Sports Coaching

Articles on sports coaching and developments in performance science for athletes and coaches.

Put Physiology Last…and See What Happens.

It’s all the same. All over the world, in every sport, when coaches write training workouts they think in terms of the big three physiological variables only: volume, intensity and frequency (how much, how hard, how often). But what if there was another way? What if instead of writing training sessions based on the physical aspects of performance, coaches and athletes built their training sessions and programming around the mental side of performance. This article challenges coaches and athletes to look at putting physiology last when they design and deliver training sessions and to think about what might happen if they looked at things differently.

By Wayne Goldsmith, ago

Hello Tennis Parents – balancing love and 40-love

 

 

Hello Tennis Parents.

Put your hand up if you answer “YES” to two or more questions in the Tennis Parents Ten Question Quiz:

  • Do you believe your child will be a successful, well paid professional tennis player?
  • Do you tell other parents that your child is “a high achiever”?
  • Do you talk about tennis at least once a day with your child over meals or away from the court?
  • Are you prepared to sacrifice your child’s education so they have a great chance of becoming a professional player?
  • Do you regularly ask the coach to work your child harder or to change something about their game?
  • Do you get emotionally involved in your child’s successes and failures on the training court?
  • Do you allow your child to show a bad attitude, poor sportsmanship and / or a poor temperament (e.g. racket abuse)?
  • Have you ever argued or fought with parents of other kids about the results of a game?
  • Do you refer to your child as “my son or my daughter the tennis player”?
  • Have you spent more than $500.00 on a single tennis racket for your child?

Well, here’s the bad news. If you answered “YES” to two or more of the above, the chances of your child becoming a successful professional tennis player are…………………NIL or very close to it. (more…)

By Wayne Goldsmith, ago

It’s not the workout that wins…you have to win the workout.

One of the greatest myths in sport is that it is the workout that wins.

That is, that the secret to sporting success lies in how you manipulate volume, intensity and frequency.

Coaches spend years and years crafting their workouts, building invincible programs and creating the perfect combination of work and rest that will deliver them and their athletes the success they dream of.

And it is largely a myth.

It is not the workout that wins…you have to win the workout. (more…)

By Wayne Goldsmith, ago