In part one of this post, I shared three things that great coaches do to go above and beyond. Here are three more things I’ve learned during my internship at Cressey Sports Performance that have helped me become a better coach.
4. GREAT COACHES REMEMBER NAMES
Have you ever met someone only to have them forget your name the next time they saw you? Or did they call you by the wrong name? How did that make you feel?
Chances are, it didn’t make you feel very good. And that will impact how you remember that person for the rest of your life.
I’ve heard more than one smart person recite this quote by Maya Angelou:
“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
And that’s why great coaches remember names. The fastest way to make a great impression on someone – especially the second time you see them – is to smile and call them by name. It lets them know you care enough about them to store a little place in your brain for the sweetest sound they’ll ever hear: their name.
My capacity to remember names has grown exponentially since my internship at CSP. Pete Dupuis, co-founder and business manager at CSP, emphasized the importance of remembering names from day one and he was spot on. You’ll never get an athlete to jump higher or a client to lose weight unless you show them that you care, and the fastest way to do that is to remember their name.
Remembering names isn’t easy, especially when you’re working with dozens of athletes per day. I found that the simplest way to remember names was to repeat the person’s name back to them when you first meet and shake hands, and then be the first person to greet them when they walk in the door every day. Then, by simple repetition, you’ll store the name in your memory.
5. GREAT COACHES DON’T COACH EVERY EXERCISE THE SAME WAY WITH EVERY PERSON
A squat is a squat, no matter who you’re coaching, right?
Wrong. Never has this become more apparent to me than over the past few months, where over the course of a given day I may work with Major League Baseball pitchers, soccer moms, Little Leaguers and weekend warriors. No two people move the same way, so you can’t coach every exercise the same way either.
One of the things that sets CSP apart is the initial assessment. The CSP coaches are experts at determining an athlete’s needs based on his or her unique posture and movement patterns. That said, even when we use similar exercises, we’ll coach it differently based on an athlete’s assessment.
Take the Bench T-Spine Mobilization, for example. It’s a great movement to mobilize the upper back while getting a stretch in the lats. Desk jockeys who spend all day sitting at a computer can benefit greatly from this, as they tend to be slumped in the shoulders with a rounded upper back. On the other hand, we see a ton of baseball players with “flat” thoracic spines, where they’ve lost a bit of the natural curve of the upper back, creating a poor “foundation” for shoulder blade movement. The last thing this guy needs is more thoracic extension, so we couldn’t cue this person to arch their upper back – we simply have them stretch their lats with a slightly rounded upper back. One exercise, two populations, drastically different cues.
You can see this with my fellow intern, Ryan, who’s somewhat “stuck” in thoracic extension and can’t arch any further. He demonstrates the Bench T-Spine Mob in this video, and you’ll see he’s nearly shaking trying to extend his back because he simply can’t go any further. For him, he needs the lat stretch more than the t-spine extension, so we’d cue him differently than a hunchback desk worker.
6. GREAT COACHES LEAD BY EXAMPLE
Not long ago, I saw a Facebook post that posed the question: does a strength coach have to be strong? This sparked an intriguing debate with some compelling arguments for “yes” and “no”.
I don’t think it’s that black-and-white, but I think a great coach needs to have spent some serious time under the bar at one point or another. A great strength coach doesn’t need to be incredibly strong right this second, but at some point in his or her career, he or she needs to have trained with passion and purpose. If you’ve never trained for strength or performance, how can you possibly lead and inspire people to do the same?
Few coaches set a better example for their athletes than Greg Robins. I’m honored to have had Greg take me under his wing these past few months, both as a coach and as a lifter. Athletes respect him for more than his knowledge and coaching abilities. They look up to him because he trains like an animal. He doesn’t just act the part – he is the part. And he’s got great fashion sense, as evidenced in the picture below.
Greg made a fantastic point in a recent article for the Personal Training Development Center:
There is an overwhelmingly large amount of weak coaches. I’m not impressed by your strength on the one arm overhead Kettlebell split squat. If that’s your focus you’re missing the point. If that’s your idea of getting strong you probably have a bunch of clients who would fair better in the circus.
It’s hard to respect a coach that doesn’t take care of himself or herself in and out of the gym. And while this says nothing about a coach’s knowledge or experience, you can’t impart passion or perseverance on an athlete unless you’ve experienced those same emotions yourself. You don’t have to squat 1,000 pounds, have 8-percent body fat or run a 4.5-second 40-yard-dash, but at least train hard and set an example for others.
SUCCESS LEAVES CLUES
These three words have guided every step of my internship, walking the same path as the successful coaches who have taught me so much. These six traits of great coaches pertain to almost anyone, whether you’re a personal trainer, gym teacher, sport coach or any other profession where you have to help people perform better. Stayed tuned for more installments of my internship diary as I finished up my stint at CSP.
Pingback: Cressey Sports Performance Internship Diary – Part 3 | BONVEC STRENGTH
Pingback: Top Fitness Articles of the Week - November 16, 2014 - Personal Trainer Development Center
Pingback: Good Reads – Physique, Coaching, and Pain | I Train Therefore I Eat.