Guest Post by Michael Boyle

The other day I was thinking about some of my former interns who I never see at conferences. Sadly, there are far too many. I often ask them if they are going to attend a particular conference that I am excited about and the response is almost always the same. “I have workouts scheduled that day so I’m not going to be able to go”. These men and women are the ones that come to mind when I say “no time to get better”. Most of these coaches are doing the same workouts they were doing ten years ago and consistently use the excuse that they are too busy to attend conferences. In fact, they are actually too busy to get better. They are so busy trying to be dedicated to their athletes that they are in fact failing them. I believe many of these coaches have the best of intentions. They view an educational day off as a step back for their athletes rather than a step forward.

I hate to tell anyone but, we are not nearly as indispensable as we think. If our athletes work out for one day without us, the world will not end. If the head coach sees you are not there for one workout he probably won’t fire you. Tell him or her that you need to take the time to get better. Think of it as practice.

Ask yourself how many conferences you go to per year? If it is one or less, you are too busy to get better. Ask yourself how many books you read a year in the field. If the answer is less than ten, perhaps you are too busy to get better. How many DVD’s have you purchased and watched this year? No time to get better?

Time spent coaching is one thing. I think that is what most of us like to do best. However if you are always too busy coaching to practice the fine art of self-improvement eventually your coaching will suffer.

Business experts and business coaches often talk about the difference between working in your business and working on your business. If you are always working in your business, you are no more than another employee. You need to spend time working on your business for your business to thrive. In coaching it is the same principle. If you are always coaching but never trying to learn, you eventually fall behind. It’s like playing game after game with no practice.

Don’t be too busy to get better. Set goals for yourself. Set a goal for the number of seminars you want to attend this year. Set a goal for the number of books you will read and DVD’s you will buy. Maybe even set a goal for the number of other coaches you intend to visit this year. I attend a lot of seminars as a speaker and ask anyone, I also sit and listen to the lectures. In addition I set a goal of attending at least one seminar a year as a participant, not as a speaker. Ask yourself honestly “have I been too busy to get better?”.

Dan John is the man.  I just finished reading Dan John’s “Never Let Go“; at least I think so.  You see, Dan’s wonderful book is a collection of writings and I’ve just been skipping from article to article, sometimes reading the same one over and over.  Some of these published works have appeared on T-Nation, and I’ve always appreciated his writing, his simplicity, but reading his articles back to back really has helped me appreciate Dan’s thoughts even more.  Dan has been in the game a long time, longer than I’ve been alive, and he has mastered the art of simplicity.

K.I.S.S. (keep it simple student/stupid) is what beginners are told in every arena, but beginners don’t appeciate simple.  I could argue that it’s not understandable or achievable as a beginner.  I’ve been a beginner in many things, and every time I went for the most complex path straight away.  In playing the drums, I wanted advanced beats, extra cymbals, the most expensive drum kit — who cared if I didn’t know how to hold the sticks just right yet.  In skateboarding it was the same thing; must have a new board, must learn a new trick, before actually making the last one look nice.  In martial arts I wanted backflips, not basic forms.  Every once in a while I’ll try my hand at my father’s craft, photography, I will go for the  crazy compostion, the double exposure, meanwhile he will take a picture of a building dead on and make it look amazing.  As I progressed at playing the drums and skateboarding it was the same thing — make the basic look brilliant.  Why is this concept not understandable as a newbie, why is this not the goal?  Why did I totally forget about this when I got into strength and conditioning?  Boy, I wish someone would have taught me how to squat and deadlift when I was in high school, and to cut out all the silly shit —  I probably would’ve ignored this advice though.  It’s simple, but not easy.  Complex is not easy either though.  Why does every beginner who receives advice from the wise not listen?  I feel like for once in my life I have learned this way so many times that I “get it”, K.I.S.S.  I now truly appreciate simple, but I’m sure I’ll screw it up again.

This past year two of the biggest, highly prasied strength and conditioning books to come out were  ”Wendler’s 5/3/1“ and “Never Let Go”, they both emphasize simple and from the response they received it apprears that they’ve opened a lot of eyes — we do a lot of usless crap.  Both guys have been around long enough to realize that keeping it simple works.  They are both constantly trimming the fat off of their ideas, striving for the “program minimum” as Dan calls it.  Now, I just have to figure out how not to drop 5/3/1 and do every workout in Dan’s book!  Having a leg injury will make it easier for me to stay on task.  Stick to 5/3/1, get stronger.  In the words of Dan John ” The goal is to keep the goal the goal.”  If you love strength and conditioning and learning from the best check out “Never Let Go”.