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

Book Club- Prep Steps™

Women’s Strength Book Club

Over the next few days, you should be receiving a copy of the following book, thanks to author for the donation of her work and the CSCCa for providing shipping.  Read the following post from Charity Butler, which explains her book and look for a new post on how we will go about sharing our knowledge gained from following this month long process.  

The opportunity to share with so many influential women is absolutely an honor!  You are an incredible group, and you embody true strength:  physical, mental and emotional. 

Now is the time to build on your strengths and empower each other, to create unimaginable synergy among yourselves.  The Medical Dictionary defines synergy as:

synergy  syn·er·gy (sĭn'ər-jē)
n.
 The interaction of two or more agents or forces so that their combined effect is greater than the sum of their individual effects.

You women are the agents and the forces that can propel true synergistic progress.  There are nearly 100 of you on the email list and many more who have yet to be invited.  Your combined effect is much greater together!

In an effort to make the Book Club both manageable and affordable, Exceed Sports and CSCCa joined forces to supply a Prep Steps™ book for each female member.  Each coach can participate in the Book Club at no cost.  In addition, it only takes 15 minutes a day of quiet, self-reflection to keep up with the material.  You can do this, and you will actually enjoy it! 

If you have not received a book and would like to participate in the Women’s Strength Book Club, please contact Megan Young at 919.308.3236.

Prep Steps™ is a 31 day guide to success for female student-athletes.  It is a tool created for girls who are in school and competing in a sport.  The goal of Prep Steps™ is preparing female athletes for school, sports and life.  (Learn more here:  http://exceed-sports.com/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage_images.tpl&product_id=7&category_id=6&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=141.) Beth Byron of West Virginia University won a Prep Steps™ book at the 2012 CSCCa Convention, and she says, “I would love to see all of the female student-athletes at WVU work through their own personal copy of ‘Prep Steps’.”

In addition, with inspiration from Prep Steps™ Cori Dayton of Xavier University has started her own pilot program for sophomore female student-athletes.  She hopes this experimental group will develop into a full credit hour course in future years.  Cori shares, “We are excited and honored to launch this program for the Fall 2012 year, on the 40^th Anniversary of Title IX.  Like this significant law that expanded opportunities for female athletes, we are proud to continue offering our young female athletes opportunities for success.”

Xavier and other universities interested in providing copies of Prep Steps™ are making use of the Athletic Department’s Opportunity Fund to launch their Prep Steps™ programs.  Exceed Sports is also working to develop a group curriculum for Prep Steps™.  We are learning from these pilot efforts to create the final program.  Exciting days are ahead.

Just imagine the contributions and impact we could all have working together and learning from one another while taking the 31 day journey with Prep Steps™!  Although this book is designed for athletes, I have worked through Prep Steps™ myself several times.  It continues to challenge and encourage me.  I am confident it will do the same for all of you.  The book will also prompt you to connect with your athletes from a new, fresh perspective.  Commit 15 minutes each day for 31 days to complete the process.  I dare you!  In fact, think of it this way:

“A designed beauty of synergy is that it serves only to add, never subtract.”
—Barb Rententbach, Synergy (2009)

When it comes to synergy and collaboration, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain, both as an individual and as a group.  Grow together.  Challenge each other.  Share ideas.  Become better for yourself and for your athletes.  Let Prep Steps™ be the inception of something incredible:  the synergistic effect of powerful, determined female coaches. 

Keep dreaming big and training others to do the same,

Charity Butler

Author Prep Steps™

charity@exceed-sports.com

www.exceed-sports.com

@CharityButler 

(Please follow me on Twitter, so I can #followback and keep up with the latest and greatest in the world of Strength & Conditioning!)

 

Anne Tamporello's 5 Point List

We each have our own unique experiences as Athletic Performance coaches.  Some of our experiences are etched in our minds as the most exciting and memorable of moments, while others are used as lessons learned for the future.  Over the years I have catalogued the advice of veteran coaches combined with proven business methods to formulate a five point list of some of the most important concepts commonly encountered in our field.

1.       Do a great job where you are.

                During the summer of 2011, planning strategies for a looming Big XII conference realignment had Baylor University bracing for what would be a major financial setback within our athletic department.  While formulating plans for a drastic shift in resources for athletic performance, I consulted the advice of a former mentor, Coach Mike Clark.  The first piece of advice Coach Clark shared was to “continue to do a great job with your current responsibilities.”  He mentioned that universities will always be apprehensive of letting go employees that have great rapport and a direct impact on its students.

                It is vital that individual coaches understand their title, role, and responsibilities within a staff.  People rarely get promoted to higher level positions without first demonstrating the ability to be a great steward of the resources currently entrusted to them.

2.       Be flexible with sport coaches.

                Because of NCAA time constraints, it is likely that over the course of a year no other coach spends as much hands-on time with student-athletes as the Athletic Performance coach.  Despite the inevitable athlete to coach bond that formulates over hours of hard work and sacrifice, we must always remember the sport teams we work with are not ours.  The bottom line always begins and ends with the head coach; your agreement or disagreement with their philosophies is irrelevant.  As a supporting branch of a team, it is your duty and responsibility to echo the message of your head coach to their athletes. 

                Most sport coaches will present a workout or exercise to the athletic performance coach that they believe will help their team compete.  It is also likely that this request is against everything you would prescribe as a professional in this field.  Perform this request with energy and belief to gain the trust of your sport coach, and then get your money exercises in another training session.  Trust is a two way street and in order to receive you must first give.

3.       You are always interviewing.

                Many coaches believe they are only being interviewed when they are flown to campus with resume in hand.  This is a dangerous mindset that could stunt your professional growth almost immediately.  To call a spade a spade, Athletic Performance is a “who you know” profession.  The moment you accept any position on a staff, you are interviewing for a future position.  Sport coaches and Athletic Performance directors understand how quickly moves are made in this field; therefore they consistently observe other strength coaches, formulating a hypothetical “dream team” in the case they ever need to quickly put together a crew. 

                Your conduct with all athletes, how you support or do not support the message of the head coach, your conduct at meetings and conferences, the ability to be loyal to the mission of the department, your reputation in social settings, the ability to be proactive on the job, and a score of other scenarios all affect your own professional perception.  Any time you are in the presence of other Athletic Performance directors you are being interviewed, and seasoned directors know within thirty seconds of laying eyes on you if you are on their short list.        

4.       B.L.U.F. first.

                In a profession dominated by male mindsets, it is important for females to learn effective communication skills that can help get our points across to coworkers and supervisors.  One of the worst, although natural, tendencies for females is to unnecessarily over communicate thoughts and feelings to a group of men.  The single most effective skill I have learned and utilize on a daily basis when speaking with men is Bottom Line Up Front.  If a man asks a question, answer in as few words as possible, typically “yes sir” or “no sir.”  Then, if asked to elaborate, we can explain outside circumstances or thought patterns.  All too often, men ask a simple question only to get an over detailed and emotional explanation.  If you do not want to be ignored amongst a group of men, answer directly and firmly, remembering to elaborate only when prompted.

Note: When asking a number of coaches to proofread this article, 100% of our male colleagues indicated mastering this point would solve the majority of miscommunications between men and women.

5.       Be Positive.           

                This might be the most overlooked and underrated characteristic for those looking to advance within our profession.  As coaches, we must develop the mental resiliency to consistently respond productively to negative situations.  An unwritten truth lies within each of our job descriptions demanding us to solve the inevitable problems that arise on a daily basis and not point fingers or pass the blame.  When choosing to keep a positive mindset despite a potentially negative environment, one may be surprised that what seemed like the worst possible situation was really not so bad after all.   

                I often recall the following “Doomsday Report” from a former colleague when utilizing this mindset before speaking with sport coaches… 

The head coach from a major university was asking the strength coach about one of his star athletes.  Fresh off a disappointing training session, the strength coach let his emotions get the best of him and began telling the head coach the athlete had a terrible day, would not listen, and did not have any passion or energy during the session.  The head coach then looked the strength coach directly in the eye, let a few seconds pass, and sarcastically stated in front of the whole staff, “Well I guess we just did a terrible job recruiting, didn’t we?  We should all pack our bags right now and turn in our keys because our strength coach can’t get our top recruits to do what he says.  Why do they even call us ‘Coach’ anyway?”   

                To help avoid embarrassing learning lessons such as this, remember to always speak to sport coaches about their team in a positive light.    

Impressions....from Master Strength Coach Raychelle Ellsworth

1^st impressions……..making LASTING impressions

As I enter my 19^th year of coaching, I find myself STILL excited about another Fall semester rolling around and the challenges it will present.  Looking back I have to smile to think how far I have come both professionally and personally and what a journey it has been.  Recently I was asked to share some thoughts about women in our field.  What I’m going to talk about is basically 2 things that I think are vital in our profession….making good 1^st impressions and making lasting impressions.

I think that when we chose to get into this profession we also signed ourselves up for being role models to athletes (both our own athletes, and other athletes at our school).  I think we have an obligation to model what we expect our athletes to be….strong, powerful and fit.  When I 1^st starting coaching, I coached football as well as my teams.  Football was a great motivation to me to truly gain the respect of those athletes.  They were “respectful” of me because I was a coach, but I think most of them thought they knew more about lifting than I did and therefore didn’t really respect my coaching ability.  As silly as it sounds my thought process to fix this was “I am going to getting bigger and stronger so they are confident in my ability to give a solid lift out or a spot”.  The harder I worked out, the more muscle I built, the “smarter” I became in their eyes.  Soon they were asking me for technical advice on lifts or asking me about supplements.  They were no longer viewing me as a female, but simply as a coach who loved the iron and who was bringing it day in and day out…the same that I was asking of them.   All I am trying to illustrate is that your physical stature can impact how your athletes view you.  Take a long look in the mirror and honestly answer the question “if I was an athlete, would I trust this person to lead me down the path of greatness?” 

The other thing I want to touch on is making lasting impressions with your athletes.  I am a “tough love” kind of coach.  I want things done a certain way, if they aren’t, then we keep doing it til it is right.  If an athlete or a team messes up, we deal with it immediately and sometimes harshly, but then it is forgiven and we move on.  I hold my athletes accountable for working hard, having a good attitude, being respectful of all coaches and each other regardless of the whether they like the workout or not, what kind of day they have had, etc.  I am also their number one fan…..no one is more excited when they hit a PR in the weight room or do something spectacular on the field/court or even if it’s just getting some well-earned playing time.  I treat all my athletes the same, whether they are a returning all-american or a walk-on that is a practice player.  There have been times that I have jumped on kids and in hind sight maybe it was either too harsh or unwarranted…..and I have always brought them into my office and looked them in the eye and apologized.  I follow that up by also apologizing to the team and let them know that I messed up and “owned” it publically.  Bottom line, if you have structure and discipline along with respect and enthusiasm for your athletes, I think you are setting them up a great college experience….and I guarantee that when they look back, YOU will have made a lasting impression.

Unrelenting……ray