I was recently interviewed by the European Gymnastics Blog about my adventures here working with the Swiss National Team. They were kind enough to let me repost this here. SO PLEASE FOLLOW THEM!

Tony Retrosi is a gymnastics coach from the USA who owns two gymnastics clubs and runs the consulting company Gym Momentum. Having spent some time in Italy as a consultant with the Italian gymnastics federation, Tony was offered an interim role coaching the Swiss national WAG team following the dismissal of the previous coaching staff in September 2021. He stepped in to coach Switzerland’s best gymnasts last October, alongside 1992 Olympian Wendy Bruce Martin, who has since accepted a permanent role as the team’s head coach, and Switzerland’s most decorated gymnast, Giulia Steingruber, who saw out the end of her contract with the federation by helping to coach her former teammates following her retirement from the sport. Tony’s commitments back home in the USA mean that he can’t stay permanently at the National Sports Centre in Magglingen, where the national team trains, but he plans to continue working with the team as a consultant. Tony kindly agreed to share his thoughts and impressions of the team and talk about their goals.

“Gymnastics federations in many countries have had a very difficult quad and Switzerland did not escape problems.  When Wendy and I were hired, there was already new leadership within the STV (Swiss gymnastics federation). I have not met everyone but the confidence I have in the leadership cannot be understated.  Beatrice Wertli (Director) and David Huser (Head of Elite Sport) provide great leadership. It really is a pleasure to be part of their team. 

Every day I look forward to going into the gym.  The girls work so hard. They believe in themselves and believe they can be great. There will always be setbacks and bad days. But the girls know that tomorrow is another day. There is a mutual trust and respect. I am going to be a total mess when it is time for me to go back to the USA. I have been coaching for more than 30 years. These are some of the best young women I have ever had the pleasure to work with. I came to Switzerland to try to help out a team that needed a coach.  I hoped to make a difference. Instead, I made a family.”

Could you describe what the coaching team in Magglingen looks like right now? Are there any other coaches working alongside you and Wendy? Are there any plans for Giulia (Steingruber) to return as an assistant coach?

“Currently, the coaching team is mainly Wendy and I. We have Dessi (Buergi), our choreographer, a few days a week.  I know STV is interviewing coaches to replace me.  For me, this was always an interim position. Although I absolutely love it here, I own 2 gymnastics clubs in the USA as well as some other business ventures which make it impossible for me to stay.  I plan on remaining on as a consultant and helping out with whatever is necessary in the future. Coaches education has always been a passion of mine. I am hoping to become more involved in that aspect as well. Once a second coach is hired to assist Wendy, they will likely look for a third coach. Giulia was such a fantastic part of our team. She made the transition possible. Currently she is recovering from foot surgery and has decided to take some time away from the sport.  That being said, she stops in the gym every once in a while. She is a valuable resource that I hope will at some time continue on as a coach.”

What does a typical day at the gym look like? How many hours do the gymnasts train? Are there dedicated days for working on floor choreo, upgrades, etc.?

“Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, we have two trainings per day. Morning is typically warm up, event conditioning, beam, vault, dance or floor routines.  Afternoon training is a longer warm up and line drills.  Bars, floor, finish beam and then strength. Having the sports scientists from Magglingen, like Christoph Schaerer, is a great benefit. They set up our strength program. Wednesdays and Saturdays are just one training. We tend to focus on basics and recovery. Every day has a little different rhythm to it.  Different assignments and expectations. .We are just beginning to focus on routines. We have DTB (Pokal) Cup in March that begins the season. Every day we try to leave some time for goals and upgrades.”

The gymnasts on the Swiss national team come from all over Switzerland and speak various languages. Have you and Wendy had any issues with language or cultural barriers? How are the gymnasts adapting to being coached in English?

“We are lucky that all the girls are very good in English. I do speak some Italian but no German or French.  Wendy and I have both learned a good deal of German and Swiss-German. There really have been no cultural issues of any real consequence.  There are numerous things that get lost in translation or mistranslated.  We bought a birthday card for one of the girls, deliberately trying to be cute and juvenile, only to find out that the card said, ‘congratulations on your baby’. Oops.”

What have been the biggest challenges and the biggest surprises for you over the past few months?

“Coming from the USA, we were used to working longer hours at a higher intensity level. The physical preparation of athletes in the USA is just instilled from a very young age.  Here we have learned to work smarter, not just harder. We are also used to having our gyms very crowded. Here we have more space to train and fewer athletes in a group. It is not uncommon for there to be 10 gymnasts in a group in the USA.  Here we have 13 women on our team. The gym now feels busy if there are 30 athletes in the gym (men and women). At my gyms in the USA, there is going to be 30 team gymnasts and another 30- 40 kids in classes all at the same time. What I miss is the mat shapes like wedges, barrels etc that I have gotten used to for drill work. Again, coming from the USA, Switzerland wasn’t really on our radar. I am pleased with the talent level and work ethic.  These girls are hungry. They want to be successful. They have risen to every challenge we have presented.”

What are the main goals for the national team in 2022? And for the rest of the quad? 

“Right now we are staying focused on a good showing at European Championships. There is a lot that goes into that. The new code presents challenges, some gymnasts coming off of injury. We were not able to spend enough time getting back to basics and building strength. We came in (to work with the national team) 10 days before World Championships in 2021. We really are not looking past Europeans at this point. From there, World Championships.”

Some of the gymnasts are recovering from injuries, for example Leonie and her knee and Anastassia and her ankles. Can you tell us how they’re doing?

“In gymnastics, some days, it feels like everyone is coming off an injury. Even everyday ‘aches and pains’ can limit a gymnast’s training. Leonie (Meier) is swinging bars and beginning to do some skills on floor and beam. This was a major surgery so she is still a few months out. Ana (Pascu) is making great progress. She does one hard leg event per day. Right now she is tumbling on the rod floor and vaulting into soft landing. Anina (Wildi), who was injured at World Championships, is back at about 90%. It is important when coming back from injury to go slow. If you rush back, you are just going to get injured again. As a coach, it breaks my heart when a gymnast gets injured. We try to get the gymnasts as strong as possible. Strength is injury prevention.”

We’ve recently seen lots of videos of the gymnasts training upgrades and some cool skills, such as Livia’s double front and Chiara’s DTY. Do you think the gymnasts have gained confidence over the past six months and if so, what has contributed to that?

“The gymnasts know that the gym is their safe space. They know that the only way to improve is to get outside their comfort zone.  When we started we focused on strength, basics and drills. Now they have the strength and understanding to do the skills. Confidence was pretty low when we arrived. Now they have swagger. They believe in themselves.  They believe in the process. They believe in the team. Wendy and I are pretty positive people. We don’t push the gymnasts. We lead them. We believe in them.”

We’re seeing more and more European elites going to the US to compete in NCAA. Do you know if there’s any interest in this among the current Swiss gymnasts? 

“Our main focus is preparing a team for Europeans and Worlds.  To share information throughout the RLZs (Swiss regional performance centres) on technique, on philosophy and what we need in gymnasts coming up here. For some gymnasts, they know they are not in consideration for Europeans and Worlds and that college in USA would be a great experience. If that is their goal, we are happy to work with them. But not to the detriment of the overall Swiss program.”

Last night I watched Moneyball . The film is based on the 2003 nonfiction book by Michael Lewis, an account of the Oakland Athletics baseball team’s 2002 season and their general manager Billy Beane’s attempts to assemble a competitive team. In the film, Beane (Brad Pitt) and assistant general manager Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), faced with the franchise’s limited budget for players, build a team of undervalued talent by taking a sophisticated sabermetric approach to scouting and analyzing players. Of course there was pushback from others inside the organization because that is “not the way that it is done”. It got me thinking about other biases we may have in the gymnastics world that effect our decisions. Then other day I wrote about Survivor’s Bias and the Peter Principle , two concepts which EVERYONE in the gymnastics world needs to be aware of.

We all have biases. They’re our brain’s way of reducing the energy it takes to deal with the terabytes of information thrown at us every day. We connect the dots, fill in the gaps with stuff we already think we know, to then act as fast as we can. Great for avoiding sabre-tooth tigers. Not great for solving problems in the gym. Unfortunately, just knowing about biases won’t make them go away. We have to design our interactions to expose and avoid them as best we can.

1). Availability Bias

The availability bias is the natural human tendency to be more biased toward information that’s easy to access mentally or the most recent information we have received.

The real-world example is of a media-company executive who refused to accept that a small number of ‘cord-cutters’ would dramatically change the media landscape. The segment of people who wanted to watch what they wanted when they wanted was only 1.75 percent of the market at the time of the meeting (2009). And so the executive dismissed cord cutters as “inconsequential.”
The executive (and his company) completely missed the trend toward streaming content. 
It was challenging for executive to see the possibility of cord cutting simply because the concept wasn’t mentally accessible to them.

The last 2 years have showed us pretty much anything is possible from a postponed Olympic Games to a gymnast removing herself from the Olympics due to her mental health.

When making a decision, do your homework, take a little extra time.

2). Status quo bias 

Generally, humans prefer things to stay the same. We like things to feel normal.

This bias, of course, explains why feelings of depression and anxiety have soared during the pandemic. We simply don’t like things to throw off our present reality.
In gymnastics, however, it’s important to realize that status quo bias prevents coaches from remaining competitive. For example, most coaches almost always consider the risks of launching a new training plan or possibly going in a different direction for a group at vault: 
It may not work as well as we anticipate
There’s no way other coaches (or the owner of the gym) will go for it. 
The parents (and possibly other coaches) are looking for immediate results.  
As a result of these attitudes, coaches give up on plans which could vault them ahead. They stay within their comfort zones and avoid risk. That’s status quo bias in action. We prefer that things remain the same rather than risk a loss—an outcome that might not work out as well as expected. 
Here’s the key—in a world of exponential change, we’re often taking a bigger risk by not taking action and staying in place. 

FOLDING TOWELS

3). Egocentric bias

The egocentric bias means we tend to overweight our point of view over the point of view of others.

In business, leaders give in to egocentric bias when they pay more attention to data that supports their point of view and less attention to data that conflicts with it. In the gym we often look to others to validate our point of view and plan. We need people to give us other ideas. There needs to be discussion and discourse.
Since the world is a muddy place and data is often unclear, it’s harder for coaches to spot trends that don’t conform to their world view. And, as a result, they fail to incorporate that data into their decision-making. 
Pay attention to diverse voices and opinions.  

4). Affect heuristic bias

This bias means we pay more attention to things that spark a strong, intense emotional reaction.

For example, if we see information or data that alarm us, we are more likely to take action on it. If the data doesn’t deliver an emotional punch, we’re likely to ignore it.  When did you begin to make a plan at your gym for closing, cleaning or quarantining because of the pandemic? Did you wait until it was all over the news? I did.
That’s why the media executive discussed earlier was unaffected by a market segment of just 1.75%. It simply didn’t provide a strong enough response. The problem, of course, is that by acting only on data points that provoke a strong emotional response, small (but growing) trends often go unnoticed until they’re too late.

5). Overconfidence bias

People overestimate the likelihood that they are correctly judging a situation, and they underestimate the chance that they are wrong.

It is good to have confidence BUT is your confidence justified or is it based on faulty information?
We often think our opinion is the right one. True leaders, however, acknowledge that they might be wrong. They surround themselves with people who express a diversity of opinion—and they encourage those people to express their contrarian opinions openly. 
It’s said that innovators can see around corners. It’s true. They do see things the rest of us miss. But they do so because they’ve created the conditions for innovation to thrive—and those conditions start with the way they think.

When it is time to make decisions keep a few things in mind.

• Don’t Rush. Decisions thrown together at the last minute invariably include flaws that greatly affect the fairness, accuracy, and usefulness of the resulting evidence.
• Guard against unintended bias.
• Talk to a variety of people. Get contrasting points of view.

Unfortunately I cannot find the source of my notes on this. I believe it was from INC Magazine or Harvard Business Review. Apologies. When I find the source I will update.