Several weeks ago you might recall me telling you that I had passed my USA Track and Field (USATF) level 1 coaching test.  I am an official coach for USATF.  

Why did I do this?

It’s not because I want to coach a track team.  And it certainly wasn’t because I desired another set of letters after my name (basically another certification).  I acquired this certification for several reasons and I will quickly explain them to you now.

 

  1. I wanted to understand sprint training better.  My business is speed training and getting athletes faster.  It is more than improving their speed in a straight line.  They have to be quicker in all sorts of directions on the playing field where a 5 or 10 yard sprint is more applicable than a 100M dash.  But, you need to understand the basics of sprinting and how better to do that then learn what drills a track coach does with his/her sprinters.  There were a few drills that I hadn’t already been doing that I think will be very valuable to my athletes.
  2. I wanted to establish relationships with experienced track coaches.  I want to be able to answer any questions my athletes might have about speed training.  I want to have all the answers to their issues of not being fast.  If I don’t have an answer to a particular problem, then I need to know people who might.  Being able to have this network will be a huge plus for me and you.  My staff and I was having an issue trying to correct some mechanical problems with one of our athletes.  I asked one of the coaches at the school I went to and had a possible solution in a matter of minutes.  We’ve started implementing the corrections and hope to see changes shortly.
  3. I wanted to confirm that most of my track athletes don’t have very knowledgeable track coaches.  Some of my athletes are sprinters and didn’t know how to do some of the most basic form drills before they started up with my program – i.e. A skips, B skips.  These track athletes should have already known these drills.  Talking with some of the people who I went to the USATF school with, track is one of the least cared about sports by the athletic department.  It is the last two months of the year.  It brings in no revenue to the school.  The AD just wants to fill the position with someone who can handle a bunch of kids who want to run around the track.  If you do have a good track coach for your team, consider yourself lucky.
  4. I wanted to be a better speed coach.  I learned a heck of a lot at this clinic.  My previous track coaches were great, but some of the techniques and drills I learned would have been very helpful to me back in the day.  If I had known some of this when I was an athlete, who knows how much better I could have done at track.  As athletes, most of us only have a short window at competing.  If you are lucky, you can move on to high school, then college, and ultimately a professional level.  However long your window is, you want to make sure that you are doing all you can to get the most out of your athletic potential.  Thus, I have a responsibility to do all I can to put you in that position to succeed.  You as an athlete don’t want to be saying “what if.”  So, it is my job to know what you need to do to be the best athlete you can be.  Whatever that is then will carry you to whatever level that could be.If I could have done x,y, and z back in my training days and I think that could have got me a state title or better showing than what I did, that starts to eat away at me.  Basically, I want to know as much as I can so that I can train you appropriately and not have you wondering the same “what ifs” that I do.


Bottom line, I have a little more knowledge than I did before.  It’s been quite a few years since I ran track, but I now have updated philosophies on how to train the track athletes and can give a better opinion to my athletes and their parents about whether their track training is beneficial or not.  Really, you are the one that benefits with better training and the comfort your speed coach knows what the heck he is talking about.