070012 Coaching Edge 10 NEW!:CE 9
19/2/08
11:35
Page 12
FEATURE
© Martin Yelling
FEATURE
The Team of One The concept of a performance team is just as valid within individual sports as it is within team sports; you could argue it is more so. Here, Martin Yelling examines how successful athletes in individual sports operate with a performance team around them, with a particular focus on the critical ‘home team’ – the spouses and family members who are behind any elite athlete. Key Features of Family Support I recently went to watch a one-person play at the theatre. The lead star of the stage held the audience captivated with a solo performance. To the audience, the production was all about one man on stage enthralling us with his acting and stories. Yet behind the scenes there was much more going on. To open a play on stage, even with a single lead role, involves everyone in the production team pulling together towards a common goal. It’s not just about the lone actor but involves a full supporting cast comprising directors, makeup artists, front of house, costume and props people, set builders, lighting, sound engineers and many more to make for a brilliant performance. Brilliant performances in individual sports rarely come about without the backup of a dedicated, often unseen, support team either. Look at cycling as a classic example of an individual performer supported by a team. United States Postal Service professional cycling team became famous for its dedicated approach to one performer – seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong – and one goal; the Tour. Essentially, Armstrong was an individual performer and, although nine riders would ride the tour in the ‘team’, their pivotal role was to get their leader, Armstrong, to the Champs Elysee on top of the podium. Individual riders were brought into the team for their strengths and were used as ‘domestiques’ to support, protect and assist Armstrong but he also had super back up from team directors, doctors, physios, bike mechanics etc.
Who Makes Up a Support Team for an Elite Athlete? For elite athletes receiving world-class performance programme support, a network of high-performance centres and the English/Scottish/Welsh Institutes of Sport have infrastructures in place to support athlete growth and help them reach their performance potential. Elite athletes outside of this system look to build their own personal support teams around them. Although different sports clearly have different demands in terms of support, there is certainly some common ground in the roles and responsibilities of a team to support an individual athlete. Sport/event-specific coaches, sports therapists, nutrition specialists, sports psychologists, physiologists, strength and conditioning experts,
lifestyle managers, sponsors, managers and agents are often the most frequently acknowledged support providers, yet athlete support networks really go much deeper. Understanding employers, teachers, friends, partners, spouses and parents provide a different, sometimes unseen, yet incredibly valuable background level of elite athlete support.
Family Affairs: Kirsty Balfour In 2006, British swimming breast stroke specialist Kirsty Balfour won an impressive six championship medals, including European long and short-course gold. This year, she won silver in the 200m breast stroke at the World Swimming Championships. Kirsty lives at home with her parents, Cathy and Scott, in Edinburgh. She’s coached by Fred Vergnoux at City of Edinburgh Swimming (CES). Parental support has been instrumental in shaping Kirsty’s rise to the top. In her early sporting career as a schoolgirl swimmer, her father would get up at 5am before work, make breakfast for them both, drive Kirsty to the pool, and then get off to work as a school teacher. Her mother would then collect her from the pool and drive her to school. It became a part of the Balfour family life to create opportunities for Kirsty to have a lifestyle that allowed daily training, while also continuing to balance and meet the demands and needs of their other three daughters. Now that Kirsty has made it right to the top of her sport, the unfailing support from her family is still there; it’s just more subtle and comes under different guises. For her dad, Scott, this support is now much less about the direct practical issues and more about the indirect, emotional support structures and ‘simply being there’. The practical involves providing a home, some financial support, making the effort to ensure that Kirsty can focus on her day-to-day training through doing small jobs that help make her life easier; for example, making sure her car starts! Simply being there as a parent can be more complex. Knowing what to say, when and how to say it in the right way isn’t always easy for family members. For Scott, this is very important and he ensures time at home is family time, where Kirsty can escape the intensive demands of being a full-time athlete and can simply be part of a family where she has freedom and personal space and he can be just her dad.
Profile Martin Yelling has a PhD in physical activity and physical education and is a qualified UKA coach. He has worked in teacher and coach education and currently runs his own performance, health and wellbeing coaching company. Martin is married to Commonwealth Games Bronze medallist and Olympian Liz Yelling and is brother to former European Cross Country Champion Hayley. He is a former National elite duathlon champion and has represented Great Britain at seven World and European Championships. More recently, he competed in the Hawaii Ironman Triathlon World Championships.
12
sports coach UK
Key features of the informal support families can provide to high-performing athletes include:
‘Let the athlete and coach do their job together and, as a family member, create a home climate that supports the athlete’s emotional needs through reducing stress, conflict and confrontation and promoting calmness, stability, happiness, love and care.’
•
• •
• •
•
•
Supporting Spouses: Liz Yelling Liz Yelling is a 32-year-old marathon runner. She’s been a runner since she was nine years old and has been an international for 17 years. After a period as a school teacher, she was fortunate enough to be given some world-class funding support to enable her to train full time. Liz is no longer supported by lottery funding and so works part-time to support her running. Being the best she can be as a runner is her passion and this goal has been intertwined in various ways throughout our 14 years together. As Liz’s husband, I support her in many different ways. On the practical side, I am her manager. My role is to secure sponsorship to enable her to train and recover optimally. Together with her coach, we agree a race programme and I negotiate her race packages. I accompany her to events, carry bags, hold coats and cheer loudly! I act as a ‘filter’, dealing with phone calls and requests for appearances at races, schools, clubs, and corporate events. This eases the load on Liz and means she can focus on putting the miles in, out on the roads.
•
realising less can be more; give an athlete space to prepare for training and to recover from it being non-judgemental about an athlete’s training or racing remembering the athlete is either your son, daughter, husband, wife, brother, or sister; make time to be just that to them not trying to be the coach/expert. Let the athlete and coach do their job together creating a home climate that supports the athlete’s emotional needs through reducing stress, conflict and confrontation, and promoting calmness, stability, happiness, love and care encouraging, motivating and supporting unconditionally without pressure to perform or succeed being flexible; developing home and lifestyle routines to accommodate training demands celebrating achievement but also being the emotional scaffolding when things go wrong.
Although I support Liz’s career from a practical and business perspective, her running permeates our lives in many ways. We always have running shoes in the car and our days are structured around training sessions. Yet, at the same time, I also need to be clear about my different responsibilities, and our lives are about balancing running and not neglecting other important features of a husband–wife relationship. I need to know when to ‘not talk running’, when to give her space, when to motivate her, when to be her husband. I need to provide physical support but, more importantly, I try to create emotional stability, comfort and opportunities to make her home life as smooth and as stress-free as possible so, together, we can create opportunities to succeed.
coaching edge issue 10
13
070012 Coaching Edge 10 NEW!:CE 9
19/2/08
11:35
Page 12
FEATURE
© Martin Yelling
FEATURE
The Team of One The concept of a performance team is just as valid within individual sports as it is within team sports; you could argue it is more so. Here, Martin Yelling examines how successful athletes in individual sports operate with a performance team around them, with a particular focus on the critical ‘home team’ – the spouses and family members who are behind any elite athlete. Key Features of Family Support I recently went to watch a one-person play at the theatre. The lead star of the stage held the audience captivated with a solo performance. To the audience, the production was all about one man on stage enthralling us with his acting and stories. Yet behind the scenes there was much more going on. To open a play on stage, even with a single lead role, involves everyone in the production team pulling together towards a common goal. It’s not just about the lone actor but involves a full supporting cast comprising directors, makeup artists, front of house, costume and props people, set builders, lighting, sound engineers and many more to make for a brilliant performance. Brilliant performances in individual sports rarely come about without the backup of a dedicated, often unseen, support team either. Look at cycling as a classic example of an individual performer supported by a team. United States Postal Service professional cycling team became famous for its dedicated approach to one performer – seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong – and one goal; the Tour. Essentially, Armstrong was an individual performer and, although nine riders would ride the tour in the ‘team’, their pivotal role was to get their leader, Armstrong, to the Champs Elysee on top of the podium. Individual riders were brought into the team for their strengths and were used as ‘domestiques’ to support, protect and assist Armstrong but he also had super back up from team directors, doctors, physios, bike mechanics etc.
Who Makes Up a Support Team for an Elite Athlete? For elite athletes receiving world-class performance programme support, a network of high-performance centres and the English/Scottish/Welsh Institutes of Sport have infrastructures in place to support athlete growth and help them reach their performance potential. Elite athletes outside of this system look to build their own personal support teams around them. Although different sports clearly have different demands in terms of support, there is certainly some common ground in the roles and responsibilities of a team to support an individual athlete. Sport/event-specific coaches, sports therapists, nutrition specialists, sports psychologists, physiologists, strength and conditioning experts,
lifestyle managers, sponsors, managers and agents are often the most frequently acknowledged support providers, yet athlete support networks really go much deeper. Understanding employers, teachers, friends, partners, spouses and parents provide a different, sometimes unseen, yet incredibly valuable background level of elite athlete support.
Family Affairs: Kirsty Balfour In 2006, British swimming breast stroke specialist Kirsty Balfour won an impressive six championship medals, including European long and short-course gold. This year, she won silver in the 200m breast stroke at the World Swimming Championships. Kirsty lives at home with her parents, Cathy and Scott, in Edinburgh. She’s coached by Fred Vergnoux at City of Edinburgh Swimming (CES). Parental support has been instrumental in shaping Kirsty’s rise to the top. In her early sporting career as a schoolgirl swimmer, her father would get up at 5am before work, make breakfast for them both, drive Kirsty to the pool, and then get off to work as a school teacher. Her mother would then collect her from the pool and drive her to school. It became a part of the Balfour family life to create opportunities for Kirsty to have a lifestyle that allowed daily training, while also continuing to balance and meet the demands and needs of their other three daughters. Now that Kirsty has made it right to the top of her sport, the unfailing support from her family is still there; it’s just more subtle and comes under different guises. For her dad, Scott, this support is now much less about the direct practical issues and more about the indirect, emotional support structures and ‘simply being there’. The practical involves providing a home, some financial support, making the effort to ensure that Kirsty can focus on her day-to-day training through doing small jobs that help make her life easier; for example, making sure her car starts! Simply being there as a parent can be more complex. Knowing what to say, when and how to say it in the right way isn’t always easy for family members. For Scott, this is very important and he ensures time at home is family time, where Kirsty can escape the intensive demands of being a full-time athlete and can simply be part of a family where she has freedom and personal space and he can be just her dad.
Profile Martin Yelling has a PhD in physical activity and physical education and is a qualified UKA coach. He has worked in teacher and coach education and currently runs his own performance, health and wellbeing coaching company. Martin is married to Commonwealth Games Bronze medallist and Olympian Liz Yelling and is brother to former European Cross Country Champion Hayley. He is a former National elite duathlon champion and has represented Great Britain at seven World and European Championships. More recently, he competed in the Hawaii Ironman Triathlon World Championships.
12
sports coach UK
Key features of the informal support families can provide to high-performing athletes include:
‘Let the athlete and coach do their job together and, as a family member, create a home climate that supports the athlete’s emotional needs through reducing stress, conflict and confrontation and promoting calmness, stability, happiness, love and care.’
•
• •
• •
•
•
Supporting Spouses: Liz Yelling Liz Yelling is a 32-year-old marathon runner. She’s been a runner since she was nine years old and has been an international for 17 years. After a period as a school teacher, she was fortunate enough to be given some world-class funding support to enable her to train full time. Liz is no longer supported by lottery funding and so works part-time to support her running. Being the best she can be as a runner is her passion and this goal has been intertwined in various ways throughout our 14 years together. As Liz’s husband, I support her in many different ways. On the practical side, I am her manager. My role is to secure sponsorship to enable her to train and recover optimally. Together with her coach, we agree a race programme and I negotiate her race packages. I accompany her to events, carry bags, hold coats and cheer loudly! I act as a ‘filter’, dealing with phone calls and requests for appearances at races, schools, clubs, and corporate events. This eases the load on Liz and means she can focus on putting the miles in, out on the roads.
•
realising less can be more; give an athlete space to prepare for training and to recover from it being non-judgemental about an athlete’s training or racing remembering the athlete is either your son, daughter, husband, wife, brother, or sister; make time to be just that to them not trying to be the coach/expert. Let the athlete and coach do their job together creating a home climate that supports the athlete’s emotional needs through reducing stress, conflict and confrontation, and promoting calmness, stability, happiness, love and care encouraging, motivating and supporting unconditionally without pressure to perform or succeed being flexible; developing home and lifestyle routines to accommodate training demands celebrating achievement but also being the emotional scaffolding when things go wrong.
Although I support Liz’s career from a practical and business perspective, her running permeates our lives in many ways. We always have running shoes in the car and our days are structured around training sessions. Yet, at the same time, I also need to be clear about my different responsibilities, and our lives are about balancing running and not neglecting other important features of a husband–wife relationship. I need to know when to ‘not talk running’, when to give her space, when to motivate her, when to be her husband. I need to provide physical support but, more importantly, I try to create emotional stability, comfort and opportunities to make her home life as smooth and as stress-free as possible so, together, we can create opportunities to succeed.
coaching edge issue 10
13