Specialized or pigeon holed?
Take home message
be aware of the balance between breadth and depth of your skill set.
For Coaches
Regularly review your skill set for an absence of a skill or a weaker skill. Network with colleagues and mentors to balance your development.
For Athletes
All athletes require general basic skills. Is there a specialist set piece skill set that may benefit you and the team. Could you help your coach with their SWOT, like they do with yours?
Although I don’t consider myself an expert at any S&C subset, I’d like to think I am somewhat capable in a number of areas. You could say I am a generalist. Lately I have wondered if there is a distinction between being a specialist or pigeonholed. In my time at the Force I “specialized” as the strength coach, responsible entirely for gym programming. The Head S&C designed the excellent on-field conditioning. We both attended gym and conditioning sessions coaching together, but we had our areas of specialty. Rehab was directed by our excellent physio’s and I assisted with gym transition. I probably specialized in the strength at the Force as I had come from the WA Institute of Sport where I was an S&C coach confined to the gym (perhaps pigeon holed there). Reflecting on my move to hockey, fewer conditioning staff required me to put the “conditioning” back in “Strength and Conditioning Coach”.
There are some S&C settings where an abundance of resources and personnel has allowed coaches to specialize, allowing them to really fine their craft and deliver exceptional service to their athletes. However, I wonder if it can lead to becoming pigeonholed. It’s a fine line, and just an observation of some roles and transitions I’ve noticed. A person who has become so specialized in their sport that they find it hard to be accepted by other sports. Maybe its people choosing not to move out of a sport – if you love it, why leave the sport? Or people love the niche they’ve created – they love being the rehab coach or the GPS specialist and could merrily do it for years. One could easily reason that a generalist like me is actually spread too wide and thin to be an expert in any particular setting and is equally disadvantaged. I’m a pigeonholed generalist!
I believe having a specialty is important. I’ve seen some tremendous operators and colleagues in the Australian Football League (AFL) sport science / conditioning departments who are genuine experts in the area. In my current environment, my role has changed several times in 7 years – from leading the men’s team, to leading both men’s and women’s teams, to being the point of contact for all rehab across both programs, to not doing rehab at all and finally back to leading the men’s team. During that time, we have transitioned from 3 staff, to 1, to 1.5 staff and now back to 1. Even during the period where I was primarily responsible for rehab of players, I would never have considered myself at the level of many AFL rehab specialists I know – true experts. We have had an athlete undergoing an ACL rehab work with another coach who is much better than ACL rehab than I am. I know that is not my specialty and I’m more than happy (and comfortable) to have the other coach take the rehab. They are better at it than I and the athlete will benefit.
It's an interesting dilemma – do I expand a new skill set or deepen an existing one. I suppose it depends on an honest individual SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) assessment and career desire. An important process of our personal development is knowing where we want to go and perhaps more importantly, where we are now.