World Fitness Blog : Leading Global Bloggers

The community aspect of athletic activity is important for multiple reasons. Our sports communities provide support, reality checks, and useful information about appropriate behavior. And notably, our community connections are also vitally important influences on our actual learning.

For as long as I’ve been training jiu jitsu, from my very earliest, flailiest experiences up to the present, my teachers and training partners have helped me achieve more in partnership with them than I would be able to by myself. Nowadays, I find myself doing for less experienced practitioners what my teachers have always done for me: using my knowledge to set them up for success. For instance, let’s say we drilled a triangle sequence during the technique part of class. During the rolling part, if my partner has significantly less experience than I do, I might purposefully place myself in a situation where s/he can execute the techniques we worked on earlier in the class.

Sometimes the athlete sees the opening right away and takes advantage, sometimes my simply asking, “What do you see here?” does the trick, and sometimes it requires an overt comment like, “Here you can execute the techniques we worked on earlier today,” accompanied by verbal cues at each step. Thus, depending on the athlete’s needs, I am able to provide assistance to help him/her accomplish more than s/he would be able to without that assistance.

In learning theory, the role I am playing in this scenario is known as the “more knowledgeable other” or “more capable other,” and the mental and physical space within which the athlete and I are interacting is called the “zone of proximal development.” In his seminal 1978 book Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes, psychologist Lev Vygotsky defines the ZPD (as educational types like to refer to it) as “the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance, or in collaboration with more capable peers.”

So what’s the “so what” here? This probably sounds like what many of us already do as coaches and teachers, no? We help our athletes and students along, enabling them to do more, with support from us, than they would be able to otherwise.

Well, how many of you have had a coach-athlete interaction that goes anything like this: “Okay, Athlete X. I’m going to walk you through this sequence of movements. Let’s start with you putting your left foot on your partner’s hip. No, your left foot. Your LEFT foot. Left FOOT. No, your LEFT FOOT. No, YOUR left foot. Okay, relax. I’m going to take your left foot and place it where it belongs. OW! I know you didn’t mean to kick me. It’s okay. Let’s take five.”

Sometimes, I hate to admit, I have shaken my head after an encounter like that, wondering what on earth is wrong with the athlete. Well, the answer is: nothing. What’s wrong is what I’m asking of the athlete. It turns out that Brazilian jiu jitsu is very demanding, on cognitive, neurological, muscular, and emotional levels, especially for beginners, and if an athlete cannot perform what I am asking, I need to ask something different – I need to be in the right zone with them.

More recently, when I teach or coach, the concepts of the ZPD and the more knowledgeable/capable other have helped me understand that sometimes I may be asking too much of someone, even if I believe I am effectively scaffolding them (another term associated in learning theory with the ZPD). Maybe they just aren’t in this particular zone yet. That’s neither good nor bad. It’s just useful information that can help me better tailor my coaching so as to more effectively set up athletes for success.

Understanding the learning process in this way helps me as a coach in several ways. First, it enables me to remain more patient than I would otherwise be able to, because I understand the mechanism at work. I know the athlete is not being obtuse and is certainly not uncoachable. Second, it gives me useful feedback about how I might more effectively adjust my expectations and my requests of the athlete toward a more successful result. I can reposition the ZPD to make sure the athlete is squarely in it. And finally, it reminds me of how inherently social effective learning is; if we want to make sure we help our athletes do more than they believe they can, we must believe it for them first and demonstrate that belief in every interaction we have with them.

How might you make the concept of ZPD work for you, whether as a coach or as an athlete? Post your observations to comments.

Photo 1 courtesy of Shutterstock.

BJJ photo provided by David Brown Photography.

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As with any career, people become coaches and trainers for a variety of reasons. Some reasons are nobler, like surviving cancer and wanting to help others. Some are more practical, like coaching as a career because you’ve always been an athlete. Some more aspirational, like seeing yourself as an entrepreneur and a small gym business as a path. Regardless of how you came to coaching, now you are one and it’s time to make yourself a good one.

As with any career, people become coaches and trainers for a variety of reasons. Some reasons are nobler, like surviving cancer and wanting to help others. Some are more practical, like coaching as a career because you’ve always been an athlete. Some more aspirational, like seeing yourself as an entrepreneur and a small gym business as a path. Regardless of how you came to coaching, now you are one and it’s time to make yourself a good one.

As with your own training, there’s no point in coaching half-assed. There are far too many bad and mediocre trainers and coaches in the world. The following six rules aren’t easy, but they are simple. If you take them on, you will put yourself ahead of the game.

You will be a better coach and, resultantly, your clients will be happier. I call this The Coaching Manifesto. I learned these rules in bits and pieces over the years. I present them to you here as a whole, because as I pieced them together it made all the difference for me.

1. Educate Yourself

This is the first rule for a reason. This rule goes into effect the day you decide to be a coach and remains in effect until the day you hang it up.

There is not a single day in between where you shouldn’t be continuing to learn.

Take classes, attend seminars, read books, observe other coaches, watch videos – learn, learn, learn. New information emerges on a daily basis from journals, from researchers, and from working with your own clients. Learn something every day and never stop.

2. Know Your Client

Your clients are one resource for your learning, but in order to learn from them you must know them.

How can you teach people until you understand them and their goals? You can’t tell them what to do until you know who they are and what they want.

What are your clients’ injuries, histories, and motivations? You know their stated goals, but do you know their actual goals? Do you know what makes them tick? How amazing if you could see your clients so clearly that you could help them see themselves.

Know your client – better than they know themselves – but without judgment. Know their bodies, know their minds, and show them the mirror. Then share your knowledge and show them how you’re going to help.

3. Know Yourself

We can’t really ask others to look in the mirror and makes changes if we’re not willing to look at ourselves in the cold, hard light. To truly know others, you must know yourself.

Even communicating becomes easier if we know ourselves. If we don’t see ourselves clearly, then we take so many things personally. We think a client’s upset is with us, when it’s really about his or her own frustrations.

If you know your client, and know yourself, you know the true root of the problem and it’s solution is simple.

Knowing yourself also means knowing your weaknesses and solving your own problems. If we are educating ourselves on a daily basis, we need to know what we don’t know. This means acknowledging the gaps in our abilities and making constant progress toward filling them.

4. Get Over Yourself

This is a corollary to “Know Yourself.” Once you know yourself, then it’s time to get over yourself.

Yes, it’s great you can do a one-arm push-up. Do you need to do them in front of your clients for no reason? No. Let go of your ego and your need for attention when you’re coaching.

It’s not about you. The less it’s about you the better a coach you will be. It’s not about you when your client is upset. It’s not about you when your client is happy. It’s just not about you.

They did it. Not you. You are simply a conduit. Ego adds impurities and makes you a bad conductor of learning and progress.

5. Don’t Be Married to the Method

Learning and progress are possible using just about any method of training. It’s de rigueur in the fitness industry to claim your system is better than others, but typically it’s not. Coaching is good or coaching is bad.

You’re a good teacher or a bad teacher, whether your dumbbell is pink, you’re wearing a singlet, or you’re using sandbags.

If someone is saying their system is the best, they’re probably trying to sell you something. Don’t worry about the best system; just be the best coach at whatever you do. In general, people should work a little harder, pick up a little more, and move a little faster.

They should train strength, cardio, and flexibility. Call it whatever you want, but the body is the human body and there are only so many useful things you can do to it and with it. Be committed to the results, not any guru or method.

6. Do No Harm

Everything you do with your clients should result in something productive and positive. People don’t come to you to get injured. They come to you to build themselves up to loftier goals – sometimes those goals look like world championships and sometimes those look like running a mile without stopping. Whatever their level of fitness, it is your utmost responsibility to your clients to keep them safe and keep them training.

If you know your clients, you know what they should and shouldn’t be doing. If you know yourself, you won’t take it personally when you’re honest with them and they get upset. If you let go of the method, you’ll find ways to adapt the training for them. If you educate yourself you can explain why this is the best path for them.

You can’t follow just one of these rules and be an excellent trainer or coach. If you follow them all, you will be excellent, your clients will be excellent, and you will be the conduit for health and fitness you wish to be. Try taking number one to heart right now and see how it evolves for you.

Photos courtesy of Shutterstock.

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There are many scenes in the movie Miracle, about the 1980 U.S. Olympic ice hockey team, a group of underdogs that defeated the then-Soviet Union powerhouse and went on to take home the gold, that give me goose bumps. This includes one where the team has relatively recently come together. During a training session, head coach Herb Brooks repeatedly asks the players, “Who do you play for?” Each player, in turn, responds with his own alma mater, and this results in the new team being forced to run sprint after sprint on the ice until they are beyond exhausted.

It isn’t until eventual team captain Mike Eruzione finally responds, “I play for the United States of America!” that Brooks ends the sprints. With this statement, Eruzione provided the evidence Brooks had been looking for that the players were starting to identify themselves as part of a defined group, that they prioritized their new group membership more than their individual histories. (At that point, they probably prioritized no more sprints over absolutely anything else, but they got the message.)

Athletes of every stripe are called upon to be part of a group, whether they play a team sport or compete individually. Ideally they identify with the group and demonstrate a sense of belonging and loyalty such that the group itself develops an identity in addition to the athletes’ identity as part of it. The cultivation of that group identity may go a long way toward the development of trust and rapport, which are necessary for effective practice and performance in individual and team sports alike. This means it behooves coaches and athletes to understand the implications of those dynamics and make sure they are positive.

While coaches and teammates communicate overtly with one another and work toward stated, ostensibly shared goals, the experience of working and learning with a group can also bring with it a phenomenon educators call the “hidden curriculum.” This refers to the lessons, habits of mind, and accepted behaviors any members of a group – a class, a cohort, a team – pick up indirectly, by observation or other tacit methods. In other words, the stated goals of any group might be only part of what a teammate learns and comes to accept as appropriate. For example, a new team member might hear locker room talk among more seasoned teammates and intuit certain things from this about what it takes to get along and belong.

If the hidden curriculum reinforces the overt goals of the team, it could be a good thing. On the other hand, if the hidden curriculum undermines or detracts from these goals, disruption can result. As coaches, we must be aware of the existence of these more covert dynamics as well as the effect they may have on our coaching and our athletes’ behavior and mindsets.

To get a handle on the hidden curriculum that may be at work in your own training situation, and the effect it is having on the cohesion of your group, consider the following when observing interpersonal dynamics and interactions:

• Who are the de facto leaders in the group – who has influence over others’ behavior? Are these the people you have designated as the leaders? If not, would it behoove you to intervene to ensure consistent messages?
• What messages ARE being communicated, both overtly and covertly? Are the covert messages consistent with or undermining the overt messages?
• How does your own behavior play into the dynamics of the group? Do you convey your own expectations clearly and abide by them yourself?

When you start to pay attention to the dynamics of a group and the hidden curriculum that may be at play, you might find opportunities to ensure consistency of messages and expectations. Here are a few steps you can take to promote group cohesion:

• Hold regular meetings with team captains and other de facto leaders, both to make sure they understand expectations and also to learn about any issues that might need intervention. Solicit their input about effective ways to intervene – they will have an understanding of the players that will complement your own perspective.
• Group athletes for training and workouts, and switch up the combinations regularly so the same people are not always working together.
• Pair new members with a more experienced teammate to help with orientation to the team.

Group dynamics and the hidden curriculum can be powerful influences on the effectiveness of a team. With a bit of awareness and a few simple steps, coaches can increase the likelihood that these influences are positive ones.

Photos courtesy of Shutterstock.

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Many writers for Breaking Muscle are proficient coaches. Some are masters or on their way to mastery. I am honored to write among them and I read most all their articles because I am a scrub – a new coach. I feel part of my job as a new coach is to voraciously learn as much as I can, as often as I can, from a wide range of sources, and this site has been a great resource.

As luck would have it, my best and most amazing resource has been my very own home, CrossFit LA, which is one of the original ten CrossFit gyms. Owner Andy Petranek has mentored many amazing coaches and athletes including Breaking Muscle’s own Becca Borawski. I’m humbled to be tapped as the latest student under his wing. Though I have been coaching and programming for CFLA’s Prodigy Teen program for about a year, transitioning to life as an adult coach offers many more lessons.

Today I’m sharing my top seven lessons learned as a new coach. I know for as many new gyms that start up every month, there are at least that many more new coaches out there seeking knowledge.

1. Voraciously learn as much as possible, as often as possible.

Every single day I study. I study anatomy. I study weightlifting books and videos. I sign up for seminars and workshops. I observe how great coaches carry themselves and speak to people. I don’t just learn from CrossFit coaches, either. One of the most influential coaches for me in the last five years has been, of all things, a spin instructor. I study why he is so effective with his students and how he is able to motivate them to move better. Every single coach at my gym has a strength that inspires me. I try to learn as much as possible from their strengths.

2. Talk to all coaches all the time.

It’s not enough to observe great coaches in action, though sometimes that’s all you’ll be able to do, e.g., Coach Burgener on You Tube, but if you have experienced coaches around you who inspire you, talk to them. Talk to them all. Pick their brains about the technical and mental aspects of coaching. Corner them with any questions that arise about programming, class flow, or progressions of movement. You will find that great coaches are more than willing to share their knowledge. Often they will tell you stories about when they first started and these stories will be of great comfort. You’ll realize you are not the only new coach on the planet who is nervous or who loses their breath leading a warm up. The great ones were once nervous wrecks, too.

3. “Good artists copy, great artists steal.”

Pablo Picasso said this. Steve Jobs lived by this. And the hell if I’m above them or that philosophy. I steal warm ups that I love. I steal cues. I steal whole speeches on intention. What I steal is what resonates with me as an athlete. Even though I am using what I steal as a guideline until I’m confident enough to wing everything on my own, I still have to deliver it from a place of authenticity.

4. Lead by example.

I think often about what I ask of my teen athletes and what I will most likely ask of my adult students. In essence, I ask them to take risks, not silly risks to injure themselves, but I ask them to step outside of their comfort zone and confront places of fear. And that’s risky stuff. I feel if I’m not living by that, why should they trust me? If I’m asking students to act from a place of genuine effort or to become vulnerable to the practice, then I must do so myself. I have to be my own best student otherwise I’m just full of words, and shit.

5. Separate the athlete-self from the coach-self.

This has been one of the hardest lessons for me. I am not the best athlete in our gym and it has taken some of our best athletes and coaches reminding me that this is not the point of great coaching. If I stifle all that I have to offer with an embarrassment that I can’t deadlift twice what my students can, then I’m am not letting my best gifts as a coach shine. If I have the ability to connect with a student and make them move better, then I’ve done well as a coach. My deadlift has nothing to do with that ability.

6. Be constantly susceptible to evaluation.

I’m no spring chicken and I’ve been through many life experiences that have provided hard life lessons. What I know from that maturity is when to be humble and receptive when I have a ton to learn. Even if I’ve been to hell and back in my life, I still need a lot of guidance and training as a new coach. My ego is all but obliterated in the evaluation process, and that’s just the way it is. And a good evaluation, especially when it’s hard, is the fast track to becoming better. The more comfortable you get with being uncomfortable and putting yourself on the spot, the more you will learn. Also, you can memorize every bit of information that comes out of a coach’s mouth, but until you put it into practice to be evaluated and honed, it all remains just information.

7. Rely on current strengths.

I know that I’ve been tapped by one of the most respected CrossFit coaches for a reason. Though I’m not the best athlete and though coaching is a new venture for me, I know that my strength lies in my connection with people. I am approachable and relatable. I am empathetic. Students feel safe with me and hopefully within this safe space I provide students are able to grow as athletes. All the technical information and the biomechanics of the body will be learned, but this connection is either something one naturally has or it takes many years to get. And for now, until the other stuff is embedded, I rely heavily on that natural gift.

We can’t know all there is to know when starting something new. That’s a silly and presumptuous notion. The road to mastery is a long and humble one, but it’s one that is rewarding to no end. It’s one I’m happy to be on. I know patience is part of the journey and I can only hope that someday, years down the road, while continuing a never-ending quest to learn, I will have motivated athletes to move better and new coaches will use me as resource as they head out onto their own path.

Photos courtesy of Shutterstock.

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