In my last post I shared how successful coaches, like Karch Kiraly, created successful learning environments for their practice sessions by carefully priming the mindsets of athletes in order to get the most out of practice. The key used by many successful coaches to priming athletes for mindful, focused practices is to plan practices that target the fundamental skills of the sport as well as the specific game skills. However, the overall goal is to focus early practice time on one or two fundamental skills (with game-like intensity) that improve the skills needed most by the athletes in order to improve their game performances.
In case you didn’t read that blog, my message centered around: Successful practices do not happen when the MINDSETS of the athletes and their emotions are not primed for LEARNING.
While coaching collegiate Track and Field, I found it
helpful to have each athlete make a short-list of specific skills each week
that they felt they needed to improve upon in order to continue improving their meet performances.
"This is what we're doing, this is why we're doing it,
this is the expectation, this should be the flow, etc" Quote from
Andreas Behm, Sprint/Hurdle Coach at World Athletic Center
Prior to each practice/training session, I had them quickly
review their list of skills in order to prime
themselves for a focused, mindful
practice session. I also found that by
briefly explaining purpose of the daily practice drills, exercises, etc. I was
creating a learning environment
whereby the athletes were clear on the intended purpose of the daily practice.
In addition, a daily reminder of seizing
the opportunity to leave the day’s practice a better person and athlete,
created the sense of a “higher purpose” than just “checking the box” next to
another practice.
In a recent article explaining a study of successful coaches
and their methods for teaching, there were some very critical messages to
parents and coaches that I thought would provide true purpose for parents and young coaches. Below are some of the
critical messages I took from this:
“It is well known that
the development of talent in sport depends on the constructive relationships
between athletes and coaches’ through their support, supervision and creation of a healthy learning environment.”
In the study it was found that expert coaches were task-driven rather than ego-driven. To achieve this they
recognized they must focus on ensuring the player improved as a person during
their time with them. The coaches were unanimous in their belief that by
helping the player to improve as an individual, their performance could be
improved as well. A collective statement by the coaches concerning “how they measured success” was summed
up here…”if they’re better at skills, if they’re fitter, if they’re mentally
stronger and they have a balanced lifestyle, then your’re a success as a
coach.”
The article ended with this statement: “However,
the public and potential employers often measure success only on results.”
“Any athlete, myself
included, would hope to train everyday with intention, focus and integrity;
working at it with all your heart no matter what rep it is or how close you are
to the goal you have set out after. But, alas we are human….so for me this
little saying “one more to one more” is a reminder to make each rep or day
count.”
Vera Schmitz, elite Pole Vaulter
Parents and coaches can stimulate successful growth through creation of positive learning environments
that prime their children/athletes toward striving for continued improvements of
themselves through “best efforts” rather than winning or being the best. The goal is to improve the “whole” person.
This can be effectively done through giving young athletes both fundamental movement skills and fundamental
game skills while priming them to give their best efforts towards
individual improvement…day by day, and walking away with a sense of
improvement. That is the type of
success that fosters a desire to return to the next practice to find out how much more they can improve BY
GIVING THEIR BEST EFFORT while honing their skill for focused, mindful
practice.
“Successful athletes practice fundamentals over and over with
mindfulness and purpose.”—Andreas Behm
I am hoping the take-away from this post for parents would
be to foster the growth mindset for
their children that is encouraged by praising effort, improvement,
learning FROM mistakes and the realization that attitude makes the fundamental difference in reaching whatever goals
are meaningful in this life.
For coaches, I hope the message is that creating learning environments that are true
vehicles to improving fundamental
skills, game skills AND solid, personal values for their athletes should be
the main focus of practice design.
“We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a
master.”—Ernest Hemmingway
We all need to see each step forward as “one more to
one more!”
PLEASE TAKE THE TIME TO READ VERN GAMBETTA’S post on
Meaningful Practice below.
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Meaningful Practice --by Vern Gambetta
I know the term deliberate practice is the current buzzword but I don’t think it is getting the job done. I have always felt that words create images and images create action, so I use the term meaningful. Meaningful clearly communicates what I want from practice, it leaves little room for nuance. Practice must have a clear plan and purpose that the athlete understands. It must relate to the competitive demands of the sport the athlete is preparing for. It must be relevant to physical and developmental age of the athlete (Adult drills and training methods imposed on children are counterproductive). Mindless repetition does not count as practice. If you want examples go watch a typical tennis academy practice where they hit balls for four hours or watch a baseball infielder take 100 ground balls repetitively. Folks that is the norm just look around, nothing meaningful, just work. Each drill, each exercise must have a purpose that the athlete clearly understands or it is just time on their feet punching a clock accumulating time toward that magic 10,000 hour number. Focused, meaningful work that chooses to distort the competitive demands not replicate them is the answer. That is meaningful, the athlete relates to it because they see the relationship of the technique they must master or the game situation they must improve. At the end of the day less is more to make the practice meaningful.Are you making your athletes better or are you just making them tired and predisposing them to injury? Don’t forget you play and compete the way you train therefore every training session needs to be close to your event/sport (Neural, Metabolic, Mechanical & Technical) in some form. Training is cumulative; give the training
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