Sports Coaching

1. Sports Coaching

2. What are the roles of the coach?

3. Skills of the Coach • Organise • Observe • Analyse • Adapt • Communicate • Improve performance

4. Coaching Philosophy • Develop a set of personal guidelines on how you will operate as a coach, including: • How you will communicate • Level of participant responsibility • Dealing with behavioural issues • Coaching for all, irrespective of ability or background • Dealing with winning, losing and cheating • Respect for others

5. Qualities of a good coach • Be enthusiastic and show enjoyment of coaching • Be self confident, consistent, friendly, and fair • Have a sense of humour and make things fun! • Dress appropriately • Be a good role model for the participants • Maintain discipline throughout the session • Be well organised • Include all participants, regardless of ability, disability, age, gender, and ethnic background.

6. Qualities of a Coach • Coaches should maintain high moral and ethical values. • Coaches must be completely honest with all those with whom their deals. • Coaches must maintain a true and lasting concern for all the athletes with whom their deals.

7. Coaching Styles • Authoritarian or autocratic • very strict, punish frequently • Business-like • not people-oriented • Democratic or cooperative • get along well with athletes, can be taken advantage of • Intense • focused on quality, uptight attitude • Easy-going and Casual • casual, submissive, not serious

8. Other Coaching Styles • Command - dictating how and what will be done!!! • Reciprocal – athletes taking responsibility for their development, with coach monitoring. • Problem Solving – athletes solve problems as set by coach. • Guided Discovery – coaches sets options for the athletes to explore and decide upon.

9. Coaching children and adolescences • Children and adolescences play sport to: • Have fun • Make friends • Learn new skills and increase confidence • Be challenged • Be actively involved and successful

10. Coaching children and adolescences • Why do children drop out of sport? • Not receiving ample game time • Coach or parents having an over-emphasis on winning • Being yelled at by coaches and parents • Being injured • Lacking success • Not playing with friends • Game is no longer fun • Other interests

11. Qualities of a Coach • Coaches must earn the respect of their athletes, the school staff and the community. • Coaches must be able to motivate their athletes as well as other school and community. • Coaches must be dedicated to their athletes, to the school, and to the community.

12. Qualities of a Coach • Coaches must be a strong disciplinarian. • Coaches must have obvious enthusiasm. • Coaches should possess a strong desire to win. • Coaches needs to be a good evaluator of talent.

13. Qualities of a Coach • Coaches must be knowledgeable about their sports. • Coaches should have a good sense of humor. • Coaches must be willing to work long hours. • Coaches must have a working knowledge of their sport.

14. Leadership in Coaching • Leaders provide direction; they set goals by having a vision of the future. • Leaders build a psychological and social environment that is conducive to achieving the team’s goal. • Leaders instill values, in part by sharing their philosophy of life.

15. Leadership in Coaching • Leaders motivate members of their group to pursue the goals of the group. • Leaders confront members of the organization when problems arise, and they resolve conflicts. • Leaders communicate.

16. Giving Feedback • Feedback should be: • positive, constructive and corrective • clear and concise • delivered as soon as possible after the action for which it is being provided • Use the ‘feedback sandwich’ approach:

17. Active Listening • Stop – Pay attention and don’t interrupt • Look– Make eye contact and get onto the same level as the person • Listen – Focus on what the person is saying • Respond– Restate what has been said and use open questions to prompt for further information

18. Communication Barriers • Different perceptions of words and actions • Only hearing what you want to hear • Using jargon • Not responding to questions • Judging too quickly • Looking for personal agendas • Allowing emotions to blur the message • Assuming ‘I’m right’ and not being open to other views • Asking antagonising questions

19. Coaching communication • Coaching is a two-way process (coach-athlete, athlete-coach) • Clear and consistent messages avoid miscommunication • Open questions will glean more information (eg. What do you think about the team’s new attack move?) • Good feedback (positive and corrective) • Active listening shows interest and gains additional information from your athlete • Non-verbal communication eg. Voice expression, is as important as verbal communication

20. Non-verbal communication • S- Squarely face the athlete • O- Open posture • L- Lean slightly forward • V- Verbal comments are relevant • E- Eye contact • R- Relax Effective ways to use non-verbal communication in a positive manner

21. Including Everyone

22. Difficult People • Try to stay calm and distance yourself personally from the issue • Keep your voice quiet and calm, this may encourage the other person to do the same • Don’t argue back or trade insults (no matter how unreasonable they seem) • Try to see past the emotions to define the actual problem and work at addressing this • Use active listening skills to address the problem.

23. Stages of Learning

24. Learning Styles • People have a sensory preference to obtain and remember knowledge. The senses include: • Visual sense • Auditory sense • Kinaesthetic sense • Tactile sense • Olfactory sense.

25. Developing Sports Skills • Select basic techniques, skills and tactics for beginner participants to learn • Break techniques and skills into parts, and providing key coaching/safety points • Allow adequate time for practise and observing participants’ performance • Progress the activity in a sequential manner • Ensure that the session is fun and provides variety.

26. Game Sense • Game sense is a coaching method that uses game-like activities as the focus of the session • Participants respond to challenges through activity, solve problems and contribute to what is done in a session • Traditional coaching sessions have focused on practising techniques. The game sense session focuses on the game and on learning “why” before “how”.

27. The Coach’s Role in Game Sense • The coach facilitates rather than directs • ‘the guide on the side, not the sage on the stage’ • Using questions and challenges encourages participants to solve problems • Questions/challenges will generally relate to a particular tactical aspect as follows: • Time: When will you (run, pass, shoot etc)? Why? • Space: Where will you move to? Where will you aim? • Risk: Which option will you take to pass to? Will you run or stay? Will you attack or defend? Why?

28. How to Modify Activities • Coaching style - eg; demonstrations or use of questions, role models and verbal instructions • How to score/win • Area - eg; size, shape or surface of the playing environment • Number of participants • Game rules- eg; number of bounces or passes • Equipment – eg; softer or larger balls, or lighter, smaller bats/rackets • Inclusion – eg; everyone has to touch the ball before the team can score • Time – eg; “How many … in 30 seconds?”

29. Game Sense Tips for Coaches

30. Group Management Engage the participant through: • Voice and Expression • Eye Contact • Signal for Attention • Asking Questions • Praise and Compliments • Quality Instructions • Notice Board

31. Formations and Routines • Safety is the main consideration for group formations • Use markers • Establish routines for warm ups and cool downs, as well as ‘set up’ and ‘put away’

32. Groupings • Place individuals in groups of similar ability • Assign responsible individuals to help the younger or less able players during training • Participants can work at different levels within the same program. Give all participants : • Equal opportunity to participate in practice and games • Feedback, rewards, and leadership opportunities • A consistent coach attitude.

33. Self-Management • Discuss the effects of poor individual behaviour • Show the connection between behaviour and consequences • Acknowledge players who go out of their way to assist others • Rotate or share responsibility for captaining • Encourage participants to contribute to organisation and planning

34. Managing Behaviour • Help participants establish team rules with consequences for breaking the rules • Focus on the behaviour, not the individual. Do not publicly insult or embarrass someone • Avoid punishing a group for an individual’s poor behaviour • Be firm, fair and consistent • Avoid using punishments such as running laps • Use rewards, praise and acknowledgement to reinforce desired behaviours • Ensure programs are fun, with variety and high rates of activity.

35. Sports Psychology • Goal setting • A technique to effectively guide achievement of skills and performance objectives • Help in planning and monitoring the development of skills and abilities. • Focus attention on relevant activities for progress towards desired results

36. Mental Imagery • To see success. Many athletes "see" themselves achieving their goals on a regular basis, both performing skills at a high level and seeing the desired performance outcomes • To motivate. Before or during training sessions, calling up images of your goals for that session, or of a past or future competition or competitor can serve a motivational purpose. It can vividly remind you of your objective, which can result in increased intensity in training. • To perfect skills. Mental imagery is often used to facilitate the learning and refinement of skills or skill sequences. The best athletes "see" and "feel" themselves performing perfect skills, programs, routines, or plays on a very regular basis.

37. Mental Imagery • To familiarise. Mental imagery can be effectively used to familiarize yourself with all kinds of things, such as a competition site, a race course, a complex play pattern or routine, a pre-competition plan, an event focus plan, a media interview plan, a refocusing plan, or the strategy you plan to follow • To set the stage for performance. Mental imagery is often an integral part of the pre-competition plan, which helps set the mental stage for a good performance. Athletes do a complete mental run through of the key elements of their performance. This helps draw out their desired pre-competition feelings and focus. It also helps keep negative thoughts from interfering with a positive pre-game focus. • To refocus. Mental imagery can be useful in helping you to re focus when the need arises. For example, if a warm-up is feeling sluggish, imagery of a previous best performance or previous best event focus can help get things back on track. You can also use imagery as a means of refocusing within the event, by imagining what you should focus on and feeling that focus.

38. Goal setting • Long-term goals • Provide a blue-print for a season or certain phases of development eg. Winning a premiership • Short-term goals • Describe the steps to get to a long-term goal eg. Increased endurance for the next game

39. Mental Imagery • The "Quick Set" Routine • Psychologist Jeff Simons developed a routine that would allow an athlete to achieve an appropriate mental arousal in the last 30 seconds before a competition. The "Quick Set" routine, which involves physical, emotional and focus cues, can also be used as a means of refocusing quickly following a distraction. • An example of this routine for a sprinter could be: • Close your eyes, clear your mind and maintain deep rhythmical breathing, in through your nose and out through your mouth (physical cue) • Imagine a previous race win, see yourself crossing the line in first place and recreate those emotional feelings of success (emotional cue) • Return your focus to the sprint start, think of blasting off on the 'B' of the bang with the appropriate limb action (focus cue)

40. Ryan Bailey’s Goals

41. SMARTER GOALS • SMART or SMARTER • S - goals must be Specific • M - training targets should be Measurable • A - goals should be Accepted • R - goals must be Realistic • T - training targets should be Time based • E - goals should be challenging and Exciting • R - goals should be Recorded

42. Sports psychology • Arousal and performance • Best illustrated by the inverted U hypothesis • For optimal performance arousal must not be too low, yet too high • Athletes can develop coping skills such as physical relaxation, positive thinking and refocusing to deal with pressure situations

43. Inverted U Hypothesis Relationship Between Arousal and Performance

44. Inverted U Hypothesis Sport Specific Optimal Levels of Arousal

45. Individual Differences Athlete Specific Optimal Levels of Arousal Roger Federer Lleyton Hewitt

46. The Former English Manager Sven Finding out what makes you tick http://news.bbc.co.uk/sportacademy/hi/fun/games/newsid_2125000/2125039.stm