A quick thought on what we want…
One of the scariest parts about social media is how it makes you want things you don’t actually want.
No one would look at my bank account and accuse me of being rich at this time. But, I definitely have enough. We’re able to cover our bills and invest some money each month.
Most of all, I have incredible autonomy. I love what I do for work and I get to spend a ton of time with my girls. I really do live the life that I want to live.
That is, until I go on social media.
Most recently, I’ve begun exploring Reddit and stumbled on the Fat FIRE subreddit. FIRE stands for Financial Independence Retire Early. Fat FIRE is the most luxurious, ridiculously rich version of that. The people on that subreddit live a very different life than me.
I immediately felt like what I was doing was wrong- I began to want what they had.
Social media made me want something I never actually wanted before.
How much worse is this for our kids?
Their brains are still developing. They really have no clue who they are or what they want out of life.
Then, they scroll through Instagram and TikTok and see photoshopped, carefully edited bodies. They see someone got a D1 scholarship offer. They see someone having a crazy night out on their Snapchat story.
Then, they think that’s what they need to chase. “If I just had that, then I’d be happy.”
Be mindful of your content diet. The mind is a powerful place- fuel it appropriately.
A deep dive on the 4-Coactives.
“Get out of the dang weight room, Zach…”
It finally hit me. I was doing it all wrong.
I was working my tail off. My work ethic was elite. But, I was working really hard at the wrong thing.
Just like at every other point in my life, I wanted to be a better football player. So, just like every other point, I went out to get stronger, faster, and more explosive.
But, unlike every other point in my life, I had already won that game. I was pound for pound the strongest player on the team, I had a vertical jump that was just a shade under 40”, and I was one of the two fastest safeties on the team.
Being athletic wasn’t my limiting factor on the field. My physical ability was fine.
You know what was holding me back? My man coverage.
I was good at breaking on the ball in zone, but I was average at best in man.
My technical skill in that area wasn’t up to par.
I needed to put the speed and strength development on cruise control and ramp up my 1-on-1 reps.
The Coactives of Athletic Performance
This all became much more clear when I learned about Fergus Connolly’s 4-Coactive model on how to view player development.
Athletic performance and athlete development can be viewed as the combination of 4 domains: tactical knowledge, technical skill, physical ability, and psychological ability.
It’s important to note that I’ve adapted the model and the following information is not an accurate depiction of what he describes. I would be remiss if I did not give credit where credit is due, though, as the information in this article was inspired and influenced by his work.
1.Tactical Knowledge
Tactical knowledge is an athlete’s understanding of the game and the game plan.
Do they know what to do and when to do it? Can they get up on the whiteboard and draw up the X’s and O’s for different situations?
Even more importantly, can they recognize schemes and adjust in real-time situations?
Without tactical knowledge, athletes would be running around blind with no cohesiveness or purpose.
If we consider the Coactives of Athletic Performance to be akin to the make-up of a car, tactical knowledge would be our GPS.
Our GPS has the road map, it tells us the plan to get from where we are to where we want to be. Without it, we might go really fast and make beautiful turns, but end up in the middle of nowhere.
2. Technical Skill
Technical skill refers to the movements that are specific to a sport.
This can be highly variable from sport to sport and highly interrelated with physical ability.
Examples of technical skills include shooting a basketball, catching a football, throwing a baseball, and serving a volleyball.
Some skills, like making a juke in football, have large physical ability foundations. Other skills, like dribbling a basketball, require higher levels of fine motor control.
Sticking with our car analogy, technical skill would be our steering. Our steering takes the power provided by the engine and harnesses it for where we want to go. Steering requires great precision to direct the movements needed.
3. Physical Ability
Physical abilities are the biomechanical, anatomical, and physiological qualities that lay the foundation for athletic performance.
Enhancing physical abilities serves to enhance the execution of tactics and technical skills.
Physical abilities are the engine and brakes on the car.
A bigger engine allows us to move at high speeds and get where we want in a hurry.
The brakes are just as important though, because if we can not control the power produced, a crash (injury) is inevitable.
Unlike tactical knowledge and technical skills, each sport shares common underlying physical abilities. These abilities are just expressed in variable proportions and have variable importance from sport to sport and position to position.
The physical abilities that we identify and train are strength, speed, agility, quickness, power, size/body comp, balance, mobility, stability, resilience, and capacity/conditioning.
It is important to note that human performance is too complicated for perfect systematization. As such, there is significant overlap between abilities. They are not distinctly separate entities.
4. Psychological Ability
Psychological abilities represent the mental state of an athlete before, during, and after competition.
Psychology is grossly undervalued in athletic performance, but that pendulum is starting to swing.
When in a poor psychological state, all other Coactives suffer. Tactics aren’t executed, techniques are shaky, and physical output is decreased.
Psychological abilities are the gas in our car. The gas fuels us. It gives us the energy needed to perform.
Without the right gas, the car won’t go anywhere, regardless of how strong of an engine we have, how smooth our steering is, or how clear our directions are.
Why does this matter?
Viewing athlete development through the 4-Coactive lens helps us make better decisions around where to invest our time and energy.
Sometimes spending more time with your pitching coach isn’t going to make a dent in your pitching velocity if you’re scrawny and can’t reverse lunge more than 45 lbs. You need to invest more of your time, energy, and focus in building a bigger engine in the Physical Ability domain.
Maybe you can run real fast and tackle really well, but you always mess up your gap responsibility, which makes you a complete liability on defense. You need to spend more time investing in your Tactical Knowledge.
Maybe your game day anxiety is out of control. Sure, everyone says a little pre-game jitters is normal. But, if you’re spending all day panicking, you need to invest in your Psychological Ability.
This isn’t an all or none situation. You don’t solely choose to focus on one Coactive and ignore the rest.
You decide which one needs more emphasis at that time.
Our pitcher from the example above might need to put the pitching lessons on maintenance mode and scale up the time spent in the weight room. But, that doesn’t mean he needs to stop pitching entirely.
Athlete development requires you to constantly re-evaluate and course correct in real time.
An extra note on delineation & communication
The 4-Coactives also help to improve communication between coaches and clinicians. It makes the delineation of responsibilities much more clear.
I, as a physical therapist and sports performance coach, have no business teaching you the skill of how to throw a curveball (technical) or the difference between a 6-2 and a 5-1 offense in volleyball (tactical).
Likewise, your sport coach doesn’t have the skillset to write strength and conditioning programs and teach you how to deadlift (physical).
That’s a wrap!
Please share this newsletter with anyone you think might be interested in learning how to help their kid get faster, stronger, healthier and ready for real-word success through long-term athlete development.
It means more than you know!
Be >,
Zach
Dr. Zach Guiser, PT, DPT, CSCS