sports-skills

Training Based Research Studies: the Biggest Con in sport since the Muffin.

Remember how when we were kids everyone liked to eat cupcakes.

Then when we got older and a bit more health conscious we were told to give them up because of the sugar and flour and other stuff in them.

Then along comes a sports nutritionist who said “Muffins are a great food for athletes – nutritious, high carbohydrate energy foods”. So we all started eating them again even though they are basically still just big cupcakes.

What a big con.

Almost as big a con as Training Studies in Sports Science Research. (more…)

By Wayne Goldsmith, ago

Improve your Coaching by NOT Coaching

By Wayne Goldsmith |

You read right – improve your coaching by NOT coaching.

Coaching improves performance.

But too much coaching – over coaching – can have a negative influence on performance.

Who OVER coaches?

Typically five types of coaches OVER coach:

  1. Young, inexperienced coaches who are trying too hard;
  2. Coaches who lack real belief in themselves and who try to make up for it by giving too much information. These coaches will often want to be liked – and feel the more coaching they do, the more the athletes will like them;
  3. Coaches who lack belief in their athletes and feel the need to control every element of preparation and performance;
  4. Coaches who are being evaluated or assessed and aim to impress by being SEEN to control every element of the training session, i.e. they believe that great coaching is talking more;
  5. EGO driven coaches who see athletes / players as a vehicle to promote themselves and their reputations.

(more…)

By Wayne Goldsmith, ago

The Player Potential Profile – an integrated, practical approach to Talent Identification and Recruitment in High Performance Sport – Part One

Every now and again, a client will ask me to come up with a new way of doing something to help them achieve their performance goals.

In recent years, a real focus for me has been developing innovative talent identification, recruitment and retention strategies for professional sporting teams.

These next three posts will outline a concept called the Player Potential Profile – an integrated, practical approach to Talent Identification and Recruitment in High Performance Sport. (more…)

By Wayne Goldsmith, ago

Making Sense of Testing Athletes

Testing athletes has become a multi-million dollar industry. Coaches and athletes can buy testing programs, testing equipment, testing manuals, testing systems and testing tools to test any athlete, anywhere, anytime and for any reason. But, it’s not the testing that’s important: it’s how the testing applies to enhancing the competition performance of the athlete that really matters. This article discusses testing from a holistic perspective and challenges coaches, athletes and sports science professionals to think before they test.

By Wayne Goldsmith, ago

Teaching Skills – A Performance Focused Approach to Teaching Skills.

What’s the difference between learning sports skills to play sport and learning sports skills to win in competition conditions?

Playing the sport is about learning and executing the skills of the sport.

Winning in competition is about executing skills to a high level of mastery, at high speed, in fatigue conditions and under pressure and consistently making the right decision about when, where and how to execute the skill.

So, why do so many coaches insist on teaching the basic skills without progressing them from playing level to performance level? (more…)

By Wayne Goldsmith, ago

The Five Stages of Coaching: Going from Beginner to the Best Coach You can Be.

There are coaching courses, coaching workshops, coaching programs, coaching presentations and coaching seminars.

There are mentoring programs for coaches, professional development programs for coaches, training programs for coaches and a million and one degrees, certificates and accreditation programs for coaches.

But what is coaching and what does it take to get really good at it?

What is great coaching?

And would you even recognise it even if you met it over a nice red wine and dinner? (more…)

By Wayne Goldsmith, ago