After writing this I felt it deserved a second part.  I'll have that up later this week.

While catching up on the 999+ new posts Google Reader says I have, I found myself reading a great Eric Cressey's post and it inspired me to write.  This post will probably throw some of my friends under the bus, but I'm not trying to be a dick. (It just comes naturally)

I never really trusted my throws coach in college.  He was a long distance runner when he was on the team and was coaching long distance runners and throwers.

I figured he couldn't have much experience in the area and was probably just filling a role rather than being the best man for the job.  I'm a stubborn jerk, if I know someone is wrong I stop listening to them.

My favorite event in high school was hammer (threw in RI) but my best event was shot put.  It didn't take me long to realize it knew little to nothing about hammer throwing.  On top of that he switched me from glide shot put to rotational because he claimed he's never coached glide before.  I hated rotational and it's the reason I didn't throw discus so all improvement there went away.


All of this made me really dislike him so after a while I stopped listening to him and even worked to turn my teammates against him (I'm an asshole I know).

I do regret being such a jerk.

Because I didn't trust my coach I felt if I wanted to get better I would have to coach myself (it didn't go well).  So I would read anything I could find on the internet related to throwing or lifting.  I still have printed articles from t-nation, the site that introduced me to greats like Charles Poliquin and Dan John.

Instead of me getting better, I gave great advice to my teammates who did see improvement.  This was the moment I started to get interested in coaching.

When I started coaching for the high school I was reading probably 5-10 blog posts a day and averaging a book every month (I was still in college).  After talking with the coaches more I realized none of them did any reading with the common answer of "I'm just too busy."

I never accept that answer.  I was a full time student, working full time and coaching but still had the time to do the modest amount of reading I did.  Put in 70-100 hour weeks and see how little patience you have for people complaining about having no time.

Both of these coaches have in roughly 10 years and are good coaches but never read.  In my opinion, it's a huge mistake to not be up on developments in the sport.  Experience alone will only show you what worked in the past it also limits improvement.


Any changes you make to that will be:

1. guesses
2. based on what someone else told you worked for them.

The guesses tend to be just something you think might work with no idea if it will.  What works for other people doesn't mean it will work for you.

Reading journal articles, books and even blogs gives you scientific evidence or experience from someone who have many more years of experience and has (usually) done research.

If you go on experience alone you'll never know if you are missing out on significant improvements in your program. Reading can help you discover improvement.

coaching Devotion. experience Improvement progression Reading