Cressey Sports Performance Internship Diary – Part 1

I’m continually blown away by how quickly things can change. As I write this, I just got home from day one of the Elite Baseball Mentorship at Cressey Sports Performance, just in time to catch the second half of the Patriots-Broncos game. A few weeks ago, who could have imagined New England going from four straight weeks of lousy football to putting a hurtin’ on Denver?

In a similar timeframe, I’ve made it more than halfway through my internship at Cressey Sports Performance and have learned more about coaching than I ever thought possible in such a short period.

The sheer repetition of coaching dozens of athletes a day – plus being surrounded by some of the brightest minds in the fitness industry – is the ideal scenario for becoming a better coach. By rubbing elbows with the best of the best, I’ve learned why the CSP coaches are the best.

Success leaves clues, and I’ve had the chance to do a few months of detective work to find out what makes a great coach. Here’s part one of the list I’ve compiled of what makes a great coach great:

1. GREAT COACHES PUT THEIR HANDS ON PEOPLE

Cueing and putting people in the right positions are the heart and soul of coaching. That said, I’ve paid special attention to the words I use when coaching people, because as my bearded bro Harold Gibbons says, what we say matters.

But what I immediately noticed was that the coaches at CSP put their hands on people all the time. Like, constantly. Pushups? We’re slapping abs to reinforce a stable core. Rows? We’re tapping elbows to prevent anterior humeral glide. Deadlifts? We’re poking lats and patting rear ends.

As CSP coach Andrew Zomberg told me, many athletes need kinesthetic awareness (feeling the proper position) more than they need the auditory or visual cue. And as Tony Gentilcore quickly interjected with a mischievous grin, “I’ll touch anywhere!” Jokes aside, Tony gets athletes in the right position faster than anyone I’ve ever seen because he’s not afraid to physically put athletes where they need to be. Actions are louder than words, especially when coaching complicated exercises.

2. GREAT COACHES DON’T SKIP THE LITTLE DETAILS

During the hands-on portion of today’s mentorship, I was talking to a group of attendees about how we incorporate forearm wall slides into programs. I said that along with doing wall slides during the warmup and cooldown, we also add them between some athletes’ medicine ball throws as a “filler.” Eric Schoenberg, a physical therapist who works closely with CSP athletes, was quick to comment on how he disliked referring to an important exercise as a “filler.”

You see, while we as coaches call low-level mobility and activation drillers “fillers” when they’re used to break up heavy lifts or power exercises, they’re always there for a reason and are too important to de-emphasize with a word like “filler,” Schoenberg said. For some athletes, these drills make all the difference, so you can’t devalue them.

That made me stop and think about a terrible habit I’d developed early on in my internship. More often than not at CSP, an athlete’s first exercise is a big strength movement like a squat or deadlift, and we pair it with an activation drill like a prone trap raise. I always get jacked up to coach a deadlift and watch an athlete move big weight, but at the beginning of my internship, I was just as quick to walk away and grab a sip of water while the athlete did their set of trap raises. This was a huge mistake on my part for the exact reasons Schoenberg described. If an athlete has shoulder pain because he or she can’t get the lower trap fire and instead cranks on the lat or deltoid, that trap raise becomes just as important as any deadlift and they need COACHING to fix it.

The take-home lesson? Every exercise in your program should have a purpose. And if it has purpose, it’s worth doing perfectly, so coach it!

3. GREAT COACHES DON’T SPEND THEIR TIME – THEY INVEST THEIR TIME

One of the most important habits I’ve built is calling the Success Hotline every single day. Dr. Rob Gilbert, a sports psychology professor at Montclair State University, has been leaving motivational message every morning for over 22 years (talk about discipline!). Every day at 7:30 a.m. EST, Dr. Gilbert records a 3-minute answering machine message to inspire listeners to be better in whatever they do, whether it’s sports, school or sales. After training clients for two hours and hitting the road for CSP, the Success Hotline helps keep me focused and motivated for the long day ahead.

Dr. Gilbert frequently notes that everyone has 24 hours in a day to spend however you like. Regular people spend their time. Successful people INVEST their time.

Most coaches are busy. The fitness industry pretty much mandates long days and often requires the dreaded A.M./P.M. split, because most people work out before or after work. Very few trainers can work a 9-to-5 schedule and make a living.

That said, the most important way to continually evolve and get better as a coach is continuing education: reading, writing, watching DVDs and attending seminars. But with long work days, how do we balance continuing education, our own workouts, plus time for family and friends? The answer: invest your time as if it were money. Don’t waste it and certainly don’t invest it in activities that don’t pay dividends.

Nobody I know invests their time more intensely than Miguel Aragoncillo, the newest coach at CSP. Nobody reads more and learns more in as little time as Miguel, all while still killing it in the gym and setting new PRs. He’s already at work when everyone else gets there and he’s still there working when everyone else leaves. At 26 years old, he didn’t orchestrate his rapid rise in the fitness industry by screwing around on Facebook or vegging out in front of the TV. He knows a thing or two about making the most of his time, and it’s paid off by landing him a job at the greatest baseball training facility on the planet.

And yes, he’s a great dancer, but I think Greg Robins and I are giving Miguel a run for his money.