Karl Lasis’ aim as a coach is to be inclusive and help all athletes reach their potentials. With over 40 years of experience he has certainly achieved this.
Kate Matthews caught up with Karl for a chat about coaching and how he is dealing with Covid19.
Kate: Who are you?
Karl: Karl Lasis, age 68, coaching out of K2 Crawley, Lewes, and any club that can use my help.
Kate: Which athletes do you/have you coached?
Karl: The athletes I have coached/coach are too numerous to list, perhaps mentioning my two sons, Matthew and James; Hammer, Discus and Shot events. Achievements by my athletes have been county champions, National and Schools champions and schools’ International. Age range I coach; the youngest age 4 and oldest age 80. Additionally, I mentor other coaches, and have done this for a number of years now. I am really keen to develop female participation in coaching throws, to improve the gender balance. However, any person wishing to start a coaching career is free to contact me.
Kate: How long have you been coaching and how did you get into it?
Karl: I just started coaching while competing, trying to help people acquire the required skills, and appropriate conditioning etc. Then went on to take coaching exams up to Senior Club coach and level 4 (Old system). Was actively involved in the National Coach Development Programme until funding was withdrawn. Was invited to coach as part of an England throws team that went to Lieria Portugal. My total coaching time is roughly 45 years.
Kate: Were you an athlete before a coach?
Karl: I was an athlete, but that was some time ago, and health challenges have put paid to competing. Coaching is different, though still a challenge, but critically, I have been careful to put my “competing ego” into a cupboard, and locked it away. Failure to do that, stops many athletes from taking up or being successful coaches.
Kate: How often do you coach?
Karl: I coach mainly Mondays and Wednesdays, and occasionally Sundays when facilities are available. I run a full skills and conditioning programme based on macro and micro cycles, with emphasis changes as we move through the year, but principally never losing sight of the important macro and micro skill elements.
Kate: What are the highs and lows of being a coach?
Karl: Coaching highs for me are watching an athlete absorb skills and become more proficient, then accepting the required conditioning work, and seeing the physical changes that result from the work, and the fruition of improved performance. The lows are negative people, and negative unhelpful attitudes.
Kate: How do you work out your sessions and keep them up to date?
Karl: Each session has to be tailored per athlete, capability and body type and build. The key is minimising boredom, ringing the changes and adding new challenges to each session. The concept of “up to date” is actually more about preventing athletes becoming stale, and using developing knowledge relating to development to enhance training methods.
Kate: What is/are your proudest moment(s)?
Karl: My proudest moments as a coach have always been watching athletes celebrate their success with their entire family, and seeing the happiness it brings to the whole family from grandparents to young siblings
Kate: What have been the hardest moments?
Karl: Watching youngsters succumb to Cancer and other serious illnesses, where I am absolutely unable to help, other than to offer support.
Kate: How do you motivate your athletes to keep going and focus?
Karl: From my point of view, success is a huge motivating factor, because my events are heavily skills based, even one session can bring about measurable improvement, and seeing a young athlete smile when they throw an implement further than they thought they ever could, is as much a motivator for me as it is for the athlete.
Kate: What has coaching athletics brought to your life?
Karl: A lot of fun, enjoyment and involvement with a huge number of people of all ages, creeds and ethnicities.
Kate: Has coaching changed over the years?
Karl: This question is really interesting. Every 12 years or so the athletics governing body gets a new person, who wants to make their mark, and decides to institute changes to the way we train, or brings in a famous coach from America. I have sat through about 4 of these, and it’s all new, “ we’re going to do things differently now”, “studies show “etc. At the end of the day, what you do never changes, it just has a different name or “tag”, the name may have changed, but the basic methodology never changes, for the simple reason that human morphology has not noticeably changed across a century. We know more about the biological functions, which helps, where some old myths, such as no weight training for children have been debunked. All in all, we do know more than before and have made appropriate adjustments, according to scientific research on genetics, endocrinology, and Musculo-skeletal development. So, yes, we know a little bit more than we did.
Kate: What are the main difficulties that face you and your athletes in normal times?
Karl: My main difficulties are access to facilities. Where I coach, we are heavily reliant on a leisure centre, with absolutely no access to weights facilities, unless the kids each stump up a huge amount of money per month with restricted access, which in reality is untenable. Unfortunately, any council-based facility will always have the default setting of “No you can’t.”
Kate: What have been the main difficulties facing you and your athletes during Covid19, and how have you overcome these?
Karl: Leisure Centres, and therefore throwing facilities were closed and unavailable. Unfortunately, we cannot just rock up to a park and start throwing hammers or discus for safety reasons, apart from a lack of underfoot surface. This meant that athletes did skill drills at home, and training was road running, and bodyweight exercises, or if someone was wealthy enough to have a home gym, they could do some Olympic lifting.
Kate: Would you encourage others to become coaches and why?
Karl: Coaching is a great pastime and a good learning experience, and very rewarding, as I have said before, I am very happy to mentor any throws coaches.
Kate: How could the world of athletics be improved for both athletes and coaches?
Karl: Short of setting up a replacement governing body, we need resourcing for grass roots sport, and a recognition that athletics in particular is an open inclusive sport for all, with access to training areas, and gyms. This is absolutely vital, but can only really be achieved with a Government level initiative. Sport England is too football focussed, and that is a sport that is more than capable of self-funding, whereas the Cinderella sports, such as athletics is where attention needs to be focussed.