Posts by stevemagness
Strength Training, Dating, and Models- How our beliefs impact us as coaches
Over the past week, I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time with Strength Coaches. It started with Vern Gambetta’s fabulous GAIN conference in Houston which brings a diverse group of coaches, trainers, and educators. Following the fire hose of information shot at you that is GAIN, I got to experience a different kind of education.…
Read MoreEpisode 34-Toughness, Grit, and Resilience
In this episode of the Magness and Marcus Podcast we discuss a quality that all runners aspire to and all coaches try to engender. The ability to dig down, fight your way through adversity, bounce back from failure, and show up consistently when it counts. As runners, we might refer to this as toughness, but…
Read MoreHow Constraints Make You a Better Coach
Coaching is easy when everything is on a roll. You just get in a groove and click it off. It’s magical and easy. However, when things are going well, we always fall trap to what I call default mode thinking. We do what we have always done and continue to do so. In our minds…
Read MoreWhy our attention to times is killing our sport
A few weeks ago, a race video swept the internet, and media, by storm. There were segments on TV morning shows, Facebook posts by Good Morning America, and tweets galore all about one race. Was it an Olympic final or a world record? Nope. How about a particularly fast race? Maybe a high school or…
Read MoreEpisode 33: False Positives and Inaccurate Negatives
In this episode of the Magness and Marcus Podcast we discuss False Positive and Inaccurate Negatives. What are they? A false positive is when we have a great race or great series of workouts that doesn’t translate over to sustained performance. On the flip side, an inaccurate negative is when an athlete goes through a…
Read MoreEpisode 32- Running Mechanics and a Scientific Approach to Training
Running form is one of the hot button topics in the world of distance coaches. We debate, often with speed/power coaches, on where they fit into the program. How important are mechanics for a distance runner? How do we change them? Should we change them? These are the questions that wer tackle in this…
Read MoreWhy Rabbiting works- It’s not all about drafting.
“Turn your brain off and go for a ride.” Every coach has that go to phrase that they repeat in the moments before the athlete heads to the line awaiting the start of the race. It might be a reminder to de-stress (“relax”) or perhaps a confidence booster (“Remember all the work you’ve put in”)…
Read MoreNewsletter- Turn Nerves and Anxiety into Triumph
When I first got into coaching, I would read every book imaginable on the subject. I started with the classic training texts like Lydiard, Coe, and Wilt, before venturing into the latest science and physiology from Brooks or Costill. As someone who was known for reading the picture books of the assigned classics in English class, the…
Read MoreEpisode 31- Developing Team Culture: Are you Athlete or Coach centered?
In this episode of the Magness & Marcus Podcast, we talk about building Culture. While we are trained as coaches to emphasize the physiology and doc us on workout design, what separates programs that thrive and last is often the intangible dynamic of culture. In this episode, we go through our experiences in developing culture…
Read MoreMonitoring Training Stress loads- A look at workload data before a 29:04 10k
A few weeks ago, one of my collegiate athletes, Brian Barraza, made his 10k debut on the track. He finished 12th in the fast heat, 4th amongst the collegians at the Stanford Invite in breaking our school record (a record that was 56 years old and held by Olympic medalist Al Lawrence). His instructions were…
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