Expert Coaching??

I just read over that paper again from my previous post.

I like the concept of self-reflection and awareness as a coach and the 3 stages of developing expert performance that they mention.

I feel like maybe I should get an opinion from someone who specialises in pedagogy to have a look?, wish I knew more about this area and hopefully they can shed some light on how we should be looking at coaching and not just evaluating but developing coaching. (This is a not so subtle HINT!!!)

But after reading again it just does sit right with me. There is more to this, or at least more important concepts to discuss first. Is there really a perfect way to coach and are successful coaches the ones whose athletes/teams win???

Plenty more but don't want to rant....again.

Worth a read for sure and would love to spark some debate on the subject.

We have to talk about coaching because there is more to it than what has been teased out here, its a start, for sure but for me the bar hasn't been set high enough.

Feeling a little pissed with myself after this. AGGHHH!

Expert Performance Approach to Coaching - The S+C Coach

[Before I start, please change “Strength and Conditioning Coach” to whatever you may call yourself or whatever you feel the profession should be called. Until we get universal agreement, this is what we will be called. Don’t get sh*tty with me because you believe you should be called an Athletic Development Specialist.] (as you may be able to tell I have ZERO tolerance of naysayers and negative nancys  at the minute, just crawl back in to your holes, and stay there)

Just flicked through this journal article. I will read over again tomorrow a lot closer but I wanted to get this out there to see what you think.  I got a little carried away thinking about this so thought it must to write it and look for debate around this.

“The Expert-Performance Approach as a Framework for Understanding and Enhancing Coaching Performance, Expertise and Learning”

http://multi-science.metapress.com/content/e51885243l5927vj/?p=e70e522709cb4f51b67820ef8f4d0d85&pi=8

I don’t have to tell you guys but read it from an S+C point of view. There are some really interesting points of how to assess yourself as a coach, although I do think that with every athlete, squad, group, you will interact with differently and this may change daily and so a perfect model will not necessarily be available. But self-reflection is a must if you are to get any better.

Also look at it from developing expert pathways with athletes. I tend to look at this from a movement then a performance point of view, you may be different but give it a try. There are 3 stages to the approach – 1^st capture expert performance, 2ndly identify the underlying mechanisms, 3rdly examine how expertise is developed. I firmly believe that in order for skills to be developed with a player, they must be able to physically be able to complete the skill and then be robust enough to practice the skill deliberately over time. Then we can work on the enhancing performance.

A lot of people have been emailing directly rather than posting comments. That’s absolutely no problem, love to hear any feedback anyone may have. Just make sure you get in touch. 

Cheers,

Mackers

Rant 2- RAE and LTAD

Following on from last post there I cant help myself now!

While I take over the world and save us all from mediocrity in sport. I do not want to hear about Relative Age Effect in sport still happening! We need to be better than this. If you are a coach and I find this out when I am king of the world, you will be sent somewhere sh*t and will have to do sh*t things!

I have just endured another review of RAE and the physiological implications on talent identification, if you only pick the big kids, I will not have you in my kingdom. What we must do is give the coaches the confidence, skills, and scope to work with all athletes for long term rewards.

Rant over....

on another note, a little more intellectual, just read this article, good read and good challenge of Balyi's LTAD without going overboard. Enjoy.
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all~content=a931813510~frm=titlelink

Talent ID and Development – A novel approach?

I am very lucky (in general), my work and passion – coaching is very closely related to the PhD that I am going through (also a passion of mine). This means I really don’t mind thinking about this stuff all the time, I come up with some crap during this time, but sometimes I think I come up with some corkers! Not sure about that, but I think so anyway!

If you usually read this blog you’ll be aware that I love to read all sorts, but I do particularly like to explore expertise, talent, giftedness, etc. One of the common themes or discoveries when the authors research successful people is the amazing luck and fortuitous environments which have enabled them to practice hard in order become expert performers, this ranges from Bill Gates to Tiger Woods to Rory McIlroy to Robert Oppenheimer. The way these authors have explained the success of these people is through hard work, extraordinary drive and good luck rather than through some sort of innate talent as is so often quoted in popular media.

[As a side note I know that these books have been written for the general population and are entertaining reads but…. (please read “and on that note” post)]

When I was reading these and this conclusion was repeatedly made, I made a conscious effort to look at my life and look at any thing that I could take advantage of, similar to the stories and make myself successful. Sort of trying to pre-empt the retrospective analysis and be a little more proactive. We’ll have to wait and see if it works out, keep your fingers crossed.

So my idea toward talent identification is not to look at the physiological aspects and projections towards future success. As part of my PhD I have engrossed myself in this and I want to give a really intelligent and logical answer to how to best identify talent, so far this area is a quagmire of confound variables, so why not look at something a little more random.

Rather than admiring the fortunate circumstances that some youngsters are given 20 years later that have been shown to be the only distinguishing factor between average and elite/expert, lets take advantage of this knowledge and manipulate the environment of those who have shown the desire for sport. Couple that with the other multi-disciplinary aspects of the sports staff, to enable us to have more people who are able to take advantage.

This may sound a little like an institute set up, or similar but this is a little different, this has to happen at a far earlier stage or we have no chance. The fantastic facilities, coaches, support staff across the world that work within a National Institute or academy or professional club set up have the same problem, by the time the players/athletes ever get to this level they have not done the required amount or quality of work that is needed in order to train hard enough to make the next level. Too many get to this stage and are good but will just not make it because they haven’t got a good enough or robust enough background. I can only speak from a physical point of view but from talking to coaches about this they find the same thing.

I do not have the answer to this, this is more that start of a scary thought process for me, no doubt this will grow and grow, I’d appreciate any feedback or anyone who’d like to start a bit of a “brains trust” on this topic.

This post could go on and on and go completely on to other topics and there is so much more to say on the topic but this is enough for now.

For now, lets get as many good people coaching our kids and then lets make sure they stay active and don’t play too many computer games.  I’ll take over the world in the meantime….