Cori Dayton's Prep Steps Part 2 at Xavier

Nearing the last few weeks of our Women’s group that has seeded from the Prep Step concept we wanted to figure out what are the possibilities from here and ultimately if the group was a success.  We need to know how the girls find their experience and how we could improve it if we were to have a second group.  We took a lot of factors into account when deciding how to promote this group, but we also had variables we did not anticipate.

 The idea of meeting once a week to discuss bettering yourself seems great, but we need to take into account other views.  One of those views could be the student athlete’s feeling of it as “another obligation”.  We planned to eliminate this feeling by making the group participation on a volunteer basis, include food and other enticements. We also thought this would encourage high interest and participation during group meetings since they volunteered to be present.   Despite our plan, we were sad to be informed we still had some people who were inconsistent with their effort, participation and interest in the group during the meetings. This could be for a multitude of reasons including person issues that student athlete was experiencing.

 Lack of personal contrinbution and other issues can easily cause a lack of trust within the group. These and more could be factors that significantly impacted that individual’s experience and the group as a whole’s ability to move forward through sharing.   The amount of time (10 weeks) that the group met could not have been enough to develop a trusting environment for group sharing.   We realized this dynamic balance exhibited our Musketeer values “All for one and one for all”.  The group is there to help the individual, but the individual contributes to the group.  And on the negative component the one individual can hold back the group’s ability to build trusting foundations that encourage opening up to deeper matters.  A significant factor to success of our group is their ability to create a confident trust circle.  We will focus on that if we repeat the group with new individuals.

At the conclusion of the sessions we will meet with the counselor, those involved in the planning process and get input from the student athletes.  This will give us a better idea of whether we reached our goals and what kind of experience the student athletes received. After we deem the project a success, or handle necessary changes the question is… what’s next?  We could have another small group of sophomores for the second semester and repeat the entire process in hopes of improved group dynamics. 

There is the option of applying for the class to become academic credit.  While this is not per say hard or impossible, it involves a long process with a lot of red tape.  It would take 1-2 years minimum to achieve. Applying to be a course in the university requires providing syllabus and class concepts.  This is slightly against our original intent to cater to the individual, as well as promote dependent group thought and leadership.  We have concepts to discuss, but no concrete syllabus in which there are chapters and tests correlating to a schedule.  Being a University course brings us back to our original concern of the obligation of the student athlete to be there. The last thing we want is a begrudged athlete sitting in a “class” feeling forced to talk about their feelings.  We want them to be in control of their actions and make decisions and what they choose to participate in. We need to empower our young women to make their own decision and take actions they believe in. 

A quote from our original stated goals:  “develop the skills and confidence to overcome challenges and become successful women in the community”.    This implies that the individual develops the skill, not that we teach them how to be successful, or tell them how they should handle their lives.  These are experiences they will face.  Hopefully, no matter where this concept goes from here (class, second pilot group, or otherwise), we will continue to be a confident resource for these young women as THEY discover their path through life.

Now the ball is in your court…

Do your athletes see you as a resource if they face adversity?

What type of impression are you making as a role model representing women in athletics?

What can you do in your institution, with your teams, to promote development of young women?

-Cori Dayton

Xavier University

UWV's Beth Bryon Shares Implementation of Prep Steps

After receiving a copy of Charity Butler’s “PrepSteps” book during the Women’s Strength Coaches Breakfast at the CSCCa National Conference in May I was intrigued to read it but out of skepticism. I have to be honest. I don’t buy into a lot of self-help books with the concern that the values that they hold and advice that they offer are not practical or are full of watered down ideas about the reality of what hard work and perseverance can bring. Honestly I had my doubts about this apparent ‘self-help’ workbook that I was holding in my hand. However after hearing Charity share with us from her personal experiences as a student-athlete and going through many of the same things my athletes do I felt encouraged to keep an open mind and give it a chance. There is no stronger testimony than personal experience.
I started reading through the book during my flight back to Pittsburgh later that weekend. I was pleasantly surprised with how much honest and valid advice was being given in this book! I thought the pages on helping the reader understand what their roles and values are- requiring you to honestly examine yourself- was a great start and thus enabling the reader to better understand their priorities and how they manage their time. When I got to the pages on nutrition and strength training my guard went up. As I read through those pages I was relieved to see true facts and practical advice being given. To be sure that I was being consistent I asked our dietitian to read through those pages and make sure that she approved.
Next I shared the book with some of our sport coaches to get their opinion on the book. To me it is very important to receive honest feedback from those that I trust and respect, this helps me check myself and what I’m doing. They all had positive things to say about the book and were supportive of anyways we could implement it with our student-athletes.
Here is how I have used the PrepSteps book:
I’ve chosen to focus on using the book with just the Gymnastics team for right now. Since we cannot require the girls to do the workbook we knew that some would not utilize it to its full value and therefore cause us to spend money that is not properly used. After discussing some ideas with Charity over the phone and receiving her permission I have selected 8 days from the book to introduce to the girls. Each week, on Thursday I present a new day from the book to the team and they each receive a photo copy of that day’s pages. We have done this for the last 7 weeks now and will be doing one last week next week! Here are the weeks we have discussed:
Day 1: Roles & Values- I felt it was so important for them to understand these two concepts and to really examine themselves and what they value. This also sets them up to better understand their priorities.
Day 4: Priority Wheel- We all know how important it is for our student-athletes to manage their time well; to do so they must recognize which of our daily activities are a priority.
Days 12 &13: Nutrition Myths- Talking about these myths and bringing to light the true facts is something our female athletes can’t hear enough of. They are so bombarded with information about diets their friends or family have tried, supplement claims thru the media, etc.
Day 18: “Girls Only” Female Athlete Triad- This was a must! I’m so glad Charity did such a great job at including all areas of this disorder. These young women need to understand how their hormones affect their entire physical make-up: body composition, bone health, recovery time, metabolism, etc. Unless they are in sports nutrition or human physiology class they may not get all this information. No doubt the female athlete triad is an issue for any women’s sports program regardless of what your training gear or uniform looks like!
Day 20: “Rest & Recovery”- I don’t think our athlete understand how valuable sleep is to their training and performance. Many have a “work hard, play hard” mentality. These pages really brought this into perspective for them.
Day 31: “Choices to Exceed”- It was funny to see the reaction of some of the girls when I revealed to them that choice “B” would yield them over $5million in 40 days! This caught their attention on the idea that we need to carefully consider consequences for our choices and to persevere through hard work to reach our goals.
Bonus Day: “Love”- This is my absolute favorite day in the entire book. So many of our young women have a false sense of what love really is- and some many never hear it and are crushed by the lies! No matter what the relationship is we need to remember that love is not how we feel about someone (or say we feel about someone), it’s about how we behave towards them.

Prep Steps™ Week 3 Days 12-16 of Prep Steps™

This is YOUR week! Strength and Conditioning Coaches, it is your turn to enlighten me… and each other :)

Days 12-13
What are the biggest challenges you face concerning nutrition for your athletes? What techniques, activities or approaches do you find most beneficial in overcoming these challenges? Be practical here… share the knowledge and help each other discover new and better ways to train and communicate!

Day 14
You all are a WEALTH of knowledge in this area! Again, share practically, please. How do you help your athletes overcome these workout downfalls? Let’ learn from each other.
Poorly Focused
Unrealistic
Borrrrring!
Trendy
Vein
Too Careful


Day 15
If you are anything like me, at some point or another you have challenged yourself or other athletes to give more than 100%. How does the statement “There is no such thing as 110%...” affect your perspective?


Day 16
Have you seen athletes who “bucked” the Prehab system and ended up suffering injury as a result? How do you encourage your athletes to buy-in to this all-important aspect of training before they get hurt?

Thank you for your continued input! What an incredible opportunity for so many to come together from different places and programs. If you have not been participating so far, no worries! You can start now. Feel free to post on some of the older articles, as well. Continued input and discussion is the goal.

Have a great week.
-CB

Prep steps week 2

Week 2 Days 6-11 of Prep Steps™

Week 2!  Welcome back and thank you for all the incredible discussion so far.  If you have not had time to read through the comments from Week 1 or if you still desire to contribute to Week 1, go for it!  This blog is very flexible and meant to fit you, so make it yours at whatever pace works best.

Please have the courage to post your thoughts.  We can all learn from and challenge one another, even with one liner comments.  Also, encourage your friends to work through the process and post with us.  The process is rich and deep due to the peoplewho participate :)

For those of you who have completed days 6-11, feel free toshare your thoughts:

Day 6

First of all, did anyone actually try the 10 Minute Strategy?  Did you make progress on anything important to you as a result?  Are there any of you out there who did not try the strategy but will publically commit to trying it this week?  You have plenty of coaching sisters to hold you accountable here!

Day 7

How can we help our athletes grasp that “activity does not equal achievement”?  How can we encourage them to “work smart” (both in their training and in life)?

Day 8

Do you find that your athletes enjoy setting goals, or do they seem to fear the process?  Do you use any specific goal setting strategies that help them better execute the process?

Days 9-10

Which study tips do you see as most beneficial for your athletes?  In what academic areas do they need to improve the most?

Day 11

When setting goals for performance, compare a focus on process thinking with an obsession over results.  What are your thoughts?

Cori Dayton and Xavier's Use of Prep Steps

Monday Evening:  All of your classes are done, your team had a great lift, and you’ve made it through practice. Now you’re heading to the women’s center on campus for a group meeting in which you will have food to replenish your body and a group of fellow female student athletes to nourish your soul.  This is a real Monday for 10 of our sophomore female student athletes thanks to an idea which was inspired by Charity Butler’s book Prep Steps: 31 day guide to success for female Student-Athletes. So…How did we go from a book purchased from a speaker in a women’s breakfast to a weekly empowerment group to benefit our female student athletes?  Let’s start from the beginning.

After getting the book at the Cscca conference I decided to give it a try personally and see how it would apply to my life now, as well as maintain a reflective view from when I was a student athlete.  I found the book to be extremely flexible and applicable to my life as well as helpful for when I was a student athlete.  I felt this had potential to benefit our young ladies; we just had to figure out how to implement the idea.  After discussing with our strength staff, we met with the Academic Department.  They were excited and supportive and together we were able to come up with some ideas.  But first, we had questions….

1.       Who would this most benefit?

Freshmen have seminar classes and are almost overwhelmed with resources to help them be successful as a student athlete. Juniors have leadership and next step resources and groups to help them as they are gearing up for their next step in life.  Seniors have many resources from resume, interviews, internships, job connections and more.  We identified the sophomore year as the most beneficial for this program.

2.       Are there any NCAA complications?

As long as it is an optional group, there are no NCAA complications.  The group has no relationship to countable athletic activities (purely volunteer basis by the individual athlete).  No information including attendance will be shared with anyone outside of the group including coaches.  If you are getting sponsors for the meals, supplies, or books; make sure they are cleared through the compliance department.  We utilized the NCAA athlete opportunity fund to purchase the books for the group.

3.       What information are we going to present and discuss?

This is where the Prep Step book played its biggest role.  We discussed a few different approaches.

-Follow the book 1 day at a time and every Monday discuss the last 7 days.  (4-5 weeks)

-Break the book up into sections that contain similar information (10-12 weeks)

We decided second option would be the best fit. 7 days is a lot of material to cover, as well as separated some similar topics.  For example: Day 1-5 is about you, and your goals.  Day 6-10 deal with you/time management, and then 11 moves back into goal setting. If we discussed by week,  the first week would stop mid management discussions, then pick up the next week with that while moving on to other topics beyond goal setting up to day 14. Using the second strategy we clumped together days in the book that had similar concepts and found natural sections in which a new topic is introduced. 

                As we were breaking it down we had a lot of discussions regarding the individual style of the book.  It is really great for personal reflection, but we were unsure of how successful it would be in a small group.  That is when our original concept took its biggest change.  There was a GA in the Academic department who had counseling/psychology background, who was a student athlete, and had a special interest in female populations.  Her experience and unique view inspired the idea of a Socratic style group in which the girls become leaders themselves and decide what the group will discuss.  The counselor took ideas, topics and concepts from Prep Steps, and then added more psychological and social issues.  She developed concepts to discuss with the group but no strict syllabus or timeline to follow.  The girls were truly empowered to discuss issues that were relevant to these 10 individuals.

                Our final product became a small group able to talk about hard situations or issues that our female student athletes may be facing. We also were able to incorporate more material specific to the females because we were not repeating information from Prep Steps that was already covered in the freshman seminar the year prior.  The group is a guided introduction to working through and understanding yourself and your actions.  After the group is done meeting, we will give them Prep Steps so they can continue their journey individually, but with some help.  Ultimately we hope they develop the skills and confidence to overcome challenges and become successful women in the community.

Week 1 Days 1-5 of Prep Steps™

Welcome to week 1 of the Women’s Strength and Conditioning Book Club.  This week we will discuss days 1-5 of Prep Steps™, so join the conversation.  Feel free to answer one question or all questions below, but you have a voice here.  Use it!

Day 1:

For those of you who are up for a challenge, you can take the “Values” exercise from Day 1 to another level.  Print the list of 400+ Values found here:  http://www.stevepavlina.com/articles/list-of-values.htm.  Then narrow the list to 20 words that represent your most important values.  From the 20 words, narrow to 10.  From the 10 remaining words, choose 5 values that matter most to you right now.  The third round is challenging since there are no wrong answers and many beneficial options available.  You can do it, though; be decisive!  This exercise is all about you.  Once you have determined your top 5 words, write them in a place that is visible to you daily.  Take several days to process how well your ideal values and your current reality align.  This is a very personal exercise, so feel free to share as much or as little as you wish about your insights.  Did anything surprise you?  What stands out to you from the challenge?

Day 2:

Determining our 3 P’s will hopefully inspire big dreams and aspirations.  Dreaming big, however, can be surprisingly painful and disappointing because we will inevitably encounter failure.  If we reach every goal we ever set and never experience a letdown, then we are not dreaming big enough!  We are not pushing hard enough.

What do your athletes fear?  What boundaries are they timidly approaching, rather than fearlessly attacking?  What is standing between them and greatness?  How do we, as coaches, help them squash their doubts and exceed even their own expectations?

Day 3:

According to ESPN the magazine (referring to high profile athletes), “The more unusual the skill and the harder it is to replace, the higher its price will be.”  High profile athletes are paid mega money because they are experts in one area.  They are not pretty good at many different skills or sports; they are the best in a very specific-niche area. 

In the world of athletics, why then, do we tend to spend more time improving our weaknesses than building upon our strengths? Would it be more efficient to spend greater energy developing strengths rather than correcting weaknesses?  Strengths produce the expert-type niches, those that are unusual and hard to replace.  On the other hand, you are all thinking that balanced strength is crucial for training purposes, and the quote from Michael Jordan (maybe the most high profile athlete of all time) seems to fly in the face of the above argument.

So, as a strength and conditioning coach, what is your opinion?  Should coaches focus more on athletes’ strengths or weaknesses? 

Day 4:

True success requires discipline and balance across all aspects of life.  We see “successful,” but miserable, athletes in headlines almost daily.  All the accolades and money in the world are empty without depth in other areas.  How can we help our athletes find or maintain a balance in all areas of school, sports and life? 

Day 5:

We will revisit goals next week, but are there any other ideas or elements not discussed in days 1-4 that would help your athletes in setting good goals?  Do you have any goal setting exercises or tips that you use with them?

Prep Steps™

The Women’s Strength and Conditioning Blog Book Club is officially underway!
For the next 7 weeks, all of you have the opportunity to work through your own copy of, Prep Steps™ 31 day guide to success for female Student-Athletes. The approach is simple, but the process holds profound potential.
Based on the various topics in Prep Steps™, the book is divided into 6 sections. Each week we will review four to six days from the book, and every Friday, a short article relating to the days read will be posted. Feel free to write in your copy of the book and make this process personal. The weekly articles are meant to spark discussion, encourage collaboration and generate new ideas together, so please join the conversation!
You can jump right in by reviewing days 1-5 between now and Friday, October 12, then check back here and share your thoughts. Looking forward to this group growing and learning together!
--Charity Butler
Author Prep Steps™


Prep Steps™ Book Club Calendar
October 6-12: Read Days 1-5 (Article 1 posted 10/12)
October 13-19: Comment on previous article; Read Days 6-11 (Article 2 posted 10/19)
October 20-26: Comment on previous articles; Read Days 12-16 (Article 3 posted 10/26)
October 27-November 2: Comment on previous articles; Read Days 17-20 (Article 4 posted 11/2)
November 3-9: Comment on previous articles; Read Days 21-26 (Article 5 posted 11/9)
November 10-16: Comment on previous articles; Read Days 27-BONUS (Article 6 posted 11/16)
November 17-23: Comment on previous articles