I recently attended and spoke at a fantastic conference at Moulton College organised by David Sutton and Lucy Hammond. A massive thank you for inviting me and congratulations on such a well run conference. I will definitely be back as an attendee next year.
It was a great day and I finally got chance to look around the facilities at Moulton, which are unbelievable. As well as some great talks it was awesome to meet other coaches, some of whom I’d only been in contact via Twitter.
I hope everyone enjoyed my talk, looking back I wish I’d included a few more specific details on training protocols, but otherwise I was happy with how it went. If anyone has any feedback on what they liked, or didn’t please let me know. Thank you!
I always write up my notes whenever I go to a conference (to see previous notes, check out HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE).
So here’s my notes from the day at Moulton:
————————————————————————————————————————–
It’s about talent development not talent identification.
You need frequent and regular practice. You cannot side step hard work.
Not all training is created equal.
Important factors for success – regular participation and progressive overload.
Finding talent is a long term process, you can’t decide who’s good in just a snap shot view.
The job of a talent development program is to find out what the athletes are capable of.
Invest in the programme, not in individuals.
Creating elite athletes – how quick and how fast can you push?
Humans are complex. The same stimiulus may have very different effects on two different people. It may also have a different effect on one individual at different points in time. Be observant.
Stress mismanagement = bad coaching
(Resource + effort + motivation) x Time = Success
Ask senior athletes what they would gift younger athletes. Their response? Consistency.
Do as little as possible for the required result.
Create a great self reporting system for your athletes.
Speak to other members of the team to triangulate your thoughts on an athlete or issue.
How can you reduce the cost of training?
“I never teach my pupils, I only try to provide the conditions in which they can learn” – Einstein
Coaches need to understand psychology.
Predict what injuries are coming through the door.
Injury surveillance in 4 steps:
- Establish the extent of the problem – what is the incidence and severity?
- What is the aetiology and mechanism
- Introduce preventative measures
- Assess effectiveness
A good measure of severity is how much training and how many games an athletes misses.
There is a culture within sport of pain and injury being part of the job.
A soccer players main concern is their contract.
The more elite you are the greater your risk of injury. However there are lower levels of detection and less medical care at less elite levels of the game.
You can make the warm up for a training session fun and effective. Try getting athletes in a circle standing on one leg passing a ball around. They are only allowed to catch it on one leg. A drop equals a filler exercise.
If you are coaching more than once every 5-7 reps you are coaching too much!
Pair your athletes together and give them a specific coaching cue to work on.
Listen for sound when you coach. Does it give away what the athlete may be doing wrong?
We need to do more deceleration drills.
Coaching is just problem solving.
Loaded carries can be utilised for improving performance, armour building, increasing athlete durability, hypertrophy and rehabilitation.
Nutrition is a key area – teach your athletes habits of healthy nutrition so they can eat healthily wherever they are.
Health is the bottom line and the health of the general population is getting worse.
Getting good at problem solving involves education, collaboration and maintaining a broad range of expertise and interests.
Get good at predicting the future. How? Ask other coaches what they think might happen and look for trends.
Make it a habit to learn about things totoally unrelated to coaching, sports performance and rehabilitation.
Successful athletes have multiple sporting backgrounds and specialise as late as possible.
In order to be elite you need mechanical proficiency. In other words, move well!
Is motorsport one of the best myelin generators?
630 000 to one chance of becoming an Olympian. 21 million to one chance of winning a gold medal.
Good physical conditioning protects athletes when they crash or collide. The same can be said in real life. Are durable enough to withstand a fall or car crash?
Always consider the psychological impact of an athlete having an injury.
Always avoid embarrassing your clients.
Have a great support network. This may include coaches, medical staff, family, friends, team mates, general public and the media.
I hope everyone enjoyed my presentation. If anyone has any feedback on it I’d love to hear it.
