How to improve your 'coaching eye.'
Reflections from the GAINswim clinic in Carmel, USA.
I had the privilege of attending and presenting at the GAINswim coaching clinic run by Chris Webb in Carmel, Indiana, last weekend. It was my second visit there. In a very busy weekend, I delivered four practical workshops and two seminars, as well as sitting on a panel and being available to answer questions from the coaches.
The lessons and ideas shared below apply to most sports.
The course was held at the Carmel Swim Club, located on the grounds of Carmel High School. The club has an impressive track (pool?) record of winning championships and developing Olympians. The head coach, Chris Plumb, was part of the U.S.A. team of coaches at the Paris Olympics.
They have two fifty-metre pools in the school. That’s not a typo! The facilities are unbelievable. This is a school of 5,000 pupils and is a public school (state school for us British people).
I was walking around with my mouth open, like a country yokel (which, in some respects, I am).
However, I was there to help coaches, not gawp at the facilities. Here are some of the things I talked about.
Why Physical Education is the bedrock of Athletic Development
I was asked to explain the importance of good physical education and how that links to athletic development. I gave an overview of what p.e. should look like (but rarely does).
I kept referring back to this over the weekend. Joy was a constant theme. The swim coaches were hesitant to start, but soon couldn’t stop talking and laughing in the sessions.
I aimed to show them that children need to be children and that ‘fun’ is not synonymous with ‘mucking around.’
In a culture where words like ‘grind’ and ‘burn’ are prevalent, joy seems to have been forgotten. I reintroduced it. By the end of the weekend, the coaches were tired and stiff but were still smiling.
Locomotion and variation
I taught outside on the grass in the shade of some trees on Saturday morning. The cicadas were providing background music for our workshop. I was working with Andy Stone, whom I have known since my first attendance at GAIN in 2011.
Andy is a creative genius at developing bodyweight exercises and variations along a theme (you may remember his p.e. videos from the COVID lockdowns). We split the session into four modules: locomotion for 10 minutes (me), exercise variations for 10 minutes (Andy), and a discussion and chat while sat down for 5 minutes. This gave the coaches time to rest, reflect and absorb.
Then we moved to the next module. It was a Socratic method of teaching. The 90 minutes flew by. It was one of the best sessions I’ve delivered, thanks to the environment and the coaches involved. The coaches were hesitant and stiff at the beginning, but they loosened up, became braver and were eager to experiment by the end.
You can see the type of thing I was teaching here:
In the afternoon, Andy and I taught a session in the wrestling room (Andy’s home turf). I taught some basic rocking and rolling, and then Andy taught transitions from standing to the floor and back.
Once again, the coaches threw themselves into the session (sometimes literally) and laughed a lot.
The Coach’s Eye
My second presentation was designed to dig into coaching methodology: not about techniques, but about basic coaching practices. Chris Webb had said that swim coaches are often hesitant to coach ‘dryland’ training because they don’t want to get it wrong.
I didn’t know if coaches, when conducting their dryland sessions:
Can’t see errors.
Can see errors, but don’t know how to correct them.
Can see errors, know how to correct them, but can’t be arsed to do anything.
I gave an overview of some basic principles and then delved into helping them understand what to look for and how. Understanding the principles is essential when coaching; otherwise you are just copying a blueprint someone else has created. This means you are unable to adapt when things don’t work.
I used the knee valgus in squatting as an example. If nothing else, we wanted the coaches to leave the clinic understanding how to coach the basic squat, add variations and help their swimmers improve.
I showed slides of some athletes with squat errors and some with excellent squats. This seemed to go down well as the coaches got to know what to look for. I explained a basic premise of coaching:
If something is going well, coaches don’t have to intervene: they can simply say, ‘Well done.’
We finished this with a Q&A, which I could step back from as the coaches were contributing a lot. If they are contributing, I know they are listening and learning.
Swimming shapes and minibands
On Sunday morning, I trained in the High School gym alongside Chris Plumb. I spent the next hour chatting with Chris as he asked me what I thought of the dryland programme.
I asked him questions about why he did certain exercises, and he explained the shapes he wanted his swimmers to get into and why. I thought, then came up with some ideas that I might use. I didn’t know Chris that well before this clinic, but I knew he wanted to improve (despite his hugely successful record) because he’d sent me an article about 400m running and wanted my opinion on it.
This to-and-froing with a coach is something I love doing. I’ve had the privilege of working with great coaches in different sports (Martin Jones and Nigel Redman in rugby, James Williams (R.I.P.) at British Fencing, John Jacobs at England Golf, and Denise Austin at England Volleyball).
The one thing they all have in common: they want to get better, and they ask questions. None of them is interested in weight-room numbers; they just want to improve the performance of their athletes.
Chris asked me about mini-bands (swim coaches LOVE the mini-band), and I said I didn’t use them that much. He then asked if I’d use them if I worked at Carmel!
“I don’t know,” was my answer.
But, if I did use them, I would make sure everyone understood why they were using them and how to use them, and then coach the heck out of it. I spent 15 minutes later in the morning going over some basic principles with the coaches, linking it back to the overhead squat.
This was ‘off the cuff’, but I felt under pressure to back up my coaching theory with a practical solution for Chris!
Summary
This is a brief overview of what I did in Carmel. I haven’t listed all the sidebar conversations and suggestions. Thanks to Chris Webb and Chris Plumb for inviting me to present.
It’s a pleasure to be part of GAINswim: there are so many swim teams in the USA taking part and being successful. It’s a shame that more people in the UK and Europe don’t do the same: it would save me from travelling so far.
The principles I shared apply to most other sports as well, but for them to succeed, the coaches must also want to improve.
It would be remiss of me not to post a breakfast pancake picture (always my favourite thing when visiting the USA).
