Re: Talent Identification?

[Guest guest]

,

I think Harvey makes a great point. In all kinds of sports and disciplines,

people debate the use of different standard tests/criteria. Since the predictive

value is never 100%, those discussions rarely get very far.

In my experience, what most coaches want from testing (or overall talent ID) is

an opportunity to task athletes with various challenges; as well as some face

time to help decide whether it's someone they would want on their team.

That - plus watching lots of game film - often matters more to them than the

'measurables'.

 

Regards,

Plisk

Excelsior Sports

Buffalo NYPrepare To Be A Champion!

________________________________

From Harvey Newton:

.....The question resulted from discussion with Pierce, who told me that his

recent experience with the Columbian team training at LSU-S caused him to

reconsider the mainstream talent ID mantra of vertical jump, etc. In fact, he

mentioned current US coach at the OTC, Olympic Champion Zygmunt Smalcerz,

responded to 's inquiry on this topic by suggesting the bench press (!) as a

key to talent identification.

Before you move to another page, consider what Zyggie was really saying. He

evidently prefers to watch the amount of struggle a novice lifter will put into

a repetition bench press when instructed to continue to lift. If the kid works

hard, perhaps distorting his/her positions, but struggles (not giving up) to

make another rep, this is the kind of kid that Zyggie wants for weightlifting.

He's looking for psychological fight (heart, see Gene Baker below), not

necessarily anything to do with upper body strength.

[Guest guest]

Quote from Geno Auriemma- coach of the Uconn Womens Basketball team:

" I'm still trying to figure out what motivates kids beside anger, " Auriemma

said. " I am still working on it, still trying to figure it out. 

You try to tap into people's competitive spirit. And the top thing you try to

find when you recruit kids for UConn is how competitive they are. If they are,

they will respond to anything. All you need to do is push them in the proper

direction because they want to win, play well and they take pride in what they

do.

 Ralph Giarnella MD

Southington Ct. USA

________________________________

From: carruthersjam <Carruthersjam@...>

Supertraining

Sent: Tuesday, December 27, 2011 8:14 AM

Subject: Talent Identification?

 

From Harvey Newton:

.....The question resulted from discussion with Pierce, who told me that his

recent experience with the Columbian team training at LSU-S caused him to

reconsider the mainstream talent ID mantra of vertical jump, etc. In fact, he

mentioned current US coach at the OTC, Olympic Champion Zygmunt Smalcerz,

responded to 's inquiry on this topic by suggesting the bench press (!) as a

key to talent identification.

Before you move to another page, consider what Zyggie was really saying. He

evidently prefers to watch the amount of struggle a novice lifter will put into

a repetition bench press when instructed to continue to lift. If the kid works

hard, perhaps distorting his/her positions, but struggles (not giving up) to

make another rep, this is the kind of kid that Zyggie wants for weightlifting.

He's looking for psychological fight (heart, see Gene Baker below), not

necessarily anything to do with upper body strength.

==============

What talent identification criteria are important for you when working with a

new lifter?

Baker

I have never had a talent identification day where athletes came to me to be

tested to see if they are suited to be weightlifters.

I use the following criteria when working with athletes, primarily high school

football and track athletes to screen them prior to teaching the Olympic lifts.

After some observation and training time, I have suggested that weightlifting

could be a good sport for them. Most of the time this is a smaller kid who may

play some high school football, but at 5'2 " and 110 pounds won't have a big time

future in football. Or it may be one of my female throwers who is looking to do

something after high school. Back when I was coaching weightlifting full time I

was like , and coached everyone that walked in the door.

1. General Physical Traits

Height, weight

Body proportions - Length of arms, legs, and back (helps in teaching technique

that is most comfortable and powerful for the lifter)

Size of hands - Small hands may limit the lifters ability to hold heavy weights.

Flexibility - Look for good flexibility in ankles and shoulders

2. Athletic Ability

Knowing the new lifter's athletic background helps you determine if he/she is in

shape, a good learner, and a good competitor. Usually if the new lifter is a

star athlete, then teaching the lifts will be easy. If the new lifter has

minimal athletic background or ability, then teaching the lifts can be

difficult.

3. Heart

There are a lot of diagnostic tests used to evaluate athletic ability. You can

measure speed, power, flexibility, etc. These tests don't tell you about the

size of the heart of the competitor. The ability to compete and fight heavy

weights is key trait for a lifter and must be considered. One thing I've done

with new weightlifters and high school football players was to have a barbell

loaded to 200+ pounds sitting in the weight room when the new lifters come in

for their first workout. I watch for the people who walk up to the bar and try

to lift it. This has been a good indicator in identifying who has the internal

fire to lift big weights. Those who stand back in awe usually don't have the

aggressive nature to attack heavy weights.

Derwin

Let me recall the first and LAST time I did talent identification. We did

presentations at several middle schools and ran the kids through a battery of

five or so tests. The top seven or so guys measured pretty talented and had NO

interest in weightlifting.

What a complete waste of time. First and last time for me. I now coach any warm

body that wanders in.

The pecking order of things I look for:

- A desire to do weightlifting as a sport (I have no interest in the strength

and condition aspect for other sports)

- The discipline to prepare and an understanding of delayed gratification

- A modicum of flexibility

Pretty simple list, not so easy to find.

Newton

As mentioned by my colleagues here, we all usually take whoever walks in the

door. That's not to say we don't have an eye on certain characteristics, but who

ever turns down a kid that says he/she wants to be a lifter?

A few years back, when no USA reps took part in a junior world championships

(yes, at one time, we had the policy of 'no qualifying total, no travel'),

Nielsen and I traveled to the event. I officiated and both of us spent plenty of

time talking with our international contacts. At one point, the Polish team

doctor explained some of their talent ID criteria, which included looking at

thumb length (key to a good hook grip) and blood testosterone (the higher, the

better).

I asked the doctor what happens in the case of a young man wanting to learn

weightlifting whose testosterone happened to be low? " Figure skating " was the

doctor's response!

Maybe in a state-controlled system, but here we take whoever walks in the door.

Vertical jump can certainly predict explosiveness. Flexibility, particularly of

the ankles, hips, knees, elbows, shoulders, and wrists is crucial to early

success.

Joe Hanson, well-known coach out of ville, FL, reminds me of an old adage

I shared with him a few years back: " Nurture the oddballs. " What I meant by that

is, weightlifting draws out some non-mainstream characters, many very strong

individualists. This is a challenge, especially for a dictatorial type of coach.

But from this pool of " oddballs " weightlifting is likely to get its best

candidates, at least in my opinion.

Nielsen

I simply look at the common traits of overhead squat for flexibility, pull-ups

for upper body strength, and squatting for lower body flexibility and strength.

Takano

Motor learning ability, history of athletic participation, and strength

potential in that order.

==============

Carruthers

Wakefield, UK

>

> Coyle recently wrote the following on his blog (talentcode.com).

Pertinent to the recent discussion.

>

> So I recently returned from a London sports-science conference where the

discussion revolved around the mystery of talent identification. All over the

world, in everything from academics to sports to music, millions of dollars and

thousands of hours are being spent on singling out high-potential performers

early on. And the plain truth is, most of these talent-ID programs are little

better than rolling dice.

>

> Take the NFL, for instance, which represents the zenith of

talent-identification science. At the pre-draft NFL combine, teams exhaustively

test every physical and mental capacity known to science: strength, agility,

explosiveness, intelligence. They look at miles of game film. They analyze every

piece of available data. And each year, NFL teams manage get it absolutely

wrong. In fact, out of the 40 top-rated combine performers over the past four

years, only half are still in the league.

>

> A lot of smart people have been thinking about this, and what they've decided

is this: the problem not that the measures are wrong. The problem is that

measuring performance the wrong way to approach the question.

>

> According to much of this new work, what matters is not current performance,

but rather growth potential – what you might call the G-Factor — the

complex, multi-faceted qualities that help someone learn and keep on learning,

to work past inevitable plateaus; to adapt and be resourceful and keep

improving.

>

> Thing is, G-Factor can't be measured with a stopwatch or a tape measure. It's

more subtle and complex. Which means that instead of looking at performance, you

look for signs, subtle indicators — what a poker player might call tells. In

other words, to locate the G-Factor you have to close your eyes, ignore the

dazzle of current performance and instead try to detect the presence of a few

key characteristics. Sort of like Moneyball, with character traits.

>

> So what are the tells for the G-Factor? Here are two:

>

> One is early ownership. As Marjie Elferink-Gemser's work shows, one pattern of

successful athletes happens when they're 13 or so, when they develop a sense of

ownership of their training. For the ones who succeed, this age is when they

decide that it's not enough to simply be an obedient cog in the development

machine — they begin to go farther, reaching beyond the program, deciding for

themselves what their workouts will be, augmenting and customizing and

addressing their weaknesses on their own.

>

> Another tell is grit. This quality, investigated by the pioneering work of

Duckworth, refers to that signature combination of stubbornness,

resourcefulness, creativity and adaptability that helps someone make the tough

climb toward a longterm goal. Duckworth has come up with a simple questionnaire

that measures the responder's grit. It has only 17 questions, and the respondent

self-assesses their ability to stick with a project, see a goal to the end, etc.

(You can take it online here.)

>

> Duckworth gave her grit test to 1,200 first-year West Point cadets before they

began a brutal summer training course called the " Beast Barracks. " It turned out

that this test (which takes only a few minutes to complete) was eerily accurate

at predicting whether or not a cadet succeeded, exceeding the predictions of

West Point's exhaustive battery of NFL-combine-esque measures, which included

tests of IQ, psychological profile, GPA, and physical fitness. Duckworth's grit

test has been applied to other settings – academic ones, including KIPP

schools — with similar levels of success. (Here's a good story about grit.)

>

> It's fascinating stuff, in part because it leads so many good questions: what

other elements are part of the G Factor? And perhaps most important, is it

possible to teach it?

>

> ====================

> Carruthers

> Wakefield, UK

>