The One Tip to Rule Them All……..”Competition Plus” training.

By Wayne Goldsmith | In High Performance Coaching

Last year I was asked by a regular reader to list my all time Top Ten Tips to enhance sports performance.

Naturally I obliged.

The same reader just sent a new challenge, “Wayne, if you had to pick just one tip: one thing that above any other was the single most important concept or idea or principle to enhance the performance of athletes and coaches what would it be”.

Pretty simple really………………The One Tip to Rule Them All is…………..

Make Training More Challenging and More Demanding than the Competition you are preparing for.

Sounds pretty simple doesn’t it? Make training more challenging and more demanding than the competition you are preparing for. Sounds so obvious. Almost so simple it is laughable.

Make your training harder and tougher than the competition you have targeted. Really? That’s it? It’s too easy! It can’t be that!

But, this one idea is behind most of the world’s greatest coaching achievements and athletic performances.

It is so simple, so obvious and so common sense, that it makes you want to ask why so few people actually understand it and why almost no-body does it: no body that is, except people who actually win when it matters.

 

“Competition Plus” training

One reason so few people get this incredibly important principle is that it doesn’t have a fancy name or cool acronym. So how about we change the name of the most important sports preparation and performance principle you will ever learn to “Competition Plus” training, i.e. training that is more challenging and more demanding than the athlete will experience in the targeted competition. It’s all the demands and requirements of the competition environment PLUS an extra level of challenge on top.

Now that we have a cool name for the concept, let’s try to understand what “Competition Plus” training is all about.

 

It’s not just about doing more work

“Competition Plus” training is not just about doing more work. It’s about ensuring that the preparation environment, i.e. the training field, the gym, the pool, the court, the field, the rink, the ring and the track is more challenging and more demanding – physically, mentally, emotionally, technically, tactically, environmentally and every other possible way than the competition environment.

Still confused? Let’s look at a few examples.

 

Some Examples of “Competition Plus” training in action.

Boxing / Martial arts

  1. If the format of the competition is three x three minute rounds, practice should include three x three minute thirty rounds, four minute rounds and even longer and spar for four, five, six or more rounds.
  2. Practice over three rounds but change training partners every round.
  3. Practice with a partner who has a longer reach or with a partner who has more experience or with a partner who is in a weight division or two higher.
  4. Take shorter rest breaks between rounds in training, i.e. shorter than the rest breaks that are provided in competition.
  5. Adjust the “scoring” system you use in training to make it harder and more technically difficult to score points, e.g. smaller target areas.

Tennis

  1. Play longer games than those to be experienced in your next tournament, e.g. first player to seven points instead of first player to move through 15, 30, 40 and win the game.
  2. Play longer sets than those to be experienced in your next tournament, e.g. first player to 10 games with a two game break wins the set, i.e. 10-8.
  3. Play one player against two or three players rotating those two or three players every game so that player one is always facing fresh and unfatigued opposition.
  4. Have one player play to the singles court and the other player to the doubles court.
  5. If there is the possibility that matches will finish late at night, schedule practices to start and finish late in the evening.

 Football (all codes)

  1. In practice use “un-even” match ups, e.g. four defenders against nine attackers or three attackers against seven defenders.
  2. Schedule skills practices and demand technical excellence when fatigued, e.g. at the end of training.
  3. Practice for the same period as the game, e.g. Rugby 80 minutes, Soccer 90 minutes, then schedule ten-twenty minutes of hard physical training to prepare for extra time demands should they occur.
  4. Practice skills from a performance perspective, i.e. technically excellent at high speed under fatigue and pressure situations.
  5. Deliberately create high pressure situations in skills practices, e.g. extra players, higher speeds, demand shorter decision making time etc.

Swimming

  1. Practice swimming personal best times early in the morning, i.e. as is often required in competition to make the next round.
  2. Aim to not just swim fast in training but to swim fast, with minimal breaths and minimal strokes at maximum speed.
  3. Attack every start, dive, turn and finish as you would if they were in the Olympic final.
  4. Race older, faster and more experienced swimmers in training every day.
  5. Schedule time trials when tired, fatigued and at the end of training as often Finals are late in the evening, i.e. when you are fatigued.

 

Any why is this so important? Why is this the One Tip to rule them all?

Again – it’s pretty logical when you think about it.

All the great achievements in sport come from confidence. It is a precious commodity and a vital ingredient for success in sport at all levels.

And confidence comes from knowing. Knowing that your training has prepared you for whatever the competition environment throws at you.

Heat, humidity, a well prepared opposition, a late change in competition rules, poor refeering decisions, extra time….whatever the competition demands are, you are ready and can face them with confidence, knowing that you have done everything possible in your preparation to not just meet those demands, but to overcome them and to even thrive in them.

Confidence is like the economy.  Lots of people talk about. Many people think they know about it. Very, very, few people actually understand it.

Confidence does not come from a motivation talk, a new piece of equipment, a special diet or someone telling you “you can win today”: all these are shallow, hollow and meaningless when tested in the uncompromising world of high performance sport.

Confidence, real confidence, confidence that provides real resilience and the capacity to perform under pain, pressure and fatigue, comes from knowing that your preparation was more challenging and more demanding than the competition could ever be.

 

 Summary:

  1. Stop buying all those self-help books at the airport book shop, going to “Miracle Mindset” seminars and “guaranteed to succeed” leadership training programs. To quote another great sports coach, Yoda, “Already know you that which you need“.  Make a serious commitment to “Competition Plus” training and apply it consistently in your coaching environment.
  2. “Competition Plus” training is not for every coach or every athlete – but only for those who are serious about winning when it matters.
  3. There are lots of “feel-good” tips and hollow slogans in the sporting world and very few of them make any real difference to performance. Competition Plus training is one coaching principle you can rely on and trust when it comes to winning.
  4. Ask yourself one question, “Does my preparation prepare me to just do the sport or does it prepare to win when it really matters?”

 

Wayne Goldsmith

All the posts on this blog are subject to the same copyright laws governing hard copy text, books, articles, papers, magazines and other reference sources. No part of this blog can be used without the expressed written consent of the author.

Thanks again to the great Bill Sweetenham for his inspiration.

 

© 2012, Sports Coaching Brain. All rights reserved. This post can not be reproduced in full or in part without the expressed consent of the author Wayne Goldsmith.

No related posts.

March 6, 2012

Tags: , ,

Comments

Comments are closed.

This site is protected by WP-CopyRightPro