The Latest From ALTIS
Old Books
I have a rule: if someone I trust recommends a book, I buy it. Immediately. I may not read it right away (heck, I may not EVER read it), but at least I know it's there - ready to be read when the time is right. The trouble with this method is that most people recommend a book they just...
Jamaican Swagger
Back in 2013, I wrote the following post while I was staying in Jamaica with my buddy Donovan Bailey. Aside from doing a lot of nothing, I spent a ton of time at tracks, talking to coaches, watching young athletes train, talking to former athletes, and trying to further understand what exactly it is about this tiny island that enables...
Perfection
I have made a lot of mistakes in my career; as a person, a coach, and a business owner. I'm not proud of those mistakes - but without them, I am not the person, coach, or business-owner that I am today. There is an honesty in making mistakes - a necessary confrontation with reality. People seem proud of their perfectionism,...
The Joneses
"the leaves of a tree delight us more than the roots"Tolstoy We have a natural proclivity to gravitate towards that which is new, and exciting. The newest Apple product, the bigger house, the faster car; we're on a never-ending quest to out-do each other. And ourselves. Just two decades ago, things that were new, or didn't even exist, are now...
Elevator Philosophy
As coaches, we are faced with multiple questions every day, and having a framework to guide us in answering these questions is essential. It is an obvious statement - but one that is surprisingly often overlooked. Rather than writing programs based upon educated personal beliefs (or a 'training philosophy'), many of us mindlessly prescribe what was given to us when...
Sport Science – what is the point?
This is a guest-post by Canadian Strength Coach and Sport Scientist, Dr. Matt Jordan. Back in 2014, while we were coaching our respective athletes at the Sochi Winter Olympic Games, we sat down and discussed quite a few topics in depth. This post was the result of one of these discussions - and was based on a question I had...
What is weakness, anyway?
When I was working in the UK with Stu, Dan, Andy Burke, and the rest of the crew, we often had debates about the need for specific strengthening in areas, or directly to tissues that were injured or that appeared to be not functioning well when observing an athletes movement. The ‘need to strengthen’ debate was one which at times...
Celebrating International Women’s Day
ALTIS have teamed up with The Female Coaching Network (FCN) for this year's International Women's Day (IWD), to celebrate the community of female Track & Field coaches around the globe. Female coaches in Track & Field are under-represented, particularly at the elite end of the sport. During the World Athletics Championships in 2019, less than 2% of all competing athletes had...
Just a Dumb Coach
Jodie Williams is smarter than me. As hard as it is for me to admit that, it is true. Anaso Jobodwana is also smarter than me. So is Lolo Jones. And Kaillie Humphries. And Ameer Webb. Andre De Grasse. Steve Mesler. Christian Malcolm. Glenn Smith. And a few hundred other folk who have had the (dis?)pleasure of my...
Inaugural Women in Coaching Mentorship kicks off
We care deeply about supporting female coaches, and have been disappointed by the pace of change in the support being made available to women in coaching. Yes, there have been some monumental improvements in the last 30-40 years - but they are far and few between. A recent study ‘Achieving Gender Equity in High Performance Athletics Coaching in the U.K’ shared...
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