This week’s guest on the podcast is Mark Watts. Mark is the former education director at EliteFTS, a strength coach of 15 years, served in the USMC, and is one of the most well-read, and wisest guys I know in this field. He currently serves as a 5th grade school teacher in Columbus, Ohio.
Most of the material on this podcast has to do with biomechanics, sets, reps, periodization, and similar material. I wanted to go a bit of a different direction this episode, but to something more global, which is coaching, leadership and personal development. For that topic, I couldn’t think of anyone better than Mark Watts. Many coaches are familiar with Mark’s columnist work on EliteFTS, particularly his ideas on professional aspects of sports performance.
This episode is all about the sports performance industry, coaching, leadership, and making the biggest impact you can on your athletes.
The longer that I’ve been a coach, the more and more I realize that real “success” is not defined by your win and loss record, although that is important (especially if you want to keep your job, in many cases), but more importantly the effect you have on the lives of your athletes.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:07:21 — 52.1MB) | Embed
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Android | Pandora | iHeartRadio | JioSaavn | Podchaser | Gaana | Email | Deezer | Anghami | RSS
View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage.
Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more.
Key Points:
- Mark’s background as an athlete and coach
- The nature of Athletic Performance as a process-based profession in an outcome-based system, and ideas on evaluating the outcome goals of a strength and conditioning professions
- The balance in the “winning is everything” mentality
- How to utilize healthy competition in the weight room setting
- The difference between coaching for yourself, and coaching for your athletes
- Keys to leaving a lasting impact on athletes after they leave your coaching environment
“Now we call it “the grind”, but back then it was the norm… and I couldn’t hashtag that”
“There’s not a lot of people who retire from strength and conditioning”
“That ass-chewing you’re giving right now, is that about you, or about your players”?
“There’s not too many other professions where you need to do an unpaid intership to do a full-time unpaid internship at another school…. there are some internships that require a master’s degree”
“An exercise science degree doesn’t mean you know how to exercise, it just means you know how exercise works”
“Evaluated experience is so important, because it humbles you”
“What we have to do is come up with ways, even if it’s subjective to produce what we’re doing (as performance coaches) from a qualitative analysis standpoint”
“Some of it, you have to re-evaluate what you mean by winning and mean by success. What happens when those goals aren’t met, and how do you really define success? I know that a successful athlete is someone who, after their done playing, they are a good husband, they are a good wife, they are a good father, they are somebody that someone would want to hire.”
“What happened to just lining up two of your best players and making them race?”
“(You need to) get to the point where you have people that don’t make excuses, that don’t blame others, because as soon as you blame others you lost the ability to change, you get people who are accountable for their own actions, and care about the person next to them.”
“I care about you as people, I care about you as students, but you’re not special”
“Is this young man or young woman; are they in a better position now, then before I worked with them” “Are you making calls for your ego?”
“It’s not what you make them do… your athletes will run through a wall for you because they believe in you and they trust you… it’s not what you make them do, it’s who they become because of you”
“Being a selfless person allowed me to develop more meaningful relationships”
“Win the person, don’t win the argument”
“Like CS Lewis said, Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less”
About Mark Watts:
Mark Watts is a fifth-grade school teacher and U8 Girls Soccer Coach in Columbus, Ohio. Formerly, Watts was the Director of Education at elitefts.com and the host of the Elitefts Sports Performance Podcast. He has a Masters Degree in Exercise Science & Health Promotion from California University of PA and a Masters Degree in Elementary Education from Clarion University of PA. He has held professional certifications through the NSCA, CSCCa, NASM, and USAW.
Watts has worked with college athletes in over 20 different sports at Division I, II & III levels for over 15 years as a strength & conditioning and/or football coach at institutions such as Denison University, The United States Military Academy at West Point, Allegheny College and Clarion University. He has also completed internships at The Ohio State University and the University of Tulsa. Watts played college football at Clarion University and has competed in powerlifting, strongman, and Olympic Weightlifting. He is originally from Pittsburgh, PA and is a USMC veteran.
Free Speed Training eBook - Velocity 101
Improving speed is one of the most popular topics in the athletic performance equation. Where there are many ideas and thoughts out there, as to particular training exercises, or setups, the more core aspects of speed training often go without mention. These include the fundamental aspects of what makes an athlete fast, specific sprint-power concepts, the relevance of "3D" motion, motor learning and more.
Velocity 101 will help you take a leap forward in understanding of what makes athletes fast, and how to train it effectively