Specific Training, Part #2

A little while ago I wrote about specific training, how it is related to goal based work. This was primarily directed at training gains - fitness, strength and skill development. But, there is another aspect of specific training that is also very often overlooked - that is tactical effort ie knowledge of scrimmage or game play.

In our club we play games, or use full court tactics, 1x per week for each age and gender. The balance of our training is directed to building the parts that are applied in a competitive team effort ie increase pass accuracy or shooting power and apply it in the weekly game. This means that the game day is completely focused on a competition. That is important as it puts a key emphasis on proper warm up and then on specific tactics. Every game we ask the teams to work on something specific to the opponent and teams for scrimmages are mixed in ways that allow tactical experimentation.

A funny thing happened last Saturday during our boys game (not HaHa funny, awkward funny). Our 16U boys were scrimmaging our 18U boys (with a few 14U add-ons) and the 16U boys were shutting down the older team pretty well. That is, until they stopped following coach instructions and started following the direction of the dominant 18U player. We had discussed specifically how to eliminate this dominant player (Brendan) and keep him out of the 18U offense. After he got too frustrated with his team he changed their tactics and that was a cue for the 16U boys to switch defense in response. When they did try to switch they were told to "play the same defense" by Brendan. Sure enough, they abandoned team objectives and blindly followed an opponent in their leadership.

That was a big turning point, not just because the team had abandoned what they were working on during their 1 weekly game. More importantly because when challenged on that departure from game plan they tried to justify their lack of team learning by saying they wanted to help Brendan show his team how to beat their defense. So, they were not focused on applying a team tactic according to an opponent but instead were focused on following an older team member when it hurt their game performance. When I explained how wrong that was the response was just "it's only a scrimmage, jeez what's the big deal?". Of course, the big deal was that they were working on tactics to eliminate Brendan from the 18U offense, not helping him beat their own team. Oddly enough, the 18U team has been working all season on not letting Brendan be the only one to lead the 18U team in the water so the 16U boys had ignored what we have been working on for months.

When the 18U team changed tactics, as we knew they would, the 16U team had a plan to counter it. They didn't follow the plan and further frustrate the older team, they gave up their united effort. Instead of the 18U going to the quarter break and getting instruction from Heather on what they had missed or done wrong, they went to the side feeling that they had figured out how to beat the 16U defense. In a real game the 18U team would never face an opponent that played the same defense no matter what they did on offense so the 18U had just taught themselves a false lesson, they created a situation in a practice game that they would never face in a real game.

That was a lesson in how NOT to train. Never create a practice that does not mirror a game. If you teach basic skill you do it away from a stressful, competitive setting. If you teach a skill under competitive pressure you do it in a training setting that isolates the pressure. Then, after that, you apply the skill in a game. The first game application is in a meaningless one, like a scrimmage, then a real one with a result that matters. That is what we are after, it is why we play games vs Team Sask every month pretty much all year. We are building on a foundation that the athletes are struggling to accept.

I hope that Saturday was a lesson learned, I know it was for some as they have already talked about the process. Others, we will have to see.

Specific Training

One of the things that I am finding difficult to deal with is the reluctance of athletes that I coach to follow sport science in training. There is still a great deal of "old school" training methodology in the water polo world and unfortunately much of this resides with the (Canadian) National Team as well. Too little emphasis is placed on specificity of training and too much time spent on generic direction to include a volume of work rather than a specific type of work that is goal oriented.


In December I had 2 national team athletes return from Montreal telling me that they had been directed to "swim more" by national coaches. My reaction was "more than what, how do they know what you do now" and "more of what, heading toward what goal"? It was odd that teenage athletes were told to increase swimming when their coach had not been consulted about how much they were already doing. This has happened before too.


That commentary is a set up, to deal with the conversation I had to process on Monday. One of my players insisted she had to swim "more" to get faster. That was frustrating because it is not a correct relationship between more and fast. The two can work in opposition if there is no plan and no goal. Young athletes need more volume in the water to develop specific aquatic physical literacy but once that is developed training must move to sport specific energy demands and strength requirements. And, to complicate this, there is no black and white distinction in water polo for these aspects of the sport. The requirements and parameters are different for children, teens, women and men so knowing what you are after is very important.

I am writing about this today because there is light at the end of the tunnel. Sport in Manitoba is actually putting money behind sport science now and I can access various grants (tiny ones) to do real research in water polo. This allows me to keep a close professional relationship with Mike Reid who is a strength and conditioning coach with loads of water polo experience. It also lets me keep close contact with Carolyn Taylor a biomechanics expert who has worked with us the past two years. She can help me direct work in specific areas while Mike can help me tweak things to be as precise as I need to be for energy and strength demands of the sport.

That science does not help the masses much since we have no land exercise space at the High Performance facility in Manitoba, but that is another story. What I am able to do is give specific feedback to high achieving athletes who are on National Teams or headed to the NCAA. Since I am likely to have 3 players at top 5 NCAA schools next year I am eager to help them in any way I can.


One of the things Mike is helping me with is to identify the mistraining that interferes with specific athlete perfomance at a high level. For instance, the random training that athletes do that can interfere with rest or recovery is mentioned so that I can help athletes replace that with added work that makes sense and is in harmony. To their credit, most of the players are welcoming when they get that support, even if they are not sure about "less is more".

I just hope I can get the next generation of coaches from Manitoba to see the important relationship between science and training before I retire and leave this place for a quiet rural life. If my recent conversations with Heather Carson are any indication I think we are headed in the right direction.