Preventing Neck/Upper Back Pain: A discussion on coaching cues & interventions

Article Objectives

• Briefly List/bring awareness to relevant muscles of the back/neck
• Discuss the cue of keeping your head up/Recognize a common movement pattern
• Possible Interventions for thoracic mobility/Neck Pain

Sections

1. Intro – “Keep your head up/look forward!”
2. Anatomy
3. Movement Faults
4. Considerations and Conclusion
5. Interventions
   

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If you wonder why your paddler always keeps their head down and forgets to look forward in the boat, consider looking at their upper backs.

While the spine is a complex beast to comprehend, there are very simple, quick, and applicable ways that we could make immediate changes in our performance, and pain levels.

Today we discuss the cue “keep your head up” and “look up when you paddle”. These cues may come with the right intent, yet may have insidious effects, unbeknownst to the coaches. A coach uses these cues to prompt the athlete to look at the strokers ahead so that they can maintain timing within the boat. But let’s say your athlete has corrected their error thanks to your cue and is now looking up towards the front of the boat, problem solved…right?

Right. and Wrong.

Let’s take a deeper look.

 

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Anatomy Overview (Click here for in depth review of spine) *Skip this section and go to “Movement Faults” if not interested in specific anatomy component*

Your posterior neck/upper back muscles along with the rest of your posterior chain, and its ligaments are responsible for limiting forward flexion in the neck/upper back.

The upper trap (part of the trapezius) is one such muscle. Additionally, one of its main actions is to initiate elevation and upward rotation of your scapula. When you paddle, you need your scapula to be stable, yet free to move so that you can maximize motion at the shoulder and minimize risk of injury.

In a forward posture – rounded upper back/neck, our upper trapezius muscle that traverses our spine, scapula, and the base of our skulls will be inefficiently recruited more as a stabilizer/elevator than an upward rotator of the scapula. Furthermore, your levator scapulae, splenius capitis/cervicis, semispinalis capitis/cervis, and erector spinalis muscles will be forced to contract more than necessary. In this position, the levator scapulae, will further act as a retractor and elevator of our scapula, and downward rotator countering what upper, middle, and lower trapezius should be doing. Thus, our entire scapulothoracic rhythm is compromised and our muscles are overused in such a slouched position.

The trapezius muscle as a whole helps with elevation, retration, and upward rotation of the scapula which assits with normal movement in the shoulder. It also helps to extend the skull.

These muscles are deep to the latissimus Dorsi and trapezius muscles. They help with stabilization of the back, and extension of the head/neck.

 

Your anterior neck consists of muscles such as the sternocleidomastoid, scalenes, and longus colli/capitis. Together, they act to assist with flexion at the head and neck. More specifically however, your deep neck flexors – longus colli/capitis, who’s axis of rotation lies close to the anterior vertebral bodies, works syngeristically with the upper trapezius muscle of the back. They therefore not only assist with craniocervical flexion, but indirectly act to help with the scapulothoracic rhythm mentioned above.

This picture depicts the deep neck flexors – longus capitis/colli. Scalenes are also depicted.

 

 

 

 

 

The more forward your neck and upper back is, the more shortened your SCM (sternocleidomastoid) and scalenes become. As they have a role in accessory respiration, respiration patterns may become more shallow and belabored. Lastly, your DNF (deep neck flexors) become underactive and is unable to assist with scapulothoracic rhythm.

With this forward head posture set into motion, our posterior neck muscles – semispinales, splenius, upper trap, suboccipital muscles will have to constantly contract to keep our heads up right, leading to shortened and tigntened muscles in the back of our necks.

This image conceptualizes some of the muscle imbalances/compensations that develop with poor posture.

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Movement Faults

In normal upright standing, our anterior muscles and posterior muscles are in a constant tug of war to stabilize our bodies to keep our center of mass around anterior to our S2 vertebrae. When we carry a box, our center of gravity is pulled in front of us, thus our back muscles, posterior neck muscles, and ligaments work harder to keep us from falling flat on our face. Too much of this strain could lead to injury in our low backs. This is a reason why pregnant women often get back pain. Contrary to this, when we wear backpacks at school, our COG (center of gravity) is shifted behind us. To compensate for this, we often slouch forward in our upperbacks.

There are many activities that we partake in our daily lives that put us in such a forward position. When somebody sits and works at a desk all day, all their essentials are placed in front of them. Working and standing at a cash register, you reach forward to distribute change. Overtime, individuals are likely to develop a forward posture in their upper back, known as thoracic hyperkyphosis, as demonstrated in the image below. Think of this position like holding the box, being pregnant, or holding any heavy item in front of you for a long time. Your COG is displaced anteriorly, placing the strain in our posterior chain.

Eventually, our rounded posture becomes the norm. After sitting in this rounded position all day, students will put on their backpacks, further cueing our bodies to lean forward just as they would sitting at a desk.

What doesn’t help our cause is the fact that naturally, our thoracic spine/upper back is shaped in a manner that will reenforce some forward posture.  In addition, the center of mass of our heads already falls anterior to the line of pull as evidenced in Figure A.

Fig. A

The problems begin to compound with excessive thoracic kyphosis in our upper backs as additional strain in our posterior neck is required to keep our head/eyes looking forward. If we do not keep our heads upright, we would always be looking down, and the body undoubtedly decides that that would be an inconvenient position to walk around in. Thus, our excessive thoracic kyphosis is often coupled with excessive cervical lordosis, aka strain in your neck.

 

When we read a book for example in front of us on a low table, or eat a meal – positions that do not require hinging from the posterior neck, our superficial neck muscles in the front will be grow shortened, and our deeper neck flexors that help us keep a neutral positioning at the head will grow weak. This is especially the case for an individual that sits in this forward-slouched position all day. But now when we stand and hold that book in front of us, instead of standing erect with normal posture, we will be more forward/hunched with our necks hyperextended straining to keep our heads up right.

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Dragonboat, then is not unique in its demands that ask us to lean forward to begin our stroke, but it certainly isn’t forgiving to the individual who fails to correct the movement patterns developed from years of working with a slumped upper back.

Fig. B: A paddler with a rounded upper back will crane at their neck to keep their eyes forward in the boat. This leads to pain and overly active upper back/posterior neck muscles.

Figure B demonstrates 2 paddlers (the middle/right images depict the same paddler). The 1st paddler maintains rigidity throughout the spine and hip hinges properly, affording the opportunity to keep his eyes forward with minimum strain to the neck/upper back. Paddler 2 can be described as the same person that we discussed above: always in a forward posture, sitting at a desk all day, unable to attain full thoracic extension. Even if the athlete intiated the stroke with a proper hip hinge, the curvature of his spine and compensated structures leads to a natural downward trajectory and hanging of the head.

The 1st and 3rd paddler present with pretty rounded upper backs during their pull, what do you think would happen if you cued them to keep their heads up?

The furthest right paddler in Figure B is what happens when the posterior neck tightening compensation is made, whether it be the athlete forcing themselves to look up/forward, or whether it be the coach cueing the athlete to do so.

When an athlete is rounded in their upper back(thoracic hyperkyphosis), their back muscles (traps, levator, erector spinae, splenius/semispinalis – anything that attaches from the spine/scapula directly to the head/neck) will have to work harder to counter the forward flexion/flexion moment in our backs during the catch/pull. Rather, if an athlete is able to maintain a more upright positioning, these muscles won’t have to work as hard.

From a body-wellness standpoint, unecessary strain in the posterior neck then leads to the  bouts of neck pain, overused/underused muscles, changes in muscle length, stiffness, and unecessary fatigue that paddlers often complain about during/after practice.  From a biomechanical standpoint, this is inefficient because you begin to habitually use your mid-back segments/muscles as a fulcrum to drive your blades down, rather than focusing on anchoring with your hips to bring your boat forward to the water.

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Considerations, Conclusion, & Interventions

By telling an athlete to keep their head up or to look forward, we might be missing the bigger picture that there is another movement dysfunction involved – excessive thoracic kyphosis that leads to craning at the neck. We have not even begun to discuss the implications of limited low back mobility and why this may lead someone to slouch in their upper backs, but at least this is a start.

The most egregious of anomalies (super forward posture in the neck) are typically symptoms of a larger problem that requires digging. Don’t just fix local symptoms, strive to correct global faults.

If the only goal is to correct the error in timing – then sure, maybe the problem is partially corrected. But our job as coaches/athletes should be more involved.  A coach’s job should never be to point at a error and tell an athlete to make a fix. A coach’s job should be to point at a error and ask “Isn’t that strange. Why are they making that error, and what is causing the athlete to do that?” We have an obligation to our team performance, but most importantly an obligation to minimize injury to individuals that make up the team – let’s not lose sight of that fact.

There are two general scenarios for which I could forsee the cue of “looking up/keep your head up” being implemented.

1. The newer paddler or seasoned athlete that simply does need a quick reminder to not focus so much on their own paddles.
2.  The athlete with structural compensations, or inadequate motor control/coordination.

While we may luck out when using this cue with the first athlete, regularly implementing the aforementioned cue may reinforce suboptimal positions and performance in the latter athlete. Know when to use what cue.

This concept of excessive rounding in the upper back leading to neck pain/straining is even more relevant when considering the height of your craft in relation to the water and where you are sitting in the boat. The higher off the water you are, the more likely you are to see exaggerations in the poor posture dissected in today’s discussion. Thus, the higher off the water you are, the more pertinent it is that you find a safe and efficient way to approximate your blades to the water for a solid pull without compromising technique.

Below are some basic interventions that you may consider implementing to combat the neck pain/slumped stroke.

Interventions

Cues/Easy Fixes

1. “Sit Up Right”, “Lead with your chest” – By using these words instead of “look up/look forward”, you are able to specifically address the movement dysfunction at large. A paddler who leads with his/her chest and sits more up right is likely to have an easier time looking forward at the paddlers in front.
2. Don’t reach as far forward – Reaching forward allows the paddler to have an earlier catch/longer stroke. However, reaching too far forward will lead to compensations – often a hunched back/craned neck. Telling the athlete to not reach as far forward, and not to take as long a stroke will allow them to work on technique within their means.

Motor Control

1.Chin Nods (Deep Neck Flexors)/Chin Nods w/ Lacrosse Ball – In the anatomy section, we analyzed the relationship of your upper back muscles and muscles of your neck. To better involve your scapulothoracic rhythm with your upper trap properly, to help relax the overly used muscles (levator, SCM, Scalenes, pecs), and to engage the deep neck flexor muscles that help stabilze your head, you might consider using this exercise. Using the lacrosse ball depicted in the  pictures will help add an external cue and allow for a deeper stretch in the back of the neck.

Start with a relatively neutral head. Place ball right at the junction between your neck and head

Gently do a light nod and create a slight “double chin”. Be careful not to tilt your head too far down. Just nod enough to engage your deep neck muscles.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. Core stabilizing Exercises

Often times, the movement dysfunctions discussed in this article can be from poor core control. This does not mean that someone’s core is weak – rather, the athlete may not know how to engage their core properly when rotating or paddling. It is therefore recommended to begin implementing more core work pre-paddling to wake up the muscles of the core and back! The images below aren’t necessarily the ones I would prescribe to just anyone, but it gives you a general sense of how you could manipulate one exercise to target different things and parts of the stroke.

These 1st two pictures show how you can use a band to engage top arm drive, lats,  & flexion and extension from the hip while maintaining a flat neutral back.

These two pictures demonstrate how holding the band with one arm, instead of two, adds an anti-rotational component to keep your spine/body from shifting.

Posture/Movement

1.Thoracic Ext. Against the Wall

The goal of this exercise is to combat poor posture. It helps us open up into extension in the back and external rotation of the shoulders/arms. This allows our shortened pec muscles to open up and helps our back find better positioning in extension. The stretch may be felt in the chest, shoulders, upper back, mid back, and even low back. Adding a paddle or PVC pipe will help you attain a different variation of this stretch.

Start with arms out to your sides and pretend that you are making a snow angel.

As you bring your arms upwards to complete the snow angel, take note of any stiff areas and oscilate in that region to help losen any stiffness.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Keep back lower back flat and butt against the wall. Start with arms at a right angle with paddle behin your head.

Without shrugging, try to extend your arms upwards while maintaining contact with the wall with your back and arms.

Note how my back approximates to the wall. These exercises can also be done with a foam roller placed vertically along the body while laying on it, and is less aggressive than this iteration of the stretch

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. Hip Hinge

The hip hinge can be a great tool to teach somebody how to “lead with their chest” and hinge from the hips as they go forward in their stroke. By pushing the paddle or pvc pipe into the crease of the hips, you teach the paddler how to sit back into the stroke while bringing their bodies forward. Make sure that you keep good spinal integrity, otherwise it renders this exercise useless!

If the athlete still tends to round at the spine first, use the paddle or PVC pipe along the length of their spine an make them hinge with the external feedback.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hope you guys learned something from this article! As always, drop a line if you have any questions.

-Bryan

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References

Neumann, DA. Kinesiology of the Musculoskeletal System. Mosby, St Louis, 2002

Netter, F. H. Atlas of Human Anatomy, Philadelphia, PA: Saunders/Elsevier. Harvard, 5th Ed., 2010

Pawlowsky, S. PT 742 – Thoracic Spine Lecture. Cervical Spine Lecture UCSF/SFSU Physical Therapy, 2018

 

Core Engagement

Dragonboating is a sport that requires not only a great degree of throacic/low back mobility, but also core stability. With the pelvic gurdle relatively glued to the bench while sitting in the boat and 19 other paddlers around you, it is very easy to mask any lack in core engagement through the stroke.

Any paddler can lunge forward, rotate, and “pull their blades through”/”push the boat forward”, but did their power truly generate from their core, or is there a greater dysfunction that can be corrected to produce a more efficient stroke?

This drill, mimicing rotation from a standing position where we can further add a more dynamic movement as shown in the video – as opposed to the normal seated position, can better teach an athlete how to generate power, give us another way to protect/strengthen our backs, and give the coaches another way to work with athletes outside the water.

Look for any shifting of the hips as pulling begins and change in degree of rotation in the spine prior to actual pull as indicators of whether your athlete is possibly leaking power in the boat!

View this post on Instagram

Inspired by @roydianchan 's post on anti-rotation progressions, I realized that by switching the orientation of the pulley, I could immediately mimic the movement of paddling. This exercise is a good tool for teaching stability through rotation of the stroke, and obligue and lat engagement/synchronization. Basic steps : 1) Align hips and set pulley above shoulder height 2) Start with relatively straightforward arms (like outside arm in DB) 3) Brace core and initiate movement through rotation and maintaining stiffness through trunk Note: start in order of progression as shown in video . In addition, this could be a great device for coaches to not only teach the complex movement and feel of the stroke to a new paddler/athlete but also gives the coach another tool to test/critique an athletes understanding of the stroke! — Try this by yourself or with your team and let me know how this goes! I hope to share more videos like this as I progress on my journey as a DPT student so I could continue to share what I think can be helpful for the community as I become more capable of giving more substantial information and sharing my ideas and what I learn with the public! . . Demo: @bicepbrachibry

A post shared by Paddlers, Are You Ready? (@paddlersareyouready) on Mar 27, 2017 at 9:37pm PDT

“Unread Speech” by Anonymous

A good friend of ours reached out to use our platform to share an unread speech they wrote to share with their team. Although they ultimately did not have a chance to share it with their team, we hope that you know there are people on your team that might be going through this right now. Perhaps you are going through something similar. Whatever the case, we hope that our friend’s speech can spark a conversation and get more dialogue going about this topic, and that others won’t have to feel they have to keep a speech unread.

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(Written Fall 2015)

During our final day at TI this year, Shou opened the floor numerous times for people to speak their thoughts or memories about the team or the season. Since then, I have spent the last few weeks writing this to share with you guys now.

I have told many of you my origins with this team and that I was basically looking to try something new; having no known associations with this sport or team at the time. In fact, it was much more than that. Before I joined this sport and team, I was enduring persistent anxieties that goes beyond memory and in a state of what I now know to be precursory depression. What I recognize now, is that my search for something new was really me seeking a circle of support and encouragement that did not exist in my life.

Throughout my first season, this sport and team had given me so many new experiences: traveling internationally, become a member of an athletic team, and I got to meet all of you. You guys helped me build my strength both mentally and physically. You guys have taught and continue to teach me a lot about myself.

Despite my diligence, however, I was not able to stave off a turn for the worst in my mental health that occurred during my first off season last year. My struggles with anxiety, depression, and hyper-vigilance had overwhelmed me. As a result I had to seek professional help for the first time October last year. Between then and now, I had several episodes of what I could only label as mental breakdowns; a psychiatric crisis. These episodes had brought me to deep states of self-loathing, numbness, dissociation, feeling lost and confused.

While I am in a much better state now, maintenance is a constant endeavor. I can attribute much of the stability and peace I now have to this team. I have come to this moment where I would like to express gratefulness and how much this team has added to my existence and well-being.

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I appreciate all the opportunities this team has given me, whether it is racing, traveling, or simply sharing meal with you guys.

I appreciate every practice I am able to attend because not only does it push me physically, more importantly, it reinforces my mental condition.

And I appreciate all those who are here, all those who couldn’t make it today, all those who are associated with this team in anyway. Whether you are someone I interact with on a regular basis or someone I have barely said “Hi” to. Whether you are reserved or outspoken, you have contributed something to this team. And you have contributed something to my life.

-Anonymous

The Art of Feedback (Part 2 of 2)

We have all given someone every cue in the books to rotate, and they still do not. But, all of a sudden, we can say that one thing that makes sense to them, and they will rotate! When we think about coaching cues and feedback, we tend to think every athlete is different, so the more coaching strategies we have, the better. Although this is true, are there any rules as to what makes a feedback or cue more effective than others? Here’s what I have learned.

There are two big categories of athletic cues: internal and external. Internal cues are descriptions of how a movement should feel or how an athlete should think about the movement. External cues are descriptions of how an athlete’s body should relate to the outside world. Here are some examples:

Internal feedback:                                                        External feedback:

• Rotate your hips                                                  – Point bellybutton to your partner
• Reach forward                                                      – Reach to the front of the boat
• Drive your legs                                                     – Push the boat forward
• Apply top arm pressure                                     – Drive tgrip towards the gunwhale

It turns out that in general, external feedback works better. This makes sense. When someone hasn’t figured out how to rotate, they don’t know how it should feel yet. To a novice person, telling them to drive the leg might be getting them to extend the knee, the hip, or the ankles. You might only want one of those, or you might not care which one it is. On the other hand, external cues provide a much more concrete way for athletes to know what they are trying to accomplish. They don’t have to wait for you to tell them whether they have rotated their hips. If their bellybuttons are facing their partners, they know they’ve accomplished what you’ve asked them to do! This gives us a much more objective way of communicating what needs to happen, rather than trying to get them in our heads to know what it should subjectively feel like.

These external cues are much more helpful for a novice athlete, who has not had to navigate their body through space in a sport-specific way. If you are so lucky as to coach athletes who has played other sports or who has done weightlifting, you will find it much easier to communicate with them with whatever cues you have.

 

Another big difference between novice athletes and seasoned athletes is their need for positive feedback. When someone just joins our team or tries the sport, it is critical that they feel confident that they can continue and that this is the right thing for them. For beginners, it is important that they receive plenty of positive feedback. In fact, I sometimes give only positive feedback for first-day paddlers. However, as a paddler becomes better, the effectiveness of the positive feedback diminishes. Intermediate and advanced paddlers need, and want more constructive feedback. In other words, if they already know they are good, they don’t need to hear it from you. They want to get better. That is not to say you can throw positivity out the window. It simply means they want to know much more critically where they can be better. As a coach, it is very important to recognize this difference. This means that we need to look hard at how a beginner paddler can improve, but we need to look even harder at how a good paddler can overcome his plateau. Otherwise, a good paddler will not become great. Even worse, a great paddler will leave you because he doesn’t feel he’s getting any better.
What are some ways you keep new members learning, but veteran members engaged? Join the conversation!

 

-Shou

The Art of Feedback (Part 1 of 2)

The Art of Feedback (Part 1 of 2)

Most coaches have heard about the importance of positive reinforcement. In fact, the most important thing that I took away from the first and only dragon boat coaching clinic I attended was the compliment sandwich. The idea of giving more positive feedback than negative feedback has proven to be an important, time-tested way to build good relationship with my athletes. However, I have since learned that the art of feedback is much more nuanced and not really what I thought it was for years.

The biggest shift in the way that I think about feedback came from the book “The Talent Code” by Daniel Coyle, which highlighted some of the ways that John Wooden coaches. John Wooden is considered one of the best basketball coaches in history, coaching UCLA’s team to a dynasty in the 60’s and 70’s. Before reading about John Wooden, I used to think that the best coaches were the ones who can motivate their team, get everyone on board, and give inspirational speeches. It shocked me to find out that at the first day of practice, Coach Wooden did not spend a lot of time talking to his team about last year’s successes, or this year’s plans, or what needed to be changed. Instead, he welcomed everyone to practice, and started everyone on the courts almost immediately. If motivating speeches weren’t the magic that got his team to win, what was? Well, it turned out, there was no magic. His players were just plain better than any other team’s. That’s why they were winning! So, what did he do to get his players to be so good and to play his system so well?

The answer: feedback. Coach Wooden gave his players feedback in a very specific way: “Do this. Don’t do that. Do this.” He would correct players’ mechanics, movements, or rotations by first reminding them what he wanted. Then, he showed his players what they were doing instead, before finally repeating what he wanted. Many coaches do some aspects of this, and it’s easy to see why this works. Simply telling someone what you want has its limits. By showing players how they were not doing what he wanted, he makes it obvious how the players need to fix the issue. Just doing this would make you a better coach, but what made Coach Wooden great? He gave this level of feedback with an average of 7 words! So, let’s breakdown why John Wooden was such a great coach by looking at two aspects of his feedback:

• Specificity: The reason that Coach Wooden is able to give feedback in such short bursts is that he’s extremely specific. Each one of his feedback is about one small correction that he needs his athletes to make. He does not confuse feedback with evaluation. He does not overwhelm by trying to correct more than one thing at a time. Of course, this requires years of thinking and breaking down the tasks that he tried to teach so he can be that specific.
• Frequency: Because Coach Wooden gives feedback in such small chunks, he’s able to give feedback with much higher frequency than other coaches. As a result, his players constantly knew if they were doing the right thing or the wrong thing. During the course of a practice, each player would have several things corrected about their game. Over the season, that frequency of feedback per practice becomes the ultimate factor of how few kinks there were in each person’s game. Of course, if you were John Wooden, it’d be an anomaly for one of your players to make a mistake towards the end of the season! (Because you have corrected it so many times over the course of the season.)

Understanding this really helped me understand why my team wasn’t producing good paddlers. I knew the technique, and taught it. People listened, and understood it. Yet, they were not executing. I realized I was just teaching the concepts, and walking paddlers through the drills. I became really good at explaining, and I got people really good at it during the drills. But, I was missing a huge piece to the puzzle: feedback. I started to rethink my job as a coach. Anyone with sufficient knowledge of the stroke can teach it. If paddlers were to actually learn it, I needed to:

• Give better and more specific feedback
• Direct feedback towards individual paddlers
• Give feedback as often as humanly possible
• Give feedback when it counts the most: when paddlers need to perform (during actual pieces)

Part of this problem was my awareness as a coach. Another part of this problem was the coaching structure on a dragon boat in general. Sometimes, it is simply too much to ask one coach at the front of the boat to provide all the feedback. How has your team gone around this issue? How does your team provide specific, and frequent feedback to your paddlers? Join the conversation below!

In part 2, I will dive a bit deeper what makes feedback more effective.

-Shou

(Part 2 of 2) Build something bigger than yourself

Work for your business, not in your business (Part 2)

To effectively lead my team, I don’t need to be the person with the most knowledge on mechanics, or the person who gives best individual feedback, or even the person who speaks the most at events. I need to be the person with the clearest vision of where we are headed, and know who can get us there. I need to be the person who can iterate to find the best systems to teach mechanics, give feedback, organize events, etc. And, I need to know who can fit into those systems. If there are nobody on my team better than me at doing specific tasks (coaching, managing membership, fundraising, etc), I shouldn’t be proud, I should be panicking. One person could not be and should not be the best at everything, and if I think I’m best at everything, it means my team is in SERIOUS lack of talent, or I am delusional about my strengths. If my team is lacking talent, then my most important job is to develop that talent.

Implicit in my ability to develop talent within my team is a belief that people can be developed, which I have discussed here in another blog post (My Motivation). Once I believe that I can develop talent in the people on my team, I need to learn how to delegate and teach specific skills to them. Releasing your responsibilities onto others by delegating tasks to them is the only way to help develop their skills. They need to be given ownership of their work to truly grow into the capable people they can be.

When I first stepped in as the President of my team, or when I first became a teacher, I had a very hard time delegating tasks to people and found myself swamped with busy work. One specific idea changed the way I looked at things. This idea is called the Benjamin Franklin Effect, the idea that someone is more likely to like you if you ask them for favors. It is strange, but I find my relationship with students and athletes get better because I ask them for favors. The scientific research suggests some rationale to this, but I also have a couple speculations. By getting people to help you, you are increasing your chances to interact with them, giving you more opportunities to build relationships. By getting people to do something that will have an effect on the team (no matter how small), you are giving that person some ownership of the team; it gets them to contribute. Lastly, by giving thanks and appreciations after someone has helped you, it encourages them to continue to help.

So how do you delegate? Here are a few things I’ve learned from being a teacher:

1. Over-communicate the goal. As a leader, your job is to create a vision that is motivating for your paddlers. When giving someone a task, the most important, and sometimes only thing you need to communicate, is the end goal. If you can get them to see exactly what they are trying to accomplish, they can most likely do it. Many times, this is much harder than it sounds. For example, when you delegate someone to help coach, what is the goal? “To teach paddlers how to rotate” is not a goal; that is a task. A goal would be “At the end of practice, all paddlers will rotate with pelvis facing partners and de-rotate back to square.” That immediately makes the mere “teaching” seem insignificant.
2. Clearly set guidelines. Guidelines are not instructions. They are pointers, warnings, or rules of thumbs. For example, when delegating coaching responsibilities, once you have made the goals clear, a guideline could be “whatever you do, paddlers need to be excited at the end of practice.” Another guideline could be “try to use positive reinforcement more than negative feedback.” A guideline doesn’t limit what the person can do for you; it just ensures that whatever they decide to do fits into the bigger picture.
3. Check in and motivate from a proper distance. Know your members. If someone is helping you with something, do they like reminders? Do they like texting, or email, or phone calls? Does this person like immediate feedback, or do they like to have their reflection time first? Delegation does not stop when you have clearly communicated goals and set proper guidelines. It is a relationship, and it is a continued process.

If this form of delegation sounds like a lot of work, it is. But if you do this well, you will notice that the investment you make in people will return twofold. Once you get people to feel invested in the team, they will do amazing things that you could never have done by yourself. The true power of delegation is not to get things done, but to enable more people to take ownership of your team. The true art of delegation is not just to get people to be busy, but to orchestrate a true team effort so that everyone is contributing effectively. It could be really scary to not know exactly what others will do when given a task, but I have found that more often than not, if I delegate well, amazing things get done beyond my wildest imaginations!

 

-Shou

(Part 1 of 2) Build something bigger than yourself

Work for your business, not in your business (Part 1)

As I have graduated and stepped into a professional life, I’ve learned so many lessons from work that are applicable to coaching and leading effectively. One of the most important lessons is how to do higher level work to further advance your organization, instead of being overtaken by busy work.

Just 6 years ago, the school that I teach in was a typical low-performing school in the inner city of Richmond. Now, we are a nationally ranked school in a multi-million dollar building. All of this growth and success is made possible by the tremendous leadership of our principal, a quiet woman standing 5’1” on a good day. There are people who are much better at dealing with students, people better at coaching teachers, people who’s been at our school for longer, but yet, she is the one that puts it all together. As little as I have directly worked with her, I have learned so much about leadership precisely by seeing how little she shows of it.

She has really taught me to work for the business, not in the business. Instead of seeing the school as an organization of tasks that needs to be done by people, she sees it as an organization of people who can work on tasks to better the school. There are some important distinctions hidden in that small shift in mindset. 1) The first mindset assumes a fixed set of tasks needed to keep the organization alive, while the second acknowledges that people can often come up with new and exciting ways to make things better. 2) The first one dictates that the role of a leader is to manage tasks. If the task falls short, it is the leader’s fault. The second dictates that the leader manages people. If the task falls short, the leader works with the person to problem solve. 3) The first puts the power on the leader, as the leader manages the tasks and takes ownership of them. The second does not assume where the power lies, as the leader and the people negotiate the tasks and the products together.

This is not to say that the job of the leader is simply to choose people to do things and leave them to their own accords. The job of a leader in this model is invest time and energy on people and not tasks, on skills and not procedures, on systems and not fixes. It is a shift in priorities and focus that will create more return for the leader’s effort:

1. Think big picture. Look far and wide. Dream big, and come up with big goals.
2. Think systems. How can organization of people and tasks be formalized?
3. Think people. Who has the passion, talent, and bandwidth to do this?
4. Think tasks. What needs to be done?

Notice that tasks are on the lowest priority for the leader. Even “people” is not high on the priority. Of course, levels 3 and 4 are the ONLY ways a leader has connection with anything in reality, but steps 1 and 2 needs to happen in the mind first before anything can happen in reality. When leaders do not have big dreams and hefty goals, they become stagnant. When leaders handle problems with fixes and not systematic changes, results don’t last.

At level 4, you are merely working in your team, not working for it. If you are, on a daily basis, focused on the tasks that needs to be done, you are merely keeping your team alive. In Part 2, you can read about how I’ve learned to spend less time on Level 4, so that I can spend more time on Levels 1 – 3, working to grow my team!

-Shou

My experience with CAU at Ravenna for the Club Crew Championships- by Sally Chou

7/25/16
California United disbanded in December of 2014 but I still express my deepest gratitude for my experience until this day. My teammates and I have kept in close contact and I think it’s safe to say that we all agree CAU has been one of the bigger highlights in our paddling careers.

I had the opportunity to compete on Team USA’s u24 team at Welland last year. I must say that racing at worlds multiple times has taught me a lot about holding my composure better this year. As exciting as it is to see my physique and paddling abilities change, I’ve been more humbled over the years as I mature in my mental game and attitude.

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California United: Past, Present, Future
October 14, 2014

Road to Ravenna:

In 2011, a very inadequately prepared and hastily thrown together Team USA competed in the IDBF World Championships in Tampa, Florida and walked away not only empty handed but extremely disappointed and embarrassed. Fueled by a desire to fill in the gaping holes of dissatisfaction, a small team of ex-Tampa paddlers began the process of establishing a competitive program to develop collegiate paddlers into athletes by exposing them to the international level of dragon boating.

California United, formally California u23, had a tremendous start to say the least. William Lin and Alexander Yu’s program focused on–to put it plainly- just understanding paddling. They recruited roughly a hundred ignorant college students, broke down the underlying movements of the traditional dragon boat stroke, and taught efficiency – all through a combination of on-water and in-classroom instruction, lecture slides, real time data, and a plethora of Physics analogies.

We were mind blown after the first clinic. I remember how Fred and I went running back to our college team that night, wanting to teach the rest of our teammates everything we had just learned. Little did we know all the other clinic-attendees were doing the same! This triggered a movement in collegiate dragon boat. I saw new leadership rise up, reinvented strokes, the urgency to train on small boats, and thus, much faster competition. For the first time ever, paddlers suddenly became conscientious of their efforts on the water. Leaders didn’t mindlessly coach anymore; exercises and technique work was thought out with purpose. Understanding translated into results. Within one year, collegiate teams became the fastest teams in California.

Within two years, our efforts resulted in an official set roster of 30 paddlers, signed up to compete for a bid and qualify as a crew for the 2014 IDBF Club Crew World Championships held in Ravenna, Italy in August of 2014.

Of course as a newly established team with high ambitions, we ran into many roadblocks on the way to qualifiers. Changing our name from CAu23 to California United and vying for a spot in Premier rather than the u23 category instantly jeopardized any support from organizations because it invalidated our vision for youth development. We were seen no different from any other adult team at this point. Although this was untrue and was not our intention, this unforeseen hurdle hurt our team financially and structurally.

Although I barely remember the races to this day, I’ll never forget the moment the announcement for the final results came out. The happiness of winning the Premier Open bid was quickly overshadowed by the shock of losing the bid for Premier Mixed. We stood together as a team, feeling the weight of disappointment that this could be the end of our program. We asked ourselves a lot of hard questions that day. Do we move forward with only bringing one team? Do we cut out a majority of our women and only race with our top 20 men/women? What will training look like from now on?

A hard decision was made to go forward and train for u24 Mixed and Premier Open but ooverall motivation was low. We constantly juggled multiple college team schedules. Headcounts for practices and race were always below requisite. There was a long struggle of finding a new head coach when Will wasn’t available anymore. Oh, and we had no money. Sending forty collegiate paddlers to an international race for a week seemed a daunting task yet our many supporters along the way somehow made it happen.

One full year of asking for petty donations and hearing every argument possibly made… the best news came just one month shy of Worlds, August of 2014: we had officially been bumped up to Premier Mixed.


Reality at Ravenna:

Nothing could have prepared us for Ravenna besides being at Ravenna itself.

I still remember day one all too well. I remember standing in line for marshaling and being towered by the German, Ukraine, Canadian, and even Chinese teams. We knew that this wasn’t our average local competition anymore and the butterflies flitted my stomach as we stood in unfamiliar territory.

I even remember sitting on the boat for our first practice before the races even started, jet lagged yet executing our pieces. Alex looked around and then backs at us.
“You guys look f*ing good… but so does every other team out here.”
We just nodded. He was right. Worlds was a reality, and we were sitting in a boat in the middle of it. Unbelievable.
I could get into the small technicalities of each race piece, how we did, how we felt, and the outcomes and result – but I won’t.

A big majority of our pieces was a fight between executing too slow of a rate and falling behind versus pushing too high of a rate and losing our catch in the water. When you take three strokes and see that you’re already half a boat behind, the natural response is to panic – and that’s exactly what we did, multiple times.

One of the most frustrating moments from the entire week was the day we raced the Premier Mixed 500m heats. This was our forte and what we had practiced for the past three years. We had made it all the way to semifinals without any eliminations and we sat in the boat at the starting line, knowing it was our race to take. The horn blew and we surged on the start. We were one seat ahead of everyone else. Two ahead, with the others close behind. The boats were so close together you could hear five other drummers screaming jumbled inside your head. We hit the 250m halfway mark, and with one push from the mid-body of the boat, our stroke rate ramped up to something impossible and our piece fell apart. Three boats passed us. It ended so quickly we didn’t even know what happened.

We were 0.5 seconds away from getting into Premier Mixed Grand Finals that day. GRAND FINALS. We could have achieved greatness. We sat in our tent defeated, sitting in deafening silence. Not only were our coaches disappointed in us, we knew it was on ourselves to just race just like how we had practiced it every time and we failed to do so. All we had to do was walk through the open door, yet we shut it on ourselves.

The bottom line wasn’t that we were completely unprepared fitness-wise or paddling-wise for Worlds (although, we had to work on that too) – a lot of it was the lack of emotional skill. The ability to regulate your competitive temperament and your emotional IQ in the middle of a race is critical to staying resilient to the pressure of the other teams. Needless to say, we didn’t fare well when a boat was next to us. It made us nervous… and guess what? We lost the mental game. World competition demands perfection so immaculate, one mistake can make you fall behind in those seemingly small milliseconds.  Lesson learned.

We’ve had a couple good pieces and learned a lot from our bad ones. Every time we got off the boat, we talked about what needed to be fixed and what adjustments had to be made. I loved how we became increasingly aware of ourselves the next piece around.  I think that this ability to assess each part of our stroke by being our own best critic was fundamental in the growth of each paddler and at the end of the day, that’s what’s most important. A lot of the teams came to Worlds to medal, but we came for the experience, and in the process, we learned more about ourselves than we had expected to.

After our last race, we gathered per usual, but this time, we wrapped our arms around each other as my teammates shared how much CAU meant to them along with all the great things we were able to accomplish together. One paddler said it best: “It feels damn good to be paddling with others who only want to be the best.” And it’s true. These were the teammates who inspired me to get out on the water every day after work, drove hundreds of miles to get to clinics and practices up and down California, put in that extra effort to make sure we could win by that extra second, paddled multiple times a day, and sacrificed a lot of money to be at worlds. I’m beyond grateful for the opportunity. Til this day, CAU is home.


Realizations Post-Ravenna:

At the end of the day, California United fulfilled the vision of developing collegiate paddlers into international athletes. The fact that many teams came up to congratulate our efforts showed that we demonstrated ourselves to be a worthy contender on the world stage. CAU may have brought this team together temporarily for the opportunity to experience high level racing, but now these paddlers are permanent examples to their home teams, the coaches of students and adults alike, and most importantly, the organizers, mentors, and the founders of projects and new ideas.

California, now I urge you to take this step forward.
CAU did a lot for the community of California but was only able accomplish so much these past three years. Don’t settle for being mediocre. I want to see individuals challenge each other, fostering a diverse, healthy, and competitive atmosphere for growth in the community of California. I want to see small boats racing each other, people getting faster, coaches collaborating with other coaches, more competitive edge, a network of relationships spanning up and down California and across the country, forums for discussions and ideas, new projects underway…
There are many things to be done and it starts with you.


Acknowledgement:

And now, for some recognition because you guys have NO idea how much work it takes to make a team from scratch. There is so much time spent selecting and testing individual paddlers, planning multiple races and clinics for 40 paddlers spread throughout California, and then figuring out how to bring them all to Italy.

Thank you –
– CDBA, NAC, SCDBC for your continuous support and use of facilities.
– Diane McCabe and Scott Matsunami for being our “program parents” and fighting for us on every level.
– William Lin and Jason Cheng for being the best possible head coaches; you have both taught us dragon boat that literally changed how we see paddling for the rest of our lives.
– And last but not least – our fearless leader Alexander Yu because this guy knew exactly what this team needed each step of the way down to each individual need, and basically put his life on hold for three years to see us succeed. You might not have known this, but you changed the face of paddling in California. Thank you.

Biggest coaching lessons from being a classroom teacher

At my old job working as a retail associate at The North Face, a coworker once told me: Of the 100% of people who walks through our doors, 80% of people will already be sure if they will buy something or not. It doesn’t matter what you say to them, they have already made up their minds. Our job is to figure out, as quickly as possible, who the other 20% are, and do our best to sway them to buy something.

Now, at my job teaching, I find a similar story. I can expect roughly 10-15% of students who will strive for an A, no matter how poorly I teach the material. I can expect another 45-50% of the class who will somewhat master the content, as long as I try to teach it. That adds up to be about a 60% passing rate for my class, not particularly great. The trick here, as my old colleague pointed out, is to find out as quickly as possible who the 40% are who needs more help, and do my best to help them.

Figure out as quickly as you can who your program isn’t working for, and find the best ways to support them.

Here are the biggest lessons I’ve learned from teaching that has helped me better understand my job as a coach of a team.

1. You haven’t taught it until they’ve learned it. Merely teaching or telling someone is not enough. A coach’s job is to support.
2. Treating everyone the same does not maximize each person’s potential. A coach’s job is to be equitable, not equal.
3. Even though you have to manage 30+ people at one time, you cannot teach things one way. A coach’s job is to tailor to the people.
4. Everyone wants to be the best, not everyone believes that they can. You need to hold everyone accountable, whether they want it or not. A coach’s job is to believe.

Translating into dragon boat, an effective coaching program:

1. Has frequent one-on-one time between coach and paddler (at least a few times each practice) that allows for constant dialogue. Paddler and coach both need to know what is working well and what can be improved.
2. Has multiple points of access for paddlers: full boat instructions, visual demonstrations, analogies, powerpoint lectures, diagrams, videos, etc, etc. Paddlers can and will learn. You just need to find the way.
3. Structures practice so that each paddler works on what will be most beneficial for him/her. Take into account the different skill levels and needs of your paddlers. For example, if most of the team needs help rotating correctly, it means that there’s a small group that already does. What do you do with the group who needs the technique help, and what do you do with the group that doesn’t? The first challenge is to see that not EVERYONE needed the technique work.
4. Know your paddlers. Some paddlers might break down in technique after 2 minutes because they are exhausted, while others might break down because they are mindlessly paddling. Know the difference, and hold each person accountable for what you know they can achieve, not what they think they cannot.

–Shou

Turning Adversities into Opportunities

For the last 4 to 5 years, a college team (or two) has made it to the Competitive A final in the San Francisco International Dragon Boat Festival (SFIDBF), the biggest race in California. This year, UCSD came in first overall at the San Diego Dragon Boat Race, a local regatta. None of the other adult teams even came close, with the second place team finishing 5 seconds behind. Can you imagine a time when collegiate dragon boat teams were not seen as competitive, not only compared to adult teams, but to high school teams as well? As a freshman, I remember deciding whether or not to join the UCLA team, because I knew it wouldn’t be as competitive as my experience with the Lowell High School team. Presently, collegiate teams are so good that it’s becoming a part of high school paddlers’ decisions as to what school to attend. Crazy.

Not only were college teams less competitive several years ago, they were not supposed to be as competitive, with odds seemingly stacked against them. Turnover is rapid, because veteran paddlers will eventually graduate. They often have brand new paddlers who will only have at most four years to master the sport. Colleges also lack dedicated, seasoned coaches with vast competition experience. Practice on water during the week is circumstantially impossible. When I was in college, I heard so many of my peers complain that adult teams had all the advantages. Adult teams have highly qualified coaches, can recruit anyone, and practices three times a week on water. “Can you imagine if college teams had that? If only we had these perks, then we would be competitive.” However, that was the mindset of the past.

Not only were college teams less competitive, they were not supposed to be as competitive.

Currently however, the script has turned. Now, I often hear adult teams envious of college teams. “It seems so much easier to organize practices when everyone’s on the same campus. Getting everyone to the gym together must be a breeze, because it’s so close. Attendance is probably never an issue, as college students don’t have outside responsibilities, and everyone hangs out together anyways. More importantly, those darn college kids have all the energy in the world. It’s no wonder they perform so well!” Of course, those assumptions are all untrue. Running a college team has its own difficulties, just like running an adult team.

There are two truths here: (1) the grass is always greener on the other side and (2) our own grass is the only one we can tend to, so tend to it.

One of the defining characteristics of mastery is that a master makes his craft look effortless. So, when we look at a great team, the default assumption is that everything came together effortlessly. Most people will just gloss over the details and overlook all the obstacles that even great teams once faced. Most people don’t take the time to think about the years it must’ve taken for those teams to construct the correct team culture. Here lies one of the biggest fallacies to which we fall prey: The grass always seems greener on the other side, because we don’t look close enough. If we did, we will realize that adult paddlers all have full-time jobs and other responsibilities that put dragon boating on a lower priority. We will realize that college teams are always on the whim of recruiting and building good leaders from scratch every year. Things are never easy, no matter how easy they look from the outside. This shift in mindset gives you a real appreciation of those great teams. This isn’t just recognition of greatness, it’s the understanding of greatness. It’s knowing the how and the process to succeed. How exactly did teams like UCLA, Space Dragons, and Ripple Effect build up their teams from such humble beginnings? What kind of work must they have done? What are they doing right? Shifting your mind to ask these questions also affords you agency to work on your own situation. When you think about and understand how others have worked through their obstacles, it could offer you ideas on how to work through your own as well. This has given me a sense of control over my situation, instead of always thinking that nothing could be done about the cards I was dealt. Through hard work and innovation, I can get through whatever circumstances I am in, because I have seen others get through theirs already.

This isn’t just recognition of greatness, it’s the understanding of greatness.

This idea comes in 3 layers, each getting closer to the truth:
– Champions win not because they don’t experience adversity.
– Champions win despite their adversity. Champions are the ones willing to work around them.
– Champions win because of their adversity. Champions learn from their adversity and turn them into opportunities.

When I think back, it’s really amazing how each time I had an innovation I am proud of, it was in response to a constraint. Because having weekend practices weren’t enough to teach proper technique, I started pushing pool practices at UCLA. The results weren’t as good as having weekday water practices. They were better. Pool practices gave me a place to slow down and discuss mechanics with paddlers, so paddlers can ask questions if they were confused. Veteran paddlers weren’t buying into the new stroke until they fully understood the details at pool practice. In another example, when people weren’t going to the gym because they didn’t know how to lift weights, I took every person on the team to the gym and taught them how. Instead of having a team of individuals already going to the gym independently, we encouraged people to go together, do similar workouts together, and bond with one another. Again, better than if the constraint wasn’t there to begin with.

Recently, I have tried to actively change my thinking. Each time I see an obstacle or a constraint, instead of seeing it as a nuisance, I see it as an opportunity to grow and innovate. For example, last year, when our head coach discovered he had to move away for work, the leadership of the team found itself in a huge bind. Ever since our last leadership team, a singular head coach led the team, ran the show. It was a huge loss to be missing his leadership. With this constraint, however, came the chance to grow and innovate. It was perhaps only because we had this obstacle, that we were pushed to build a system that no longer relied on a single person to coach the whole team. Now, our team has a growing coaching staff of eight, who can run practice regardless of whether the head coach is there or not. Not only did we figure out a way to overcome these unfortunate circumstances, we took the constraint as an opportunity to build something even better than before.

Here’s another quick example. When we were facing extreme attendance woes and lack of motivation, we were pushed to ask “How do we get people to want to go to practice?” Instead of seeing this as a pain, we saw this as an opportunity to innovate. How do we give people value at practice, so they can feel like it was worth it to come out? Now, we have a structure and programming for practices that people enjoy. I am grateful for our lack of attendance and motivation from before. Because of it, we pushed to make practices better – way better than if we never had these initial issues to overcome.

Instead of seeing adversities as a pain, we saw this as an opportunity to innovate.

So, no matter how much easier it seems that other teams have it, no matter how many obstacles your team faces, have a positive and open mindset to learn from others, and have a can-do attitude to turn your adversities into opportunities. Innovate and make your new situation better than your last. Finally, be excited about your difficulties ahead, because they will be the stepping stones to the next level!

-Shou