My life was always about playing ball, mostly baseball as I grew up. Therefore, I was always at the playground on Chancellor Avenue. This was a hotbed for sports activity in the Weequahic section of Newark, New Jersey in the 1960’s. From Monday through Saturday there were countless games taking place. Baseball at Untermann Field and softball on the blacktop. Basketball games, and volley ball games were always being played.
Mr Barone, Mr Drexel and Mr Harris oversaw the games that were played. Sometimes they even played in those games. They ran the show. Organizing teams for a given game or creating teams for a new league they took charge and got things done. I did not realize some of the things they did that impacted my life until I left the playground scene many years later.
I looked up to all three of them, for being fair, for listening when I had a problem and for being funny. Each one of them was unique. Each one of them has taught me in their own style.
Mr Barone or Mr B as most of us called him was about three feet tall ( really about five foot two ). The only thing that was small about him was his height. Playing ball with the teenagers was one of his favorite activities. He often was the director that played in the games when we needed another guy. I would also see Mr B talking to some kids in the batting cage teaching them some fundamentals about hitting. He always made himself available either on the playing field or by helping some kids with their homework. I appreciated that he gave of himself. So did many of the other kids. A great guy.
Mr Drexel or Billy Boy as we sometimes affectionately called him was the jokester. No matter how serious I thought the situation was Mr Drexel had his way of making the incident a little less severe. His lightening up of the moment always made us laugh. I loved that about him. He was noted for his chicanery on the field or basketball court. He would find an edge and use it. All within the rules. A Drexel play was referred to bending the rule as far as you could. Hidden ball tricks in baseball and sneaky out of bounds plays in basketball were two of his specialties. What was great was how often they worked. He knew just when to use them. A great guy.
Mr Harris seemed like the leader of the group. The other directors called him Bucky. I always called him Mr Harris. He spoke sternly and was always fair. He was the law. I had the utmost respect for him. I thought it was an honor to go to the store and buy him his Garcia Vega cigars. When he asked me to go I felt like I won something. A great guy.
For me these three guys were my mentors as I was growing up. Providing me with guidance on and off the field. There was always one of them at the playground to talk to or get things going so we could play an organized game. I learned about fairness, being stern and about taking the edge off in a seriousness situation from them.
And while I have not spoken to any of them in quite some time, Felice Barone, William Drexel and Bucky Harris will always be in my hall of fame. They meant a lot to me.
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About The Author
Aron Wallad has been a baseball lover for over 40 years. Writing about his favorite subject, baseball, has been a blessing. You will enjoy the heartwarming stories, the unusual statistics and inspiring quotes. But mostly you will love the heartwarming stories that hit a home run to your heart.
http://www.baseballsprideandjoy.com/index.php?tag=3amigos
awallad@optonline.net
Working with your own coach can be a significant investment - even with hourly rates differing vastly across regions and countries - you are still paying a fair amount of money for the expert knowledge that will help you achieve your health and fitness goals and look after one of, if not, THE most important assets you have - your body.
So how should you choose a trainer and what are the things you need to look out for, ask them and receive from them?
First and foremost, you MUST ensure your trainer is fully and properly qualified. This means they should hold, at the very least:
1) A CPR certification - if you do have any accidents or problems your coach must know how to deal with them and ensure your safety at all times.
2) A recognised fitness/personal training qualification - this obviously differs from country to country and there are only a few internationally-recognised qualifications. Most countries have a self-regulating body - in the UK this is REPS (the Register of Exercise Professionals) and you should ensure your coach is registered here before you even consider hiring them. If in doubt, ask your trainer which qualifications they have - most won’t be offended but will be keen to show them off.
Once you are satisfied they hold the necessary basic qualifications, here are a few pointers to look out for. A ‘good’ versus a ‘bad’ coach should:
1. Ideally hold additional qualifications and be updating these all the time. As our scientific knowledge about the body increases, the methods with which we train the body change. If your trainer qualified 5 years ago but has done no further qualifications since, it’s likely their training methods & knowledge will be out of date. A leader in health & fitness training is the CHEK Institute - their practitioners work with some of the world’s top athletes, including PGA Golfers and Olympians. A CHEK-trained coach (even at the basic level) will usually be far more highly qualified than the personal trainer with a “typical” national training qualification.
2. Address more than just your fitness levels & give you more than just a fitness programme. Exercise is only a small part of what makes us “fit” and “healthy”. To help you achieve your health & fitness goals, your coach should address several areas of your life - your nutrition & eating habits, sleep patterns, stress levels - all of these affect & determine how likely you are to achieve your goals and if not addressed, can prevent you from attaining optimum levels of health & fitness.
3. Perform some initial assessments. In order to help you get where you want to be, your coach must know where you are starting from. You should be asked to complete a PAR-Q (Physical Activity Readiness questionnaire) at a minimum to ensure your safety & ability to perform exercise and your trainer should perform some basic tests such as weight, blood pressure, perhaps body composition, girth measurements, lung capacity and aerobic fitness or strength. If more qualified, additional assessments such as postural analysis, spinal curve measurements and abdominal wall function should be tested to design a more accurate programme. And if your coach is really good, they will assess your physiological load levels to determine what type of exercise (strength training, cardio, meditation, stretching) your body is currently able to cope with. This is essential if you want to know whether what you’ve paid them has been worth it - if you can’t see the progress or differences working with a coach has made because they forgot to measure a baseline when you started with them, then although you may feel fitter, slimmer or stronger you won’t have hard facts & figures to prove it.
4. Discuss your goals with you and adjust any unrealistic expectations you may have. To get your business, a trainer may promise that you will lose half a stone of fat in 2 weeks or you’ll get the body of your dreams in a month even though you’ve never exercised before and are 3 stone overweight - this does you no good. You will have unrealistic expectations & goals from the outset and will be much more likely to become de-motivated & disillusioned when you realise you haven’t lost a stone in a week. Whilst a good trainer will not discourage you from your ultimate goals, they should at least educate you on the realistic progressions you are likely to make.
5. Design a programme that is tailored especially to your needs and your body. This may sound obvious but I have seen plenty of trainers run through identical training sessions with every one of their clients. This ties in with the third point - if they haven’t completed assessments & initial tests on you, then they won’t know what your individual needs are. You are paying them to provide you with a fully customised service - that’s why it’s called ‘personal training ‘!
6. Track your progress at every session & be working to a periodisation plan - you may not see them carrying a clipboard or doing this during the session but your trainer should know when they need to adjust your programme and what adjustments to make. If they’ve been winging your sessions and haven’t been planning & tracking your progress, how will they know what adjustments to make after a few weeks? They should have designed & be following a periodised training plan to ensure you are achieving your goals during each phase of your training.
7. Show you how to exercise safely & correctly - again this may seem a given but if your trainer gives you a programme and then just leaves you to it, they are putting you at risk and not only will you probably struggle to achieve your goals without their attention, you may even injure yourself. Similarly, if they are supervising you, they should constantly be giving you tips, adjustments or even just positive affirmations that you are performing your exercises correctly - not watching the sport on TV or chatting to other staff & clients in the gym.
All of the above are nothing however, if you don’t actually get on with your coach! They may be the most highly qualified person you can find - but if spending an hour with them (sometimes 3 or more times a week) is like spending an hour in the dentist’s chair or worse, then you probably aren’t going to get the full benefit of working with that trainer. They don’t have to be your best buddy, just ensure that you feel comfortable with them, can trust them and that you do enjoy your sessions - in a masochistic kind of way!
Lea Woodward is a fully qualified Health & Wellbeing Coach. She specialises in exercise for women, weight loss and corrective postural exercise.
She is C.H.E.K. trained and is also Nottinghamshire’s only certified Intermediate Metabolic Typing Advisor. Using a holistic approach, Lea addresses all 6 foundational factors of health to help her clients feel at their best for long term health. Check out the website http://www.activone.co.uk or http://www.activone.com