Posts by stevemagness
Episode 14- Taking advantage of distractions- Part 1
Part 1- Once again, Jon and I come to you from a coffee shop on location and simply talking shop. This week we’re covering distractions; how to deal with them, how do you adapt to them, and when they might be positive or negative. We start out with the “Once A Runner” myth about living…
Read MoreEpisode 13- Advice for a young coach- part 2
In part two of Advice for a young coach, we start with the concept of coaching as a partnership versus a dictatorship. What does this mean? The goal should be to take athletes from dependence to independence, not the other way around. The goal of the coach shouldn’t be to prove their worth, but instead…
Read MoreEpisode 12- Advice for a young coach- Part 1
Coming to you from Austin, Texas, Jon and I take on the topic of “Advice for a young coach” in our first in person podcast. In this episode we take a step back in our young careers and look at our development as coaches. Starting with tracing our history of how we got into the…
Read MorePatterns of Performance: What We All Can Learn From the Practices of Elite Athletes
The further along I go in this coaching thing, the more cross-domain connecting becomes. When we start out, the fundamentals and basics are necessary to give us a base of support, not unlike a base in running. It’s why learning about the X’s and O’s of coaching, the science behind it, and the history of…
Read More“People remember the last interval”-Why you should go out on a high note
Human psychology is a strange thing. We’re full of bias, fallacies, and weird quirks. Philosophers, scientists, and all around intelligent people have been trying to make sense of the world for centuries with varying degrees of success. It’s a side interest of mine because, in the end, we are coaching people, not hunks of muscle…
Read MoreEpisode 11- Dealing with Failure
In this episode of the Magness & Marcus podcast, we take on the topic that no one likes to deal with: failure. In the world of running, we deal with a sport that has a hard line, either you ran faster than you ever have before or you didn’t. Unfortunately, it’s incredibly easy to define…
Read MoreThe Plight of the Ego Coach
Renowned Neuroscientist V S Ramachandran is known for working with strange cases. He lives on the edges of his field, attacking the cases that everyone else puts off as anomalies. One such case, as discussed in the book Thinking, is the problem of synesthesia. In patients with this issue, their senses merge so when they…
Read MoreThe Myth of losing speed
The Myth of losing speed The 800m is perhaps the most interesting distance to coach. It’s always intrigued me from a coaching standpoint because, unlike the 10k for example, the ways in which an athlete can train to cover the same distance in about the same time varies tremendously. There are successful 800m runners who…
Read MoreEpisode 10- Knowing your athlete- Understanding what behavioral patterns tell us
In this episode of the Magness & Marcus podcast we explore one of the most basic but important concepts in coaching: understanding your athlete. Not in the traditional terms of where their strengths lie or their physiological make up, but instead by their mannerisms, behaviors, motivations and a slew of ‘soft’ characteristics that help define…
Read MoreEpisode 9-Interview with Vern Gambetta- Magness & Marcus Show
In our longest episode yet and our first with a guest, Jon and I have an hour long conversation with renowned coach Vern Gambetta. Vern has a unique background as his coaching career spanned from coaching High School all the way to coaching some of the world’s best athletes. Similarly, his background is in Track…
Read More