Sport Scientist or S&C Coach?
Take home message
COACHING CAN BE A ONE-PERSON TEAM PLAYING MANY ROLES.
For Coaches
It is admirable to try and do it all. You can’t. Pick what you can excel in, delegate others and seek incremental growth in development opportunities.
For Athletes
Understand that whilst you are important to your coach, they may be stretched thin in your environment. How can you take responsibility for you?
During the COVID break from training, i had the privilege of interviewing Kookaburras Head Coach Colin Batch for an Australian Strength and Conditioning Association (ASCA) online meeting with 50 member coaches. It was a real treat for me to be able to present ‘my coach’ to members of ‘my organisation’. Going into the interview, I thought the similarity of the amateur training environment would be of value to the participants. Like many amateur/semi-elite athletes, the Kookaburras training environment is structured to enable work and study schedules. Whilst our program is generously well funded compared to many of our fellow Olympic sports that make do with limited resources (time and equipment) it is not comparable to a professional sport. Furthermore, in Australia field hockey is widely played and serviced at club level, so whilst Batchy coaches an elite international team, the players are part-time; they work or study, just like amateur athletes that the vast majority of S&C coaches work with. Therefore, I believed his insight, practices and advice were going to be highly relevant. Even though I had a list of questions, Colin gladly answered many from the audience.
An interesting question regarded the structure of the off-field team. Often, the model of support services in elite sport services portrayed is a best case model, a representative (or two) from every discipline: strength coaches, conditioning coaches, rehab specialists, GPS/data analysts, physiotherapists, trainers etc. Some institute settings are also blessed with psychology, biomechanics and exercise physiologists, professionals that work across multiple sports. However, in less resourced environments, many of these specialists merge. As Colin described his off-field team - two assistant coaches, a part-time goal keeper coach, a performance analyst, one S&C, part-time physio, doctor and dietitian - a question popped up on screen if there was a ‘sport scientist’?
I remember hearing Stu Cormack in his Pacey Performance podcast suggest that S&C coaches were a form of sport scientist as they use science to guide their coaching. I agree. I use science to inform my practice. However, I don’t really consider myself a sport scientist - they’re much smarter than me and in my mind, have the time to really delve into the specifics of performance, the ‘one-percenters’. In the less resourced setting, there is more need for the one-man (person) band. The person that can play multiple instruments at the same time. From what I know of the elite AFL teams, they may have a Head S&C Coach (or High Performance Manager, or both!), Fitness Coach, Strength Coach, maybe a Rehab Specialist who may work alongside the physios, or is one of the physio team and several data scientists.
The reality for many S&C coaches at semi-elite/amateur environments is that they combine many of these roles. For instance, at hockey whilst we have a smaller playing group than a professional AFL/soccer/rugby team, I am required to combine those roles: planning training (Head S&C role), designing and implementing the conditioning (Fitness coach) and strength training (Strength coach), collecting, analysing and implementing GPS (Data analyst) and working with the physio on rehab (Rehab coach). I gather that this is similar to many S&C coaches.
So the question regarding the sport scientist made me ponder the following:
How do you become an exceptional generalist - the strength and conditioning-rehab-data scientist-coach in a diverse, time poor, over worked environment?
For me, I think systems have definitely helped me provide a wide range of services in a limited time. When spread thin across two programs, I had to develop a broad system to deliver agility, conditioning or strength training that still allowed me time and space to improvise on the fly which was important in a time-poor environment. Another component was learning where my minimum effective dose was. I could continually tinker with GPS reports, plans or gym programs, but at some point, the 80/20 rule needs to apply. It is making a decision as to whether another 30 minutes on getting a task from a 7/10 to an 8/10 is better spent getting another task from a 1/10 to a 5/10 (I hope that makes sense). Another trick was learning just how far ahead to plan. Spending too much time projecting into the future was often a waste of time as events change (now more than ever!) However, to have no plan and fly by the seat of one’s pants is also very dangerous and you spend all your time reacting. Planning was a balance of finding the sweet spot.
2. In that pre-described environment, how do you develop the specialty to ‘progress’?
At some stage, regardless of our general skill set, there is an area that we either like more than others, or is a clear strength. Mine is probably gym based more than conditioning and is likely due to my background from WAIS and the Western Force being a Strength Coach. It is a little more automatic. I suppose the way to enhance a specialty is to pick one area and then devote any spare time to that area. It can be extra reading of articles or papers in the area, connecting with colleagues or following known experts in the field. It is identifying one area and staying with it every chance possible. I wrote about the opportunities to pursue a new skill set, which can have positive impact on current endeavors.
3. How do you get it all done?
This was a neat chat with a colleague when we agreed that the simple answer is, you don’t. There is no way to get everything done that the best case model does. What you do get done is the most important thing at the time. Once that is done, then you move onto the next one. You need to decide what gets done, what can get delegated and what does not get done. This is an important conversation to have with coaches and managers. The reality is, not everything can get done and in trying to do so, in the long-term, you will burn out.
I feel it is a balancing act for coaches these days to evolve the breadth and depth of their skill set. Make time and seek feedback from colleagues and mentors where your development opportunities lie.
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Thanks again. BA.