Coaching Longevity = Practice What You Preach

We tell our players to stretch, eat well, and stay hydrated, to get a lot of sleep and to take care of their bodies. We want them to do all the “little things” well, and to have the discipline to be consistent with these actions. How many of us coaches actually take our own advice?

David Mullins

Obviously we are not competing anymore or trying to peak for a certain event, but I have found that I spend many more hours on the court than my players. On individual days, I might be on the court for 6-8 hours while my players do just two. I am not practicing at the same intensity as they are but I am extremely active and play a lot of sets and hitting drills with them. I love being very physical during my coaching sessions. I know that real learning and development takes place on the outer edges of our students’ comfort zones.  I am fortunate that I can always push them just outside their own perceived capabilities with my own game.

This was relatively easy for me in my early twenties, and I was definitely not taking my own advice! But now as I head into my late thirties, I am much more conscious of how I need to treat my body in order to keep up with my players. I want to be able to do this not just now but late into my 40’s and maybe even my 50’s! I believe this is possible because I feel better now than I did 10 years ago due to the fact that I truly practice what I preach.  Not only am I a better coach to my players but I am also setting a great example for them each and every day.

My closest coaching friends think I’m a little nutty. I start every morning with a freezing cold shower; I stretch and do yoga for about 30 minutes, followed by 15 minutes of meditation and a big green smoothie. I have given up meat, dairy, gluten, and reduced my sugar and alcohol intake a great deal. This has eliminated much of the inflammation from my body so I rarely get sore or injured anymore. I do 2-3 heavy weight lifting sessions per week and end every evening on the foam roller, coupled with some more stretching. Now, I am not saying this is for everyone by any means. I am passionate about human performance and I am constantly experimenting with what works and does not work for me. Ultimately my motivation lies in my ability to be as active on the tennis court for as long as I possibly can. Here are a few steps coaches can take to improve their longevity and physical comfort on the tennis court.

1. Take a strong look at your diet. I believe that everything starts here and most of our ailments and health issues can be sourced directly back to what we are putting in our mouths. When we have had a long day on the tennis court, the first thing we want to do is “reward” ourselves with some comfort food and maybe some alcohol to help relax us. This feels great in the moment but we end up paying the price for it with less quality sleep while putting a drain on our energy sources. My advice to coaches is to try to eliminate one group of foods from their diets for a 30 day period and see how they feel. If you feel no different than that food probably is not causing you any issues. I would start with Gluten, and then move onto dairy and sugar products. Don’t be tempted by the energy bars and Gatorades our athletes are chugging down. Instead, try to replace them with less processed options like fruit and nuts. I promise that making a few adjustments to your diet will go a long way. The better you feel, the easier it will be to avoid these temptations in the future.
2. Try to do some strength training at least two times per week. We have so many muscle imbalances as tennis players and coaches. The only way to resolve this issue is to work on our strength and mobility. I strongly recommend doing some heavy complex lifts such as the squat, deadlift, clean and overhead press. You don’t have to lift for very long if you are concentrating on these complex lifts as you are covering most of your bases. I also recommend that at least every second day you do a two-minute plank, a scapular exercise, some external shoulder work and a few fire hydrants.
3. We constantly talk to our players about recovery and the need to be able to come back the next day fresh and ready to work hard. This is one piece of advice that we should most definitely be following ourselves. I recommend purchasing a foam roller and spending just 10 minutes a night rolling out and massaging your muscles. This will also help to relax you before bed. The number of hip replacements in our industry is staggering. I feel like every coach I speak to over the age of 55 has had a hip replacement. Take 5-10 minutes each night and focus on stretching out your hips and improving your range of motion in these areas. The best thing about the rolling and stretching is that you can do it while watching TV, speaking to loved ones or even reading.

There are many other things we can do to improve our health, well-being and longevity but these are the three areas I would definitely focus on as you will get the biggest return for your time. Start small and try to replace one bad habit with one good habit every so often. Diets don’t work and you definitely don’t need to be doing P 90 X or running 5 miles a day to be fit and healthy on the court! Be kind and gentle to your body and it will respond many times over.

Does Anyone Really Know How to Produce Champions? Part II

Coach Mullins

As I mentioned in Part I of this blog, I strongly believe the coaches we need to be celebrating and rewarding are the ones that are finding ways to help children be passionate about our game. These are the coaches that are truly developing players and not just managing and smoothing out the edges of the already polished tennis player unblocked school. There appears to be some snobbery in our sport and the coaches coaching the “better” players seem to think they are somehow “better” coaches because they work with elite players. I know I have definitely been guilty of this at times earlier in my coaching career.
Some people claim coaching the top players is extremely challenging because they can be “difficult to work with” in a team setting or as individuals. I find this sentiment quite laughable. In my experience, the easiest players to coach are the top ones. Getting to work with extremely self-motivated, highly skillful, hardworking players is easy.

Yes, maybe they have some superior attitude and their rate of improvement is hard to measure. But the most difficult and rewarding thing about coaching is keeping people motivated when they are struggling, teaching new skills that appear complex and creating a culture of hard work, passion and love for the game. Personally, I am huge fan of the coach who nurtured a child’s passion for tennis, not the one who reaped the accolades for the almost-finished product.

I have been fortunate to coach at a number of different levels and I believe my skill set is best suited to the current demographic I am working with (NCAA Division I). I learned this very clearly when I started coaching my 6 year old son and his buddies. I realized I had very little idea of current best practices and how to ensure I was helping them with their technique while having a lot of fun! I gained a new appreciation of just how difficult it is to keep kids engaged and eager to come back for more.

When it comes to tennis, I can’t help but wonder if we are expecting our coaches to know too much in a lot of different areas and never really become experts in just a few. Tennis is such a vast game, with so many different shots, movement patterns, fitness considerations, injury prevention, mental and tactical situations to master. We don’t expect our teachers to be proficient at teaching every grade level.

During my playing career I was extremely lucky to be tutored by some outstanding coaches. I was fortunate to work with a technical coach who restructured my game when I was very young and held me to a high standard of technical ability. As I got older, I began to work with coaches who gave me a better understanding of the tactical aspects of the sport. It wasn’t until I got to college that I learned the physical nature of tennis and the type of toughness that was required to succeed at a higher level.
It appeared that over the course of my career the right coach came into my life at the right time to help me understand a new layer as to what the sport required. I don’t know that if I had stayed with the same coach all my life I would have been as well rounded a player. Some players stay with the same coach their whole life and have amazing careers.

Again, proving that there is no one path or magic pill for producing great tennis players. I know for myself that I did not make it on the professional tour because I did not have the required mental aptitude nor was I willing to sacrifice other areas of my life. I don’t blame anyone, have any regrets or think that if I had grown up playing on hard courts, or had more resources or a top 10 player from my home country to look up to or anything else that it would have been any different.

In conclusion, I believe we need to continue to improve education for not only coaches and players, but for parents too. We also need to understand that we live in global world and tennis is a very global sport. What is so bad about players leaving countries to go elsewhere to develop their passion? Is it truly the federation’s job to develop players? At the top level of tennis, it is more about individual names than the country they represent.

Players are playing for themselves 98% of the time and not for their country. Federations don’t have to be responsible for developing elite players past a certain point. Let the private sector take care of that and let players go wherever they want to go. The best always find a way; that is why they are the best. This is not an opinion I would have held when I was playing or even 5 years ago. But as I gain a better understanding of globalization and relate this back to the world of tennis, I can see more clearly now that our focus appears to be in the wrong place at times.

Let’s set a solid foundation for our players, provide adequate training facilities and a logical tournament schedule and ranking system. Most importantly, let’s get our best coaches working with our young players and figure out how to make tennis as relevant as possible throughout the world. Federations everywhere have consistently failed at developing players. No one truly knows what it takes, so let’s stop holding them accountable for such an unrealistic target. No one is responsible for creating champions other than the individuals themselves that want to achieve greatness.

Let’s reward those that get the most children passionate about tennis and turn the spotlight on these individuals on a much more consistent basis unblocked games online. We all have a responsibility to ensure the future of our game. Let’s stop pitting one development system against another. Let’s stop going into our silos and only associating with those coaches who are working with players of a similar level. Let’s stop telling kids to go “pro” when they should be going to college.

And let’s all put our knowledge and resources together to encourage future generations of tennis players. The more children we have playing tennis, the more we will have to celebrate.

What Makes a World Class Tennis Player?

Often I wonder if I could afford XYZ coach or send our kids to ABC academy, that would be a sure  way to make our kids quickly improve and get to the level above where they currently are. But, then another part of me (the numbers and rational one) makes me put more thought into this situation. How many new great tennis players have come out of the well known academies? Or, how many new players have the famous coaches recently produced? I don’t really know, but I don’t think many or we would read about them. This then made me question? What is the value of a high level coach? or the well known academies? Maybe I can hire Rick Macci? Or someone like him. But, then I ask? Who is their latest product of their teachings? I am unable to come up with an answer. What about the USTA player development with unlimited resources to develop players for 20 years going. Yes, years.  Again, I am unable to come up with new names. I then decided to do a careful breakdown of what I think are the components of the puzzle. What makes a world class tennis player? How are these parts made up.? How come it seems like this an impossible task? How are they intertwined and how can parents and coaches make it work?

Many of you will agree others will disagree, but nonetheless here is my reasoning.

• Coaching 20%
• Money 30%
• Kids Talent  20%
• Kids circumstances 20%
• Kids will and focus 10%

Coaching + $$$ + Kid effort + Kids circumstances + will = greater probability of success
Let’s break these down a little more to make a better point with the stated premise.

• If you go to a famous academy (IMG etc.) you will be the beneficiary of the experience and first class facilities that money can afford, yet that alone produces no world class players, in the past many years no stars were the product of what is probably great coaching. This coaching, has not only to be around tennis, but also life, and physical ability.  So, even if you have the best coaching, that is only 20%  of the mix according to the premise. If coaching was a bigger percentage we would have many newer players in the top 100 yearly.
• Money of course, can provide you with opportunities that no one else has and can purchase for you the best coaching around. That is a great combination that only gives you 50% of the package. Unfortunately, money also takes away from the kids, “hunger and desire ”, which is one of those intangible ingredients that money cannot buy. Think Jim Courier, Maria Sharapova, Li Na, Nole. These people are great examples of people with much more “desire” than their parents financial muscle. Travelling, hiring nutritionists, hotels, rides, tournament fees, it can quickly get to the thousands of dollars. These sums quickly make tennis out of reach for just about 9 out of 10  prospects.

• The innate kid talent is in my opinion just as important as the coach, nonetheless, if the kid is short in talent, he can make it up in hard work. McEnroe seemed to me like he hardly worked, Lend was like a never ending working machine much like the eastern Europeans (Navratilova).

Conclusion, attitude beats talent any day.

• Just as important are the kids’ circumstances that shape their young lives, Nole, Ivanovic in war torn Serbia. Li Na’s mother in huge debt, Nadal’s wealthy family, Williams sisters California experience. This exposure to good or bad, shape the much needed circumstantial situations that shape the character of the kids which is the fuel for the future.

• The last point, the will of the kid, is shaped by the circumstances of the parents and how they build the character around the kid. Rafael Nadal is the best example of a world class player on and off the court. I believe that this is the essential component that can tilt the probabilities one way or the other. By the same token, this is the part that is least thought of, and the most important for parents and coaches.

So, doing some easy math here are my conclusions.

1. All the money in the world will not make you world class.
2. The best coaches and academies will not make you world class.
3. Talent alone is useless if you don’t have the others.
4. 50% of the solution is found in the kids’ circumstance, will and talent.

As parents where do you focus? As all of us have some but not all of the above listed components and we focus mostly on the ones we can purchase. When we fail to focus in the ones we can shape that are under our control and the ones the kids have the most weight in and don’t know it.

Coaches, spend plenty of time teaching the best techniques, but alone fall 80% short of the goal. The super competent ones can at best give you only 20% of the mix up. So, even if you have an average neighborhood coach you can get your chances up. Think papa Williams, Tony Nadal, Jimmy Connors mom, Martina Hingis Mom, Steffi Graf’s dad.

My belief is that as parents and coaches we should work together trying to develop the 40%  that is under our full control (20% coaching, 20% family circumstances), then we add to the mix the god given talent and now you are talking on having 50% of the mix or more. Top that with an awareness of the make up, that will lead to empowerment of the kids and some creative funding and you have a better shot at making the mix work for you and your kids.

So parents, don’t be oversold on the coaching, it is key, but in the overall scheme of things only a factor. Coaches, please guide the parents that you can only provide a portion of the mix, both, sit down and talk and plan and work in unison to work together and for the kid.

The most important part of the mix  to me is the kid, who knowingly or unknowingly controls 50% of the mix. We as parents have a say in this as well. Are we working under a culture of excellence to empower the kids to make the right choices? So, as I always tells all my kids, when they are not totally committed or wasting time. If you cannot give 110% of you every time all the time, someone else will and you control the majority of the mix. Decide! What are you going to do? Or better said as the great American coach Steve Smith told my son: Remember good is the enemy of great and, are you willing to pay the price to be a champion? Because most kids say they are, but they are not, and that is something the parents and coach have a say in throughout the years in shaping the champ.