Cell Phone Coaching: an old dog learns a new trick
6 June 2006If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
I began my coaching career in earnest in 1983 when a catastrophic leg injury (compound fracture left leg lower leg) put me out of commission. I had squatted 845 the week prior at Chaillet’s Gym with Mark and Mark Dimiduk, plus Don Mills acting as spotters. I incurred the injury weighing slightly over the 242 pound class weight limit and had my eyes on Danny Wolheber’s 871-pound world record. I was scheduled to lift at the nationals that July but that all went out the window as they hauled me away in the ambulance. I had to have the leg re-broken when the bones didn’t knit properly and eventually underwent surgery. In the downtime I decided to concentrate on handling Mark Challiet as a coach and helped Mark win the APF world championships in Maui that November where he smoked an 860 deadlift. I worked with a genetic wonder named Eliot Smith and an up-and-comer named Kirk Karwoski. John Black recruited me to help coach Black’s Gym. Bob Fortenbaugh and I guided Blacks to five national team titles including several victories over the mighty Armed Forces team led by Gene “The Machine” Bell, Ausby Alexander and the incomprehensible Sly Anderson. I was selected to coach the United States world championship team in 1991 and in Orebro, Sweden we squashed the Finns, Russians, Chinese and Japanese to cruise to the world team title. I continued to coach Kirk and made a comeback as a master’s lifter: I captured three world titles (plus a silver and bronze) and seven national titles in two different weight divisions. I saw a lot of the world in the process. I tired of overseas travel and confined my lifting to the continental US. I continued to coach to Kirk and a few local lifters. I thought I’d pretty much seen and done it all both as a lifter and a lifting coach – until last Saturday.
I was scheduled to help two of the original Cat Herd crew lift at the AAU national championships in Richmond on Saturday. Late Friday I got word that my jeep, in for routine work, had a blown head gasket. Ron and Jen had already left for the competition, Betty couldn’t go and my wife had a horse show. I was stuck. When Ron called and got the bad news I told him I had a plan: let me coach you by cell phone I suggested. Ron was a little dubious but it was that or nothing. The wonders of modern technology never cease to amaze me. He called me on Saturday, his scheduled lifting day. I told him to find out his scheduled start time. “Two o’clock.” We decided via phone that he would take five warm-ups spaced five minutes apart, ergo at 1:30 he would take his first warm-up. We lowered his opening squat by 5% just to be safe and when he called at around 2:30 it was all good: “I made all three squats and got nine white lights.” The three judges had loved his squat technique and each had passed every single one of his lifts. “What about my competition?” he asked. Forget them until after the bench presses I said. We went over bench press strategy and he said, “They’re really rolling along fast; let me jump off the phone and get going.” Which he did. A half hour later he called back. “I made my first two bench presses quite easily but barely missed my 3rd attempt.” Good I said. Now go to the competitive placing board and tell me what the competition is doing. He walked to the scoreboard and read off the names and successful lifts of the guys in his age and weight division. After the squats he held a 16-pound lead over the field and was the lightest competitor in his weight class. One guy was nipping at his heels, the rest were too far back to catch him at this point.
Okay. I said. Let’s look at the scheduled opening attempt deadlifts of guy behind you. “He’s starting with 5-pounds less than me.” Okay, so far so good. Make your opener, jump 33-pounds for your second attempt. Watch his opening deadlift and see if it’s easy or hard. If it’s easy – call me back – if it’s difficult you can put him to sleep with a successful second attempt deadlift. No call for an hour. The phone rang. “I made all three deadlifts and ended up beating him by 33-pounds. Congratulations, I said, you’re the AAU national champion in the 45-49 year old 181-pound class. This was a coaching first for me – remote control coaching from the comfortable confines of my living room while drinking imported beer. I felt like a CIA agent calling in a remote control drone strike unleashing a hellfire missile on some unsuspecting terrorist scum driving down a remote Afghan highway. This was a new 1st in my long and checkered coaching career: guiding a guy to a national championship from 207 miles away. Ironically he lifted better remotely than when I coached him on two previous occasions. The implications are obvious: when he lifts at a local high school in August at his next scheduled event I should either stay home by the phone or if I’m at the competition go sit in the car and use a cell phone to replicate this success: obviously during a competition being around me is unsetting to the guy.
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