Continue reading »]]> I, as a new masters track and field athlete, was overjoyed to find this new coaching resource, Coaching Masters Athletes, being provided by the Canadian National Coaching Certification Program.

In many sports in the US, the masters population of athletes is growing mostly due to the large numbers of baby boomers entering retirement or at least more time on their hands due to “empty nests.” Older athletes are seeking coaching guidance as they strive to learn new skills, improve their performance, or compete successfully. Coaching Masters Athletes, a new NCCP resource now available for coaches, offers an exciting opportunity for all coaches to have a positive impact on the lives of adults who want to lead a healthy and active lifestyle, and on society by encouraging more adults to be active.

Coaches, from all sports, should consider the coaching of masters athletes as a viable means of engaging in your sport and possibly an area in which to develop fee-paying clients for your services.

This new resource can be found online at NCCP’s website.

Continue reading »]]> Mollie’s Fund had developed a free app, for both Apple and Android smartphones, to aid in the detection of skin cancer and precursors to skin cancer. While not a substitute for appropriate medical monitoring and treatment, it does provide those coaches who work mostly outside a tool in which to reduce their risk for skin cancer.  Some of its uses include:

• Learn how to give yourself a monthly skin exam
• Tell if your moles are the kind that you should tell a dermatologist about.
• Keep track of your self-exams with the Monthly Skin Check Log
• Read essential tips to ensure that you are always practicing sun safety!

I lost my high school coach, Mike Landry, a few years ago to melanoma.  He fought the good fight but the cancer had a big head start on him. So take care of yourself out there as we don’t need to lose more good coaches like him.

Continue reading »]]> I am continuing my exploration of free online sport coaching education with this month’s resource for sport coaches; Winning with Asthma.  Thanks to the Minnesota Board of Health, this online resource including a self-guided coaching education program and other resources  focuses on what coaches, referees, and physical education teachers should know about asthma, including:

• Asthma basics
• What medications are used and when
• Ways to prevent exercise-induced asthma
• Steps to take when athletes are experiencing asthma attacks, including suggestions for cold-weather sports

As an life-long athlete who has dealt with the challenges of asthma, I highly recommend coaches check this resource out as part of their professional development plan.

Continue reading »]]> I am firm believer in that psychological skills training (PST) (or mental skills training) are one of the means that athletes and teams achieve their dreams.  This part of coaching has been a serious interest of mine since the mid 1990s, and has been a part of my training plans since then. I have relied heavily upon Freeman’s Peak When It Counts, which is a guide to planned performance training for track & field.

One area I have been very curious about is how to synch PST with a periodized plan for athletic training.  I explored this area in a paper in my masters of sport science program but was never able to find any published work on the topic.  Until now.  Evidently I am not the great researcher I think I am.  I recently bought a copy of Tudor Bompa’s Periodization: Theory & Methodology of Training 4th Ed.  In it was my answer!  Of course this resource was published in 1999 and has been replaced by more updated editions which I need to investigate now for multiple reasons including the periodization of PST.  Oh, by the way, Bompa is one, if not, the leading sports authority of the periodization of sports training.

In the 4th Edition of Periodization (pgs 205-206), Bompa suggests the following periodization of PST:

Training Phase                                             Mental Training Objective

General                                                                Evaluate Mental Skills

Learn Basic Mental Skills in a Quiet Setting

Specific Preparatory                                        Adapt & Practice Mental Skills in Sport-Specific Situations.

Maintain Basic Mental Skills

Precompetitive                                                  Develop & Practice Focus Plan

                                                                                 Use Focus Plan in Simulations

                                                                                 Maintain Basic Mental Skills

Competitive                                                       Evaluate & Refine Focus Plan

                                                                              Use Mental Skills to Prepare for Specific Opponents & Competitions

                                                                            Use Mental Skills for Stress Management

Unloading                                                        Use Mental Skills to Aid Regeneration & Lower Stress

The best knowledge that I gained form this resource is Bompa’s discussion of psychological supercompensation.  I have never heard of this in writing but it does make much sense.  As athletes release stress, reduce mental fatigue and restore energy supplies, they feel more optimistic and confident as they ready for competition.

In summary, my point, and moreover, Bompa’s point is to include PST in your periodized athletic training.

Continue reading »]]> One leadership challenge many coaches have is how to bring their team to the next level (good to great, etc.) of competition.  The coach needs to develop a path in which their efforts will guide their athletes to a closer realization of their athletic potential.  In team sports , this can be a difficult challenge as the athletes are not all at the same level.

Another part of this challenge is that in many cases, the coach knows that the athletes are capable of so much more while the athletes are quite content with the status quo.  That is the leadership challenge.  Getting the athletes to push through a plateau to get to the higher level.

Recently, I came across a great coaching resource directly addressing this leadership challenge, Developing Sport Expertise: Researchers & Coaches put Theory into Practice.  This book is written by Australian coaches and sport scientists which gives a different means of looking at this challenge.  First published in 2007, a new update edition is scheduled to be published in last spring 2013.

What I liked about it was the combination of what sport researchers have discovered for successful means for coaches to use to get their players to the next level and the real-life documentation of coaches who applied those means.  Some of those means discussed in the earlier version include:

• better practice planning & execution
• dealing with performance pressure issues
• sport skill learning & teaching
• creating more committed athletes

Highly recommend this resource if you are looking for ways to change your coaching to lead your team to achieve better results.

Continue reading »]]> Continuing with my blogging on free online coaching education opportunities, October’s coaching resource of the month is the National Federation of High Schools aka NFHS. Found online at the NFHS Learning Center, NFHS’ Coaching Education offers a number of courses for free to any coach.  The free courses include:

• A Guide to Heat Acclimatization and Heat Illness Prevention
• Coaching Unified Sports®
• Concussion in Sports – What You Need To Know
• Creating A Safe And Respectful Environment
• NCAA Eligibility Center Coaching Education
• Sportsmanship
• The Role of the Parent in Sports

While created with interscholastic coaches in mind, any coach could benefit from the concussion  or sportmanship course.

Continue reading »]]> I have been guilty on many days of putting off tasks.  But the coaching issues rising within the speed skating community was just the gift to help me start my blog series on sport coaching leadership.

It certainly gains lots of national attention when a large number of elite speed skaters, including Olympic medalists, come together to officially complain about the coaching style of a national-level coach. The athletes claim that coach Jae Su Chun and his two primary assistants repeatedly routinely insulted and humiliated them.  While the coaches were able to achieve international results, the athletes have had enough of this behavior.

Some of the allegations of this poor coaching behavior include:

• slamming an athlete into a wall
• calling one female athlete a “fat cow”
• instructing an athlete to sabotage a competitor’s skates

Wow! The first allegation is called “assault” and is a felony offense. Where does this behavior come from?  Some claim in this case that is a cultural issue.  But we all know we have our fair share of abusive coaches right here in the ole USA.

Joe Ehrmann, author of InsideOut Coaching, calls this coaching model “..the dictator: my way or the highway…”  He attributes the rise of this coaching leadership style to lessons learned by hundreds of thousands of American men who have served in our military services over the past few decades.  As a retired naval officer, that leadership style is popular in the military especially during boot camp where new military personnel transition to military life.  While appropriate in those situations, it is not  in sport coaching.  Okay, one exception–when a coach needs to establish control during an emergency or when an unsafe situation has surfaced.  There is no time for debate when lives are at stake or vulnerable to severe injury.

If you are a coach seeking alternatives to the extreme command or “my way or the highway” leadership model, I recommend you check out Joe’s website, Coach for America, to explore more athlete-centric coaching leadership models.

Continue reading »]]> This month I am starting a new area to focus on with our monthly Sport Coaching Resource; free online coaching education and training.  I have four courses/sources identified so far.  If you know of one, please drop me a note or make a comment here.

This month’s free coaching education online course comes to us courtesy of the US Sports Academy (USSA) in Daphne, Alabama.  FULL DISCLOSURE WARNING: I am a bit biased about the USSA as I am a graduate of their masters in sport science program.  USSA offers a free Introduction to Coaching course which covers the responsibilities of a sports coach. Topics covered include: Ethics, Administrative Duties, Methodology and Pedagogy, Sports Psychology, Conditioning and Nutrition, and Injury Prevention and Emergency Care in Sports.

If anyone has taken it, love to get some feedback to pass on to others.

Continue reading »]]> I have owed you this blog for a few months now.  As you may remember I blogged about Marc Cohn, the singer songwriter, and his relationship with Muriel who was his inspiration that led him to national acclaim in the early 1990s.  I, too, have enjoyed the great gift of gaining inspiration from a very new friend.

In the late 1990s, I was exploring the field of sport coaching education while I was studying for my Masters of Sport Science degree from the US Sports Academy.  My curiosity (and the Web) led me to the National Council for Accreditation of Coaching Education (NCACE). One of NCACE’s founders and Past-President was Professor Patricia Sullivan–I made an appointment to meet with her in mid Jan 2001 to discuss issues related to sport coaching education in the United States.

I met Prof Sullivan in her office at George Washington University  in DC and immediately was engaged in a spirited discussion regarding the challenges facing sport coaches and the need for more training and education for all sport coaches in the US.  After about 55 minutes, our meeting came to a close.  Before I left, Prof. Sullivan told me the following, “Chris, I am sure any college would love to have someone of your caliber as their track coach but I want you to think about doing something for sport coaches.”  I replied that I had some ideas regarding that topic and then she told me to think them out and come back.

I swear to you that I walked out of her office a few feet off the ground.  I was blown away that this relatively perfect stranger had discovered through a short 55 minute discussion my budding desire to get involved in coaching education and then challenged me to focus on that and put aside my love for coaching track and field.

That meeting led to others and ultimately, the birth of the Institute for Sport Coaching in 2003.  I have never looked back.