How we try to motivate our players is often misunderstood, in particular prior to playing in a game. Most coaches spend years searching for an epic, hair-stand-on-the-back-of-your-neck style speech like Al Pacino’s famous one in Any Given Sunday. These kind of forced speeches however never really live up to expectation because of one simple reason […]
Anders Ericsson carried out extensive research on what it takes to become an expert. Ericsson (1993) says that it takes 10,000 hours (20 hours for 50 weeks a year for ten years = 10,000) of deliberate practice to become an expert in almost anything. ‘10,000 hours, brilliant I’ll become a pro golfer in 10 years’! If […]
I was recently re-reading Terry Orlick’s In Pursuit of Excellence, and in the chapter on Coaching Relationships, Orlick was discussing coaching communication and wrote that coaches’ pregame pep talks don’t motivate the athletes, but instead serve as “a method of tension release for the head coach”(p.276). While Orlick wrote this to make athletes aware of why […]
We’ve all seen that one parent on the sideline, shouting out inappropriate comments at the top of their voice that are not only directed at their own child, but often at their teammates, teachers or coaches and the referee. How much does this behaviour influence the sporting experience of their child? How much should the […]
Why is it that some player’s who are labeled as being “less talented” become more successful than their “more talented” peers? This question has frustrated many coaches over the years, and Carol Dweck a professor from Stanford University, believes the answer is down to mindset. Dweck has extensively examined mindset, and argues that there are two […]
As a committed and passionate coach, you probably care deeply about the success of your team. But how do you define “success” for your team? Different coaches define “success” in various ways. For some it may be an undefeated season. For others, it may be seeing skill and character development in their players or team. […]
With Injury comes a loss of confidence (Doran, 1984). Whilst low confidence can be a result of injury, it can also cause injury e.g. not fully committing when going in for a rugby tackle. Magyor & Chase (1996) conducted a study looking at the consequences of having low self-confidence pre- and post-injury in gymnasts and […]
In almost every sport the top level performers are all similar in their level of ability, for example they all have similar attributes of being strong, fast, skilful, and have as much stamina as each other. Yet in every sport some performers emerge as winners while others never quite reach this level. The difference between […]
At the present time I am a Masters student studying Sport and Exercise Psychology and therefore I have had very little experience in delivering sport psychology support to athletes. This is because in the words of one of my lecturers, “as a Sport Psychologist you will be privileged enough to provide support and advice to […]
I had never really given much thought to football warm-ups. The process I believed was quite simple. After you have sent the goalkeeper with the goalkeeper coach (or with a substitute depending on the level), you set about preparing your players physically for the game. There was the psychological aspect of course – to “mentally […]