High-performance athletes and sports environments are complex systems that can often leave practitioners getting lost in the forest, staring at single trees. To take the analogy further, getting caught up in how we are going to grow the tree or cut it down makes it even worse. They have become myopic in their focus.
Keeping It Simple
KISS is the acronym we probably all know in one form or another. Keep It Simple, Stupid. Keep It Short and Simple. Keep It Simple and Straightforward.
It’s a design principle that purportedly began in the Navy back in the ’60s, and it’s a good one. Simplicity is an overarching design concept that’s hard, but incredibly powerful when you get it right.
You often find KISS is an answer when questions are coming up about how to do something.
Not sure about the program’s periodization? Default to KISS?
How many exercises to use in a program or workout? KISS.
What type of new technology should we add this year? KISS
Don’t get me wrong; sports and human movement are complex systems. Sports performance fits the VUCA model from military and business settings. Variable, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous.
So amid this challenge, when in doubt, start at the most straightforward answer.
KISS reminds us of the goal of striving to see through the complexity to find the most critical factors and relationships.
KISSing Cousins
The complexity of high-performance sports is multiplied by the number of people, professions, and departments in many sports organizations.
You have management and coaching staff. Once upon a time, the basics were the sports coaches, the medical staff, a strength coach, and equipment staff.
Today that support staff may include a multitude of professionals and much larger organizations. They all have a role to play, but they also have an impact on each other. These relationships, interactions, and complexity are growing.
I’d like to propose a new acronym for our brothers and sisters in the performance field — a bit of an offshoot of KISS. You could call it a cousin if you will.
ITSS
It’s The Sport Stupid.
This is the acronym we can use to answer endless questions. Unfortunately, many of these questions aren’t being asked, but they need to be.
Your Purpose In High-Performance Teams
Professionals in high-performance sports organizations usually get there by becoming very skilled in their craft. It’s something they are good at, it’s produced results, and they’ve probably been recognized for it.
In a VUCA environment, this leads a lot of professionals to get myopic and become overly focused on their craft. They might fall back to predetermined methods in their roles.
But at times, they need to be asked what their purpose it? It needs to be asked so we can cut through the complexity of the high-performance sport and remember what the point is. ITSS
If you are a strength coach, what’s your purpose? Why are you part of the team?
To make bench press numbers bigger?
To get players more powerful.?
To prevent injuries?
To build confidence?
Nope. Those all may be contributors to the actual purpose.
It’s The Sport Stupid.
All of these things can contribute to how and if players play the game, how the team functions.
They can contribute to the purpose of a high-level sporting organization, performing better in competition. (we are leaving aside making the organization profitable or more valuable for now)
I know a lot of people see this and think, “duh, that’s obvious.”
Well, if it’s so obvious, why do so many coaches get confused?
Why do they lose sight and get caught up in the wrong battles?
Elite Performance
Not long ago, I had staff working on getting athletes ready for the Olympic Games. The team included different performance coaches. Some younger and some much older. Their experience varied across different sports and various parts of the world.
The group was coming together and planning for the next year. As this was occurring, a bit of a rift began to appear.
The athletes were a mix of current international level and medalists, along with some junior athletes that were trying to breakthrough.
Years of weight training experience were there, but it was generally light weights, lots of circuits, and performed with poor form. Arguably, in terms of training well-rounded athleticism, their training-age was very low.
Importantly, this also wasn’t a ground-based sport; it was an aquatic sport.
The Plan: Prepare the Athletes
In one group, the performance coach laid out a plan that had a 3 to 4-month build-up of lifting with an emphasis on technique. The athletes weren’t going to be put under much load. He wanted to build a base.
To be clear, they were young, and their technique wasn’t good. The performance coach assigned to them knew that loading heavily or focusing on speed of execution could add unwarranted risk.
Getting hurt in the weight room is never a good outcome.
He also knew he had mostly young athletes, and developing a good training foundation could pay dividends for years to come. Even though this strategy might limit the positive impact on their performance KPIs, he felt it was a responsible approach to the training plan.
He believed developing a broad base of strength was fundamental to developing power for them. Free weights would best build this strength as they were active, and he felt ground-based, free weight exercises developed many qualities he wanted.
Free weight exercises are measurable and multi-joint, multi-muscle. They require and can develop a stability and coordination element.
To use this tool safely and effectively, they would need to develop good technique.
This coach was an experienced professional, and he had worked long and hard to develop the skills to use this tool effectively with athletes. As a strength coach, he had a logical plan of how to achieve his team goals.
More Than One Road Leads To Rome
However, another one of our other coaches was a bit critical of others. He didn’t agree with their focus on the basics of weight training technique.
He believed they could skip the months of developing technique on something that he argued was not needed for their sport. Why make them learn free weight lifting techniques? The Olympics were less than a year away.
Not because he thought free weight exercises were not functional. He did. And it wasn’t that he felt that there wouldn’t be a risk. He saw they had poor weight training skills and that loading them would be risky.
Instead, he came from a perspective of; why bother making them learn how to lift? He had no interest in a base and wanted to positively impact their sports performance in the water.
Short Term or Long Term
This group had some current world championship finalists and medal potentials. Some international events they needed to show for were a few months away, the Olympic trials were about seven months and the Olympics a year.
He didn’t want to waste time teaching them to lift. His rationale was he wanted them to develop physical abilities that positively impacted their KPIs now. If free weight exercises didn’t fit, he would go another way.
His view was to make some use of machine-based training and let them start building strength and power now. Power was the critical variable he identified in assisting athletes in improving their performance.
He wanted to start developing it now. Taking away from that goal to teach them how to train with free weights was a skill that he believed they didn’t need right now in an Olympic year.
The Key Question
There were good arguments by both professionals on why they wanted to go about it the way they planned.
Obviously, the context of their job, the athletes, the head coach, and the organization should come into play.
But what I quickly believed was missing was a clear starting point. A lot of assumptions were being made and past patterns being clung to.
We needed to ask; what’s the purpose of this program?
Is it to teach them a long term skill in athletic development?
Is it to teach them how to lift weights safely?
Is it to build strength?
Is it to build power?
Start at the start
Too often, those of us in performance walk in with the answer before we know the question. I know I certainly did as a young strength coach.
I definitely had a period where the idea of “too strong” was an oxymoron. I never even conceived that an athlete was “strong enough.” I had to learn. I had to remember what it was about.
ITSS
In this field, many practitioners have specific methods. They’ve put a lot of years into those methods, whether its powerlifting, linear speed training, HIIT conditioning, kettlebells, mobility, manual therapy techniques, etc….
When they begin, they already have a purpose. Make the athlete…
Stronger
More powerful
More mobile
Less at risk
More stable
More resilient
More…
Less…
Etc…..
But it’s not. Your solution set doesn’t matter.
The thing you do might be a great contributor to the outcome, but it’s still not THE thing. What’s the purpose?
ITSS.
Asking The Right Questions
In the complexity of high-performance sport, asking the right questions is a more critical leadership skill than having the correct answers.
When it comes to your function in the team, remember why you are there.
It’s The Sport Stupid
So if you keep that in mind, we can be comfortable questioning what we should be doing and how we should be doing it.
For our aquatic athletes, we could start by remembering ITSS. When deciding on resistance training, it should lead to some other questions.
Do the athletes need to have free weight training skills to succeed in competition? No.
Do general strength and power have a significant impact on their sports performance? Arguably…meh.
Do they need specific strength and power abilities in the water? Yes.
Can developing power out of the water help them in it? Yes.
Will training strength & power in the weight room take time. Effort and mental energy? Yes.
Could struggling with technique at light weights frustrate them and the coach? Yes.
Could learning weight training technique build confidence, a sense of accomplishment, and agency? Yes.
Could seeing power increase on machines be fun and add confidence? Yes.
Could slowly improving numbers as they learn technique undermine the coach’s buy-in? Possibly
Is it better to get results now, or build a base for the future? It depends on the organization, coach, and athletes’ goals.
The Answer
So, what’s the best answer?
Personally, I think both. I’m a big believer in thinking about AND instead of OR scenarios.
Could you teach them some basics for long term development while developing some power now on machines?
Would showing some power numbers improve help with coach/manager buy-in while still achieving a long term goal?
I thought so.
But more importantly, we just needed to be asking the right questions. While specific answers will vary, in general, you can use these two an awful lot of the times. They are pretty good defaults.
When looking for methods: KISS
When setting your goals: ITSS
Ask the questions often, and don’t forget these two answers when you are trying to solve the complexity of the high-performance sport.
