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Posts Tagged ‘Baseball’
Gold Medal Parents: Little League Players need Big League Parenting!
So you believe your child will be the next big thing in the Big Leagues?
So you think it is inevitable that your son will win an Olympic Gold Medal one day?
So you are a 100% certain that your little girl will be the next Nadia Commenici?
Gold Medal kids need Gold Medal parents.
Little Leaguers who aspire to the Big Leagues need Big League Parenting.
Are you up to the challenge?
November 7, 2008 | 2 Comments
Tags: AFL, American Football, Athletics, Baseball, Basketball, Cricket, Cycling, Diving, Football, Gymnastics, Hockey, Netball, Rowing, Rugby, Rugby League, Soccer, Swimming, Track and Field, Triathlon
Talent Identification in the Western World - Over funded and Over rated.
The concept of Talent Identification - TID for short - makes sense.
Do some standardised testing and screening of lots of kids, find the ones who can run faster, run further, jump longer, stretch better than the rest and bingo- you found talent!
It all grew out of the now ”mythical” talent identification systems of the old Eastern Block (and more recently China) - and the countless stories we have all heard for the past 30 years about how the centralised government systems put every child in the nation through a series of TID testing protocols and then funnelled them in to the specific sports where their talent was most likely to be developed to its full potential.
But in the western world, in spite of the hundreds of millions of dollars thrown at TID in Australia, the US, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and Western Europe, with the exception of a few minor and specialised sports - it has failed and failed badly.
Yet TID is the first thing on the “wish list” of nations, provinces, cities and sporting organisations when they are putting together a high performance sports program.
Why have so many got it wrong?
October 29, 2008 | 2 Comments
Tags: AFL, American Football, Athletics, Baseball, Basketball, Coaching, Cricket, Cycling, Diving, Football, Gymnastics, Hockey, Netball, Rowing, Rugby, Rugby League, Soccer, Swimming, Track and Field, Triathlon
What’s the difference between Medicine and Sports Medicine?
I was recently asked to talk to a group of students about high performance sport. We discussed all the “usual” topics: talent identification, sports science, elite coach development and sports medicine.
One of the students asked me, “Is there a difference between Medicine (as in general practice medicine) and Sports Medicine as it exists in high performance sport”?
Here’s what I replied:
October 15, 2008 | 1 Comment
Tags: American Football, Athletics, Baseball, Basketball, Cricket, Cycling, Diving, Equestrian, Football, Gymnastics, Hockey, Netball, Olympic Games, Olympics, Performance Science, Rowing, Swimming, Tennis, Track and Field, Triathlon
Not another Academy of Sport…..aaaaargh!
- Academy of Sport?
- Institute of Sport?
- Elite Sports Academy?
- Centre of Excellence?
- High Performance Centre?
Call it what you will - it’s the same thing.
Why this world wide obsession with Academies / Institutes and Centres?
And more importantly, do they actually make a difference to the performance of elite athletes?
October 13, 2008 | 4 Comments
Tags: American Football, Athletics, Baseball, Basketball, Boxing, Cricket, Cycling, Diving, Equestrian, Football, Gymnastics, Hockey, Judo, Netball, Rowing, Soccer, Swimming, Track and Field, Triathlon
Coach driven, Athlete Focused, Administratively supported? Isn’t it time we did something different?
Thanks for visiting the Brain today while doing your daily web surfing.
While you are in the surfing mood, go and check out some other sporting web sites.
Specifically check out the web sites of the funding agenices, Institutes and Academies of the major Olympics sporting nations.
You will see something like this - on ALL sites:
“Our philosophy is to embrace an athlete centred, coach driven and administratively supported high performance environment”.
This is a fantastic philosophy……….for about 1993.
Isn’t it time we did something different?
October 1, 2008 | 1 Comment
Tags: Athletics, Baseball, Basketball, Boxing, Cycling, Diving, Equestrian, Football, Gymnastics, Hockey, Netball, Soccer, Softball, Swimming, Track and Field, Triathlon
Bye Bye Bompa, Bompa Bye Bye….the death of periodisation.
First let me say I have total, 100% complete admiration and respect for Bompa himself - a true pioneer of the sports coaching and the sports performance industry. This article is in no way a criticism of him personally but rather a proclamation that PERIODISATION as a concept is now officially dead and buried.
Periodization - that is, the traditional sports training planning model involving long blocks (cycles or phases) of training which emphasise specific aspects of training is 20 years past the use by date and it’s time we all moved on to something more relevant and more effective for the training and preparation of athletes in this century.
September 17, 2008 | 4 Comments
Tags: American Football, Athletics, Baseball, Basketball, Cycling, Diving, Football, Gymnastics, Hockey, Rowing, Rugby, Rugby League, Soccer, Swimming, Track and Field, Triathlon
Message to the Sporting World - Do it your own way!
OK - the Olympics have finished.
Now comes the “GAMES”…………the junkets and fact finding missions the Sporting leaders from most countries are about to embark on to find out what the USA, Germany, Great Britain, South Korea, China and Australia are doing to be successful in the Olympics.
The logic seems simple enough.
“Our country didn’t win any medals at the Olympics” says the Minister for Sport.
“Country XYZ won lots of medals at the Olympics”, says the CEO of the Sports Commission.
“Therefore if we want medals and we copy them we will win medals”, thinks everyone in the room.
“Hooray!!!! Problem solved - let’s buy some air tickets”.
Seems like common sense.
Waste of time.
Waste of money.
Waste of energy.
If the past has taught us one thing it is that high performance systems, structures and models do not work outside of the culture that created them.
September 3, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Tags: Athletics, Baseball, Basketball, Beijing Olympic Games, Boxing, Cycling, Diving, Equestrian, Gymnastics, Hockey, Judo, Olympics, Rowing, Sailing, Softball, Swimming, Tennis, Track and Field, Triathlon
Beijing Blast Number Five: 10 things to include in your Beijing Review
So Beijing 2008 is over.
Now is the time to start planning to win in London 2012.
Or World Championships 2009.
Or Commonwealth Games 2010.
Or the next World Cup.
All sports in all nations will do some sort of Beijing Performance Review in coming months.
Some will do it well - many will just do it as a “tick the box - we have to do a review” exercise.
How many athletes, coaches and support staff will actually use the review process as an opportunity to improve their performances in future major competitions?
How many will just see the review as a pointless waste of time enforced on them by the Funding Agencies or the Board?
So what are the 10 most important things to include in any Beijing review?
Reviews are critical in assessing three key things:
What did you do that WORKED - WENT WELL?
What did you do that didn’t WORK - WENT BADLY?
What did you learn and you can introduce to improve your performance NEXT TIME?
A good review asks questions - the trick is in knowing what questions to ask, why to ask them and who to ask.
Even more importantly, is knowing what to do with the answers to those questions.
August 18, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Tags: Athletics, Baseball, Basketball, Beijing Olympic Games, Boxing, Cycling, Diving, Equestrian, Gymnastics, Hockey, Olympic Games, Olympics, Rowing, Sailing, Swimming, Track and Field, Triathlon
Beijing Blast Number Four: Beijing 2008 is already over - and London 2012 is closer than you think.
Well, let’s hope you enjoyed the spectacular Opening Ceremony because the Beijing 2008 Olympics is already over.
And London 2012 is closer than you think.
August 9, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Tags: Athletics, Baseball, Basketball, Beijing Olympic Games, Boxing, Cycling, Diving, Equestrian, Football, Hockey, Olympics, Rowing, Soccer, Softball, Swimming, Tennis, Track and Field, Triathlon, Wrestling
Beijing Blast Number Three: Why the London 2012 Olympics will be Tougher to win than the Beijing 2008 Olympics
So you think winning Gold at the 2008 Beijing Olympics is tough?
London 2012 will be much, much tougher.
Why?
August 6, 2008 | 1 Comment
Tags: Athletics, Baseball, Basketball, Beijing Olympic Games, Boxing, Cycling, Diving, Equestrian, Football, Hockey, Olympics, Rowing, Soccer, Softball, Swimming, Track and Field, Triathlon, Wrestling
