3 Coaching Lessons From The 2021 Season
2021 was one of the most challenging minor league seasons that I could have imagined. We were tested with COVID positives, hamstring, elbow and shoulder injuries along with traveling along the 99 in California during fire season. Not a pretty sight.
With struggle tends to be growth. The following are 3 lessons I learned during the 2021 competitive minor league season.
Overcoaching isn’t always a bad thing
I was working with a player new to our team and found myself correcting every little thing, cueing up every exercise, giving feedback after each last rep and demonstrating repeatedly. It felt like too much, so I apologized, trying to explain that I wanted to make sure he was on the same page as everyone else being that he was so new. He had to learn new terminology and techniques all while in a new environment. I was trying to help, but felt sorry to be so repetitive with my coaching.
His response?
“I’d rather have someone telling me everything than someone telling me nothing.”
With recent thoughts on motor learning being directed towards a “hand’s off” approach, it’s getting easier for coaches and trainers to be left to standing and watching. While a constraints-led approach is awesome, as is limiting coaching cues, sometimes it’s best to lace up the shoes and get down in there with an athlete, coaching up everything you see and providing the groundwork to make life easier in the long run. The good athletes will appreciate the direction.
Training programs aren’t created in a vacuum
Baseball necessitates program alterations unlike many other sports. With games everyday, there isn’t always room for fatigue or additional training stress. Sometimes, the program has to get tossed by the wayside to allow an athlete to get what they truly need.
We have air quality issues in California during fire season. With air pollution climbing into the 200’s, programmed conditioning that normally happens outside had to be thrown by the wayside. Our volumes were scrapped in response to the smoke, leading to players missing a required stimulus for recovery, blood flow.
How to get blood flow without getting an athlete out of breath outside in a smoky haze?
Incline treadmill walking.
The stimulus of blood flow, along with the potentiation that comes with inclined walking (sometimes even leading to improved ankle dorsiflexion) helped fill the void of our normal outside conditioning volumes. A simple substitute that, while not perfect, gave athletes the required stimulus.
With athlete wearables like the WHOOP Strap, it doesn’t have to take air quality issues to alter a training program. What is written in Week 1 might not be what is best in Week 3. By recognizing that the stimulus is far more important than the exercise used, we can better serve the athlete when the unexpected life variable gets thrown into the mix.
Usually the athlete knows best
I work with athletes who have had multiple coaches over the years. With every coach comes new principles, new philosophies and differing style. The only constant variable in this equation is the athlete. Finding what an athlete has done in the past and distilling it down to what worked and what failed can bring clarity to the current situation.
There was a pitcher earlier this season who was on a whacky routine. Due to a repeated scheduled off day on Mondays, his routine of training was thrown off by a day, leading to the discussion of how best to maneuver his training schedule to prepare him for his next start.
It came down to an either/or decision, where one side would prioritize recovery, the other prioritizing potentiation and a training stimulus. Basically speaking, it was whether the pitcher was going to lift two days prior to his start or not.
I was unsure and could see the pros/cons of each argument. Which left me with the only decision I could make. Leave it up to the athlete!
He looked back at his training history in the offseason and decided to train two days prior. Guess what? It worked.
More often than not, the athlete is their own best coach. It’s up to us coaches to not screw it up too bad!
More to come! Thanks for reading.
Go A’s!