Take care of yourself, not just your athletes!

It has been a while since I have blogged and for this I apologize. I have wanted to report back on progress with the ETSU men's soccer team, but we have been on a run of late and I don't want to curse it! We are currently in the middle of a stretch of four challenging games in nine days. Once we get through this I will write some more about specifics.

This tough run comes off the back of four away games in two weeks (3 of them nationally ranked), so to say things have been busy would be an understatement. This is why this subject has come to mind.

I am a sport scientist. You may be a strength and conditioning coach. You may be a sport scientist. You may be an athletic trainer or physiotherapist. Dr. Craig Duncan has said it well on Twitter that the team does not revolve around us. We are all support staff for our coaches and athletes. Our role is to help these guys and girls do their job to the best of their ability. They are the talented ones.

If only I knew then, what I know now

Back in June I had intended on doing a "1 year back in Tennessee" post, but that never happened. This is more a blurb than a blog really about how professional development should never stop.

I am lucky to be in the position that I am in with so many resources around me, a great coaching staff to work with, and the ability to travel and experience things outside our organization. All that in addition to my more formal education puts me in a great spot. I remember writing this post on how things change last year. In all honesty, I could update this again and say that compared to now, I knew much less this time last year. Although slightly scary, this is how it should always be. Always moving forward and upwards.

Most of you reading this may have a harder time due to the situations you are in. It can be especially hard to expand horizons and learn new things from different people when you are busy all the time with a professional team as the pressure is on for you and the team to do well. Many people will be working for free. In this case they likely will have another job that pays the bill, hence making free time to develop even more difficult.

These challenges aside, CPD has to be a priority. Plan regular times to get together with other people in the field. Put it in your schedule. Down in stone. Also put down regular times slots during the week to read the literature and/or talk to people you trust on the phone. Get in touch and network with new people. In the offseason this is especially true. Visits and phone calls, meetings at conferences, and taking time to evaluate previous practice and then plan again is all part of our job. It should therefore be part of our working day / week / month / year just like other duties. 

If we stop progressing (or even worse, if we regress), it is not just ourselves that take the hit. Our athletes, and teams will suffer even more as the opposition moves forward. It is our duty to ourselves and our team to do this.

Now to catch up on some journals...

Sport science & coach education this summer

The new university year is now in it's second week and the fall sports are in full swing so I thought I would write a little about the sport science and coach education activities that we took part in over the summer period. As coaching manager for the Center of Excellence for Sport Science and Coach Education, I am lucky to be a part of these services and trips.

Educational Presentations / Symposiums
On Friday May 13th, we hosted our 2011 Medical Symposium. This included talks from sports medicine professionals, university professors, and strength and conditioning coaches on concussion, sickle cell anemia, diabetes, and strength training for young athletes.

ETSU has a school on campus, and in early June we provided an inservice to their coaching staff - focusing on program design and exercise technique. At the end of the month, we presented on similar topics to local coaches and trainers on behalf of the Mountain Athletic Trainers Society. Christian Carter and I received some really good questions during both the theoretical and practical components. These questions were positive signs to the growing base of knowledge amongst coaches in the area.

ETSU men's soccer preseason training 2011

If you go by the standard definition of preseason, our preparatory period ended in the lead up to our first competitive game of the season, on August 27th against Presbyterian College. As I have stated previously, the NCAA gives us restrictions that means our preseason (using the standard definition) is unsafely short, and so from a practical approach, we included this first game (and the week leading up to it) in our preseason plans.

We were certainly not 100% for that first game, but this was not expected/planned, nor would it have been possible even if we had planned it in a way that we would typically approach an inseason game. We were able to, however, to come away with a 3-0 victory at home, and no injuries except a contusion due to a late challenge from a very physical side (they came to kick us).

Although sometimes we went over the planned training loads (and under too some days), the preseason period as a whole progressed as planned. It is now that we are entering a very difficult run of games (4 away games against good sides in 12 days), that this planning, and challenging period last week, will come to our aid now that the volume of training will drop.