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There are a few obvious things should stick out to us right away when identifying an Amateur vs. a Trained athlete.
- The first thing I would look for will be the second they walk in the door and how they act. It is easy to spot right away if they have the right psychological approach to training within the first 15 minutes of meeting/working with an athlete. Zatsiorsky states “If young athletes do not understand why such programs are important or do not have the maturity to participate in a strength training program, success will be limited, and no young athlete should be forced to lift.” (p. 200) You can see right away if they see value in the program by their approach and interest (level of focus). I have also witness kids that did not want to be there at all that were essentially forced by the parents, in this case I have had to call the situation out and have a meeting. Trained athletes do just that, they train. When it is time to work they work. We have many immature teenage kids, but not while they are training, they approach the day with focus and conviction, then fuck around after the workout.
- General lack of coordination all around. Which @benkuch and @menacedolan have covered well, so no need to repeat.
- Constant noticeable progress is indicative of the amateur athlete. We know that a linear style progression program laid out by the “Amateur Program” is best but even without that we can see gains in noobs. Siff backs this statement up when he says “Virtually any methods of strength training will enhance the strength of a novice during the first few months, provided the intensity, in particular, is kept at a safe level.” (p. 95) Once this program is exhausted and stagnation ensues we know it is time to switch the program up.
- Bonus Answer: Lack of knowledge base or understanding of general movements a good training program should utilize. Squating, hinging, pressing, pulling, etc. Let me elaborate. If someone has been “training” and they have no familiarity of foundational movements or Primals then have they really been training or have they just been working out. Someone could workout for years and still be an amateur due to this fact, it is important not to confuse those who have been “working out” with those that have trained.
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Since that bastard @menacedolan beat me to the punch this week I will go with a different limiting factor which somewhat piggy backs off of one of the assignments. Lack of Inter and Intra-muscular coordination, and muscle hypertrophy are all limiting factors for the amateur athlete. Siff states that Intermuscular coordination takes about 2-3 weeks to build, while Intra builds over the following 4-6 weeks, followed by muscular hypertrophy over the next 6-12 weeks. (p.96). Young athletes who have been inherently active and are cognitively ready to begin a program will naturally progress faster than those who have little active sporting experience and feel forced to be there. While all of these things increase (coordination and strength) it is important to watch for stagnation. This is where a coach can truly be a limiting factor to their athlete. If you are not paying attention to an athlete’s progress and they stagnate because you didn’t recognize it was time to progress them as into a more advanced program possibly out of the amateur protocol all together, then you as a coach have failed your athlete. So a coach can also be a limiting factor!
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@mcquilkin what format will the quiz be? Online written or oral?
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MIxeAqXf9E
The one I did with my athletes did not do well audio wise, so had to pull a coach and two interns for a new vid.
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I’ll say right out of the gate I bet @benkuch is more organized in his approach. But my process has been:
-as soon as the assignment comes out I get the reading done as soon as possible and highlight along the way. (this then needs to be followed up with handwritten notes on major bullet points)
-I then will hop into the discussion and obviously go back over the reading to the parts that pertain to our discussion to back up my view points. This I find gets the wheels turning very well to then tackle the assignments.
-I first try to sort out the assignment mentally without looking at any text, then I will go through the text and mark the page numbers that pertain to it, read one at a time, paraphrase or quote what I need to within the context of the assignment, then tie everything together in my own way to drive my point home.
-with regards to the videos I try to get all assignments done first before I even think about the vids then attack those.
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@luke @mcquilkin I should have asked this while we were in the conference, but will the recordings be posted immediately after class for the most part. I don’t see Monday’s yet.
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@nono I agree with what you just said but I think you missed my overall point on the first one. I am saying many novices or amateurs do not realize what they are getting into when starting an training program and may realize this is something they don’t see value in when they start. So their psychological approach to training is immature, they could be a great person they just are ready to embrace training and take it serious. We also have major asshole, but they train their ass off and have high psychological maturity when it comes to training specifically.
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hahaha good call
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@benkuch I agree with all of those but when I read this question and see “most effective” I take that as “low hanging fruit” or easiest ways to tell. I would contest that, “Efficient CNS System- Amateurs do not have the intramuscular coordination to display efficient force production during maximal efforts”, we won’t see this for quite some time as we aren’t taking amateurs up to true maximal effort attempts. While this is a true statement I wouldn’t consider it “low hanging fruit”. Again that was my perception of the question.
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@menacedolan (I don’t think I needed to put that since this is a reply to yours but whatever). You totally nailed it, I am glad I read yours before posting because mine would have looked very similar, so now I will have to go with a slightly different approach. IMO I think the biggest thing you hit was this comment:
The first limiting factor to look at is the athletes psychological maturity, “the desire to participate in such conditioning programs frame the quality of any strength training program,” (Zatsiorsky, 200). If the athlete does not want to participate, then everything else is null and void.
In my personal experience this is the biggest factor with young athletes! You also touched on the “hyperparenting” phenomenon that Zatsiorsky laid out. Just think, he made that statement in 1995 look at what that shit has turned into today!
The one statement I do not necessarily agree with what you said, and this is picky, is:
I personally have a good skill set, coordination, coach-ability, drive, testicular fortitude, yet I don’t have the height, bone structure or physiology to be a professional athlete.
I do not disagree with what you were saying about genetics in regards to height, muscle growth, morphology, etc. But I do disagree with the statement you could not have been a pro athlete based solely on genetics. If you would have been steered in the right direction with regards to sport that your genetics lined up with that would have been a possibility. This is going down a huge rabbit hole but I am willing to discuss.
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Which is what Siff lays out as simulation, which we should steer clear of the majority of the time.
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@menacedolan yes that is what position coaches are for, however when talking about amateur and honestly even up to some elite guys based on their situation many times a coach at their level doesn’t possess the knowledge to bridge that gap. Many highschools have volunteer coaches or teachers doubling as a coach that honestly don’t hone their craft as they should. So when a good S&C guy corresponds with a good Skill guy the Sport coach can get what he wants which is an overall better player.
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@benkuch the gap is bridged through the constant analysis of abilities and limiting factors, so it could theoretically be “bridged” in both the weightroom and SPP arena. As an example, I have notes on the majority of my basketball players from this season that I took while watching their games. One of the big’s I train has very poor reaction time and also needs to increase his leaping ability. By knowing this I can select the correct training exercises to improve these characteristics, this is what we would refer to as specificity. We will analyze if this works by seeing his improvement on the court during his SPP through observation by myself, his coach, and himself then we can tell if the specificity from the weightroom targeted at improving these areas actually did it’s job.I say that it should be analyzed during the practice of the sport movements because we do not want to wait for games to start again to see, because by then it is too late. I laid out his limiting factors, but what about the “abilities” that I mentioned. Going to watch a player can also be deceiving, he may have honed his style of play to fit whatever he has been working with before a solid S&C program. So let’s say through the training he has developed the explosiveness to have a dynamic first step, but he doesn’t know how to use it. The gap here has to be bridged the constant practice in the sport of that move, he has the muscular proficiency, he now must develop the skill through SPP.
Hopefully all of this was coherent, I drank my sleep cocktail about 30 min ago…
