Coaching Edge Issue 30 by sports coach UK Research

WINTER 2013 ISSUE 30

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|CONTENTS| COACHING EDGE

INSIDE|ISSUE 30 06

MAINTAINING MOMENTUM

SWITCHING COACHES

BACK TO BASICS

MULTI-SPORT COACHING

UK COACHING AWARDS

FRANK DICK

LEVEL BEST

INSPIRE/ASPIRE

Joining a successful club may seem like the dream, but it can hold fresh challenges

Is a change is as good as a rest? Not always we look at the pros and cons of switching

Can back to basics training help to reinforce the fundamentals?

Specialist coaches of multi-sport athletes share their tales of the track

The glittering ceremony recognised the achievements of coaches and support teams

The veteran coach brings his sporting vision to Coaching Edge

Can strategies for coaching youngsters really be found in computer games?

An initiative sharing best practice through cross-sport mentoring

LIFTING THE LIDON DEPRESSION Is consideration of an athlete’s mental fitness part of the coach’s remit?

32 ASK THE EXPERT

We put your questions to Triathlon coach Jack Maitland

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30 Chair Chris Baillieu Commissioning Editor Tim Hartley Editor Anna Gutridge agutridge@coachwise.ltd.uk Design Coachwise Design Team Enquiries for bulk subscriptions www.sportscoachuk.org or on 0113-290 7612. The opinions expressed in these articles are those of the authors.

They do not necessarily reflect the views of sports coach UK, its management or staff. Throughout these articles, the pronouns he, she, him, her and so on are interchangeable and intended to be inclusive of both males and females. It is important in sport, as elsewhere, that both genders have equal status and opportunities. The term parent includes carers, guardians and other next of kin categories.

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COACHING EDGE |NEWS|

NEWS ROUND-UP

WELCOME Happy New Year! The dust is just beginning to settle after an amazing year of Olympic and Paralympic glory, rounded off with our very own UK Coaching Awards (see page 18) where we honoured dedicated and passionate coaches who proved that coaching is at the heart of sport, from the grass roots to the elite. However, that was last year, and it is time for us to forge ahead with the next 12 months, ready to face the trials that undoubtedly lie before us. These challenges are clearly best met collectively, and it is by pooling our resources, expertise and knowledge that we can develop a community of coaches who are supported and compensated for their dedication.

Coaching Edge will help you to fulfill all your ambitions for this year by providing the information, inspiration and support you need to provide your charges with the best coaching. I look forward to seeing what we can achieve this year and know that we can continue to build on the enthusiasm and momentum of last summer. So until next time,

Tony Byrne, sports coach UK CEO We are listening, so please get in touch if there are any areas you would like to see covered in your magazine Contact us at: editor@sportscoachuk.org

Aspiring workshop tutors have attended training sessions

DEAF COMMUNICATIONS WORKSHOP PILOTED An exciting new workshop is to be piloted with StreetGames; England Squash and Racketball; British Rowing; and Vision Redbridge Culture and Leisure county sports partnership The ‘Effective Communication: Coaching Deaf People in Sport’ workshop will benefit coaches at all levels, irrespective of how long they have been coaching, by making them more aware of how they can adapt their own communication skills to make them more proficient in every session. This workshop shows that positive communication is not just about using British Sign Language, but how facial expression and clear gestures and other physical signals can be just as powerful. It is effective for all coaches whether they are coaching a session for deaf athletes or hearing players on an outdoor pitch. The workshop is scheduled to roll out through sports coach UK’s Workshop Booking Centre in April. To find a workshop near you visit the sports coach UK Workshop Finder at www.sportscoachuk.org/workshopfinder

THE BIG BREAKFAST WITH STUART AND MARK High profile coaches shared their tales of coaching to over 300 delegates through a live streamed all-day talent breakfast. England Women’s Cricket Head Coach Mark Lane and England Rugby Union Head Coach Stuart Lancaster (pictured) shared their coaching tales at the event, at Leeds United’s Elland Road just before Christmas, The event was live streamed over the Internet where over 200 coaches tuned in and sent questions via Twitter. Mark and Stuart spoke about how they got to where they are today, their influences, coaching philosophies and also shared examples of good practice. Don’t worry if you missed the live stream, as a recording of the day can be viewed at www.sportscoachuklive.co.uk

|NEWS| COACHING EDGE

NEWS ROUND-UP NATIONAL INITIATIVE GETS OUR SUPPORT A new initiative to ensure the inclusion of disabled people in sport has been launched. Paralympic gold medallist Hannah Cockroft, Culture Secretary Maria Miller and sports coach UK CEO Tony Byrne joined Sport England’s Jennie Price and Sainsbury’s Justin King to announce the sports coach UK and English Federation of Disability Sport (EFDS) partnership to deliver a programme that will deliver training for over 10,000 coaches, leaders, assistants and parents. It will help them develop the skills and confidence to include disabled people in community-based sporting activity. It provides high quality support for community clubs and teachers, creating a seamless approach for disabled people in school and community sport. Maria Miller said: ‘This is exactly the kind of legacy we want to see from the 2012 Paralympic Games. The Paralympics made the UK think about disability differently, and I hope that it is the first of many public and private partnerships aimed at developing disability sport at the grass roots. ‘I am determined that disabled people of all ages get the chance to play sport, both at school and in community sport clubs.’ In talking about her experiences at the Paralympics, Cockroft said: ‘Coaches play a big role in people’s sporting experience so it’s important they receive the training that gives them skills to include disabled people and help them get the most out of it. ‘This could make the difference in disabled people making sport a part of their everyday lives or not playing sport at all.’ The number of disabled people playing sport at least once a week has increased by 160,000 over the past year, but there’s much more to do in increasing participation levels. One in six disabled adults play sport regularly, compared to one in three nondisabled adults.

Coach education programmes give coaches the chance to share experiences

DEVELOPING RESOURCES AND SHARING EXPERIENCES IN COACHING DISABLED PEOPLE A community of practice event will be held early this year to support and encourage governing bodies of sport to embed key messages around including disabled people into their Level 1 coach education programmes.

In addition to this, and in order to further our commitment to inclusivity, sports coach UK supported a Coaching Disabled Athletes Breakfast Club at Lilleshall National Sports Centre.

This ground-breaking work will not remove the need for existing disability-sport-specific workshops but will allow the governing bodies of sport involved to evolve their coach education programmes towards being more inclusive. This will in turn lead to increased participation figures for disabled people within their mainstream clubs.

Delegates heard from three coaches who have extensive experience of coaching disabled athletes:

The event will involve the British Canoe Union, British Equestrian Federation, Rugby Football Union, British Cycling, and the Professional Golfers’ Association. An Inclusive Coach Education Tool Kit is being developed to support this project and will be available online in early 2013, along with case studies outlining the development process from April 2013.

• Paul Coates, national disability gymnastics coach • Nigel Burton, a Level 2 athletics coach who works for Dwarf Sports Association UK • George Ferguson, ex-Great Britain visually impaired football player and coach. The coaches talked about how they got involved and their development as coaches, as well as giving useful tips.Three more events are being planned to support coaches wanting to work with athletes with a disability. The event was organised by Shropshire County Council in partnership with and on behalf of Energize Shropshire Telford and Wrekin (STW).

60-SECOND SURVEY RESULTS The results are in! According to our online survey, the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games had a positive impact on coaches and coaching. 88% of respondents said they were inspired to improve their coaching and just short of three quarters of those that completed the survey said they were inspired to do more coaching, with 66% reporting that to have been the case. Coaches also noted that the Games provided an opportunity to ensure the development and retention of coaches and workforce planning. Thanks to everyone who completed the survey on the sports coach UK website

Images ÂŠ Alan Edwards

Looking for coaching inspiration?

96% LEARN

Learn from other coaches on a sports coach UK workshop For more information, visit:

www.sportscoachuk.org/improvemycoaching * Statistics taken from evaluations of Aprilâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;September 2012 workshops

SOMETH ING NEW*

|NEWS| COACHING EDGE

FIRST STEP INTO COACHING, SECOND STEP INTO AWARD WINNER In September 2011, Iain Howard was a big fan of sport, looking for a fresh challenge, so he took part in Sport England’s ‘Sport Makers’ programme.

Taking part in the workshop helped Howard to realise that he could begin volunteering at a club right away – so that’s what he did. With support from Energize STW, Howard quickly became an England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) Level 1 cricket coach and began coaching at Reman Services Cricket Club. Not content with just coaching cricket, in January 2012, he set up an informal basketball team based in Shrewsbury for a group of colleagues and has recently taken his Level 1 basketball coaching qualification. The basketball group already has 21 members and uses social networking to promote the club to local people interested in playing basketball at a recreational level. In just 12 months, Howard’s commitment has seen him rewarded with the Shropshire Volunteer of the Year title, along with BBC television and radio appearances.

Iain Howard has made a difference to his own and others’ sporting lives Howard’s next coaching goal is to become a Level 2 basketball and cricket coach and then become a full-time coach. This story is a fantastic example of how that desire to try something new can bring about a huge change and rewards in a person’s life. He said: ‘My involvement in coaching has proven that sport is one of the few opportunities in life that can help everyone to unlock some of their hidden potential and the potential of others.’

During this process he heard about the sports coach UK ‘First Steps into Coaching’ workshop about to be piloted by Energize Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin (STW) county sports partnership (CSP) in Shrewsbury.

‘First Steps into Coaching’ is a workshop with supporting handbook resource specifically designed to attract parents, lapsed sports participants, young adults and Sport Makers into sports coaching for the first time. The workshops are delivered by trained staff from within each CSP and provide all the local information a prospective coach would need to begin volunteering for the first time. For more information on taking part in a ‘First Steps into Coaching’ workshop visit the sports coach UK website or contact your local CSP.

TALENT OBJECTIVES SHARED BY ACTIVE COMMUNITIES CHAMPIONS After clinching the Coaching Intervention of the Year Award with its Active Communities programme at the Coaching Awards, Sport Northern Ireland has been sharing the objectives of its North West Talent Project. The 18 coaches on the programme are engaged in coaching talented young athletes. It has assisted the development of the regional coaching systems and aligned regional development to national pathways. The aim is to implement bespoke programmes that will maximise the potential of participants in wrestling, judo, mountaineering, hockey and rugby. The project hopes to develop a pool of coaches who can effectively deliver on future talent development programmes to help young performers to reach their potential. It also aims to identify new talent and develop existing talent to integrate with the governing body performer pathway. Finally the project aims to share best working practice as coaches reflect upon their coaching experience and address their future development needs.

The coaches on the project are encouraged to share ideas

COACHING EDGE |MAINTAINING MOMENTUM|

THAT’S SWEET

THE TIGERS’FEAT Building a winning team or culture is one thing; maintaining it is something totally different. Mike Dale talked to coaches who know about those trials and tribulations.

he word you hear repeatedly when talking to Richard Cockerill, director of rugby at Leicester Tigers, is ‘good’.

He demands his players are ‘good in training, not just on the field’, believes ‘good people create a good environment’, wants a ‘good scrum, good line-out, good back line’; indeed, he wants his squad to be ‘good at everything, all of the time’. This perhaps mundane adjective is, in fact, a considerable understatement. By the standards of any club in any sport, Leicester would be more aptly described as ‘outstanding’. The Tigers have reached the Premiership final for the last eight years in succession, have never finished in the bottom half of the table, and are the most successful English side ever in the Heineken Cup, winning it twice and reaching another three finals. They also have a proud record of producing international players.

Unusually this heritage of excellence has been achieved against a backdrop of pretty regular (and occasionally ruthless) changes in coaching personnel – Cockerill is the sixth head coach at Welford Road in the last 10 years. There is wisdom for other coaches within Cockerill’s story, especially for those who take charge of an organisation that has a proven track record and a deeply entrenched formula. There’s a delicate balance to be struck between maintaining a successful system and imposing one’s own personality and philosophies. ‘You have to respect what’s made them a good club in the first place,’ advises Cockerill. ‘It’s important not to throw everything away just because it’s not your idea. ‘To think that only your ideas are the right ones is arrogant. I don’t care where the ideas come from, as long as they work.

|MAINTAINING MOMENTUM| COACHING EDGE

‘I don’t think somebody coming into the place and running it completely differently works.’

COACHING EDGE |MAINTAINING MOMENTUM|

Leader of the pack - Richard Cockerill (right) drills his Tigers

They don’t have to be mine, they just have to be good. ‘That said, day-to-day, you’ve got to run it how you believe it should be run. That might be a slightly different work ethic or a slightly different slant on things. You have to back yourself. For me, coaching is about common sense, working with good people and trying to make things better.’ Tito Vilanova, coach of FC Barcelona, faces a similar scenario. Last summer, he not only succeeded the most successful coach in the club’s history, Pep Guardiola, but inherited a long-ingrained culture, a globally admired style of play and an instant obligation to continue winning trophies. Cockerill recognises this pressure to maintain performance levels, and stresses the need to ‘relentlessly drive the environment’. He states: ‘Culture and environments don’t just manage themselves. You have to manage those things every day – time keeping, dress code, work ethic. Some players and staff will help drive it; some will have to be driven. ‘The pressure is there the whole time. If we aren’t successful, I’d be under pressure for my job. Others have lost their jobs here because of perceived weakness or lack of success. If you are a director of rugby, depending on the expectations of the board, you are under pressure every week.’

Cockerill, now 42, achieved legendary status at Leicester as hooker in the formidable front row partnership with Graham Rowntree and Darren Garforth that became known as the ‘ABC Club’. Cockerill later became forwards coach, then acting head coach twice, before getting the top job permanently in April 2009.

critical all the time that it starts to pick at the fabric of the team and wear everybody down. ‘Equally, when you win, you don’t want to be ignoring the faults that occurred, just because the result was right.

He admits that being immersed in the club for so long and understanding the ‘Leicester culture’ have proved big advantages since he took charge.

‘We don’t typically have huge peaks and troughs to our seasons. Some sides start really well and then fade away, or have a bad start and recover. We just keep on working hard, diligently and consistently the whole time.’

‘Leicester can be a slightly odd place,’ he reflects. ‘You need to be in it to understand it in order to then run it.

Leicester’s players, regardless of status, are also frequently reminded that complacency is not tolerated.

I don’t think somebody coming into the place and running it completely differently to how it has been for a long time necessarily works.

Everything is tailored towards achieving what every coach strives for — a constantly high level of performance.

‘Anybody coming into this environment has to add to the culture and not change it. That’s probably the best way to describe it.’ It comes as no surprise to hear Cockerill highlight ‘hard work’ as being central to that culture, and to Leicester’s remarkably consistent success. But he also reveals how he tempers and moulds his reactions to both victories and defeats, helping to maintain the squad’s focus, work rate and morale. ‘You must manage the environment when you lose. You have to make sure you’re hard enough on yourselves to improve, but not so

‘All the guys we sign and the guys that come through the system understand that they’ve got to work really hard to deserve their spots (in the first XV),’ says Cockerill. ‘We want them worrying about performance and making good contributions to the team, rather than selection. ‘People here know and are told: “You might be first choice, but you’ve got to be very good. If you’re not, then we’ve got to find someone who is, quickly”. It’s not about you being in the side today, it’s about you being one of the best players in the competition, in England or the world, if possible.’

|MAINTAINING MOMENTUM| COACHING EDGE

Dillet Gilkes is starting his first full season as men’s first team coach at Chelmsford Hockey Club, which was founded in 1898 and is one of the most successful in the country. He has lived in the UK for 10 years, but is originally from Trinidad. He joined Chelmsford from West Herts hockey club in Watford. The delicate path of taking control in a long-established environment is not confined to elite sport. ‘One of my philosophies is that I try to give everyone a fair chance, regardless of which team they have played for previously,’ he says. ‘It could be someone who has played in the third team for his entire career – I would give them the chance to represent the club at its highest level.

Dillet Gilkes (right) represented Trinidad and Tobago and is now charged with maintaining traditions at Chelmsford

‘That was quite new to this club and took a bit of adjusting to for most of the guys. It was a bit of a culture change. I said they need to train to get selected, and that under me, there’s the possibility to play for any team, regardless of skill. I think attitude is really important. I look at character and how hard players work. ‘I sat down with the chair of selectors, chair of the playing committee and others and talked about the importance of making sessions available to everyone, not just the first and second teams. It’s more inclusive and they accepted that.’ It could be argued that inheriting a successful system is trickier than starting from scratch. Results are demanded, methodologies are embedded and change may be unwelcome. But the coach’s Holy Grail – consistently high performance – is achievable through respect for what’s gone before and prudence in adding one’s own ingredients to the recipe.

THE COACH’S EDGE

‘People here know and are told: “You might be first choice, but you’ve got to be very good. If you’re not, then we’ve got to find someone who is, quickly”.’

Evaluate the factors that enabled your new institution to achieve sustained success in the past. Ask yourself: ‘Do they really need changing?’ Be wary of tearing up ideas just because they are not your own. Getting buy-in from all stakeholders is vital before making significant changes to an established culture. Conduct thorough research before entering a new domain – will your way of coaching contrast too sharply with what athletes have experienced before?

COACHING EDGE |SWITCHING COACHES|

ndy Murray’s 2011 season ended with him hobbling off court in the ATP World Tour Finals – a groin strain highlighting the effects of a long and arduous year in which he had essentially failed to achieve his goal. There were whispering doubts questioning if rather than when the Scot would finally win a Grand Slam title. For him, there needed to be change and it came in the shape of new coach Ivan Lendl. Uniting with the eight-time Grand Slam winner after discussing the prospect of working together over a meal in Florida was a gamble for both men. For Lendl, his reputation was on the line, while Murray was risking teaming up with a coach with no proven experience. The rest is history as Murray rounded off 2012, the best season of his career, without the millstone of ‘the best player never to win a Grand Slam’ following his superb win at the US Open, allied to Olympic gold and an appearance in a Wimbledon final. Lendl has been heavily credited for the turnaround, not least his charge, while the 52- year- old has downplayed the enormity of his impact, insisting it is merely the smaller things he has tweaked.

ALL CHANGE

In the off-season, athletes or teams often decide a new coach is all they need to take that vital next step. Matt Majendie looks at whether a change really is just as good as a rest.

‘I didn’t attack one thing, it was small elements,’ said Lendl looking back on the 2012 season. ‘We only really worked on touching up things.’

Murray alone has had all manner of coaching partnerships in the past with Brad Gilbert, Alex Corretja, Mark Petchey and Miles McLagan, some that worked and some that didn’t. And a change of coach is more prevalent in tennis than many other sports as players repeatedly try to find the right combination to bring the right results. The obvious point for change comes at the end of the season and, while Murray will certainly stick with Lendl, his peers may look at changing their coaching back-up. Over the winter, British athletes across a variety of sports will make wholesale coaching changes more this year than at any time since 2008 as the latest Olympic cycle draws to a close and sportsmen and women seek to

In many ways, the change of coach was as much a state of mind for Murray – having someone in his corner who had struggled to win Grand Slams before turning that around as much as in the manner of his play, although Lendl has improved the Murray serve and made him more attacking while receiving. The partnership has been proved a match made in heaven; the pair’s dry sense of humour coupled with their dour nature on court perfectly suited. But while this new athlete-coach relationship has worked, for many, similar gambles have not paid off.

|SWITCHING COACHES| COACHING EDGE

Shortly after making the change – with the goal of winning gold at The Rio 2016 Olympic Games in four years’ time – Bleasdale said: ‘Dan’s done a great job with Greg and Jonnie (Peacock, the Paralympic 100m sprinter), and hopefully he’ll be able to improve me technically and get me more conditioned to help me jump higher.’ Bleasdale’s switch makes sense with her previous coach also boasting a full-time job and not completely able to give her the time she required to focus on her discipline going forward. One of those on the receiving end of a departing athlete since the London Games is Billy Pye. The former coal miner is best known as the coach of Ellie Simmonds, who won double Paralympic gold in London. But one of his other charges, Stephanie Millward, has left Pye’s camp in Swansea to return to her former base in Bath. Pye is not unduly concerned by the decision, in part because Millward has relocated to Bath to get married and the switch to Swansea had only been a four-year plan for the five-time Paralympic medallist. Looking at her decision to change, Pye said: ‘Some feel it’s personal if an athlete leaves, but my view is that I don’t own an athlete and never have. If a swimmer comes to me and wants to work with me, I’ll do the best I can, and I think they know that. But this is elite sport and people move on. It’s not life or death like working in a coal mine, but still brutal decisions have to be made.’ Coaching changes take place at every level and in every type of sport. Choosing a coach is not always a straightforward matter. In the case of Lendl and Murray, their personalities just clicked straightaway. But sometimes hard work is sufficient. Malcolm Arnold, who coaches 400m hurdle world champion Dai Greene among others, recalls being badgered into giving a trial to Lawrence Clarke by his mother. ‘I said I’d give him a go and, in that first session, I knew I’d let him stay as he just had it all in here,’ says Arnold tapping his temple. The partnership has not quite had the immediacy of the Lendl-Murray venture in terms of winning results, but it was enough to see Clarke reach the final of the 100m hurdles inside the Olympic Stadium. Among the most notable performances inside that stadium was Jessica Ennis winning Olympic gold under massive home pressure over the two days of the heptathlon, watched by her coach

Toni Minichiello, with whom she has worked closely since the age of 11. Their partnership is a surprisingly long-lasting one in any sport and, from the outside looking in, the only time it seemed in danger of crumbling was when Ennis toyed with moving to the United States to study in her late teens. But Minichiello recalls a time six years ago when he was advised that he should step aside: ‘I’m not going to name names, but someone high up in the England coaching set-up at the 2006 Commonwealth Games said I’d taken her as far as I could,’ he recalled. ‘That for me was a challenge, a chance for me to go “Oh, really?” It fired me up.’ Ennis, though, has never wavered from the partnership’.

training, she discusses how they might change their approach. ‘For seven, eight years now, I’ve said to him “do you want to do something different, with someone different,” she admits. ‘David has always said to me that will never happen but, if it does, that’s ok. ‘I for one would walk away if I felt I couldn’t take him any further and, if he said yes to finding a new coach, I’d come with him and find him the right new coach. I’d never want to hold an athlete back in that regard, never.’

‘The thing is, people want instant success and so move from coach to coach.’

Andy Murray with Ivan Lendl – It’s proved to be a marriage made in heaven since they properly came together at the start of 2012. The results say it all – first Grand Slam title at the US Open and an Olympic gold medal. Phillips Idowu and Aston Moore – After failing to win gold at the Beijing Games, Idowu parted from coach Ian Herbert to work with Moore. The world title followed the next year and the European crown a year later. Michael Jamieson and Dave McNulty – Rebecca Adlington aside, Jamieson was the one British Olympic swimming success at the 2012 Games. After moving to Bath two years ago to work with McNulty, he won a surprise 200m breaststroke silver in London.

Weir, like Ennis, looks likely to stick with the current winning formula. In the coming months, other sportsmen and women will not.

✓

He has seen other athletes come and go under his tutelage, and is well aware of athletes’ desire for change. He says: ‘The thing is, people want instant success and so move from coach to coach to coach. You need to manage those expectations. I think you need to be with a coach for at least two years to see what they’re capable of delivering. But a lot of people change coaches because they seldom see that the problem isn’t necessarily the coach but the athlete.’ In adding athletes to his group, Minichiello almost takes the approach of trying to scare a prospective athlete off to ensure they are sufficiently committed to his cause and way of thinking. ‘I had one girl the other day, and I sat her and her mum down and basically gave them 12 reasons why they shouldn’t join up with me… but they did it anyway,’ he says. The change of coach can come from the sporting individual, but often it is from external influence from within a governing body. Ennis revealed in her recent autobiography that, while there was not pressure to change coaches, UK Athletics had tried to get her and Minichiello to relocate their training programme to the capital, which she refused to do. London-based coach Jenny Archer, who guided wheelchair racer David Weir to quadruple Paralympic gold in the summer and has worked with him for more than eight years full-time, is well versed on the external coaching pressures. ‘It’s not just the athlete that pushes for a change of coach,’ she says. ‘Sometimes you have to remember that the pressure comes from elsewhere.’ Archer has a novel approach with Weir in that, before the start of each winter of

✘

Hits

Misses

Ricky Hatton with Floyd Mayweather Sr – Hatton brought in Mayweather to inspire him to victory over Manny Pacquaio, but the boxer later claimed he was worked so hard he, was too exhausted for the fight and was duly knocked out in the second round. John Daly and Butch Harmon – Daly brought in Harmon as his swing coach, but it was a short-lived relationship. Harmon claimed ‘The most important thing in his life is getting drunk’, while Daly retorted: ‘His lies destroyed my life’.

readdress what they can change and find a coach to take them ‘to the next level’. Pole vaulter Holly Bleasdale, who had been among the medal contenders going into the women’s Olympic final, is among those to have changed coaches, switching from Julien Raffalli-Ebenzant to Dan Pfaff, who has guided former sprinter Donovan Bailey and more recently British long jumper Greg Rutherford to gold.

COACHING EDGE |BACK TO BASICS|

Fielding marshal: Graham Gooch (right) keeps an eagle eye on catch practice

|BACK TO BASICS| COACHING EDGE

BASIC INSTINCTS Does back to basics coaching work? Richard Gibson talked to two cricketing legends who are achieving success by stripping away the fancy aids.

ith its extensive research carried out at the National Performance Centre in Loughborough, English cricket is at the forefront of modern coaching. The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has developed comprehensive technology to provide their players with the best resources to improve performance. Inventions like Merlyn and more recently ProBatter, for example, have allowed batsmen to gain simulated experience of what it is like to face certain bowlers – ones with unusual trajectories such as Lasith Malinga, or those like Shane Warne or Muttiah Muralitharan who

spin the ball so prodigiously that replicating it is nigh-on impossible. Home-grown spin bowlers have had the revolutions they place on the ball monitored by another state-of-the-art piece of equipment, called Trackman, and the use of GPS has been integral to a study into the effects lengthy periods in the field have on fast bowlers’ performances late in the day. But when it comes to coaching English players on how to perform in alien conditions, there has to be a great deal of creativity too. Practising indoors during a wet and miserable autumn, no matter how modern your facilities, is hardly ideal preparation for a winter in India, where the extreme conditions – the intense temperature and slow, dry pitches – present their own unique challenges.

COACHING EDGE |BACK TO BASICS|

Graham Thorpe in batting action - now he’s using basic techniques to help the next generation

Yes, the England coaching staff might have some enviable cutting-edge tools at their disposal, but they are also adept when it comes to stripping things back to basics. Luckily, one of them is Graham Gooch, a master of improvisation in practice during his playing days. Gooch famously warmed up for a World Cup semifinal in Mumbai 25 years ago by asking his team-mates to bowl at him on the outfield – the unpredictable bounce off bumpier ground preparing him for what he expected off the pitch itself. Nowadays, Gooch can be witnessed overseeing the England batsmen’s drills as the team’s batting coach. More often than not, during home summers, that entails him standing three quarters of the way back down the pitch, hurling deliveries at them with the use of a modified dog ball launcher. But the net surfaces at places like Headingley and Trent Bridge are nothing like what they will encounter in Ahmedabad, Kolkata and Nagpur – and that is where a touch of

‘It might help make that little bit of difference and you have to try anything to try and develop a good technique.’ imagination comes in. It is when the machines are turned off that the light bulb turns on in Gooch’s head.

might help make that little bit of difference, and you have to try anything to try to develop a good technique against spin. We improved playing spin as last winter went on, but it is not a quick fix. ‘You don’t suddenly become a good player of spin; it takes a long time to work and evolve. You have to introduce a lot of skills into your game. You can’t play spin without being able to defend first, which means judging flight, length and a whole myriad of things that we have to improve. ‘We are trying to get away from regular practice and trying to make it more interesting with more stimulating variations.

One of his props to replicate subcontinental surfaces is a rubber mat that he keeps in the back of his car.

We take them out of their comfort zones. You have to practise the basics, because everyone needs strong basics, but it is about adding that extra little bit.’

‘When you are in England, you have to do anything to make it turn more,’ Gooch explains. ‘You throw the mat down in the nets and the ball turns off the dimples. The batsman has to think quickly and use his feet and hands. It

Another Graham, and another fine former player of spin, Graham Thorpe, is tasked with bringing out the next generation, the England Lions, through the extensive Performance programme, and he is equally creative.

|BACK TO BASICS| COACHING EDGE

Thorpe’s plans for improving batters against the turning ball include removing their pads – the theory being that you use the bat more and do not become lazy and thrust out the pad as an insurance measure. The choice is simple: hit the ball or be struck a painful blow on the shins. He also makes them use specially tailored half-width bats, thus ensuring that they are striking the ball in the very middle. Like Gooch, he also tampers with the surfaces, often raking up the grass or running the spikes of his boots along it to rough up the ground. ‘These bats give you the chance to work on the technical aspect, your get-off strike shots, and they help you break in wrists and manipulate the ball,’ he explained. ‘Practising without pads on, or just with short-leg pads on, is something we sometimes try. ‘Then you have to play the ball with the bat, not the pad. No one wants to be hit on the shin. Sometimes, you have to get brutal. Batting like that requires very good footwork.

Last year, Thorpe took a group of emerging players to India, including Joe Root, who has returned on the full England tour 12 months later. ‘From a technical perspective, playing out on the subcontinent is as challenging as it gets for an English player,’ said Thorpe, whose work was carried out in Mumbai and Pune using ‘skinny’ willows and skin unprotected.

England’s Kevin Pietersen bowls during the first day of the warm-up game against India A There are other ways of taking batsmen out of their comfort zones too. Cricketers from a previous generation considered wicketkeeper Jack Russell to be mad at the best of times, and utterly barking for acclimatising for trips to Asia by sitting in the steam room for hours on end fully kitted and padded up. Now, indoor practice at England’s East Midlands headquarters takes place with the central heating turned up full blast to create a similar heat and humidity to that awaiting them at the other end of a 10–hour plane journey. ‘We get the indoor area ramped up to 30-odd degrees, getting the guys running every couple of balls to increase the physical challenge,’ Thorpe explained. ‘There will be glove changes due to the sweat; shirts also get wet.

‘We will put them into practice surfaces just like we used to use. We would not always bat in the nets because they might be nice, shiny and hard with no rough.

‘You prepare with long sessions, both morning and afternoon, to make sure you can stand up to the physical requirements.

‘We would rough pitches up, or sometimes practise in the nets that were prepared for us three days earlier, which the groundsman hadn’t rolled, so the ball would fly over your shoulder from a fullish length.’

‘It can be quite uncomfortable, but an important part of preparation is putting in the hours in the nets. It might be a bit boring, but when the body gets a bit sore, it will be important to have had those long nets sessions.’

THE COACH’S EDGE

‘We are trying to get away from regular practice and trying to make it more interesting with stimulating variations.’

Modern athletes are used to getting their heads around technological advances in coaching, but how do they cope when things are stripped back completely? Expose the very basics of practice drills by making the environment as basic as possible. Can individuals perform their skills when comfort blankets are taken away? In ball sports, changing the size, shape or weight of the ball can improve focus. When anticipating playing in a different climate or on a different terrain, think about how to alter things accordingly. Examples may include increasing or decreasing temperatures, adding weights to competitors’ arms and legs to improve stamina in preparation for heavy pitches, or developing props to replicate the competitive arena.

COACHING EDGE |MULTI-SPORT COACHING|

THE WINNING COMBINATION How do coaches specialising in different disciplines make sure their work dovetails to help the athlete’s end result? Richard Jones finds out.

essica Ennis sprinting to victory in the heptathlon 800m at the Olympic Stadium and a triumphant Alistair Brownlee draped in the Union Flag strolling his way down The Mall. Just two images from last summer that will remain long in the memory of sports fans. The popularity of multi-discipline events such as heptathlon, decathlon, triathlon and modern pentathlon is on a sharp increase. Thousands have bought into the idea of combining more than one discipline into one event, and there is an increased appreciation of the ability and dedication it takes to become a high-class multi-skilled athlete. But how do coaches work alongside other specialists to make sure that improvement and sustainability in one discipline doesn’t take precedence over success in the whole event? Javelin coach Mick Hill began working with Ennis back in 2004 and played a massive part in the golden girl of British athletics going from perennial ‘nearly girl’ to the world’s leading female heptathlete.

|MULTI-SPORT COACHING| COACHING EDGE

‘We developed slowly and managed to get improvements without javelin-related injuries and compromising Jessica’s strong events.’ ‘I have known Toni for a long time as he came to train with me with some of his other athletes. Toni has developed a very strong team around Jessica that comprises sports science input, sports medicine, commercial and technical input. ‘I know my role and interact with members of the team, with Toni as coordinator.’ Ian Pyper, strength and conditioning coach for the hugely successful GB boxing programme, and also for British Triathlon, agrees with Hill that communication is key when coaching multi-discipline competitors. ‘We discuss training and the progress of athletes informally twice per week,’ he says. ‘This works as our main forum to express any ideas and catch any major issues before they get out of hand.’ Both Boxing and British Triathlon have a similar way of doing things, and the coaches are a close-knit bunch. ’It is very much a team that works round the athlete, and the athlete is central to all discussions. ‘It’s not a one-way discussion, as the process is about helping athletes take responsibility for their development and in light of this being able to make their own decisions. ’Coaches need to work as a team, and also be careful not to overload on certain skills and drills.’ Pyper, who works with Alistair and Jonathan Brownlee and their training group including Non Stanford (women’s world under-23 champion) and Tom Bishop (men’s world under-23 bronze medallist), explains this is not really an issue at the professional level. ‘I wouldn’t say that too much work in one particular discipline affects just the other disciplines – more that overtraining in one area will affect all aspects due to fatigue. ‘On an individual level, the proportions in each area will vary depending on the time of the year, and race scheduling. ‘The way to overcome any issues is to communicate with the athletes and coaches,

and also to ensure that you monitor the volumes done in each discipline over a period of time and compare this to the results and improvements the athlete is showing. Hill, who joined Leeds Metropolitan University as the Senior Coach for High Performance and Enterprise in March 2009, has had experiences with fatigued athletes. He adds: ‘It is extremely difficult to teach javelin skills to novice athletes when they are tired and run-down. Skill sessions need to be delivered on days following rest or easy training days, but as multi-event athletes don’t have many of these, therein lies the challenge.

‘The way to overcome issues is to communicate with the athletes and coaches.’ ‘You cannot rush the process so we have to keep a close eye on intensity and quality and ensure we do things that are achievable and limit the risk of injury. ‘I have never lost sight of the fact that javelin is something that Jessica has to do, but it is never going to be her strongest event,’ he admits. ‘However, I have always known that she was capable of much more than the 28m she threw when we started training together and was confident that we could get lots more points without too much disruption to her stronger events.‘ Hill also believes that the physical attributes that make a good javelin thrower are quite similar to those that make a world-class heptathlete and decathlete. ‘The good thing is that multi-event training is great conditioning for the javelin, so heptathletes and decathletes have all the physical attributes world-class javelin throwers train for – speed, power, rhythm, endurance, flexibility and spatial awareness. ‘The major difference is that javelin throwers simply have the natural ability to throw.’ Pyper is an accredited strength and conditioning coach, in a range of Olympic, Paralympic and professional sports.

He describes the differences and similarities between triathletes, individual swimmers, cyclists and runners. ‘The lower body strength (single and double leg) is needed for running and cycling, while lower body reactivity demonstrates an athlete’s plyometric abilities (fast and powerful movements), which are important in running quickly and efficiently. ‘Upper body pulling strength is important for the upper body component of the swimming stroke and for pulling on the handlebars for stability in cycling, particularly while accelerating. Finally, there’s efficiency of movement – which comes about from the volumes of training and competing that triathletes do. ‘There is always an overlap in all sports – but particularly with the cycling, swimming and running disciplines.’ ‘A balanced training programme will develop all aspects of physical development,’ Hill says. ‘Obviously, the needs of the sport will determine the ratio of each component.’ Pyper agrees: ‘Incorporating other sports’ skills into training is useful on a number of levels. ‘Firstly, it can provide a break from the monotony of their own sports training, and therefore freshen up the training environment. Secondly, it is another skill that they have to try to master – this means that their skill library is increased, which is definitely a good thing for any athlete. ‘We have boxing sessions using pads and mitts with the triathlon athletes during a conditioning block as it provides upper body work capacity as well as a lower body and core challenge. ‘In addition, boxers often run, cycle and swim to improve their fitness levels. However, instead of looking at the activity being done I’d rather look at the physical outcome it gives. 40 seconds of boxing with pads and mitts for a non-boxer is really just 40 seconds of upper body conditioning work. ‘From a strength and conditioning perspective the aim is always to provide the sport-specific coaches with stronger, more robust and well-rounded athletes. ‘They are more athletic, stronger and, as a result, have less chance of getting injured and therefore more chance of developing to the level where they can be successful.’

‘I began working with Jessica when she had a personal best of 28m in javelin,’ he said. ‘Toni Minichiello (Ennis’ head coach) has always planned her time, and we agreed that I would provide the technical drills she needed to learn the skills of javelin throwing.

COACHING EDGE |UK COACHING AWARDS|

THE STANDARD As the annual UK Coaching Awards ceremony took place, Coaching Edge Editor Anna Gutridge was on hand to witness deserving coaches and coaching initiatives being recognised for their efforts in an incredible year of sport. he last year saw sport dominate the headlines and office water cooler chat as millions watched to see dreams being realised and hearts broken at The London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The pressure felt by many athletes was ever more tangible as tears flowed over results that had been four years in the making. Podium finish or not, the dedication was apparent. It was this that opened the eyes of the general public to just how much goes on behind the scenes with the athletes, their coaches and wider support teams. So, as a result the UK Coaching Awards, which took place on 20 November, had an extra special reason to celebrate – as well as making this year’s winners especially difficult to choose from a pool of sterling nominees who had seen success not only in the Olympic

and Paralympic Games, but for coaching initiatives making huge differences in their communities, showing unwavering dedication in the face of difficult circumstances.

‘The highlight was the ovation given by more than 300 guests to the Hall of Fame coaches. The applause just went on and on!’ The awards presented by HRH The Princess Royal saw the accolade of High Performance Coach of the Year shared among several recipients to reflect the success of the Games.

Athletics coach Toni Minichiello was one, as were the new UK Athletics head coach, Peter Eriksson, (previously head coach for Paralympics GB track and field athletes) and the women’s endurance track cycling coach, Paul Manning. Rory McIlroy’s coach, Michael Bannon, also won a prize. At the end of a year in which his best-known charge won Olympic gold in the face of huge pressure at the London 2012 Games, Jessica Ennis’ coach Minichiello was named UK Coach of the Year. As Ennis took second place in last year’s BBC Sports Personality of the Year, she joined her long-standing coach in the slew of end-of-year awards which honoured the summer’s sporting heroes. Minichiello has coached Ennis since the mid-1990s. He was formerly the national event coach for combined events and switched roles in 2010 to become a UK Athletics Olympic coach, allowing him to focus exclusively on Ennis.

Gillette Community Coach of the Year winner Q Shillingford with Gold medallist Anthony Joshua

ÂŠ Phil Mingo/Pinnacle/Gillette

|UK COACHING AWARDS| COACHING EDGE

COACHING EDGE |UK COACHING AWARDS|

Coaching Hall of Fame inductees, rowing coaches Mary McLachlan, Paul Thompson, Jurgen Grobler, Sports Minister Hugh Robertson MP and Robin Williams Minichiello said he was thrilled to have won the High Performance Coach of the Year award and then to have won the overall award was ‘a lovely surprise’. When quizzed about how a coach maintains a successful relationship with an athlete such as he has with Ennis, Minichiello said: ‘We are like an old married couple now, because of the length of the relationship. She’s no longer a 12-year-old girl taking instruction from a big gruff bloke; she’s a successful businesswoman in her own right. I’ve changed my style as she’s grown.

rider-centred coaching philosophy was described as instrumental to its success. Alongside this she was involved in the development of British Cycling’s flagship Level 3 Certificate in Coaching Mountain Bike.

Belinda Tarling

‘It’s now much more of a mentoring approach, and I’ve done that to suit her as she has matured and been able to manage her own training plans and schedules.’ Ennis recently revealed that she and Minichiello had resisted pressure from Charles van Commenee, then UK Athletics head coach, to move to London to train ahead of the 2012 Games. Every coach of a London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic gold medallist was rewarded with induction into the Gillette sponsored Coaching Hall of Fame. The coaches of Alistair and Jonathan Brownlee won the Coaching Chain: Appreciation of Coaching Award that recognises coaches who have helped athletes along the way to elite success. The award went to Tony Kingham and Charles Lines, who encouraged and developed the brothers’ running and triathlon at Bradford Grammar School, Corrinne Tantrum, who provided tailored swimming training for the duo at City of Bradford Swimming Club, and Malcolm Brown and Jack Maitland, who coached the brothers to their medals. The Coachwise-sponsored Coach Educator of the Year award was won by Belinda Tarling as her delivery of British Cycling’s

‘I was surprised and delighted to win the Coach Educator of the Year award. I really enjoy my role as a tutor and assessor for British Cycling and have been fortunate enough to have had the opportunity to expand on my coach educator work this year. ‘Winning is a great recognition of that work, made possible by the valuable help and support of the Coach Education team at British Cycling.’ Belinda also spoke about opportunities and discrimination against females within the coaching environment: ‘Women seem to be under-represented in the sports coach environment, especially at the performance end. I don’t feel there is any lack of opportunity or equality now for women, either as athletes or coaches in many of our sports. Hopefully, this will be reflected in the coming years with more women taking up coaching roles and more female coaches making a breakthrough at elite performance level.’

Sir Chris Hoy was also on hand to cheer on the winners at the glittering ceremony, which was attended by more than 300 guests.

The organiser comments... John Driscoll, executive director at sports coach UK, led the team responsible for the Awards, including coordinating more than 400 nominations from across the UK, ready for the judging panel. He said:‘We always knew that the UK Coaching Awards 2012 were going to be special, so our planning started early.

‘In addition to the conventional award categories, we created the concept of the Hall of Fame back in the spring, anticipating the need to celebrate the coaches behind our Olympic and Paralympic Games success. ‘The challenge was how to turn the idea into a reality, which we couldn’t have done without generous support from Gillette. British success in the Games meant the awards attracted a great deal more media attention than previously, which has helped our aim of raising the profile of coaching. ‘The atmosphere was everything we could have wished for – a great celebration of coaching among coaches, athletes and all those who make excellent sport possible. To give just one example, at the ‘boxing table’ we had the Gillette Community Coach of the Year ‘Q’ Shillingford talking to gold medallist Anthony Joshua and BBC reporter Matt Slater.

‘After months of planning, the highlight for me was the ovations given by more than 300 guests to the Hall of Fame coaches. The applause just went on and on!’

|UK COACHING AWARDS| COACHING EDGE

Coaching Hall of Fame inductee Tennis coach Judy Murray

Coaching Chain winners Malcolm Brown and Corrinne Tantrum share a joke with HRH The Princess Royal

UK Coach of the Year and High-Performance Coach of the Year Award recipient Toni Minichiello

Sir Chris Hoy MBE and Zaid Al-Qassab - Procter and Gamble Marketing Director

Heather Crouch Young Coach of the Year Olivia Bryl

COACHING EDGE |FRANK DICK|

FRANK TALK

Frank Dick is a highly acclaimed motivational speaker who has worked with Daley Thompson, Boris Becker, Justin Rose, Gerhard Berger and Katarina Witt. He discussed his sporting vision with Howard Foster.

oaches who want to drive the future of their sport must learn from the past. That is the lesson Frank Dick believes we can all learn from ourselves.

‘What you see in any event is the consequence of something. Nothing just happens, it’s all the result of something. It is down to the coach to decide what these factors are as a way of improving things in the future,’ says Dick. He says the most vital post-Games strategy is a root and branch debrief, as this will drive our understanding and allow us to prepare and plan for the future: ‘How this player played, or athlete performed, how this coach prepared himself or herself, and what was the result – this must all be looked at. Only in this way can

policy makers and decision takers get the right information to make things even better in the future.’ This clarity of thought would be expected for a man who spent the years from 1979 to 1994 as the British Athletics Federation’s director of coaching.

But we need to look deeper than that.’ Dick points out that fewer than 24% of UK athletes achieved their season’s best during the 2012 Games. ‘What we have to do to help our future coaching strategy is to examine why,’ he says.

During this ‘golden age’, the GB athletics team rose to previously undreamed of prominence in global athletics, with the likes of Steve Ovett, Sebastian Coe and double-Olympic decathlon champion Daley Thompson. Dick, of course, coached Thompson to his position as arguably the world’s greatest and most famous athlete.

He is full of praise for other UK federations, British Cycling being a case in point, which have by and large achieved this aim of making sure their competitors are primed and peaking at the right point.

He uses athletics in the UK to further his example, and makes some fascinating points for both coaches and administrators alike. ‘In athletics at the London 2012 Games, Team GB got four golds, which was truly outstanding.

‘We have to look at making sure our athlete is at the optimum level at, let’s say, five past nine on the evening of an Olympic final. That’s when it counts. And how do we do this? We plan backwards from there, step by step. That is the key.’

|FRANK DICK| COACHING EDGE

Berwick-born Dick sets out certain factors that any athlete, elite or not, needs to achieve for success. These include the mind-sets of performing to compete, competing to learn, and, crucially, learning to win. ‘I know very little about tennis, so my work with Boris Becker wasn’t about that,’ he explains. ‘It was about applying principles to human performance. That was the key. Everything is connected, and we can apply these lessons across all sports and all aspects of life. ‘I like to think I drive a car well, but what could I teach Formula One’s Gerhard Berger about driving? But I could pass on some performance advice, and there’s where everything crosses over.’ Dick, for whom the words intense, enthusiastic, and inspirational could have been invented, offers a key example of how athletes can maximise their potential and how competing in any event should not be wasted, and can be used to achieve future success. ‘There is a period in an athlete’s development, which is a critical last step between performing to compete and learning to win. I call it competing to learn. This is where sports participants go through a very steep learning curve about how to compete at a particular level.’ This situation was first brought home to Dick when he was coaching Keith Connor at the European triple jump competition back in 1982. Connor struck gold at that particular event, but a good deal of the groundwork and preparation for success had come in the ‘competing to learn’ phase. Dick explains: ‘He had been through this process, as what I’d call a “learning observer”. This process is the way to develop a hardening of attitude towards competition that you simply can’t get in any other way than being in that kind of competition yourself.’

Dick, 71, believes this particular discipline is a step that is still not addressed by a number of coaches. It continues his philosophy of learning from past events, and always using this knowledge to the athlete’s and the coach’s benefit. ‘I tell athletes this: Your last step on the podium in London was your first step towards the podium in Rio. Nothing stands still and the sporting world has to move at the same pace, and ahead of it, to continue its progression.’ So what, in Dick’s opinion, marks out a truly world class coach, apart from the qualities already mentioned, and the ability to communicate their message? ‘It’s down to making the right judgement calls and the right decision making. This is driven by having the experience and courage of conviction, and applies not only in sport but to coaches in all walks of life.’ Dick, who revolutionised coaching by successfully transferring his expertise across sports at a high level, explains his strategy: ‘Looking back to primary school, it’s a whole host of generalised knowledge you are asked to take in, but as time develops and you move on, it becomes more specialised, and as a coach or a sportsperson, you are concentrating solely on that one discipline to achieve your best.

THE COACH’S EDGE

‘The science of coaching is something taught, but the art of coaching is something you must learn.’

‘But there comes a time when you need to look sideways and soak up what other people are doing, how they approach things and what you can learn from them. ‘The science of coaching is something taught, but the art of coaching is something you must learn. This learning only comes from experience, from finding out how to think on the move.’ Dick says you can never pick up enough knowledge from others: ‘In my early days, if there’d been a crime of stalking back then, I could have been guilty! I always made sure I followed coaches around, at the events, behind the scenes, and to the bar in the evening. I needed to know everything, and no coaching information I picked up was ever wasted. This is what I mean by the art of coaching, it can’t be taught, it must be learned.’ Dick also explains the ultimate object of a good coach: ‘This is simple to learn, but tough to do. It is to let people go, and not to hold on to them for your own selfish reasons. ‘A coach needs to be confident that their subject has ownership of their own sporting area. If this is the case, then it is their duty to let them move on. It’s human nature to want to be needed, and think “I’m not sure if they’re ready”, but if they are, then this is a coach’s ultimate aim.’

Frank Dick

Frank Dick’s advice to budding coaches: ‘Number one is passion. Without this, then don’t coach.’ ‘You must also have a desperate thirst for knowledge.’ ‘Another key facet is to be absolutely relentless in the pursuit of advice. Follow coaches, listen to them, stick to them like glue and pick up every bit of knowledge you can.’ ‘Know what you know, know what you don’t know and know somebody who does!’ ‘Be patient and persistent – work, work and work again. And when you’ve done that, then start work again!’

COACHING EDGE |STAGED LEARNING|

LEVEL BEST Crispin Andrews discovers how computer game techniques can help coaches to engage with youngsters.

|STAGED LEARNING| COACHING EDGE

But before you sit back and wait for your players to embrace the perfect three-year improvement programme, it is important to remember that there is one tiny flaw in an otherwise excellent plan. Many teenagers have the attention span of a goldfish. But all is not lost. Step forward Super Mario to save the day. Now, at this point, you might be wondering exactly where we are going with this, but at Coaching Edge, we

enjoy pushing your perceptions and challenging your comfort zone. You can be forgiven for asking what a strange little cartoon man with a red hat and a moustache that wasn’t grown for ‘Movember’, who does nothing but bounce around on computerised mushrooms, looking for a princess in bobby socks, can possibly teach you, a highly qualified professional, about coaching? But that’s where you may need to sit back, stop and ‘go with us’ here, because Super Mario, and all those millions who play his games, know something that is crucial to teenage sports players’ long-term success. They know all about ‘levels’. Super Mario doesn’t head straight to the heart of Bowser’s lair to rescue Princess Peach. He doesn’t fret over a seemingly unreachable long-term objective beyond his initial capability, and therefore undermine his ability to achieve more straightforward initial objectives that will eventually take him where he wants to go.

ou’ve spent hours coming up with a foolproof analysis of your players’ attributes. You’ve read all the latest studies on skill development, potential and sports psychology. And you’ve put together a set of objectives that couldn’t be smarter if it had put on a tweed suit and swallowed an encyclopaedia.

COACHING EDGE |STAGED LEARNING|

Olympic champion Greg Rutherford shares his expertise with keen youngsters

He concerns himself only with what is in front of him in the moment, working through each immediate challenge with as much skill, dexterity and speed of thought as that challenge demands. At the end of each challenge, and probably after falling down a few ravines and having his head chopped off once or twice, Super Mario stands supreme. Not just ready for the next, stiffer challenge, but full of the confidence and the trained moves to make short work of it (after a few more death plunges, of course). Mario is your athlete – focused on the now as the moment demands, as they strive for that distant goal. Princess Peach is, of course, the end point of your three-year programme: for Mario, a distant vision, until the point where he closes in on the last stage: for you, the coach, an end point that you encourage your charge towards, should they stray off path. The villainous Bowser is the playing field – representing the obstacles that the player must overcome to complete each challenge, reach their goal, and the opponent against whom the player must struggle, as they strive to continuously improve.

But who are you? Who, in this hyperactive game of nonsense, is the coach? Simple – you are the game itself. You set the levels and help Mario decide which level to go for, when and how. You set an alluring target, almost – but not quite – out of reach, to inspire Mario, and send forth a fiendish opponent that presents challenges, to urge Mario on to bigger and better things.

help their longer-term development into a better golfer. It also enables the coach to observe what that player needs to do, skill-wise, to achieve that target, and guide the youngster towards the target.

‘People playing Super Mario try out lots of different strategies, fail lots of times, and then try some more, until they succeed,’ says Stuart Armstrong, sports coach UK’s former talent development lead. ‘Once they’ve worked out what to do, that strategy stays with them and they can use it the next time they’re faced with a similar challenge.’ Armstrong thinks Super Mario style challenges are the answer to harnessing teenagers’ tendency to be in the now moment, to serve long-term progress.

‘People playing Super Mario try out lots of different strategies, fail lots of times, and then try some more, until they succeed.’

‘A young golfer might hit 50 balls down a driving range, but why not say to them, “you have five balls and I want you to hit this part of the fairway with all five.” Armstrong doesn’t stipulate how many groups of five the golfer has, or the timescale, but such a task would enable the youngster to focus what they are doing around an immediate goal, one that will

Armstrong adds: ‘A young cricketer in the nets might only score 14 of the 20 you asked them to score off six balls, with a preset field. So reduce the target to 16: when they’ve got that up it to 18, 20 and then when they’ve achieved the original target, move it on further.’ This type of session helps embed learning.

|STAGED LEARNING| COACHING EDGE

If someone just tells a player what to do, when to do it and how, it’s likely that the player will have forgotten by the next time they face the same challenge. The player is reliant on the coach, and is learning by following a set of verbal or written instructions that won’t be there if a similar challenge occurs during a game or in a practice a few weeks later. He’s not learning how to do something, and he’s certainly not learning to think for himself. ‘Show a player what to do or tell them and it will go in one ear and out the other,’ Armstrong says, adding that recent research shows emotional attachment, such as success or failure, to a task embeds learning in the player’s long-term memory. ‘It’s like riding a bike, you learn how not to fall off, because you have fallen off,’ he says. Professor Geert Salvesberg from VU University Amsterdam, known as the football professor for his research on penalty taking, explains that instructing players might get you a more immediate result, but guiding players towards their own solutions will be more profitable in the long term. ‘Let them play and then stop the game and ask them questions related to what you want them to learn,’ he says. ‘This helps them to meet challenges and to improve.’ Salvesberg talks about a 7 v 7 football match. Why do you only score on that side? What would happen if the defence pushes up to the halfway line? Does that make it easier to score? Harder to defend against? What’s it like playing against a team who play like this?

He thinks games with four attackers against two defenders help the defenders progress, as long as they are not judged by how many goals the defenders let in during five minutes, but how much the players learn about how to defend.

‘Let them play and then stop the game and ask them questions related to what you want them to learn. This helps them to meet challenges and to improve.’ ‘I would say to them, if this was a match and there are four attackers against three of you, there must be someone in your team who is free,’ he says. ‘I’d want them to work out who the free player is and where, and then find them as quickly as they can when there’s a chance.’ We’ve all seen it – coaches or parents, standing at the side of the pitch, shouting: ‘Give it to Johnny, quick, he’s in space.’ The player looks up from their defensive duties, tries to

locate the voice, and only then peers around the pitch, trying to locate what the shouter can see. And all this quickly enough to give the ball to Johnny before he is marked (thanks ‘coach’ for telling the opposition who to mark!) and, someone tackles the player with the ball. Players need to learn how to see opportunities on the pitch from the pitch, surrounded by bodies, while also performing a skill. Someone standing at the side has a completely different field of vision, and nothing else to do. Of course they can see that little Johnny is in space. Salvesberg believes that to get young players thinking about development and not outcome you have to get the coaches thinking like that: ‘Ideally, your youth coach is not interested in the result or how many goals someone scores or lets in,’ he says. ‘The coach doesn’t tell the players this, but if someone makes a mistake that leads to a goal, the coach talks not about that mistake, but what led up to it, so the players realise that choices they make in one area of the pitch can lead to outcomes in other areas.’ Or in Mario speak, it doesn’t matter if you get killed as long as you get where you need to be in the end. You learn not to fret over failure, but to use it to drive you forward to success. No matter how many times you lose, you learn from those losses, and come back more able to succeed. Eventually, if you do this long enough, you will achieve the short-term objective and, without knowing it, be well on your way to rescuing your own personal Princess Peach.

Oscar Pistorius plays a computer game with a young sportsman at a sensory centre for people with disabilities

NEXT STEPS What’s the best way to coach children and young people? We all have our opinions about the best approach to take when coaching the future stars of tomorrow. Why not share your thoughts and ideas by attending a sports coach UK workshop? You can meet coaches from other sports, exchange ideas, or maybe learn a new approach? sports coach UK offer numerous workshops that will help you develop and improve your skills for coaching children. For more information visit www.sportscoachuk.org/cpd. Can you share examples of how the principles of gaming can be harnessed to engage young athletes effectively? Let us know by contacting us at editor@sportscoachuk.org

COACHING EDGE |COACH DEVELOPMENT|

An initiative for promising coaches has been looking at how to understand and develop high-performing coaching and learning behaviours. High Performance Coach Development from sports coach UK

ore than 40 coaches from a host of sports spent two days together at one of Britain’s most famous sporting venues as part of an initiative to support developing and promising coaches.

The Belfry, at Sutton Coldfield, home to some of Europe’s most iconic Ryder Cup golfing successes over the past 30 years, played host to the sessions, which looked at understanding and developing high-performing coaching and learning behaviours. The days featured a programme of workshops, coaching clinics, motivational presentations and other keynote speakers. The sessions were part of the Inspire/Aspire programme that has been developed for the next generation of coaches who have the potential to progress on to UK Sport’s world-class coaching programmes. President of the European Athletics Coaches Association Frank Dick (featured within this issue

of Coaching Edge) was on hand to provide inspiration and tales of his life as a coach to elite athletes.

‘The Coach Aspire programme is, without doubt, the best CPD I have ever been part of.’ Dick gave an inspirational, motivational and thought-provoking keynote presentation to set the scene for the two days. His presentation, entitled ‘The Winning Difference Is’, looked at various aspects of coaching and the coach working with performance-level athletes, including: • what makes a great coach • the role of the coach in the development of athletes/performers and teams • coaching systems • the coaching ‘team’

• what influences impact on the coach • potential and performance • the science and art of coaching. Workshop groups for each cohort of coaches considered the area of coaching behaviours. Various presentations, group discussions and activities were led by speakers Mark Bennett, Will Feebery, Brian Saunders and David Levine, and the coaches looked at understanding coaching philosophy and behaviours, different learning styles, communication styles, and development and application of listening and questioning skills. Scott Bugden, of Welsh Cycling, said: ‘The Coach Aspire programme is, without doubt, the best CPD I have ever been part of. The organisation by the the team is fantastic, but most importantly, the speakers and workshops are absolutely first class. ‘On top of that, the time around the workshops has been a great opportunity to meet coaches from different sports and for us all to learn from each other. All of the coaches on the Aspire programme are really keen to develop, and that has contributed to some really good

|COACH DEVELOPMENT| COACHING EDGE

discussions and a really good atmosphere at all of the sessions. ‘Having an experienced coach mentor, in my case Will Feebery, looking at my individual needs has been such a positive experience. He has helped me to develop as a coach, and as a person, and is always happy to offer support, advice or just an impartial opinion. I honestly think the amount I have developed in the last six months or so working with Will would have taken me several years without his support.’ Additional workshops were also available to the coaches over the sessions. Sports psychologist David Young, who has a passion for exploring the science of high performance, led a session exploring ways of designing training programmes with the specific aim of enhancing athletes’ ability to develop skills that hold up under extreme pressure. Pressure is a given in any high-performance environment, and Young’s session was underpinned by innovative, recently conducted research. Using the work of American educational psychologist Carol Dweck, Young

Inspiration flowed across the two days with sharing of ideas and experiences and setting future goals

talked about the crucial role the coach can play in determining whether an athlete operates from a ‘growth’ or ‘fixed’ mind-set and the merits and dangers of each.

OVERVIEW

A group session about using IT in coaching, building on the sessions at previous development days, was led by Steve Casson, the East Midlands Regional Triathlon Academy Head Coach.

UK Sport has provided funding for Inspire and Aspire – two UK-wide coach development programmes for coaches of high-performance athletes operating across all the home nations.

Steve Tigg, of Scottish Swimming, said: ‘The training provided insightful and thought-provoking presentations by world-class speakers that both engage and challenge the way we think.

Inspire is a targeted support programme to coaches of athletes who have the potential to win a medal at The Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games. There are 21 coaches from 13 sports on the programme. Aspire is for coaches who have a realistic aspiration of coaching athletes at future Olympic, Paralympic and Commonwealth Games. Aspire has 28 coaches from 16 sports on the programme.

‘Mixing with coaches from a number of sports and backgrounds always stimulates healthy discussion and opinions on coaching methods, philosophies and principles. ‘I always leave the training days feeling I have learnt something that I can take back into my daily coaching environment that will benefit both myself and my athletes and, at the end of the day, make me a better coach. You know when it hits you!’

Both programmes are managed by sports coach UK and supported by the Home Country Sports Councils.For more information contact Coaching System Manager; JJones@sportscoachuk.org

COACHING EDGE |DEPRESSION|

LIFTING THE LIDON DEPRESSION It’s often said coaches need to be amateur psychologists to get the best from their athlete or team, but what about the very real problem of depression in sport – how should coaches react? Liam Wilkinson found out.

|DEPRESSION| COACHING EDGE

However, thanks to sportsmen and women – such as boxer Ricky Hatton and 10km open water swimmer Cassie Patten – stepping forward and publicly discussing their battles with clinical depression, it has brought media attention to a much overlooked issue. Depression is a widespread problem across the country, with one in five adults suffering from it. Within the UK, statistically, women are twice as likely to be clinically depressed as men; however, men are twice as likely to commit suicide as a result of depression. So what does this mean? Well, this is more than likely to be because men are stubborn when it comes to asking for help, and records show that women are more likely to seek help for mental illnesses than men. This is where coaches can do their bit to help, and encourage their athletes to help themselves.

Firstly, it must be said that coaches, no matter how close to their athletes they are, are not certified to diagnose or treat depression, and no one expects them to. All that a coach can be expected to do within their field of practice is to talk to their athletes and help them to find the help that they need, which in some cases can involve courses of antidepressants and psychotherapy. Spotting sportsmen and women who suffer with depression is not easy. The dictionary definition of depression is a state of low mood and aversion to activity that can have a negative effect on a person’s thoughts, behaviour, feelings, world view and physical wellbeing. This cannot be easily recognised in sportsmen and women, as experiencing highs and lows are an unavoidable part of sport and we all get post-game blues after a heavy defeat. But it is the feeling of sadness and worthlessness over an extended period of time that can be a sign of depression. Sport and clinical psychologist Dr Steve Ross states that there are two forms of depression – situational and genetic. As Ross says: ‘Some of us are simply genetically predisposed to depression – it runs through families,’ and in these cases clinical depression can be set off by the situation we’re in, or as Ross puts it: ‘Genetics loads the gun and stress pulls the trigger.’ One contributing factor to clinical depression in many athletes can come from the solitude of high level sport as they become undersocialised as a result of training full-time and doing nothing but their sport. Being able to socialise with people is key in maintaining mental health, and being cut off can trigger depression in people. Travelling away is often an unavoidable part of sport, and leaving loved ones for extended periods of time can often make athletes feel depressed, which, over an extended period of time, can lead to clinical depression. Some athletes feel depressed because of the pressures placed on them by the public and media. Long periods of pressure can turn feeling depressed into an athlete suffering from clinical depression. Support is great when playing well, but even more necessary when playing badly; something that is very rarely given by the media or fans. Athletes often feel that they have a set identity whereby what they do is what they are. So because they are a footballer, they feel pressured to behave like a footballer (or like the perception of how a footballer should behave). The symptoms of depression fall into three categories: psychological; physical; and social. As a coach, it is more than likely that you will be able to identify the physical and social signs. There are many symptoms of depression; those opposite are most likely to be noticeable to a coach.

Psychological • Continuous low mood or sadness (for a period of more than two weeks). • Feeling hopeless and helpless – this will be seen in that they will be very over-critical of themselves and lack the drive to improve their performance. • Having low self-esteem – would be seen in the confidence with which they perform tasks. • Feeling irritable and intolerant of others – this will be seen in how they react to team-mates and coaches. • Having no motivation or interest in things – they may be late to a training session or just show little or no interest when they arrive.

Physical • Moving or speaking more slowly than usual. • Change in appetite or weight (usually decreased, but sometimes increased). • Unexplained aches and pains – may show up in injuries that are unrelated to the exercises being performed. • Lack of energy. • Disturbed sleep (for example, finding it hard to fall asleep at night or waking up very early in the morning).

Social • Feeling dejected/removed from a situation – feeling as though their presence doesn’t really count. • Taking part in fewer social activities and avoiding contact with friends. • Neglecting their hobbies and interests. • They may overcompensate – sudden changes in character and behaviour can be an effort to mask low moods. If you suspect that someone you coach is depressed or even if you have read the symptoms and thought that they may describe yourself, you should not rush into making assumptions and confronting people, telling them they have depression, as this can make them feel more self-conscious and worried about themselves. Just talk to them, ask if they are ok, and if their symptoms persist or you are worried about them, refer them to a GP or the NHS websites. You are not expected to treat them all you can do is encourage them to seek help.

Further Reading The FA look at mental health online: thefa.com/football-rules-governance /equality/disability-and-mental-health All players in the case study on the sportscoach UK site have mental health issues. sportscoachuk.org/sites/default/files/tiger.pdf

epression has widely been viewed as a somewhat taboo subject among sports performers and, especially in the past, was often viewed as a sign of weakness.

COACHING EDGE |YOU ASK THE QUESTIONS|

ASK THE EXPERT ‘It’s the time you spend coaching that gains you the experience.’ Jack Maitland – sports coach UK Coaching Chain Award winner and coach of Alistair and Jonny Brownlee – answers your locker-room questions. What advice do you have to offer to Level 1 coaches? Put in the hours – like any skill, it’s the time you spend coaching that gains you the experience. If you have the opportunity to take on more coaching then take it. The other thing is to not ‘over-coach’. It is very tempting when you are new and you get some information to react to it right away. Often, it’s better just to digest it and then give out that information in little bits and experiment with it to see how it affects the athlete, rather than saying ‘I just read an article in Coaching Edge... I’ll apply that to my athlete straightaway.’ Well, that’s probably not going to work as you haven’t worked it out for yourself and your athlete, which is the best way to deal with and apply that information.

Is it part of the coach’s remit to support athletes’ mental and emotional wellbeing? The rapport I have with an athlete will vary, as it will with every athlete and coach. So it is difficult to make a generic statement, but yes, especially when working with young athletes, you have to be aware of their emotional development. In a higher level team, there is psychological support, but members of the team will naturally relate better to athletes they have a natural affinity with, which leads to a naturally supportive relationship.

Recent doping revelations around Lance Armstrong have shocked the world of sport. How has your sport reacted? Our athletes are aware that what they put into their bodies is their responsibility. We don’t cheat... we are about winning fairly. With the cycling situation – unfortunately, that sport has always had a culture of drug taking. Some of the stuff that has come out has been pretty horrific. There are so many people implicated. It has started to improve over the last few years, although not to the degree most people would like to see, as there are people in cycling failing drug tests, which is astonishing given everything that has gone on. Elite sportspeople are educated in the damage that doping can do to a sport. The most frightening thing is, Armstrong got away with it for so long.

Have you witnessed a post-Olympic Games ‘spike’ in your sport? We have seen an increase in enquiries, far more than ever before. However, there was already a growing interest after Alistair and Jonny had raised the profile of the sport with success prior to the Games, and we have seen top juniors choosing to attend university in Leeds to be on our programmes.

How do you maintain motivation after a big competition?

Give us the inside track... who are the ones to watch?

My athletes may look for different challenges in future, but for now, they remain motivated. The world championship next year is on the Olympic course, Jonny is the defending champion and Alistair the recently deposed champion, so I could see them and the others being quite motivated by that.

Georgia Taylor Brown (Women’s World Under-23 Champion) Non Stanford Tom Bishop (Men’s World Under-23 bronze medallist) David McNamee Lois Rosendale

Coaching Edge presents coaches with your questions sent in to the COACHING EDGE editor@sportscoachUK.org or via Twitter @sportscoachuk In our next issue, we will be speaking to John Webb of the Tug of War Federation, who successfully coached the England squad to both indoor and outdoor world championship victory.

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