Still On The Clock

In my last post I shared some thoughts about early season training, the complexities of how our season is structured, and the processes we implement as the season rolls on.  All of those topics are centered around one core item, Time.  

In total, 26 weeks may seem like a long season.  However, with the intermittent breaks along the way, some of the training time falls independently on each individual thrower.  We have 26 training weeks for our season, but with our scheduled breaks along the way, there is some time that is spent away from our facility.  It is what happens during that time that will either propel a thrower towards achieving their goals, maintain their technique without a fear of loss, or fall behind because the thrower didn’t train over their breaks.

You see, everyone has the same amount of time.  No college is granted more training weeks than others.  It is how the training weeks are utilized that ultimately makes a substantial difference in athlete successes.

How we spend our time is critical to ensure athlete success.  How that success is manifested is dependent on a few factors.  First, are athlete aspirations realistic to their current technical prowess or their future technical prowess?  Second, are athlete goals process based or outcome based?  Third, does the athlete have a specific technical focus they are working on in practice, or are they simply getting reps in for the sake of getting reps in?

This week begins our third week of practice for our throwers.  I’m writing this before our training session today, in which I am introducing a time management/goal setting activity with everyone.  This activity has a central focus of sharing the importance of time, to think about what we want to accomplish over the course of the season, and how our daily/weekly actions impact whether we move closer or farther away from our yearly aspirations.

Another central tenet of the activity is to think about team based expectations and how those expectations will be integrated into our daily practice sessions.  You learn a lot from individuals after having worked with them for a couple of weeks.  Our march towards our first meet begins to reveal certain personality traits of individuals, the eye of the tiger if you will.