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?
Paul Dent (Sports Psychologist) did a presentation at the LTA’s performance workshop. Two things that he said about the differences between men and women, help explain some behaviours to me.
1. The female of the species is much more risk aware. The male relies on their strength and power to deal with a threat, while the female has to look out for herself and her offspring. A modern example given is in the car where the the man is often reminded of his speed and distance to other cars etc.
2. Diet. The female is more aware of food because she needs to provide for herself and her children.
These are hard-wirings that are part of our evolution. The modern world has not had enough time to change these default patterns, despite the cultural and social changes we have seen over the the last 100 years.
We need to factor this in to our coaching. I speak as a father of two daughters.
Mark Sheppard
Great post! got me thinking thanks.
Todd
I think many athletes do turn up to training expecting to be told what to do. It is a break from everyday life, which in one respect is nice as they can switch off but another is that they do not allow themselves to think which may be useful in competition.
I think that sometimes coaches forget that the people they are teaching are still kids at the end of the day. They need to enjoy their sport in order to achieve and stay enthusiastic.
Allowing them to be creative is a great coaching tip (thanks James). They will learn to think for themselves which in some sports can be very important. If something doesn’t go how they planned in training, how can they correct it and not let it effect their game?
Great post 🙂
Gemma Robertson
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