Random Thoughts
Comment: The Wizard of Oz is an old fable that has nothing to do, but everything to do with the current “measurement” and “technology” craze in sport performance. The Wizard is believed to run the beautiful Emerald city and is thought to be ever powerful and omnipotent presence, only to find out that he’s just a man common man behind a curtain.
Random thought: I believe this story parallels many of the current trends I see in sports performance. Teach the performance coach the technology, not the technologist the sport. Ground your reasoning with a sound knowledge of first principals game IQ. Esoteric banter should not be the ground for common discourse. Tech is great, use it to enrich decision making, but understand its limitations and assumptions. Behind the curtain, every practitioner should answer the fundamental question: “how does it help the player?” Interesting is NOT synonymous with important.
Comment: When you increase the number of winners, you decrease the value of winning
Random thought: We have a supply and demand issue in sports performance. It appears that the more we eventually become concerned with lack of pay (minus big revenue sports such as football), the more we resort to improving our resumes via academia. We graduate approximately 32,740 kinesiology and exercise science undergrads each year in the USA. That’s NOT including master’s and PhD students. The new craze in sports science in the PhD. It increases the depth of the talent pool, but not so much the pay.
According to Zippia.com, the average strength and condoning coach makes $49,382/year with an average hourly rate of $23.74. The problem, in my opinion, will only get worse.
Comment: “Don’t pick the pepper out of the fly shit.” -Michael Boyle
Random thought: Do we really think that improving one said metric (for example: mRSI or force at minimal displacement) is really going to affect the scoreboard? I’m a geek, I must confess, but how deep do we need to dig before completely loosing track of the performance landscape. I always ask myself:
How does it help the player?
Will it affect the scoreboard?
If I improve one metric, will it negatively affect another?
How much time do I have with the athlete?
Another rationale to also consider:
Did the player give maximal effort?
Does the player care?
We monitor to provide targeted interventions, not face lifts. We also work with large teams during the hockey season. Our programs involve a 1/N philosophy. We choose 1-3 metrics for the following:
Movement
Stress Response
Performance
We aim to keep it simple. Measure, monitor, compare amongst the team, make subtle changes.
Comment: Long-Term Athletic Development: Is it just theory or is it being put into practice?
Random thought: I hear many lecturing the benefits of playing multiple sports, training biological windows of adaptation, free play, making sport fun and interactive ect, ect. In fact, I’ve written about this many times. I’ve also created a manual outlining its use in the private sector.
Hockey in now a year-round endeavor. In fact, tryouts for most teams around the US are literally weeks after the hockey season ends. At certain ages (12-18) some players may grow up to 2-3” and gain 10-15lbs. This maturation has tangible effects on the ice. Furthermore, summer tournaments, summer skates and summer “combines” leave little time for off-ice focus and multiple sport playing. This is permeating into younger and younger age demographics. So, is long-term athletic development just a great theory, or is it being practiced? Yogi Berra said it best: “In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.” Watch what others are doing, not what their saying. The proof is in the pudding.
Comment: “What is one intuition or assumption you have about hockey that greater access to data would allow you to test?”
Random thought: Some problems cannot be solved with more data. Recognizing the limits of the possible is the beginning of wisdom. I have realized that the scoreboard outcome is largely determined by judgment, chance and skill, all of which are quite impossible to measure.
