Why Do People Train, Part 2

Previously I wrote about the difference between players in an competitive club training "to develop" vs "to compete". This was not an attempt to exhaust the reasons or motivations for training but, rather, to highlight a fundamental difference in program model. Amateur sport is never a simple topic so I wanted to revisit this discussion and cover a broader ground to show how different program structures cater to different athlete motivations.

I will start with an example that is not water polo but gives a good indication of what I am dealing with through a sport structure that is well known. Think of the swim clubs that you know or that you see at local pools. How many Masters groups swim with a competitive age group club? Does Manta in Winnipeg have a Masters program or do they let the many Masters clubs take the adult swimmers? How about in Regina or Calgary or Toronto, how many Masters groups swim in an age group club? You get the point, not many if any. That is not because they are swimming different strokes but because their motivation to train is from a different place.

Am I saying that older athletes, Masters or 19+, are not competitive or that they should stay away from kids? No, not at all. You just will not have success offering a program to adults and their needs if your focus is on skill development, competitive team structure and the fundraising and fees that go with that. Likewise, if you are focused on lifestyle training and social physical activity you will not win many places on national teams or enable too many players to earn post secondary scholarships, or achieve too much team success at an elite level.

In order to have success with a program you have to be able to market it to a specific audience. If the message you send is vague, or conflicts with what you do at the pool, then people will feel a lack of satisfaction in what they have become associated with. There is a way to solve this problem with a water polo club structure but before getting to that I will talk a bit about the things that bring players to the pool in each type of program.

Adult programs can attract players that are primarily looking for a social outlet that involves physical activity. That may mean they want to go for a beer and wings after practice or to extend their social group with people having a common interest. It might include people looking for a mate, a drinking buddy, someone to watch weekend football games with or any other social aspect of group interaction. It could also include people who need a physical outlet to deal with stress or who have to stay active to control their weight or their health (as does everyone!)

The other side of an adult program is one that gives a competitive outlet to people who must compete in a physical game. This usually means people who know the sport and don't want to deal with the teaching of basic skills to young kids when they are at the pool during the few available hours of recreational time they have in a week. These people may also be concerned with their weight, strength and over-all health but they are looking to deal with those in a specific sport setting rather than a primarily social one.

Usually an age group club feeds adult players into one or the other streams of Masters play (competitive or social). Both streams include aspects of the other but people will be "lifers" in a program if it offers an identifiable stream to members. When a program does not choose one mandate or the other it will have players fade in and out of participation on an ongoing basis and this will make it hard to grow as there will not be a direction on which to base a club mission.

It would be possible to offer age group and adult programs in a single club if there was a leader who recognized and valued the role of each and did not see them as conflicting when assigning resources. I am pretty sure we could have a reasonably large group of adult players in our club if we had access to the pool time required to play regular games and have appropriate practices. I know of excellent leaders who could coach such a group within a larger club and I would be happy to use the seasoned players in a variety of mentor roles if they were interested.

Right now we do not have the pool space we need to do this and it is partially due to how the city allocates space. The other obstacle is that I have tried to get another local club to embrace their strengths at adult, social water polo over the years and have not wanted to conflict with that. However, I have failed to convince them to make this a goal so I am now modifying our program to grow into a broader mandate.

Why do People Train?

Tonight I had an interesting assortment of 22 players attend our "18U" practice that usually has closer to 16 people. This was due to a couple of developments the past month that allowed for a jump in participation and I want to talk about those briefly as they are cornerstones of sport participation.

The first reason we had more bodies had to do with the return of a few teen aged players who had quit club water polo in the fall and then decided they missed it and wanted to return to regular activity. They were welcomed back for the same reason we invited the second group of practice newcomers, the "over 18" crowd. Both these groups are interested in playing water polo as opposed to "training" for water polo. That is what I want to talk about, the difference and how it impacts sport development.

Normally we only offer age group sport in our club 12U, 14U, 16U, 18U and then individual training for older carded or national team players who need structured practice. This is an athlete group that trains as part of a routine, usually a family routine, and it is part of growing up - character, personality and physical development. Most often it is a parent that starts kids in a sport activity but then it is usually a child that decides that they want to be competitive and push themselves. This cycle involves discipline and the routine of daily (or very regular) training.

Competition is crucial to this competitive development but it can take the form of drills, scrimmages and structured games or tests that have athletes in competition with themselves or others. Game play is part of the equation but not the only part, or even the main part.

The reason we had many older players at the pool tonight is that we have allowed them to join our "Open" entry in this weeks Bushido Invitational. That is the reason why older, casual players practice, to play GAMES against other teams. They are not satisfied with training for development of strength, skill or character, they want to use the tools they already have. This means practice enough to play a game without having their body betray their mind and it's water polo knowledge.

I wanted the older or returning players to join us for 2 reasons. One was to push the existing players, offer them alternative challenges at some practices and scrimmages. The other was that I am planting the seed for a competitive league next season 2010-11. I am working with Saskatchewan to develop a Prairie League for next season that has a Men's and Women's division with regular games against a variety of components. This will allow our competitive 18U players to play knowledgable opponents that they do not practice with each day or play each tournament. Having such a league will allow me to keep older players active on a big team while the younger players are never without a regular match during the season.

Without a league or a regular set of games the casual players would never play. They don't mind some training but it has to have a purpose that includes tough matches. This is why so many players drop out of the sport in Canada by the age of 18, events are all focused on youth unless you play for a National Team. We have seen that Water Polo Canada has little interest in domestic water polo competition beyond hosting a national championship so we know that provinces must do all the planning themselves.

I will go into much more detail about these leagues when they have a bit more structure but Cyril, in Regina, and I are on exactly the same page with this project. We know that our 18U teams can play with Senior teams and that we instantly have 4 men's teams and 4 women's teams with our programs working together. If we can count on participation from Neptunes and Saskatoon clubs we could have 6 or 7 teams in each gender the first year. We have found that we can not have viable senior leagues in our own provinces so the logical step is to work together and that is always easy if you have a partner with similar goals and perspective.

Teaching and Learning

I have been hearing quite a bit about "learning" the past little while as my wife has been completing her Masters thesis in Education (Language and Learning). That process is deep immersion and she often has to verbalize things she is writing about to help unload and shift focus to other mundane lifestyle things. My job is to listen and support but there are also times when a little light goes on when she mentions something about teaching or childhood learning, and it hits close to things I am thinking or dealing with as a coach.

This past weekend I watched some local school league games that I was not part of directly but that included many of my club athletes divided on several school squads. One thing I watched for was how Middle Years schools divided teams when they had 2 entries in the league. This "2 team" situation was allowed due to large numbers of interested players and no limit on participation. I took note of how the schools divided players since I had coached my sons school teams when they were younger and I had a specific way of splitting up students to make sure the focus of each team was right for the participants ie appropriate learning for all.

One of these Middle Years schools divided the players equally, or perhaps randomly and that ended up equal. They played each other in a semi final that went through overtime and to a shoot out. It was of great interest to me to watch these teams as I had half a dozen club players involved on these teams. They were split between the squads and this meant that players with 6 years club experience were on a team, in the water together, with kids who were learning to swim. Imagine how different their focus and expectations would have been all season and imagine trying to set a team objective other than "pass it to the kid who knows what to do with the ball".

What I saw was the same chaos at year end that I had seen early in the season. Teams had not learned much about what to do but had improved in their ability to find the star and try to get them the ball. My approach would have been different, and has been when faced with that situation in years past. I would have put the club players on the same team, with strong competitive students who wanted to learn from them. Then the focus could have been learning to play off the strengths and skills of each other. I would have encouraged each non-expert to find a way that they could use the skilled players to give them space, or get them the ball or set them up in front of the net for high percentage shots. As the season progressed they could have set some team goals based on what they had learned as a group.

Following that model I would have then had a squad of complete novices as a second team. They could learn skills from the stronger players at practice and focus on applying them in games. They could be subbed in during a game in lines, playing as a unit for the whole game and getting used to helping each other with correct passes, helping the ball, switching on defense etc. The focus could have been on their group improvement each week.

I think when teams are divided equally in a league like that we see some polarization that is not needed. Everyone has different needs and nobody has them met to the fullest potential. I would much rather those kids had structure that meant a competitive player could take the 3 month school introduction to water polo and turn it into a foundation for club play year-round. The non competitive players could then take their interest to a high school co-ed program and into a non threatening Sport-for-Life stream. The only way this string of acivities will happen is with integration of programs and new partnerships that are not really welcomed right now as school leagues see clubs as self interested rather than as strategic partners. We try to change that by supplying many of the school coaches from our athlete ranks, and volunteers from our parent group, but it is a slow process.

Mini Clinic

Tonight I changed the pace of things at practice a wee bit for the girls. This is a week that we are doing a bit less swimming as there is an intense 2 days of games in Regina for all our 16U and 18U players on the weekend. To make interesting use of the week I am focussing on a few individual skills that I want sharply focused for our team play.

That may seem odd, focus on individual skill as we prepare to play as a team. Not really, if you think it through. Last month we played some games at these same age groups and while the girls had skills to execute specific game strategies they did not bring these skills to the pool. That meant that what I asked to have them do was left blank and no execution according to team talks.

Here is a photo of part of the action tonight. I had the girls divided into 4 groups; A) lead by Heather, working on Driving, B) lead by Breda, working on controlling the ball under pressure and C) lead by Shae, working on how to get the ball from the other team (ie steals, blocks). This was hands on experience, right when they need it. Shae's group is not visible in the photo and neither are the goalies who were the 4th group and got most of my attention at this practice.


Heather played on the national team for 3 years and was a pro in the Italian women's league two years ago (Serie A). When playing pro she was drawing 5 or 6 exclusions per game with her driving so it was good to have the young players up close to that instruction in the water. Breda is about to play her first season with Cal in the NCAA after many years on the national team and having been a Jr Team captain in the past. Few players anywhere are more comfortable on the ball than she is. Shae was just named top 18U defender at the Senior Womens National Team League - CSL. She lead that league in blocked shots most of the season and had plenty of steals from much bigger and more experienced women.

This was pretty popular with the girls and will be repeated Wednesday. This will reinforce the lessons taught that were new information and it will give the overview to some 14U players who will be joining us in preparation for their play this weekend. I am really curious to see how this is applied at our games since it is just a small mental and physical adjustment to take their play to a much, much higher level.

Land Work for Water Polo

Tonight we had a busy practice deck at the pool since the city had allowed an NLS guard training session to go in our regular land exercise area. This meant I was able to catch a few quick photos of some of the work our strength coach, Satoru, is doing with the players. Usually I am dealing with water sessions and Satoru is in another area of the building with an opposite gender doing land work.

These pictures are a sample of what happens when an educated strength coach (Masters in Exercise Physiology/Phys Ed) studies the program of a professional strength coach with a water polo background (Mike Reid) and is given free reign by a professional water polo coach who is a colleague (me). Satoru is never put off course by limitations of his environment, he just modifies exercises. A good example are the "pulling" exercises he introduced today to cover for the lack of chin up bars at the public pool we use (ie 2 50m pools, 2 weight rooms but only 1 small chin bar available to sports to use).

Partner Towel Pull

resistance is adjusted based on strength of partner

This second picture is a pairing of sisters that would otherwise be an exercise done with similar size and strength of partners. However, when a young teen who plays in net is given the chance to work with her big sister who is a top NCAA goalie, home for US Thanksgiving, we can make exceptions to many normal training procedures. And, we happily do so.

Partner Towel Pull #2

another version that engages muscle groups in a little different way

This third picture is not really replacing any chin up exercises but adding variety to squats. We do lots of squat work with the players, and have done for years, but now it is stepped up as Satoru modifies and challenges in new ways. The buckets are filled with water, not much, just enough to add interest. This is variable and certainly much cheaper than spending $40.-80.00 each for half dozen different weights of kettle bells.

Doing a squat with a gallon or two of swishing water is also quite good for the abs as they fight to stabilize the weight as the players move. Learning to do this with a modifiable weight is interesting to the players and it is novel, so holds interest in a phase of training that keeps them thinking. Pretty much exactly what we look for when working with teens.

Squat with Weight
Plastic pails with various amounts of water

There are also some rope pulling exercises being developed that allow strength gains through a very broad range of motion. This is a really important sport specific type of strength work that could not be properly addressed in a weight room on a machine.

I hope to be posting more of a regular blog soon but have been very busy with club program activities and doing some book proof reading that I had not planned on but am quite enjoying.

brief update

I've gone way too long without blogging, sorry if you are a regular reader. I have been swamped with other things and had my fill of water polo reading/writing in other areas. There are 2 events for my club teams in November, the first two weekends, so that takes some additional planning. This is an exciting time, but hectic.

Something interesting happened this week that was unusual and interesting so I want to write about that briefly. I was approached by the Head Coach of the largest swim club on the prairies and asked if I would lead his top swimmers through a practice session to give them an idea of what sorts of things water polo players do at practice. These are good swimmers, very good, all with national times and members of Canada Games teams etc. I am not going to waste any time explaining how to move forward or fast, they have a firm grasp of that!

It's interesting to think of what to teach a group of teenage swimmers who don't know water polo. These aren't California kids who have grown up doing both sports, no hybrids here. This is a carefully selected group of highly specialized individuals; for them vertical is for land, horizontal is for water. That will give me focus, I'll stay away from swimming other than to bend a few elbows on front crawl and teach direction change without a wall. Otherwise we will focus on moving with a ball, with a partner or working vertically.

Maybe I will write about how this goes once it is done, I could be surprised by what they show me. Having seen them play a bit of pretend water polo I know they are not masters of passing and shooting - an hour of instruction won't likely change that. However, they may pick up the movement more quickly than I anticipate so that will be interesting.

Cross Training follow up

In my previous blog I talked about cooperative LTAD planning between sports. It may have sounded like I was anti-swimming, that is not the case. It's just an easy example that comes up year after year. Truth be told, when Bushido was started as a club we named it "Bushido Aquatic Club" not Bushido Water Polo. It was our intent to offer water polo, synchro and speed swimming cooperatively. We did that with water polo and synchro for many years but gave up when the synchro community could not be convinced to support high performance sport.

There was a pretty good reason why we didn't offer speed swimming with the other sports. It was not allowed by the provincial governing body. In order to have formed a club at the time, and joined the organization, they would have to approve where we trained. Since our water polo and synchro clubs were training at the same huge facility we were going to offer all programs there. But, there was already a swim club there and they had the right to keep every other club out of that facility. So we could not join the swimming association and offer cooperative programs, side by side with athletes spending parts of practice on different sports.

Maybe things have changed now, it doesn't matter though, we are not going down that path. But that is too bad as we have some great examples of young kids that have done the 2 sports and excelled at both. Last spring I wrote about a provincial 12&U water polo championship where a young guy from our club demonstrated his 10 month development in the final game on a super breakaway, going a distance he could not have swum 6 months earlier. That was a success from a combined swim and polo season. His speed swimming allowed him strength to showcase his ball skills, awareness and competitive nature. We had taught him to change direction, handle a ball, jump & move vertically and to be aware of dynamic movement. Swimming had taught him to move quickly over a large area without stress. The 2 sports helped each other develop this player. However, it was a parent that juggled the schedules, not a master design of a multi sport club.

I didn't fully understand when I was a teenager how much my sport activities complimented one another throughout the year. Now that I know something about athlete development I can see the relationship between the training I did as a competitive dingy sailor in summers and the water polo and swimming I did in the other 3 seasons. Sailing developed core strength in hiking and trapeze work, grip strength in sail trimming (adjustments by pulling a rope against wind tension) and leg strength in hiking and various squat position movements when maneuvering the boat. There was definitely no plan in that sport development, just chance connection. I'd love to have more control over the progress and success of the players I work with in the 21st century. That is why I write (and read) about these topics now.