Tag Archive: equestrian

1. Coaching disabled athletes: Global Coaches House

   12th October 2012 8:17 am Leave a Comment

    Paralympics Wrap Up

   After watching the blind football team play at the Paralympics, I went to the final session of the Paralympics Global Coaches House, chaired by Professor Pat Duffy.

   This was a 2 part seminar with part 1 looking at experiences and thoughts of working with disabled athletes, and part 2 looking at future considerations for coach development.

   A discussion was held with the coaches present offering insights from their practical experiences. It was agreed that there is no “blue print for coaching disabled athletes”. 

   I made the point that within the same sport and the same disability, individuals vary greatly. Just labelling people as “disabled” is much the same as labelling “women” or “Chinese“. Disabled athletes are not a homogenous group.

   Another coach made the valid point that because of access to funding some disabled “participation athletes” are actually thrust into “performance” environments, even though they may not be ready, or may not ever be ready for that.

   Pat Duffy then said that as ongoing coach education:

   • All coaches should have the mindset, philosophy and capability to coach athletes with a disability
   • The education of all coaches should address mindset, philosophy and capability so that coaches can respond accordingly to the needs of all athletes.

    International Council for Coach Education  

   The second part of the seminar then looked at Coach Education for the different types of coach and the diffferent levels of athlete they work with.

   This was quite comprehensive and showed that recogniton of ALL coaches is important, not just professional coaches working with Olympians.

   In the U.K.:

   • Less than 5% of coaches are full time and paid.
   • 25% are part time and paid.
   • 75% are unpaid volunteers

   (Some interesting stats for those of you studying and thinking of Coaching as a profession.)

    Coach development can include 3 areas:

   1. Professional Knowledge (The technical stuff)
   2. Interpersonal Knowledge (How to share and interact)
   3. Intrapersonal Knowledge (How you are as a person).

   This formed part of a thorough framework that has been designed to assist all coaches at all levels.

   (You can download a copy of the International Sport Coaching Framework here )

    Summary

   I found the evening useful as it got together, coaches and academics in the same room. Pat made the point that beauracrats and administrators make decisions that impact sport as a whole, but coaches don’t get involved in committees.

   • Administrators need to seek out and understand what is happening in the real world.
   • Coaches need to share and communicate upwards as well as downwards to help the overall body of knowledge develop.

   Personally, I think that when academics publish papers or get asked to present at conferences, they need to name the coaches who have contributed.

   It was good to see the overall picture, and then combine that with speciifc detail and examples.

    Have a look at the frameworks and see how that fits into your coaching.

   I am constantly frustrated with people just wanting to get a certificate, rather than looking to improve the quality of their coaching!

    

    

2. Stuck in a training rut? 3 ways to get out.

   3rd October 2012 11:17 am Leave a Comment

   Practice Variability

   We all get stuck in rut sometimes: as coaches or athletes. All it takes is a tweak to get out. You can vary your training in 3 different areas:

   1. variability in the environment (surface, situation, location, equipment)
   2. task variability (change complex to simple, mirror image, backwards)
   3. variability in the body

   You don’t have to rewrite your programme, but a little variety will keep you fresh and adaptable.

3. Learning from the Best

   27th August 2012 9:23 pm Leave a Comment

   I made my way to the Global Coaches House on Wednesday for the morning talks. I chose it as the theme was coach development, which as a relatively new coach is something I am keen to continue.

   The coach development pathway

   Kim Cardile spoke about spending time developing as a coach, something that not many make time to do, we are too busy coaching and planning to have time for reflection.

   Dream it, Plan it, Do it, is a goal setting phrase that is commonly used by coaches and businesses.  To make the phrase as effective as possible we need to add an extra line ‘Reflect it’ then repeat the whole process.

   Dream it, Plan it, Do it, Reflect it.

   Kim then spoke about factors of success she believes are essential:

   • Knowing yourself
   • Being ableto assess situations with clarity
   • Knowing how to connect in order to maximise results.

   These factors are used on a daily basis within coaching sessions when you are required to adjust your plans depending on the situation in front of you.  These factors are also needed when planning longer-term solutions to programmes and life itself.

   Two points were raised following this, one by Kim about the need to break habits in order to become better. An example of this was discussed by Colin Jackson in his commentary of the 110m hurdles, he spoke about getting into a rhythm.  Gold medallist Colin Jackson has achieved this by clocking almost identical times during the games, but to improve he will need to risk upsetting that rhythm.

   The second idea from Peter De Villiers: ‘Not always what you see, but where you look from’ links the initial idea and the factors of success. A very simple example is when looking at technique in the gym, if you observe from a different place you may see a different problem.

   The last area touched on within this talk was the different types of coaching, Kim has developed a system called CMAP (Coach Management Assessment Programme).  It is a series of questions that work out whether you are a Transformational, Transactional or a Conservative Leader. Using a sample of questions we identified out our coaching styles and discussed the type of coach and understood the need to be flexible depending on the situation in hand.

   Philosophies of Coaching

   When Frank Dick introduced the philosophies of coaching he developed two key phrases:

   ‘How you make your journey is shaped by you as an individual’ and

   ‘In all of time there is only one of you’

   Jim Crakes has been forming his own philosophy for many years and shared many stories of his time as a coach.  ‘Your general beliefs that give a set of guide posts to which you live your life’  This is how Jim describes a philosophy, something he believes everyone should think about and know his or her own.

   Jim believes there are four points that are required in discovery:

   • Persistence
   • Encouragement
   • Consistency
   • Passion.

   As coaches we need to have these and instil them into our athletes and fellow coaches to be the best we can be. He spoke of a time when he studied the Tarahumara tribe in Mexico, they found nothing out of the ordinary physiologically.  The reason they were excellent long distance runners was that they had made it their lifestyle. This point is something that stood out when Kim spoke about habits and also Kelvin when he spoke of physical literacy.

   Russell Smelley who has been an adversary and good friend of Jim’s spoke about when they first met.  Russell was a young coach who felt he needed to win everything to become better, overtime he discovered that growing people made him a better coach, something in the current winning mentality age I feel has been lost.

   Russell spoke of the coach being the normality in an athlete’s life and that we need to understand our athletes and everything should be about their needs not ours as a coach. Athletes have the best chance of success if they trust and have a long term relationship with their coach.  Jess Ennis and Tony Minichiello have worked together for years and now reaped the reward with a gold medal.

   Jim left us with two final points, as an agreement we should make with ourselves and our athletes:

   1. Be impeccable in your word
   2. Always do your best
   3. Don’t make assumptions
   4. Don’t take it personally.

   He concluded his speech by making all the coaches join him in reciting Rudyard Kipling’s ‘IF’.  It is a poem that many people have used over the years and that as one GB hockey player tweeted last night after losing 9-2 to Holland in the semi final “I read ‘IF’ before the game. Now it seems more apt than ever.”

    Quest for Physical literacy

   Kelvin Giles was introduced by Frank saying as coaches we need to look at least one step before when trying to solve a problem.

   Kelvin is trying to improve physical literacy in the next generation of athletes, not an easy task. He spoke how we are in the X-Box generation where children have reduced fitness levels, increased injury risk and obesity due to a sedentary lifestyle.

   Kelvin has worked with elite athletes and showed video clips of their inability to move correctly in simple tasks such as landing on two feet. He has developed a system to test and then improve movement literacy, which can be used with elite athletes but more importantly with children, as they are the future. If we don’t invest in their movement now we will have a generation of athletes that are injury prone.

   Movement literacy is not just for athletes, everyone moves and needs to be able to produce, reduce and stabilise forces to perform everyday tasks such as getting into a car, standing up and walking.

   Our bodies need to be:

   • Flexible at the ankle
   • Stable at the knee
   • Flexible at the hip
   • Stable in the lumbar vertebrae
   • Flexible in the thoracic vertebrae
   • Stable in the cervical vertebrae.

   Otherwise our body will compensate to solve problems, if during training we cause a micro trauma to muscles and don’t allow it to heal we can then cause compensations which lead to macro traumas and eventually catastrophic tissue failure, potentially career ending injury.

   Athletes need to earn the physical right to increase their training, this can only be done once there has been a permanent adaptation. With young athletes we need to let them discover for themselves, this will take patience to allow them to grow as athletes without making them robots. Usian Bolt is an example of someone who has discovered his running style rather than been taught it.

   The experience of listening to so many top coaches was phenomenal, I was able to learn a lot and have taken home many points to reflect and act on.

   Duncan Buckmaster

4. Coaching Legends: Learning from the best.

   1st August 2012 9:08 am Leave a Comment

   Standing on the shoulders of giants.

   I spent Monday in the presence of some Coaching giants: Frank Dick, Bill Sweetenham and Vern Gambetta at the Global Coaches House.

   Olympic Legacy?

   The Hot Topic in the morning was about the Olympic Legacy. Who is going to light the fire of the next generation of coaches, athletes and teachers?

   I made the point that Parents are at the frontline of all that needs to happen. Either as role models or taxi drivers.

   Vern said “make it small, make it local, make it neighbourhood“. It starts from there.

   Frank emphasised the need for encouraging aspiration not expectation in our younger generation.

   How are you going to make a difference after the Olympics?

   Creating a Winning Profile

   Bill Sweetenham talked about how to create a winning profile in your athletes, support staff and coaches. He wants his athletes to focus on their best performances, and look to improve from the bottom up. It is hard to improve on oyur best all the time, but you can improve your 11th best performance.

   If you do this every 6 months, then you are making progress. Your best performance is the one that is yet to come.

   Bill then talked about identifying 9 key aspects of your performance, then looking to get each one of those better by 1%. If you can do that, then your chances of achieving your goal have will improve by 25-30%.

   The importance of emotional stress was then covered, especially as this is a big factor in the Big Championships. Physical and mental stress are common in training, but the emotional stress is often under rated (British Cycling response to Winning the Tour de France?).

   In domestic and International competitions, there is less recovery time needed for emotional stress, as it is not such a factor. Things change when you get to the big games, and coaches and athletes need ot be prepared.

   All the time Bill referred to the athlete and to the Coaching team. It is not just down to the athletes. The team has to be the best it can be: either through training or through recruitment. The Coach has to keep progressing and working.

   He had some really useful metrics that I shall be using with my athletes and on myself to help us improve. I haven’t seen him present before, but I was very impressed with his simple but effective tools, and his emphasis on the need for accountability from everyone in the team.

   How are you going to improve your Coaching after the Olympics?

   Decisions, Decisions.

   “The opposite of right isn’t wrong, it’s left” was something Frank had been told in his past. He then expounded on some specific case studies and real life examples and asked us what decisions we would have made and why.

   This was a really useful exercise, and I benefitted from hearing how other people think. (Of course, you need a supportive, no blame no fear environment for this to work in!)

   Who was Andrea del Verrocchio?

   He was Leonardo Da Vinci’s mentor.

   Frank talked about how the athletes get all the attention, but who is the person standing behind them? Who has helped them along their path?

   Who was the person who got Da Vinci started?

   Da Vinci “Took the process of homework as being important”. His mentor instilled this in him, and his use of this and practice, practice, practice allowed him to develop into greatness.

   Some things can’t be taught, they can only be learnt. “Experience is a cruel mistress because she gives you the exam before you have had the lesson.” So, how can we accelerate that experiential process?

   • Take time out to reflect. 
   • Grow regularly and use a network of people who think differently
   • Decide to be the best.

   I last saw Frank present in 2000 on a Coaching Day for Health Club Managers. That inspired me to set up Excelsior. He is just as inspiring now. Coaches need motivating too!

   Food for thought

   As usual on these days, it was just as useful mingling chatting before and after the seminars.

   There were some great coaches present, and it helped clear up some thoughts for me.

   I was both inspired and challenged.

   It was great to catch up with people I had last seen on GAIN in Houston. 

5. Training young athletes: Part 7 Marco Cardinale

   5th March 2012 2:21 pm Leave a Comment

   In this Olympic Year, I thought it would be a good idea to hear from coaches who have worked with developing athletes and their thoughts. Today Marco Cardinale  who is the head of Sports Science and Resarch at the British Olympic Association.

   I started my career coaching young athletes. I was in fact a Handball coach, interested in developing young handball players. Our programmes started with kids in primary schools all the way to the senior national teams.

   Working with young athletes has always been rewarding as you see them growing and improving and very quickly you can see the ones having the right attitude about hard work and commitment which will lead them to sporting greatness. Rewards don’t come only from the one winning medals, they come from seeing everyone reaching their potential and maximising learning to become better. 

   So, here are few hints and tips. 

   1) Each training session counts, but only if the athletes are connected and willing to engage

   2) Each training session has to have a purpose, athletes need to know why they are doing it

   3) Learning happens with deep practice, so make sure the athletes are immersed in what they do

   4) Use random practice to create challenging environment, however keep in mind progression needs to be appropriate to the skills of the athletes you are coaching

   5) Make sure athletes write things down and are actively engaging in learning what they are doing

   6) Give ‘process orientated praise’. For example, praise the athlete’s effort and strategy. E.g: ‘You really tried hard’; ‘That was a good way to do it’

   7) Emphasize hard work and learning, you can get better if you learn more than your opposition

   8) Use interactive technology, the young generation likes interactions, persuasive technologies can be very effective  

   Coaching Generation Y

   The way we coach/teach athletes now needs changing as new generations cannot be coached in the same way as the old one. Some fundamentals are still valid. Hard work and learning are the fundamental aspects for a young athlete, deep practice, passion for the sport and knowledge are the building blocks of elite performers.

   Young athletes willing to excel in sport should look at young musicians or artists. You can only excel if you study your sport, if you develop a deep inquisitive knowledge of all the aspects relevant to your sport (equipment, nutrition, tactics).

   So, look at the best in the World, learn what they do, write notes, take pictures, save videos, analyse their performances, admire the skills and think about how you can develop new ones.

   The young athletes of today will be tomorrow’s champions only if they will play a different game than today’s champions.

   Marco Cardinale

    

   If you wish to have an easy to follow guide to training young athletes, then click on the book cover to the right. I wrote this standing on the shoulders of giants.

6. How do you coach a visual learner who is blind?

   6th February 2012 9:19 am 2 Comments

   This came up last week in conversation with 2 of the England Blind Football Team. I was unable to physically demonstrate some exercises to Dan James the goalkeeper, (who is sighted) and is a clear example of someone who learns by watching.

   Later that day I was working with Robin Williams (blind) who has never been able to see demos, so has to learn by auditory cues and feel.

   How would I be able to coach Robin if he was a Visual learner like Dan?

   This rapidly turned into some sort of Zen Koan with us racking our brains as to whether this is a learned trait, or an inherited one.

   
   

    

7. Steve Jobs on Coaching

   21st October 2011 9:30 am 1 Comment

   I know this is a bit old now, but reading a lot of quotes from Steve Jobs and think a lot of it applies to how and why I coach too.

   • “Simple can be harder than complex. You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.”
   • “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma- which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your inner voice.”
   • “Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me. Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful, that’s what matters to me.”

   I am not an Appleophile, but do think Jobs was a special individual who did change things.

    

8. Coach Development: The journey so far

   17th October 2011 8:17 pm 1 Comment

   Having some thoughts and interactions with other Coaches recently and here are some questions that have arisen:

   • How have you developed in your coaching/ teaching so far?
   • How have you got the knowledge you have so far?
   • How do we know what is right or wrong?
   • Or even if we have “knowledge”?

   It might be time to start reflecting on this.

9. Tomato: fruit or vegetable?

   5th October 2011 9:10 am Leave a Comment

   Is a tomato a fruit or vegetable?

    Fruit?

    

    

    

    

   Then why not put it in this fruit salad?

    

    

    

    

   Vegetable?

   Looks good in this green salad doesn’t it?

   

    

   “To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe.”

   – Marilyn Vos Savant

   When Coaching athletes, there is no point being a holder or disseminator of random facts.  Look at the context and then use the information accordingly.

   Sorry to keep banging on about experience: but this helps discern how to use information.

10. Coach Education in the UK

    26th September 2011 9:47 am Leave a Comment

    Coach Education in bite size formats

    Most coaches I know are short of time, short of money and short of patience. Trying to develop their practice as well as juggling work, family and coaching is pretty tricky. I put myself in this category.

    I think the way forward is to deliver bite size chunks of information that allow the Coach to access it when needed. This may be in the form of videos, online resources  or workshops. The information has to be clear, easy to access and affordable.

    Every Coach that has completed a Level 1 or Level 2 Strength and Conditioning Coaching course with Excelsior gets access to a free online library that is updated every month with relevant articles.

    Interactive workshops

    I am currently delivering a series of workshops across the South West of England. The first was an Injury Prevention workshop in conjunction with Active Devon. The feedback and vibe I got from this workshop was very rewarding. In fact I couldn’t get to sleep afterwards because I was buzzing from the experience.

    Some of the feedback included:

    “I think introduce it into Schools – into the curriculum”

    “Achievable and well presented”

    “Good to promote correct application of strength and conditioning exercises and general wellbeing”

    “Everything is everything – Fits reality – Doable at next coaching session and it will fit in”

    I was also told that my “style” of presenting was unusual. When asked for more details, the Coach said that I adapted the session to the audience, answered questions and made it relevant. I didn’t dleiver an “off pat” series of set points.

    Surely that is Coaching?

    You can read more on coach development here