Are sports coaches restricting the thinking of their female athletes?

Are sports coaches restricting the thinking of their female athletes?

From observing young female athletes doing certain practices, I would say yes.

One warm up I have done is to get 2 athletes to shadow each other mimicking movement patterns. That is all the advice and instruction I give, then say go. Doing this with 13 year olds and you see a massive variety of different things being done. It looks like free play and creativity.

Doing this with 16 year old girls this week, I had to stop it and then explain the necessity of experimentation and creativity. “I don’t know what I am supposed to do” and “I can’t think of any different movements” were two of the quotes given to me.

What I saw from the 16 year old girls was a very linear, static, rigid pattern of copying drills taken from the “warm up 101” book of “doing the same as every other sports team in the UK”.  It was just too precise and tidy.  I didn’t know whether it was an effort to be seen to be doing the right thing, to please the Coach (me) or really a lack of creativity (is this in the exam Coach?)

I then stopped my planned session and got the group to come up with 2 different competitive games, coach them, play them, and then discuss ways of improving. What was apparent was that the girls were not used to being asked to think for themselves, or to input into sessions.

The boys on the other hand at 16-18 years old tend to go a bit crazy and try and out do their partner in weird and wonderful things.

Are the girls the product of the “I need to do well in school to please the teacher/ coach” or is this a genuine physiological \emotional difference between age and sex?

My gut feeling is that their Creativity and Individualism has been restricted through the environment? What do you think?