ALTIS Apprentice Coach Program

Daily ruminations from attending the ALTIS ACP held in March, 2019. 

The ACP is one of the many continuing education programs offered by ALTIS. In general, each day begins with a training session at the track followed by a session in the weightroom, with the exception of Wednesdays, which is primarily a regeneration day. Following training, a lecture or presentation is given which bleeds into a "pool-side" chat in roundtable format.
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A sample of this four day program:

​Rather than a review, the post below is simply a very brief summary of my thoughts at the conclusion of each day. ​

Day 1 - Takeaways:
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• The driving influence of philosophy
• Setting your athlete up for success
• Categorization for applied simplification

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Philosophy as a driver is simply reasoning as a foundation for doing. Philosophy here is all encompassing. It is a dynamic, working thought process, simply formed over time from experience and experimentation, scientific evidence, critical thinking and reflection.   

Day 2 - Questions pondered:

• How can we become better aware of our athletes' internal dialogues?
• How much of our daily discourses influence our athletes' self-image? And to what extent?
• What effects can therapeutic inputs have (both positive & negative) on post-activation potentiation?
• In addition to Olympic lifts and their variations, how else can we better facilitate coordinative capabilities?

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Theory of mind is understanding that each of us has a mental state (beliefs, thoughts, etc) and that this mental state may differ from our own. So how can we become better aware of what our athletes are thinking and what they may be telling themselves? And further to this, what in our every day interactions, discussions, and manifested environments may be influencing their personal dialogues and beliefs about themselves? Are we even considering this?
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Day 3 - Actionable personal intents ignited:

• THINK different
• Seek questions
• Written words
• Self-reflection

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Questions. We need to be asking more of them. And we need to be identifying questions that may never have even been asked before?

"It is fair to say that, in general, no problems have been exhausted; instead, men have been exhausted by the problems. Soil that appears impoverished to one researcher reveals its fertility to another. Fresh talent approaching the analysis of a problem without prejudice will always see new possibilities - some aspect not considered by those who believe that a subject is fully understood. Our knowledge is so fragmentary that unexpected findings appear in even the most fully explored topics." - Santiago Ramon y Cajal

Day 4 - A key heuristic identified:

• Trust your heuristics

Simple.​
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