Art of Coaching Speed

The Talent Code was the first I read of many books in recent years that takes a new look at how to develop talent.   It was a nice mix of research and theory along with anecdotal examples that Coyle discovered as he travelled the world looking at “talent hotbeds.”  The premise is that some places seem to produce high performers at a rate that is far beyond the norm.  He wanted to go see why.

High Speed Processing

Coyle tells us about his travels to the Spartak Tennis Club in Moscow which has produced a long list of the world’s top tennis players.  Instead of finding a world class tennis academy he finds what looks like a rundown warehouse building.  He doesn’t hear the thwack of balls on tennis rackets, because the athletes are swinging their rackets, but in practice motions with no balls. “.. they were swinging all right. But they weren’t using balls.  At Spartak it’s called imitatsiya – rallying in slow motion with an imaginary ball. All Spartak’s players do it, from the five-year-olds to the pros.”

“It looked like a ballet class: a choreography of slow, simple precise motions with an emphasis on tekhnika – technique.  Preobrazhenskaya (the lead coach) enforced this approach with an iron decree: none of her students was permitted to play in a tournament for the first three years of their study.  It’s a notion that I don’t imagine would fly with American parents, but none of the Russian parents questioned it for a second. “Technique is everything.” Preobrazhenskaya told me later, smacking a table with Khrushchev-like emphasis, causing me to jump and speedily reconsider my twinkly-grandma impression of her. “If you begin playing without technique, it is big mistake. Big, big mistake!””

Why such emphasis on technique? Because they want to build the neurological pathways in the brain to make this action more efficient.  This is where myelin comes in. 

Myelin is the insulation that surrounds our nerves. Neuroscience has become very excited because this is a major step that goes beyond the simple idea of all neurons being equal. Coyle summarizes, “The revolution is built on three simple facts. (1) Every human movement, thought, or feeling is a precisely timed electrical signal travelling through a chain of neurons – a circuit of nerve fibers. (2) Myelin is the insulation that wraps these nerve fibers and increases signal strength, speed, and accuracy. (3) The more we fire a particular circuit, the more myelin optimizes that circuit, and the stronger, faster, and more fluent our movements and thoughts become.”

Deep practice builds myelin in the right circuits.  Circuits with more myelin are like the difference of old dial-up internet and high speed fiber optics lines.  Research has shown myelination can increase overall processing speed by 3000 times!  If you gets in the reps with deep practice, you build myelin and get better.

Deep Practice

Deep practice is like strength training.  Where repeated use of the muscles will build strength and size, repeated use of neurons build strength and size through myelin.  So how does Coyle describe  deep practice?

Break it into chunks.  This is an old idea to coaches who routinely break movement into pieces.  It’s the fundamental of the whole part whole method.

Repetition on the edge of skill  Good practice happens on the edge of ability. According to Coyle “ Deep practice is not simply about struggling, which involves a cycle of distinct actions.

• Pick a target
• Reach for it
• Evaluate the gap between the target and the reach.
• Return to step one. “

This idea fits my coaching philosophy and I try to hammer this point home a lot.  I want athletes to push on that edge.  “If you aren’t making any mistakes, you aren’t getting better” is a refrain my athlete will often hear.  As coaches we need to identify practice and training strategies to get athletes working near the edge of their abilities.

Feedback  To make mistakes, train with precision and evaluate the results, you need feedback.  Immediate feedback while practicing so you can make adjustments and build the right circuits.  Good coaches always demonstrate this and know how to provide different types of feedback, teach athletes to provide intrinsic feedback and know when to give and when not to.

Motivation to Practice

Building myelin through deep practice is all well and good, but how do these high achievers stay motivated to participate in the day in and day out grind of deep practice.  Where does the grit come from.  Coyle says it a concept he calls Ignition.

One of the first elements according to the Talent Code are Primal Cues.  These are things that strike a deep cord including how we view whats possible and how we see ourselves.  Seeing someone else we can identify with achieve success sends us a cue that we can too. 

The 4:00 mile was considered “physiologically and biomechanically” impossible.  Not human could do it.  Roger banister breaks the 4:00 mile which has stood for decades.  In the weeks after another person did it, then the following season more, and in the next few years 17 people did it.  They just needed to know it was possible.

Being part of something exciting is also a primal cue.  When young (and older) athletes see other young athletes participating in something and enjoying it, they are more likely to want to be part of it.  He describes several examples of this and various research.  This is a useful idea for coaches to remember because we have to create opportunity to enjoy or be highly engaged that draws in the athletes.

There are also some thoughts on needing to be uncomfortable or even have some basic level of “threat” in life. He noticed that none of the hotbeds were really nice or comfortable.   If its too nice, if they have too many other options, they don’t have the same engagement and sense of urgency.

This idea is often talked about by many coaches, especially in lesser known Olympic sports.  The training is hard, and there are too many other options in life to enjoy, be financially successful, etc..  Small countries where those sports can offer a “way out” and into a better life often succeed. 

One other idea that’s thrown out is about the culture and environment of a place.  He calls it “the Sistine Chapel Effect.”  It’s the effect created by the entire atmosphere and culture of a training place.  There are numerous things there that help fuel the fire.  How can we build our training centers, our culture and create things that motivate and remind every day?

Master Coaches

At a point in the book, Coyle looks at consistent traits between “master coaches” of talent development.   He goes into some common observations as well as the Four Virtues of master coaches.  I have written on this topic before (Master Coaches), but here is a quick summary.

• Coaching Agile A good plan, teaching methodology, and technical eye are good and all, but only when a coach can be agile in their style on the fly, can they really progress.
• Listen More Than Talk It’s simple.  To coach well you must take in information.  The athletes state of mind, comprehension, motivation and dedication to what you are looking for.  You have to listen. 
• Small, Targeted, Specific Feedback Along the lines of the previous point.  Don’t give lectures.  Don’t overwhelm your athletes with seven different things to think about or focus on. 
• Quiet and Reserved This is one that surprised a lot of coaches.  The style often thought of is the coach that’s running around yelling instructions, giving motivation speeches, and barking out commands.

Coyle talks about what he considered the 4 coaching virtues after watching these coaches. 

• Matrix.  In Talent Code a “vast matrix of knowledge” was a common key.  It was surely domain specific, in that the coach knew very intricate details about performance and development in their field.  Master coaches could “go deeper” with more detail and had more technical knowledge when needed.
• GPS reflex.  A GPS voice instruction gives very short specific directions.  It doesn’t lecture. Same for coaches.  Feedback is short and sweet.
• Perceptiveness.   A great coach can see the technical details.  They can sense the athlete’s mental and emotional state through interpersonal intelligence.  They have a sixth sense about what and when to change for maximum result. 
• Theatrical Honesty. This is one of those, “of course” moments for me.  I do it, but I never really summarized it like this.  According to Coyle, Master Coaches are a bit like actors.  To get the point across, change the energy, or impact the pace, they exaggerate and embellish, with tone, gestures, body language, and choice of words.

Talent Development Tools

These ideas of talent development cut across different disciplines.  We can all work to improve our coaching and the ideas from the Talent Code are a basic cross section every coach can strive to develop.  This is a fundamental read for anyone in the field of coaching or involved in developing a person’s “talent.”

Practical Take-Aways for Coaches

To become more efficient in movement and thoughts, use deep practice.  Not just more practice, but better practice builds myelin faster.

• Push and pull them to the edge of their ability.
• Find  the right type, timing and amount of feedback for your athletes.
• Make training and practice focus on intensity and quality, not just time.  Our athletes today are often spending too much time, for too little return on investement.

To have the motivation and grit to engage in deep practice for many years, you need to Ignite their passion.

• Provide opportunities to show them its possible.  They have to feel like its someone like them in some way.
• Build an environment that helps them feed that fire with reminders of where they want to go, and others who have gotten there.

Master coaches guide the course of that deep practice and try to enhance the spark.

• Build the extensive knowledge through coaching thousands of athletes and hours and learning from other coaches.
• Develop your Art of Coaching to perceive needs, deliver your message, and communicate with your athletes.