“Adapting to suit the audience”: Diary of an Intern

I have now had four practical sessions with James as one of the Excelsior interns. They have been some very interesting and eye opening sessions! 

I have mainly been observing and picking things up along the way as I settle into it. I have picked up some great and useful information along the way, especially coaching styles and how to adapt them to allow the athletes or audience to learn. 

I have had two sessions at Millfield School with a group of female athletes. In the first session James went through some lower body exercises to aim to help stabilise their knees and strengthen their legs. As you can imagine, a group of young girls at 7.30am on a Monday morning may not be the easiest group to teach but there was a real mixture present. It was interesting to see how James dealt with them compared to how he dealt with two of his athletes I had met on my first session. ‘Adapting to suit the audience.’ 

He also had to adapt during two workshops; injury prevention and athletic development. The first workshop had some coaches, parents and some athletes involved and they all brought up very good questions which helped everyone’s understanding overall. James had to show a lot of ways to correct a movement or exercise which was good for everyone to see so we knew what to do if one of their athletes had similar trouble.

For the second workshop at Ocean Physio , there were a lot of experienced Physio’s present. Their questions were a lot more in depth and thorough as they liked to understand the ins and outs of the exercises James was showing. As James said, Physio’s are used to seeing broken athletes so they aren’t quite sure how a fit one should look like.

Teaching a coach how to adapt their style to suit all participants isn’t something you can go onto a course and learn. It needs to be picked up either by learning with the athletes, or from observing what another experienced coach would do. Having the knowledge is one thing, passing this knowledge onto the athlete/parent/coach/physio is another.

Gemma Robertson (Follow me on twitter here)