My last post, if you couldn’t get the drift, was really a lecture on the growing emphasis on “winning” through “early specialization and training” in youth sports these days.
I pointed out that changing this culture to a PROCESS oriented journey, centered around a LTAD Plan (Long Term Athlete Development), would revolve around educating coaches, parents, teachers and the young athletes through the creation of a “learning environment” that focuses on the PROCESS of developing each young athlete as the “total person” that they are capable of becoming. This would involve addressing maturation and growth rates that are different within youngsters that are the same chronological age!
Change,
however, comes slowly and with resistance. It requires being uncomfortable and
“learning” to adopt a different Mindset. Without changing our Mindset
we will not be able to create a nurturing and “learning”
environment.
Consider the
quote: “The Comfort Zone is a place
where NOTHING GROWS!”
Do we want
our children to grow? If so, teachers, coaches and parents must be willing to
“grow” as well, hopefully a few steps ahead of them. This requires EDUCATING
OURSELVES in order to create a positive “learning environment” for children at
home, school and playfields.
Educating
coaches needs to CHANGE first. While many club and volunteer high school
coaches are technically and tactically proficient in their sport, they do not
have the educational background that teachers have in knowing “how” to teach to
all the various types of learners that they may be trying to reach. In additon,
most do not have the expertise in “Foundational Movement Education” (FMS and
AMSC Skills) or a thorough knowledge of “teaching techniques” (such as verbal
cueing, posititive reinforcement, visual cueing, etc.).
So, I
thought it might be helpful to provide examples from proven experts / elite
coaches for changes that would start coaches parents and young athletes towards
development of a TRULY SUCCESSFUL LONG
TERM ATHLETE DEVELOPMENT PLAN.
First, read portions of KELVIN GILES’ excellent article on development
of a comprehensive plan for coaching education that he helped devise and
implement for Scottish Youth Soccer Coaches… (I have pieced together the portions relevant to the PROCESS GOALS that
we here in the US would be wise to consider)
·
---From>>---------KELVIN GILES BLOG---------the
portion below starts with recommendations from Soccer Governing Body on young
player development and proceeds to Kelvin’s proposals for coaching education
and ultimately his being denied by the Governing Body but ending up being
adopted by a group of Coaches.
·
·
Kelvin states that:
·
·
FIFA
had recommended that sessions for the developing player should look like this:
·
• Warm Up – consisting
of Technical Exercises; Introductory Games; Small-Sided Games.
• Main Session consisting of – Small-Sided Games.
• Main Session consisting of – Running Exercises and movement with the Ball.
• Main Session consisting of – Small-sided Matches
• Warm Down
Little mention of foundation movements or the solving of physical movement puzzles as part of their physical development. It was all about ‘the ball’ and little mention about the tools to actually learn this technical stuff with the correct actions and postures.
• Main Session consisting of – Small-Sided Games.
• Main Session consisting of – Running Exercises and movement with the Ball.
• Main Session consisting of – Small-sided Matches
• Warm Down
Little mention of foundation movements or the solving of physical movement puzzles as part of their physical development. It was all about ‘the ball’ and little mention about the tools to actually learn this technical stuff with the correct actions and postures.
·
·
‘If
you can’t control your own body what right have you got to try to control and
external object?’
What we had to encourage was an exposure to teach the foundation movements (Multi-joint / plane / direction / amplitude / speed / complexity) while continuing the technical / tactical journey. The key would be that each coach should have the knowledge and ability to deliver all aspects of the ‘physical’ journey and to keep this developing one step ahead of the technical / tactical journey. In this way the children would have a mechanical robustness in their movement vocabulary to use as a major building block to their technical and tactical exposure. Put another way – they would have the physical competence to do the technical stuff.
What we had to encourage was an exposure to teach the foundation movements (Multi-joint / plane / direction / amplitude / speed / complexity) while continuing the technical / tactical journey. The key would be that each coach should have the knowledge and ability to deliver all aspects of the ‘physical’ journey and to keep this developing one step ahead of the technical / tactical journey. In this way the children would have a mechanical robustness in their movement vocabulary to use as a major building block to their technical and tactical exposure. Put another way – they would have the physical competence to do the technical stuff.
·
So the scene was set. Time
to create a progressive ‘movement’ syllabus that could easily be integrated with the known technical /
tactical stuff the coaches already knew. I already had in place the
actual exercise selection and progression resources (5in5 and the Progressive
Exercise Syllabus) which just needed to be made more available for the handheld
devices (Smartphones and Tablets) of the modern era. Then there needed to be a
strategy of infrastructure development to assemble the education pathway for
the coaches.
·
The
key process was to start with the actual sessions required to integrate
physical, mental, technical and tactical development. On
far too many occasions I had seen new strategies start at the administrative /
bureaucracy layer first and by the time the coaches in the field were considered
someone had ‘eaten all the cake’. I intended this to be different.
·
I started with a plan to create a 3-5 day course for
the coaches to add to their coaching certificate journey. Added to this
would be regional ‘refresher’ workshops
where the coaches could flesh out all the theory and practical components of
the main course and learn how to deliver them. The final layer of
‘delivery’ would be a number of ‘FA Athletic Development Officers’ for each
region who would visit each Club regularly to support and mentor the coaches at
the sharp end. The intention was to ensure that when the coaches were
struggling in their delivery (which
usually meant that they reverted to type and only delivered technical and
tactical stuff) someone would be on-hand to support and encourage them forward.
·
The course didn’t take long to assemble in terms of the
content and delivery. People like
Vern Gambetta were approached to present at the course alongside a number of
other excellent and experienced ‘movement’ practitioners. The small number of
coaches already committed to developing ‘movement breaks’ within their sessions
were also accessed.
BELOW IS THE COURSE CONTENT KELVIN DEVELOPED….
·
Content
– Course and ongoing Workshops
·
1.
The role of movement efficiency in performance and skill-acquisition.
2. Foundation movement – What? and Why?
3. Movement efficiency and the injury issue.
4. The Maturation journey – How they change and what do.
5. How they learn to move – practical work on ‘implicit’ and ‘explicit’ learning.
6. Assessing Physical Competence – How?
7. Assessing Physical Competence – Data collection and interpretation.
8. Using the sessions wisely – How to integrate ‘movement breaks’ into technical and tactical work.
2. Foundation movement – What? and Why?
3. Movement efficiency and the injury issue.
4. The Maturation journey – How they change and what do.
5. How they learn to move – practical work on ‘implicit’ and ‘explicit’ learning.
6. Assessing Physical Competence – How?
7. Assessing Physical Competence – Data collection and interpretation.
8. Using the sessions wisely – How to integrate ‘movement breaks’ into technical and tactical work.
·
·
…….Coaching Education can never be assessed by ‘numbers’. It can only be assessed by an increase in
the performance ability of the players and it is obvious today that things are
not well in this part of the FA’s Coach Education process. Plenty of numbers, maybe, but are they
developing better players in greater numbers?
·
·
Next issue was manpower. The
idea would be to assemble some open-minded practitioners who had the energy to
learn all about movement efficiency, consistency and resilience and all the
teaching / coaching skills that allow this to be taught. …..
·
·
…..Somewhere
along the way in these final days of discussion someone vetoed it all. …
·
….Obviously I accept that my ideas could have been wrong and
the reason for the failure of the project but I have not seen something put up
as an idea to take its place.
·
From
this disappointment has grown a more recent success. Scottish Athletics recognized
the need to question their assumptions on how they were ‘building the athlete
from the ground up’. The coaches in the field recognized the
lack of physical literacy of current young athletes and certainly recognized
the effect this was having on skill-acquisition.
·
·
Over a
2- year period they moved from ‘being concerned’ to doing something about it. They have invested in a platform very
similar to that offered to the FA and are now close to the first workshop
delivery. It is a coach centered program
that starts at the actual training sessions. Very few of their resources
have been used on any ‘fanfare’ and self-serving promotion. Everything has been
done to support the coaches in the session.
IF YOU TOOK THE TIME TO READ THIS, YOU WILL
NO DOUBT UNDERSTAND THAT CHANGE, ALTHOUGH NECESSARY FOR PROGRESS, DOES NOT COME
EASY.
THE POWER OF WORDS…
Please read some thoughts Verbal Cueing
strategies FOR teaching movement patterns with athletes from Nick Winkleman’s
workshop at the World Athletic Center…
Attention
is a limited capacity resource - our job (AS COACHES) is to focus attention and
convert this to physical outcomes -
"Effective cues should include imagery for distance,
direction, and description"
"...
better to add complexity to environment rather than actively adding difficulty
to cues" -
"Cues
need to be meaningful to the motor system, and should be culturally
appropriate"
"Primary
contextual trigger for athlete attention is saying their name"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Educating
parents and coaches on the need to “CHANGE” the culture of “Early
Specialization”, “Emphasis on Winning” and "lack" of Movement Education in youth
sports involves CHANGING VOCABULARY when necessary. BELOW IS A GREAT ARTICLE
THAT CAN BE USED AS A VEHICLE OF CHANGE in how parents and coaches can foster a
POSITIVE MINDSET through the use of 10
important words.--------
It's
Not Just Words: 10 Smart Word Choices of Smart Athletes
Posted: 10/10/2014 Anne Josephson
A few weeks ago, I was
counseling parents of an athlete at my gym. According to the parents, the
daughter was considering "quitting" gymnastics because she believed
that she was "sacrificing" too much to do the sport.
"What do you mean by
sacrificing?" I asked.
"I mean she sacrifices
so much. You know, normal teenage things like time with friends and Saturday
afternoons at the mall," one parent explained.
"Well," I responded
thoughtfully, "I don't know that I would use the word 'sacrifice' to
describe your daughter's choice in how she is spending her time."
"Oh, whatever, it's just
words," the other parent insisted.
But here's the thing: It is
not just words.
Words are how people think.
So, the words we choose are critical in shaping how we think about our lives.
Additionally, when we use
words that represent concepts like "quitting" or
"sacrificing," the words we use are windows into what we believe to
be important and how we understand our role and responsibility in our values,
like pursuing excellence.
Finally, and most relevant to
this story, whatever words we chose influence those who hear them. If parents
keep reinforcing to their child that her pursuit of excellence in a sport is a
sacrifice their child is making instead of a decision she is making, what
effect is that likely to have on the child's attitude?
These parents are not alone
in their struggle to use the best word choices to help their child form a
positive attitude and work ethic. As I started to think of all of the variants
of this conversation I have had over the years, I came up with a list of 10
word choices one might consider.
Hint: The best of the best
always choose the second option.
1. Sacrifice vs. Choice.
'Sacrifice' refers to giving something up for the betterment of others, not for oneself. (It also smacks of a victim mentality, as if what one is doing is something being done to them). We are talking about sports here, not building water wells in remote Africa or feeding caring for lepers in a remote colony. Choice is a word that comes from a place of power. To be the best of the best, an athlete chooses to go to practice instead of playing video games all afternoon or attending every high school football game. Michael Hyatt calls this a shift in the language of duty to the language of privilege.
'Sacrifice' refers to giving something up for the betterment of others, not for oneself. (It also smacks of a victim mentality, as if what one is doing is something being done to them). We are talking about sports here, not building water wells in remote Africa or feeding caring for lepers in a remote colony. Choice is a word that comes from a place of power. To be the best of the best, an athlete chooses to go to practice instead of playing video games all afternoon or attending every high school football game. Michael Hyatt calls this a shift in the language of duty to the language of privilege.
2. Pressure vs. Drive.
Pressure comes from an external force; drive comes from within. It is seldom one sees a great athlete who shrinks in the face of what is commonly referred to as pressure. Why? Because the best of the best don't experience pressure as pressure; instead, what they experience is drive -- that force that propels them to focus on their own excellence to the exclusion of all distractions, including what their competitors are doing.
Pressure comes from an external force; drive comes from within. It is seldom one sees a great athlete who shrinks in the face of what is commonly referred to as pressure. Why? Because the best of the best don't experience pressure as pressure; instead, what they experience is drive -- that force that propels them to focus on their own excellence to the exclusion of all distractions, including what their competitors are doing.
3. Failure vs. Setback.
Things don't always work out. Is it a fiasco or just an obstacle? The best of the best look at failure as feedback or a setback, not as a catastrophe or the end of the road.
Things don't always work out. Is it a fiasco or just an obstacle? The best of the best look at failure as feedback or a setback, not as a catastrophe or the end of the road.
4. Short-term vs. Long-term goals.
While short-term goals are useful in urging motivation in spurts, successful athletes and their parents have a long-eye view for goals. A rough workout, meet or even season does not necessarily indicate a reason to change course if the general direction of the plan is still a positive one. The best of the best remember to see the forest through the trees.
While short-term goals are useful in urging motivation in spurts, successful athletes and their parents have a long-eye view for goals. A rough workout, meet or even season does not necessarily indicate a reason to change course if the general direction of the plan is still a positive one. The best of the best remember to see the forest through the trees.
5. Criticism vs. Coaching.
Is a coach's tough-to-hear words a personal insult or a bad score or game a diatribe on one's value as a human being? Or are these both pieces of feedback for an athlete to consider and decide how to incorporate into training or competing moving forward? I am certain you can guess which approach the best of the best athlete takes!
Is a coach's tough-to-hear words a personal insult or a bad score or game a diatribe on one's value as a human being? Or are these both pieces of feedback for an athlete to consider and decide how to incorporate into training or competing moving forward? I am certain you can guess which approach the best of the best athlete takes!
6. Tragedy vs. Disappointment.
There is a difference between a tragedy and a disappointment. What happened when terrorists flew planes in to the World Trade Center or a child being struck with a terminal illness are examples of tragedies. Not getting moved up to level 7 or making the all-star team are not tragedies, they are disappointments. The best of the best keep these things in perspective.
There is a difference between a tragedy and a disappointment. What happened when terrorists flew planes in to the World Trade Center or a child being struck with a terminal illness are examples of tragedies. Not getting moved up to level 7 or making the all-star team are not tragedies, they are disappointments. The best of the best keep these things in perspective.
7. Difficulty vs. Challenge.
When a person comes to something that takes more effort than is typical or has a shortcoming that places them at a competitive disadvantage, it can be classified as a difficulty or a challenge. A difficulty means the task is "hard to do," whereas a challenge means that it is "a stimulating task or problem." People who are working toward being the best of the best see these moments or faults as challenges, not difficulties. They rise to fight them and find that struggle motivating and exciting. Any Paralympian is a testament to this word choice.
When a person comes to something that takes more effort than is typical or has a shortcoming that places them at a competitive disadvantage, it can be classified as a difficulty or a challenge. A difficulty means the task is "hard to do," whereas a challenge means that it is "a stimulating task or problem." People who are working toward being the best of the best see these moments or faults as challenges, not difficulties. They rise to fight them and find that struggle motivating and exciting. Any Paralympian is a testament to this word choice.
8. Competition vs. Motivation.
Too often, I've seen a family become upset when there are accomplished athletes within the same program. The green-eyed monster rears its ugly head and can send that family packing because the "competition" during practice or for playing time is too much. What they fail to understand is that to be the best of the best, it is ideal to have the motivation of other excellent athletes with similar goals in your training group or team. The best of the best are not only unafraid to train with the "competition," they know that together, they will push each other to work harder and be better.
Too often, I've seen a family become upset when there are accomplished athletes within the same program. The green-eyed monster rears its ugly head and can send that family packing because the "competition" during practice or for playing time is too much. What they fail to understand is that to be the best of the best, it is ideal to have the motivation of other excellent athletes with similar goals in your training group or team. The best of the best are not only unafraid to train with the "competition," they know that together, they will push each other to work harder and be better.
9. Winning vs. Celebrating.
While winning certainly feels great, the best of the best focus on celebrating when they achieve their goals independent of the outcome. I've seen some of my best gymnasts have mediocre meets and walk away with gold medals. In turn, I've watched them have incredible meets and place lower on the podium. The best of the best are actually less pleased with those gold medals, favoring the accomplishment of their personal goals. In a team sport, the best of the best are far less concerned with scoring titles or being named as MVPs and are singularly focused on making their team champions.
While winning certainly feels great, the best of the best focus on celebrating when they achieve their goals independent of the outcome. I've seen some of my best gymnasts have mediocre meets and walk away with gold medals. In turn, I've watched them have incredible meets and place lower on the podium. The best of the best are actually less pleased with those gold medals, favoring the accomplishment of their personal goals. In a team sport, the best of the best are far less concerned with scoring titles or being named as MVPs and are singularly focused on making their team champions.
10. Quit vs. End.
Quitting is giving up in the middle of something. Ending is deciding something no longer suits you and that it is time to move on. Successful athletes don't quit, but may chose to end either by retiring or reinventing themselves through how they approach the game (i.e. Kobe Bryant's transition from leading the league in scoring to working on increasing his assists), by transitioning to a different sport (i.e. gymnasts who transition to diving, dance or any other number of sports) or taking the skills and attitudes honed in the pursuit of being a high level athlete and applying them to school or a career. (Fun fact: 95% of Fortune 500 executives participated in high school sports). At some point or another athletes will retire; retiring is not quitting, it's ending. Please, please, please, if you take no other piece of advice from this article, take this one and do not use the word "quit" to refer to your athlete when he or she ends or retires from a sport or activity.
Quitting is giving up in the middle of something. Ending is deciding something no longer suits you and that it is time to move on. Successful athletes don't quit, but may chose to end either by retiring or reinventing themselves through how they approach the game (i.e. Kobe Bryant's transition from leading the league in scoring to working on increasing his assists), by transitioning to a different sport (i.e. gymnasts who transition to diving, dance or any other number of sports) or taking the skills and attitudes honed in the pursuit of being a high level athlete and applying them to school or a career. (Fun fact: 95% of Fortune 500 executives participated in high school sports). At some point or another athletes will retire; retiring is not quitting, it's ending. Please, please, please, if you take no other piece of advice from this article, take this one and do not use the word "quit" to refer to your athlete when he or she ends or retires from a sport or activity.
As the great writer on
success Napoleon Hill wrote, "Think twice before you speak, because your
words and influence will plant the seed of either success or failure in the
mind of another."
Words have power. Choose them carefully.
(to give scientific credence to the POWER OF WORDS, read the
research below on CUEING)
-----------------------------------------------------
How much difference do external cues make?
The
study: Effects of varying
attentional focus on health-related physical fitness performance, by Bredin,
Dickson and Warburton, in Applied Physiology: Nutrition and Metabolism, 2013
What’s the background?
Coaching instructions can direct the focus of attention externally or internally. An external focus is one that directs the athlete’s attention away from their body and towards the effects of their movement on the environment. An internal focus directs the athlete’s attention to their own body movements. Previous research has found that an external focus of attention is optimal for improving the objective performance of the movement (i.e. greater jumping distance or height, greater power output, etc.) while an internal focus leads to reductions in objective performance but may lead to better form, as measured by differences in joint angles.So in general, the main factor that is associated with external focus is an increase in performance. Also, there may be a tendency for reduced EMG activity at the same time. This is interesting, as it may be a mirror image of what happens with internal focus.
What did the researchers do?
The researchers wanted to compare the effects of internal and external attentional focus on performance in a health-related physical fitness appraisal. Specifically, they wanted to see whether the difference in focus would alter performance in parts of the musculoskeletal and aerobic components of the Canadian Physical Activity, Fitness and Lifestyle Approach (CPAFLA) test. The CPAFLA test is administered on more than 1 million Canadians each year by trained and certified health and fitness professionals.The researchers therefore recruited 16 young but untrained adults (8 females and 8 males). The subjects performed certain specific parts of the CPAFLA test 3 times in a randomized cross-over design, with one performance using external cues, another using internal cues and a third using no cues. The aerobic part was the modified Canadian Aerobic Fitness Test and the musculoskeletal tests involved grip strength, push-ups, sit and reach, partial curl-ups, vertical jump, and a modified Biering–Sorenson (horizontal) back extension test.
What happened?
The researchers found that external cues resulted in significantly better performances for all 7 measures of health-related physical fitness in comparison with both internal cues with no cues. Also no cues resulted in significantly better performance for 3 measures (grip strength, push-ups, and vertical jump) in comparison with internal cues. The following chart shows the difference in vertical jump performance between the three types of cue for both males and females:The researchers found that external cues improved vertical jump performance by around 10 – 17% in untrained males and females in comparison with no cues. Additionally, the researchers found that external cues improved vertical jump performance in untrained males and females by around 15 – 22% in comparison with internal cues. While such large differences might not be expected in trained subjects or athletes, it is evident that external cues make a very marked difference on the objective performance of large, full-body, explosive movements such as vertical jumps.
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