On Being Coachable

Excerpted from "Cheerleading VS Coaching", HyperFit USA--Ann Arbor CrossFit. You can read the entire article here

Who has not been to a football game? No matter what happening on the field, the cheerleaders are always doing their thing. They bounce, jump up and down and say hurray us! Hurray we are losing by 50 points but it doesn't matter cause we have spirit! Hurray! You typically do not see anyone go to the pom pom squad and ask for ideas for the next play. 

On the other hand, the coach is pacing the sideline, wondering where he went wrong in his recruiting class or if he didn't practice that ball handling enough or some other skill that is not being reflected on the field or how to best exploit the opportunity . The coach is responsible for preparing the players to go out and execute a plan or strategy while on the field. The coach gives an ass chewing when needed or a slap on the butt to the QB before he runs back to the huttle before that crucial play. The coach is there to get the most our of every player to reach a combined goal. You typically do not see the coach on the sideline cheering "B-Aggressive, B E Aggressive" - with brisk hand claps. You get the point?

Cheering is about feeling good. Coaching is about being good. Coaching is about performance. Cheerleading is about emotion. Here is the crux of the matter: They are both important. Coaching fitness, those roles are not mutually exclusive. Coaching real people in the real world is not so neat or tidy. The role of the fitness coach/instructor/trainer will often be cheerleader one moment and critical coach the next and then flip flop the next moment. Saying the words, "More depth, faster" and then end up saying "better, keep it up, you can do it," the next. Praising people for their effort is a positive. 

One advantage a sports coach has over the fitness coach is the sports team has a fixed goal and fixed time to achieve it in. Regardless of the sport, there is a conference or game time where the players need to be at their best. Everything done on the field and in the training hall is geared toward the end result - The Championship. The coach can uncover errors in technique or conditioning and make corrections during practice the next week and overcome the problem for the next game. The players come to practice with the burning desire to win the next outing. The culmination of the season being the end and the underclassmen begin working toward laying the foundation for the next season. 

A challenge for the fitness coach is everyone is training for a similar but different goal. Training in the gym, people come to us for a myriad of reasons. Lose weight, be better at their sport, be stronger or for general heath and fitness goals. General fitness training really has very little to do with specific goals. The ultimate goal of people to train with us is to be healthier and have better quality of life. In all classes, people want to end up being better and feeling better. 

Coaching performance lets us end up so we can be cheerleaders. Teaching correct mechanics, techniques and sequences are foundational to good training. Working on flexibility so one can correctly execute the movements, getting stronger to build to being able to do the movements as prescribed are example of being coached. Getting you to get the last rep and finish the WOD is a role of a cheerleader. Praising once people get to the point where their movements are sound then the role grows into being a cheerleader. One of the primary jobs a client needs to be coachable. 

Coachablilty has to do with attitude. Being coachable means people need to be receptive to constructive cues and movement critiques. The first phase of a client is to learn the movements. The teaching points of every skill needs to be ingrained so the client does it automatically and without thought (much thought). The client has to understand that no matter what we are doing, we can always improve and be RECEPTIVE to coaching. Time erodes skills. We often forget key point and need to be reminded. Coaching people to past their comfort zones is a key aspect of performance based coaching.  

WOD

Tabatas

DB Push Press

Sit Ups

Push Ups

Thrusters

Tuck Jumps