Loren Seagrave's Blog

Business Relationships vs. Personal Relationships

noreply@blogger.com (Loren Seagrave) — Wed, 28 May 2008 23:20:00 +0000

I had lunch with one of my former athletes yesterday. She is in HR and a Diversity Training Specialist with a major grocery store chain in the United States. She has always been tremendously insightful with people and relationships.

At one point in the conversation she made a statement that was so simple and intuitive, yet so profound; I had to take pause, set my fork down and reflect.

She said simply and in a matter of fact way, "People don't stay with businesses because of business relationships, people stay with businesses because of personal relationships."

As I thought back to the teams I have been a part of and the teams I have had a hand in building, the glue that kept things together wasn't the business, the execution of performance by the individuals or even of the "what can you do for me". It was the personal and long-standing relationships that were being forged in the process.

She went on to explain that if you don't value the person, and only focus on the performance, then you, as the leader, deserve the performance that you will get. If the person comes to the realization, through genuine feeling, that you, indeed, value them, they exhibit the internal motivation to perform at 110% of expectation and their loyalty elevates to an extraordinary level.

I floated this thinking by several trusted colleagues today, and in each case, they validated what I have found to be true. Each had a specific incident or time in their academic or professional career that they related, without prompting, where they felt so much valued, as a person, that performance capacity outdistanced what they, themselves, even imagined possible.

I have always talked about our Velocity Sports Performance family, and that once you join the family, you never truly ever leave the family. This was so poignantly portrayed today in a 20 minute call today by one of “my coaches” from seven years ago. Even though he has chosen to pursue his own individual calling in the sports performance training industry, we had a fantastic conversation that cemented our relationship further. The relationship transcends the business.

Several days ago I also heard from a former athlete, who ran on the associated men's team at one of the universities I had coached over 20 years ago. He related my second mentor had announced his retirement after a fantastic and illustrious career in coaching. I immediately called and was greeted by my mentor’s voice with my name and a story he wanted to relate to me about someone he had met who said some nice things about me. Always the edifier, he immediately turned my call of congratulation and edification of him into making me feel good.

A prominent sprinter for the UK in her quote of the day shared, "People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." Although the quote was not attributed, largely because there was not enough space available, it was spoken by Mya Angelou; and hopefully it hits home hugely.
This business, and every business, is sooo about relationship building, and not just business relationships, but personal relationship.

Here I Go Again...

noreply@blogger.com (Loren Seagrave) — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 23:29:00 +0000

It was 1987. The World Series was played traveling up and down the Mississippi and won by the Minnesota Twins 4 – 3 over the St Louis Cardinals, The Louisiana State University Lady Bayou Bengals became the first women’s team in NCAA history to win both the NCAA Indoor and Outdoor Team Championships in the same year and Whitesnake had a blockbuster with, what else, “Here I Go Again”.

I was fortunate to serve as the Head Women’s Track Coach at LSU that year with a fantastic staff and many athletes who were big-time over-achievers based on their past performance pedigrees. One of the differences with this team that year was characterized by the sprints and hurdles group using almost exclusively, an Active-Dynamic Warm-up protocol. Later, Howard Willman, former women’s editor of Track and Field News, would remark, “You know there was just something different about your women’s teams. For one thing it was that warm-up. I’m convinced that was one of the ingredients to their success.”

During the years before, we questioned the conventional “Jog Two Laps and Stretch, Static-Passive Warm-up”, as not only counterproductive when it came to performance in speed power events, but also down right deleterious to performance.

We had no research data to back up these claims, only sound scientific rationale, empirical evidence, the sentiments expressed by the athletes and good old fashioned mother-wit.

Our thinking was as follows: There was a preponderance of evidence pointing to the importance of stored elastic energy and the utilization of the stretch-shortening cycle coming from European researchers. The stretch-shortening cycle employed not only the elastic loading of the visco-elastic components of the muscle, but additionally relied on the myotatic reflex.

The neuron-physiological mechanism used to effect muscle relaxation in long hold static stretching essentially desensitizes the stretch receptor, housed in the intrafusal muscle fiber. By fiddling with the gamma efferent system in this way, the athlete shuts down the nervous system.

In lecturers to coaches later that year, I began to espouse the virtues of the Active-Dynamic Warm-up over the Static-Passive Warm-up. For the next five years, when I spoke on the subject, traditionalists - and there were many - looked at me like I had three heads. I remember while lecturing in Narabeen in New South Wales, Australia, at the invitation of Keith Connor, I was openly challenged, in a professional way, by Ken Graham, the exercise physiologist at the NSW Academy located at Narabeen. On several issues, Ken said that he would do the studies and prove me wrong.

Ken took sprint cyclists, some of the best in the world who were Australian during that era, and had them either perform a static stretching protocol for warm-up then ride a power test, or they would jump straight onto the bike and ride the power test. Ken communicated with me that the rider in the no warm-up situation out performed himself following the static stretching situation.

At about the same time, on the other side of the world, unbeknownst to me, Paul Doyle, a master’s student at the University of Massachusetts – Amherst, was conducting a study that looked at classic vertical jump performance both with no warm-up and with a static stretching protocol prior to jumping. Doyle’s Master’s Thesis substantiated our claims. If you static stretch prior to jumping, the reduced result is significant. It was ironic that several years later, Paul began coaching my future wife, Sharon Couch, in Atlanta, and he and I were to become coaching colleagues, amalgamating our groups for several years leading up to the Olympic Games in Sydney.

Over time, and with more and more researchers validating our hypothesis, the Active-Dynamic Warm-Up, or a warm up protocol that uses the same principles but called something else, is now the main stream and accepted as superior at the highest levels of sports competition.

Recently, two other colleagues, Dennis Landin and Irving “Boo” Schexnayder at Louisiana State Universiy in the Department of Kinesiology, have published in the January 2008 issue of the National Strength and Conditioning Association’s Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, an article again validating our claims of 20 years ago. Using a balance group of eleven males and eleven females, who compete at the Division I level of the NCAA, Jason Winchester, the contact for the paper, and his team of researchers demonstrated that even doing a dynamic warm-up followed by a static stretching prior to maximum intensity sprinting produces significantly inhibited performance in a 40-meter sprint with an intermediate time taken at 20-meters.

This particular issue of the NSCA Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research has several well-written studies on the deleterious effects of long hold static stretching before speed-power activities.

In the words of Whitesnake, “I don’t know where I’m going, but, I sure know where I’ve been.” It has been a fabulous, albeit rocky at some times, journey, with a handful of others, trying to lead the way to new frontiers in sports performance training. The Active-Dynamic Warm-up is here to stay. Now the task is to take the message to the youth leagues where moms and dads, who are butchers, bakers and candle stick makers by day, are giving it their all to help their children and the children of others enjoy sports by performing better. Driving by high school, middle school and recreation league sports fields across the country, I still see “right over left and left over right” starting out practices.

“An’ here I go again on my own. Goin’ down the only road I’ve ever known.” I know I won’t be the only one out there, because you will be out there spreading the word right with me.

World Coaching Education Meetings, January 2 – 5, 2008; Dakar, Senegal

noreply@blogger.com (Loren Seagrave) — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 23:27:00 +0000

I spent New Year’s Eve in Dakar, Senegal in preparation for the four-day 2008 Coaching Education and Certification System (CECS) Finalization Meeting for the International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF).

Coaching Education has always been a passion of mine. The only way for a coach to leave a long lasting legacy is to share unabashedly the cumulative knowledge and experiences of an entire career to the next generation of coaches. To that end, I have tried to remain as active as my schedule permits to help fast-track coaches to mastery and excellence.

I remember being part of the first Coaching Congress formed by The Athletics Congress in Long Beach, California in December of 1983, which served as the springboard for the USA Track and Field’s Coaching Education System. Even today I continue to teach at one or two Level One Courses per year because I believe young coaches should start out right.

Last week’s meetings brought together the editors and international experts who have been working on the development of the Level III and Level IV curricula. Ralph Mouchbahani (Germany, now Special Consultant in Singapore) with me represented Sprints and Hurdles. Wolfgang Ritzdorf (Germany and a professor at the Deutsche Sporthochschule) is the coordinator for the jumps. Debbie Strange (New Zealand) attended for the Throws. Peter Thompson (UK, now working with the IAAF in Monaco) chaired the meeting and is the current editor in the endurance events. Antonio La Torre (Italy, and professor at the Institute of Physical Exercises, Sports Activities and Health at the University of Milan) has developed the walks curriculum and Alain Smail (France, a senior coach on the staff at the IAAF High Performance Training Center in Dakar) is putting together the Combined Events. Joining the event group editors was Oscar Gadea (Uruguay) who serves as international consultant to the IAAF.

The meeting schedule was packed during the mornings. Peter Thompson kept our collective noses to the grindstone. Afternoons were dedicated to individual event group meetings.

Even though the schedule and workload was daunting, it didn’t stop Ralph and I from paying a visit to Alain’s training group at the stadium. We spent almost four hours watching athletes train. Alain explained that Wednesday is the day when many of the aspiring young talents from the schools travel across Dakar and come to train at the National Stadium. Throngs of little boys and little girls mostly ran barefoot, jogging and exercising around the track for warm-up. They set up on the home straight to do their drills and sprint before their coaches. It was fantastic to watch sport at its most basic.

Alain’s group was joined on this day by Amadou Dia Ba, the Senegalese legend, who won silver in the 400-meter Hurdles in the 1988 Olympics in Seoul in one of the most closely contested 400-meter Hurdle finals in Olympic history. The medalists were only separated by 0.37 seconds with Kevin Young, the reigning world record holder finishing fourth.

It was great listening to Amadou interact with the young hopefuls and emerging under-23s in Alain’s group. He graciously accepted Alain’s good natured teasing, as he did the hurdle walk-overs using the women’s hurdle height. Even though out of his high performance years, you could see that he was truly a special athlete.

The best times for interchange and sharing of what is the newest and latest breaking in the world of training was over breakfast, lunch and dinner at the Hotel Fana. Though breakfast was in the French mode of bread and croissant with confiture (jam) and a café au lait, the Senegalese cuisine was fantastic; although something retired me for a couple days with an uncharacteristic bout of food poisoning. Invariably a pearl of wisdom was gleaned from every meal. The farewell dinner was held at Pointe Almadies, the most western tip of the African continent. Goodbyes were said as half the group raced off to the airport. The rest of us retired to the hotel for later departures.

My only free Sunday before returning home was spent solo on a ferry ride of 25 minutes to Isle de Gorée. Isle de Gorée was the epicenter of slave trade from the African continent spanning the mid fifteenth century through the 1800’s. I listened to the guides’ impassioned presentation in both French and later in German. 20 million African men, women and children were marched through the dark, dank and narrow slit in the wall, “La Porte du Voyage sans Retour”. This final day in Africa puts thing so well into perspective. What we do collectively as performance coaches is teach athletes how to become faster and improve their athleticism. Given the history of Isle de Gorée, what we do seems so insignificant.

However, given that centuries of oppression and subjugation, which have come before us and continue in some countries today, often the only chance to bridge people of different beliefs and values is through the international language and understanding provided by sport, and that offers hope. Let’s keep doing what we do with excellence, but especially with love, compassion and understanding and to continue to make a difference in the lives we touch so they can, in turn, make the real difference.