Selfish Coaches: The Downfall of Youth Athletes
I try to keep this blog as positive as I can and just give out information to anyone interested. But I'm sorry, when I see crap like that, it really pisses me off!
This kind of nonsense goes on in high school weightrooms all over the country, and it needs to stop! It would not suprise me if this team's coach is bragging to other coaches about how he has a kid that hang cleans 305lbs. It also does not suprise me that if you read the comments to the video, the kid claims that the coach told him he has "good form." Obviously, that coach should be fired. It is preposterous that an athletic director actually put him in charge of youth athletes. and he runs a program this dangerously.
And that brings me to the topic of the day, selfish coaches. I see this way too often, and it is both dangerous and wrong. Selfish coaches want to be able to stand there and say "Look what I did! Look at the kid that I developed." They want to take all the credit, rush the kid through and try to develop him into a "stud" within the first 12 weeks of training. The funny thing is, for every "stud", they fail to recognize the 50 or 60 other kids who got injured or fell by the way-side using their half assed, shotgun approach.
One of the area high schools here in Phoenix has hired a strength coach to work exclusively with the football team. This coach seems to be very uneducated on topics such as program design, exercise prescription, teaching exercise technique, nutrition, and how youth athletes develop. The best part about it is that there is a coach on the team who also likes to do strength and conditioning with the football players, and takes a few of them to a local gym to train 4 times a week. He is equally as stupid as the first coach and equally as selfish. Both of these guys want to be "THE GUY." They don't care about developing athletes over a 4 year period. They only care about saying that the guys they are working with are stronger.
This leads to some terrible technique in practically every exercise. I have seen bench pressess bounced off the chest with reckless abandon, scary posture on squats, terrible hang clean form and some strange exercises that seem to be made up and don't look safe at all. The other crazy thing is that the kids are forced, by the head coach, to train at school with coach A. So, they train there, a very intense workout, and then the ones that want to, go to the gym with coach B and do another workout. Back to back! These kids are overtrained, overworked and not properly coached at all. All these guys care about is saying that they developed a powerhouse athlete. They don't care about the athlete. They care about themselves! Needless to say, I think both of them are pieces of shit.
Another great example of this is the olympic weightlifting coach who is always looking for his "junior national champion." He couldn't care less about the other kids who have gotten hurt or haven't progressed to their fullest potential (because of his lack of understanding in program design and development). All he cares about is finding one kid to put his name on. One kid to brag about to other coaches. One kid that he can stand there and say "Look what I did!" His "only the strong survive" type of training program is just destroying other kids in the process, but it doesn't matter! As long as one of those kids can endure it and come out on top, that is all HE cares about.
It's just so sad. Sad that these guys only care about themselves and sad that so many other athletes may never be able to realize their true potential because their coaches were morons.
Tip of the day: HEY GUYS! IT IS NOT ABOUT YOU!
It is about the athletes. It is about being a good coach and developing athletes over extended periods of time. Stop trying to create Hercules in 10 weeks and start thinking about a long-term plan.
I wish coaches like this would wake up.
Aggravated on a Sunday,
Patrick
Oh man, I trained this kid the other day who was a perfect example of this.
First of all, the program his coach had him on was garbage. The kid was lifting 5-6 days per week, doing only squats, deadlifts, and bench pressing. Not that these aren't great exercises, but that's massive stress on the nervous system and the kid was SOOOO internally rotated from that poor balance with upper body exercises and had a really funny looking gate because of his Charlie Chaplin feet. I doubt they spend any time working mobility flexibility, which they desperately need to.
As well, his form on everything was horrible! I was amazed how much time I had to spend getting him to do things properly without throwing the weight around like a madman.
Then he told me had dislocated his shoulder a month prior (AFTER telling me that he had no injuries or orthopedic concerns I should know about) and had been doing bench pressing and going home at night and practically crying from the pain. I was like WTF! Here's the kicker though. He told me the game where he dislocated his shoulder they put it back in on the sideline and sent him back in the game! I wanted to punch his coach in the fucking face, and any physician or athletic trainer that didn't usurp his command if they had the opportunity. God I hate people like that. The kid saw nothing wrong with it either. He said, "We were short players, I didn't really have a choice."
Okay, rant over. Sorry, but that really pissed me off.
Posted by
Michael Phillips |
June 25, 2007 at 9:18 AM
All you can do is to keep educating yourself and your athletes. Eventually these so called coaches will conform or have to find work at the local fast food joint.
Posted by
George Kasimatis |
June 27, 2007 at 7:29 PM