Episode 18-Setbacks and how to handle them

In this episode of the Gotcha Coach podcast, Coach Rick discusses setbacks and how to handle them. He shares examples of setbacks such as financial difficulties, trouble with new systems, and technical glitches. He encourages coaches to think about how setbacks in their regular jobs translate to coaching setbacks and vice versa. Coach Rick emphasizes the importance of having a plan and objective for coaching, just like in any other job. He also discusses how to handle setbacks like injuries, weather, sickness, bad grades, and other sports drawing athletes away. He advises coaches to have backup plans and establish expectations with their team and parents. Coach Rick suggests strategies for combating these setbacks, such as requiring weekly grade checks, providing workouts for athletes during vacations, and making decisions about accommodating athletes involved in other sports. He also emphasizes the importance of injury prevention and rehab, including pool training. Hey coaches, welcome back to Gotcha Coach, a podcast about coaching for coaches and hosted by a real coach, me. I'm Coach Rick and I am overjoyed to welcome you to episode 18 titled Setbacks and How You Handle Them. Before we get into this episode, I've been asked to elaborate a bit on episode 16 regarding practice sessions for high school track and field and so I will do just that at the conclusion of this topic. But until then, I want to thank all of you listeners of the podcast. I'm at 190 plus downloads with listeners in Canada, Australia, Singapore, Japan, China, Russia and 46 cities across the USA. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that anybody would be interested in hearing about my 50 plus year coaching career. And after that career abruptly ended last year, well, let's just say that this podcast has helped me tremendously in overcoming the pain of no longer coaching. Oh, wait, if you stop and think about it, starting this podcast is one way in which I handled a setback. Think about it. So the Cambridge Dictionary defines setback as something that happens that delays or prevents a process from developing. Here's some synonyms and examples for the word setback. Problem, difficulty, trouble, hitch or glitch. Think about it. What's the problem here? That could be a setback. The company is having some financial difficulties at the moment. Another setback. We've had a lot of trouble with the new computer system. That's a setback as well. The ceremony went without a hitch. And we've had a few technical glitches, but I'm confident we'll be ready on time. Those are all examples of the synonym for setback. So think about it. If you're a current or prospective coach that has another regular full-time job other than coaching, no matter what level you're at in coaching, how many times in your career have you experienced a setback? How did you handle it? Did your setback in your quote-unquote real job translate to how you handle a setback in your coaching job? How about the reverse? So let's stop for a minute to think about this. I've already preached to you about, quote, having a plan when you go into your coaching season. And I feel rather certain that any of you that have a quote-unquote regular full-time job, especially in management, has a plan for what and how something needs to get accomplished and how you reacted when that plan went kaput. For me, I had both. Much like coaching any team, but especially a high school team, you need to have a plan and or an objective as to what it is you want to achieve during the year in whatever business setting you're in, much like the season you're in while coaching. When I was in hospital supply chain management, my main focus was on making sure that I and my team or my employees provided extraordinary service to our quote-unquote customers, which were not only the nursing staff, but the patients that were being taken care of. I used to tell my staff whose responsibilities included making sure that their nursing units were properly stocked with the supplies that nurses need to provide care to the patients, that they needed to quote-unquote picture themselves as the patient or the relatives of the patient and think how they would feel if they didn't have the appropriate supplies to provide the care that was needed. The same picture could be painted to your athletes. Are they providing the same support to their teammates that your professional staff is or was? If not, paint the picture for them. If your runners are dogging it during workouts or even during team warm-ups, how are they providing the support to their teammates? As a coach, are you willing to put someone on your relay teams that is not giving 100% to their workouts? If your answer is yes, then what kind of message are you sending to your entire team? Your decision, if it's to keep that or those runners not giving 100% off your relay teams, can be considered a setback, a really big setback. When you have created a team culture that will ultimately ruin your goals of establishing a team that respects each other and hold each other accountable and the ultimate goal of a team that wins the right way. Other types of setbacks that you can experience when you're a high school coach are injuries, weather, sickness, bad grades, other sports that draw your athletes away, vacations such as spring break, and the biggest setback of all that we've had currently, COVID-19. So make sure that you have a backup plan for when any or all of these occur. These backup plans can be dictated by the size of your team, the type of track that you have, dirt or all weather. If you have a gym or in some cases two gyms that can be used and how your athletic director sets up a use schedule for bad weather days and even how your relationship is with the other team's coaching staffs and your administration, as well as the relationship with your team and its parents. Here's what I mean. If you have a team of roughly 30 to 40 athletes, what you do with your team on a bad weather day is much different than if your team is 75 to 100 or more. Large number teams are less likely to be able to quote unquote run the hallways inside your school and depending on the size of your weight room, use it all at once. If you have an all-weather track, consider still having your practice unless the conditions are so bad that injuries or bodily harm may come to your athletes. Lightning in the forecast or in the area, just don't even think about practicing outdoors. Also, adjust your workout and the expectations in the workout if you continue to go outside, even if you're dealing with just strong winds, as some of you will encounter depending on where you're located. Now, I've been at schools where the athletic director would establish a schedule for usage of the weight room and or gym during the season if bad weather would keep that sport off their field. These types of schedules usually, if not always, will mean less practice time for each sport, possibly a different time period that is not directly after the end of the school day. And unless you have equipment for use indoors, well, let's just say you're going to have to be real creative. Now, if your setback is bad grades, vacations or other sports drawing your athletes away during the season, you have a daunting task ahead of you. Combat these types of setbacks by planning ahead of your season. Establish the expectations with your team and parents about each of these scenarios. I've spoken in previous episodes about having a set of quote-unquote team rules and expectations. Make sure that each of these setbacks are specifically called out in those rules and what the penalties will be if the athlete and parent don't choose to abide by these rules. Once your season has begun, some of the ways that you can battle these types of issues is require weekly grade checks of your athletes. Establish whether or not you will have organized team practices during planned school holidays or closures, such as Easter or spring vacation. And if you choose to give your team a week off during that time, give them workouts that they can do when they're visiting their family in Colorado or sitting on the beach in Cancun. Those athletes that want to continue training during that week will, and those that don't, won't. Just remember, they are kids, and kids will do what their parents want them to do. I mean, come on. What teenager wouldn't want to go to Hawaii on spring break for free, even if it's with their parents? Spring soccer and football are two sports that could steal your athletes away from you during your season, and you have to make a decision as to how you are going to run your team. Do you accommodate these athletes and allow them to miss meets or practices because of these other sports? Or do you go hardcore and tell these athletes that they need to choose? This is a very difficult decision to make, and one that can hurt or help build your program for years to come. Again, establish your rules early in your season. Pre-season is even better. Get your practice schedule and meet schedules out to the parents and athletes as early as possible so that conflicts can be identified and discussions can be held about the plans of the athlete and how they will affect your team. Injuries. Ah, yes, the dreaded injury issue. Again, plan, plan, plan. Make sure that you are implementing strengthening and flexibility methods early, if not before your season begins. Do your research about injury prevention. Bring in local experts to discuss prevention to your athletes. Discuss the idea of proper footwear and, again, bring in local footwear store owners to discuss the different types of shoes for the different events in your sport, specifically track and field. If all of this fails, make sure you have something for your injured athletes to do during your practice. Don't just let them sit around and think they're healing. There are many ways that a coach can provide other methods of staying in in-season shape, but my favorite is throwing the athlete in the swimming pool. Now, many years ago, I attended a coaching clinic to listen to the University of Arkansas head coach, John McDonald, speak on the subject of pool training for your track athletes. Although the main topic was how to use the pool for actual pre- and in-season training, he did spend time on the positive attributes of using his pool training to rehab injuries. So during my time at South Tahoe High School, I used this training on two very special athletes. The first was a three-time 100-meter league champion who, during his junior season, aggravated his hamstring just four short weeks before the league meet. We worked in the pool three to four days a week after I finished working with the rest of the team at the track, and he successfully defended his league championship and qualified for the Nevada State meet, as well as being invited to compete at a huge regional meet in Arizona at the conclusion of the season. The next athlete was my school record holder in the long jump and triple jump, who jumped 22 feet and 47 feet, respectively, who, like the first athlete, aggravated his hamstring long jumping about three weeks from his league championship meet a few years later. My assistant coach had a membership at one of the casinos and was able to use their indoor pool, and so every night she and her husband took our jumper to the pool, and he came out after his pool training jumping further than ever, was a double league champion, and also qualified for the regional meet in Arizona. These are just some of the setbacks that you can have and a few ways that I have handled them, but these are not the only ways that setbacks can happen or be resolved. And I encourage you to do your due diligence and find your own resolutions based on your individual situations. So now let's move on to part two of the podcast and expand a bit on what a daily or work-week practice schedule for track and field might look like. Again, remember, this is an example that worked for me for many years, but it might not work for you due to the size of your team, the number of assistant coaches you have, the kind of facility you have, the weather in your area, and probably most important, the kind of athletes that you have to draw from. Now every day we would begin our practice session with attendance, sign-ins, and announcements. We then go into our team warm-ups, which included, among others, two jog laps and then lining up on the football infield to do our team active stretching. We'd line up with four or five lines with a team captain in each line, and each line would start the routine when the line in front of them had advanced five yards. This routine included several exercises, such as high knees, butt kicks, A and B skips, walking on your toes, walking on your heels, skipping for height, skipping for distance, front and back lunges, side shuffle, karaoke, and drum majors. These were all done for a distance of 20 to 25 yards, starting on the goal line and then returning to the goal line doing the same exercise. Then we would break off into our groups, sprints, distance, and throws on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and the sprint group would break off into subgroups on Tuesday and Thursday. Now these subgroups are hurdles, vertical and horizontal jumps, relays, and sprints. Every day, my sprint group would go through a routine that included hip, abductor, and adductor swings, toe raises, heel raises, ankle rotations, and then go through short sprint drills on the track. These drills were done in early season for a distance of 15 meters and then increased as the season progressed. The drills included on your toes, lean forward, and explode out on my go, similar to exploding out of starting block. Then there was quick feet and explode on my go. Down on my knee, down on one knee, explode up and sprint on my go command. Same thing on the other knee. Then there was lay down on your stomach, jump up and sprint on my go command. Lay down on your back, roll over, jump up and sprint on my go command. Now they're ready to do the workout. Oh wait, now they're ready to get into shape to do the workout. So the first two weeks of practice, and maybe three, is set aside for the sprint group to get in shape, assuming that many of them did not attend any of our pre-season sessions or were participating in a winter sport. During this time period, we did a lot of exercises and running during the practice session. Here's what we do. After team warm-ups, that we described earlier, we do the sprint drills, also described earlier. Then we do one and maybe two of the following in the same day. Circuit at the track. This is where you run a 400, do 25 sit-ups. Run a 400, do 25 squat jumps. Run a 200, do 25 burpees. Run a 200, do 25 squat jumps. Run a 400, do 25 burpees. Run a 400 and do 25 sit-ups. Then we'd rest five minutes and do it again. Then we had a process called the Big Ten that we did on the football field. Do 10 push-ups, run 100 yards to the other goal line, and do 10 sit-ups. Run back to the first starting line and do nine push-ups, and then run to the other goal line and do nine sit-ups, and repeat in decreasing numbers until you have completed the cycle and finished with one of each. At the conclusion of this you will have done 55 sit-ups, 55 push-ups, and run 2,000 yards. Then we had Tabata Tuesdays and Thursdays. A Tabata workout is eight cycles of 20 seconds of work and 10 seconds of rest. Each cycle consists of the same exercise, six of them, done as quickly as one can. Total workout is 24 minutes. The exercises can be basically anything you want them to be, push-ups, sit-ups, lunges, jumping jacks, squat jumps, planks, or any other sadistic exercise you can think of. We also would do a sprint pyramid or whistle drill where the athletes would sprint for a specific amount of time, then recover via a jog for another specific amount of time. The amount of time differs during each whistle to where the maximum they are sprinting is 50 seconds, and then it decreases. Total time of this particular workout is 12 minutes. By week three we're throwing in what I call strength and agility training. Once again, this incorporates exercise and running into the workout. I set this up into four blocks of work, with the first block being 60 seconds for each exercise, the second block 45 seconds, the third block 30 seconds, and the last block 15 seconds, with a 200 meter run between blocks. Block one consisted of the following exercises. You can look these up on YouTube to see what they are and how they are done. We did a prone walkout, tuck jumps, planking, and a plank to push up. Block two was side planks, side planks with leg lift, skaters run, and pistol squats. Block three was lunge jumps, squat and reach, calf raises, and donkey kicks. Block four was bicycles on your back, criss-cross crunch, banana rocks, and push-ups. I'd also begin to introduce the group in plyometric work and used hoops and banana hurdles in this work session. We'd do single leg hops in the hoops and then sprint 40 yards. Double leg hops over the banana hurdles and sprint 40 yards. Squat jumps over the banana hurdles and sprint 40 yards. Squat jumps up the bleacher steps and walk down. And single leg hops up the bleacher steps and walk down. Each of these would be done five times. Now the sprint group is ready to begin their early season workouts. So as I said in a previous episode, I broke the sprint group into three groups based on their experience and those groups would be given their own specific times to achieve for each distance being run. This allowed the newbies on the team to work their way into the process without being forced to run the same time as an experienced junior or senior athlete. So we'd start with two laps of sprinting the straight and jogging the turns. Then we'd go into the sprint mechanics and drills that we discussed earlier in this podcast. Then we'd usually start Monday with two sets of three by 300 meters with a zombie jog to the start line and a five minute rest between sets. Each group, boys and girls, would have their times to hit and based on what I saw during the work, I might reward them by eliminating one or two of the 300s. Note, this was always something that was previously known to the athletes, so they really worked to get to that point. Another note, it is extremely important that you stress to the group that these and all workouts are not meant to see someone bust their ass in the first one and then crap out for the next five. Nor is it intended for someone to dog it for the first five and then bust it open for the sixth one. This defeats the purpose of the workout and does nothing to benefit the athlete. We moved down in distance on Wednesday to 250 meters and Friday to 200 meters, but would end each of these days with five by 100 yard buildups on the football field, where every 10 yards needed to be faster than the previous and the last 40 were an all out sprint. And then they would do two times 400 meter buildups on the track, where every 100 meter was broken down to 25% of normal, 50% of normal, 75% of normal, and the last 100 meters was all out. Tuesdays and Thursdays were used for individual event introductions after the sprint mechanics that we did and ended with the same 100 meter buildups or 100 yard buildups and the 400 yard buildups, as well as a team cool down and ab work. We'd also work in some plyo work on Tuesdays and Thursdays, as well as some short sprint work, such as five times 30 meters, five times 50 meters, five times 70 meters, if you were not involved with an individual event, such as high jump, long jump, triple jump, hurdles, or pole vault. Just to make workouts interesting and not doing the same thing every week, I'd throw in a workout called a ladder, where the athletes run 100, 200, 300, 400, 300, 200, 100, again, in their assigned groups at their assigned times, always followed by the 100 yard and 400 meter buildups. And we'd throw in some relay play on Tuesdays and Thursdays, where sprint group captains would pick their own teams and compete in a relay race on the football field, where each runner ran in a diagonal direction from one goal line to the other two times. Then we'd take a break, let the captains change their order of runners, and do it again. The distance run by each runner for each run is approximately 110 yards, and it's all speed. But the best part is that they are running fast and having fun, and they don't know that they're working hard. Win-win! There are many, many, many workouts out in the universe from many, many, many coaches that coach at schools in hot states, cold states, rainy states, and snowy states, with big teams and very small teams. And they will more than likely differ from the workout scenario that I just gave to you. I'm not saying that mine is right or any better than anybody else's, but I am telling you that what I shared with you is a result of 50 years of experimenting with other workouts and tweaking them to what I felt would work for my teams. And I found great success with that tweaking. And I'm extremely confident that if you choose to use my workout schedule, you will see some success in your program as well. But ultimately, you, as the head coach, have to take whatever information you can glean from this or any other medium and form your own style and program. It's kind of like buying a previously owned house. The previous owners put their personal touch on the house, but now you, as the new owner, has to be able to put your mark on the house and make it yours. This is the best part about being a coach, making a program that you can call your own and be proud of. I hope you're enjoying this podcast. I really do. And as much as I enjoy bringing it to you, I hope that you, if you are enjoying it, that you tell your friends about it and your family members and tell them they can listen to the podcast on Spotify, Google, Amazon, Buzzsprout, iHeartRadio, and many other podcast carriers. And they, as well as you, can reach me with questions or suggestions for future episodes at CoachRickB53 at gmail.com. Until next time, take care, be safe, laugh a lot, and tell someone that you love them. I'll talk to you soon.