with the internet, cell phones and text messaging.  As a result of this technology, this generation is a bit reluctant to seek personal interactions with others.  Failing to invite personal interactions with others will make Generation-Y feel isolated and confined to their sector of the company.

Forgetting to Give Personal Attention

Failing to remember the smaller details of the employee’s personal life sends a message that the manager only cares about performance.  Generation-Y is concerned with a sense of belonging and a failure to recognize the individual behind the company’s performance will likely result in the younger employees seeking companies that do recognize the person.

Creating False Praise for Performance

This is the easiest way to ruin feedback immediately.  Generation-Y is keen on recognizing fake praise and feedback.  As identified above, this generation is focused on personal growth rather than financial growth, and ‘faking’ praise will go against the grain of what they are striving to achieve.  If you fake it, they will recognize and have contempt.  If you initially burn the bridge, they will no longer trust your word when you actually ‘do’ mean it. Be authentic.

Neglecting Long-Term Rewards

Personal growth and rewards don’t come over night.  Providing immediate gratification in terms of short-term pay increases and incentives will overshadow the aspect of long term personal growth.  Emphasize the idea of developing the employee ‘long term’ rather than rewarding the employee ‘short term’, and Generation-Y will value the company more.

Setting Long Term Goals and Failing to Set Short Term Goals

While Generation-Y sets long term goals on personal development, they need to managed with short term goals due to growing up in the internet-fast-pace world.  Blame Facebook or social media for Generation-Y’s short term attention span but the facts remain simple, short term goals work.  Think of about this way, more 20-somethings just finished their undergraduate or graduate programs where weekly or monthly goals, papers, or homework was due.  Generation-Y then graduates with a degree and we throw them into a corporate world where they have annual goals to accomplish versus what they have been doing for the past 20 years of their academics.

Keeping Poor Performers Around

Nothing is more corruptive to the personal growth of Generation-Y then seeing the acceptance of poor performance.  This generation is cut throat and watching ‘fake praise’ or the acceptance of those who do not perform sends a message from management that ‘performance doesn’t matter’.  When management sends that clear message, it is often translated to ‘the work that you do, and the efforts that you give, doesn’t matter’.  Can we predict an immediate drop of motivation?  Absolutely!

Keeping Toxic People Around

One bad egg can completely ruin the rest.  The acceptance of toxic entities in a corporation is even more damaging then the person themselves.  Have the ability to properly manage and cut ties when faced with a potential bad egg.

Managing Younger Employees like Older Employees

Understand that Generation-Y isn’t motivated by the same factors that 30 year olds are.  401K’s, HMO’s, ROTH IRA’s, and Long Term Financial investments aren’t going to sound like the Holy Grail to a 20-29 year old.  If you want to effectively manage younger employees then you must first understand their interests and what motivates them.  If we already know that Generation-Y is more influenced by learning and personal growth, perhaps offer learning or continuing education incentives.

Conclusion

I think wrapping this article up is best done in an article quote by Douglas LaBier, Ph.D.  In LaBier’s article “Gen X and Gen Y — How They’re Driving The New “4.0″ Career”, he goes on to write the following:

[box]Younger workers: “These older people just don’t get it. They expect us to just fall into line, follow bureaucratic rules, and they don’t show us respect for what we know or what we can do.”

The older workers: “These young people just don’t understand how to function within an organization. They want recognition, promotion, everything before they’ve earned it, step-by-step, like we had to do. That’s not how reality is.”

They remind me of a couple who said about each other, “It’s not that we see things differently. It’s worse than that: We’re seeing different things!”

-Douglas LaBier, Ph.D.[/box]

Why are athletes still crunching for core development but more importantly why are coaches still programming abdominal crunches and sit-ups?  I don’t think both parties are doing it to spite researches like Stuart McGill, but I got to believe that athletes and coaches just don’t know any better.  I’ll buy the ignorant card.

I know there are some people out there that simply cannot wrap their heads around discontinuing crunches and sit-ups despite the plethora of research.  The most common thing I hear from people initially is that “Adam, it doesn’t currently hurt my back – why must I stop?”  I often think that people sometimes do not look at the entire effect of what crunches and sit-ups really do.

Rarely in athletics and the world itself, does the core function to “crunch” together.  The only time I really think I ever crunch in my daily life is getting out of bed.  So the first understanding needed is that the core is not designed to crunch together.  When doing a crunch, the muscle that is being developed is the rectus abdominus, however, the important fact is that is wrongly pulling the rib cage down or depressing the ribs.

This downward pull sets off a cascade of other events that result in the loss of thoracic spine extension.   If you followed much of my blog, you will know that I stress and write frequently about how important thoracic spine mobility is to both the stability of the scapulae and lumbar spine.   Athletes and coaches need to realize that with the trade off with utilization of the crunches for core development, we’re losing thoracic extension with every sit up.  Is a sit up really that effective and important that we’re willing to risk limited thoracic spine mobility, poor scapulae positioning, glenohumeral inpingement, the ability of overhead pressing, and back squatting?  Not a chance!

What I do at Wichita State’s Strength and Conditioning department, I focus on developing proper core strength through utilization of a multi-mode and multi-directional set of principles that focus four movement patterns.

The first three of the four movement patterns consist of resisting against an external weight while maintaining a neutral spine throughout the movement patterning.

• Anti-Extension
• Anti-Lateral Flexion
• Anti-Rotation

The fourth movement pattern remains the only movement that resembles any flexion based movements at the hip.  The important take home message of this category is to notice that our athletes are executing hip flexion rather than lumbar flexion.  We requires our athletes to lock the lumbar spine in a neutral spine position by contracting their abdominals.

• Hip Flexion with Neutral Spine

In conclusion, you will not find our athletes performing lumbar spine flexion during any of our workouts.  I also don’t allow it at our facility if an athlete so chooses to “do extra”.  It would be the same thing if an athlete asked if he/she could repeatedly run full-speed head first into a wall.  Would you allow it?  Absolutely not, they certainly would become injured over time.  Then why are we doing the same for crunches?  Do athletes/coaches not know any better?

“Disc herniation is associated not only with extreme deviated posture, either fully flexed or bent, but also with repeated loading in the neighborhood of thousands of times, high-lighting the role of fatigue as a mechanism of injury.” (Gorden et al.,1991; King, 1993).”

“While much ergonomic effort has been devoted to reducing spine loads, it is becoming clearer that repeated spine flexion- even in the absence of moderate load-will lead to discogenic troubles. Furthermore, recent evidence shows that the direction of the bending will determine the location of the annulus damage.” (Aultman et al., 2005)