Warming up the long sprinters at the start of the track session.
A recent visitor to one of our practices posed to me the question, “What is your favorite part about working for Altis?” After roughly 20 seconds of silently staring into the blue Phoenix sky we both began to chuckle. He knew as much as I did how difficult of a question this was to answer and he could clearly see it on my blank expression. I explained to him that a multitude of answers raced through my head in those 20 seconds and that rather than trying to settle on one I would give him three. So, without further ado and in no particular order…
Open-Door Policy
We at Altis pride ourselves on an open sharing of all we do in an attempt to improve sport at all levels and across many different disciplines. As a young coach this philosophy has been instrumental to my development.
Internally, the knowledge that circulates amongst our staff is, in my opinion, priceless. On any given day you can walk around our facilities and stumble upon conversations and discussions between athletes, coaches, and therapists that rival any formal lecture or conference you could attend if you possessed the necessary funds.
Couple that with the insights and information that come in through visiting coaches on a seemingly weekly basis and I have been granted access to a vast network of resources that span the globe. Having real life, face to face conversations with successful coaches from diverse backgrounds working with an assortment of populations makes for an ideal learning environment. That being said, the open-door policy takes the silver medal in the Olympics of learning environments. Standing atop the podium you will find…
Athlete Contact Hours
Being a coach at Altis means just that – you coach. A LOT. Between the track and the weight room I spend 5-6 hours a day 6 days a week practicing my chosen profession. While there is much to be learned from those who came before you, the real learning comes from personal, practical experiences and subsequent reflection on those experiences. Your experiences are your bricks and reflection is your mortar. Reflection allows you to construct a structure from your experiences. It allows you to make your experiences stick. In her article, Transforming Teaching Practice, Barbara Larrivee wrote, “Experience is not pure – everything is contextually bound.” Reflection allows you to make sense of the experience within the context. It helps you to organize the experience and transform it into knowledge.
After a couple months into my first season with what was at the time the World Athletics Center I realized that I had been so overwhelmed with everything around me that I had not taken the time to sit down, take a deep breath, and reflect. At this time, I thought back to many of the training sessions I had coached. I was able to pinpoint a few positive coaching experiences and a few times when I should have done better. I remembered one particular instance from early in the season when I was working on Olympic lifting technique with an athlete. There was not much progress made in that session and I was bothered by it. It wasn’t until a few weeks later during my time of reflection when I thought back to that session as well as previous lectures and discussions that I realized the mistakes I made. I got stuck on one cue rather than being creative and finding one that worked with that individual athlete. I also flooded the athlete with too much information at one time.
In his book Mastery, Robert Greene warns, “We spend too much time entangled in emotional issues, and we never quite have enough detachment to reflect and learn from our experiences.” Had I not taken the time to reflect on this situation I would have never drawn an accurate conclusion on what happened and would have missed a great opportunity to grow as a coach.
From that point forward I have made a conscious effort to reflect much more frequently. Oftentimes these are very brief conversations in my head at the end of the day where I ask myself, “What went well and what did not?” I also conduct a more formal, written reflection every few months. These reflections have been highly educational and are a practice that I truly enjoy.
I have spoken a lot to the environment at Altis, but have left out one very big component of that environment…
The Athletes
Athletics is all about the athletes. Luckily, our Recruitment Director, Andreas Behm, has done a phenomenal job of bringing in athletes who fit extremely well into what we are trying to do at Altis. When I meet someone and they find out I work with professional athletes they oftentimes assume that that means I work with big egos. I take great pride in informing them that there are in fact no egos within our training group and that everyone gets along exceptionally well. The coaches and athletes alike are all in it for one reason, to be the best they can be while progressing the sport. This leaves no room for egos.
Some of the short sprint males taking easy strides on the grass. Photo Credit: Bello Photography
In addition to great personalities, our athletes also have an insatiable thirst for knowledge. They do a great job of asking questions and inquiring about why we do what we do. They attend optional lectures and discussions. They strive to obtain a PhD in their respective events. There are two take-aways from this. First, it tells me that these athletes are intrinsically motivated. They are not driven solely by fame and fortune. They simply want to be better. Secondly, it tells me that I better be prepared to field questions on a daily basis. This means I need to make sure I have a sound understanding of the underlying reasons for our training components.
When I can explain to an athlete why we are doing a warm-up in the weight-room despite coming straight from the track it allows me to get much more buy-in and less resistance from the athletes whom are itching to get into their workout at the expense of a proper warm-up.
When mentioning the athletes at Altis, I would be remiss not to mention their high level of performance. I find myself in awe on a daily basis of the physical feats these men and women are able to perform. From the speeds they reach on the track to the loads they move in the weight room, their physical abilities are astounding. It makes my job as a coach very enjoyable.
I hope this article was able to shine some light on my current situation as the Strength & Power Coach at Altis. I believe something very special is going on here and simply wanted to share that through the eyes of a young coach who has been fortunate enough to find himself in the middle of it all.