What are we all chasing in high performance sport?

What is high performance coaching seeking to achieve?

Why do we focus so much on player leadership?

Why do we spend so much time talking about professionalism, standards, attitudes, commitment and passion?

Because we want to achieve one thing: we want to create an environment where our athletes’ Passion to Prepare is equal to or greater than their Potential to Perform.

It’s the key question in high performance sport.

How do I create an environment where the athletes’ passion to prepare – their commitment to preparation, training, off field professionalism, etc is equal to or greater than their potential (talent) to perform?

In some way, we grapple with this question and the many related questions everyday:

1. Do I recruit on talent or on attitude, personality and passion to succeed? Answer - in a perfect world, we want talented athletes with the commitment to succeed: aptitude plus attitude.
2. How can I create an environment where each individual athlete is competing to their full potential? Answer – create an environment where each athlete consistently demonstrates a passion to prepare.
3. How can I help my athletes realise their performance goals? Answer – by ensuring each athlete prepares better - more consistently – than anyone in their event (or role or position) in the competition.

All these issues have the same basic philosophy – matching ability with attitude, talent with tenacity, genetics with grit and potential with performance.

It’s the key element in quality coaching – engaging the athlete fully - mind, heart, body and soul with their program so that they embrace excellence in everything they do.

Talent is not enough…it never has been.

This is critical to anyone who wants to succeed at the top level: talent is not enough – unless that talent is driven by an unrelenting desire to be the best and that desire is supported by an uncompromising commitment to excellence in all aspects of preparation.

There are basically four different types of athletes: the PALTS, the PAHTs, the GALTs and the GAHTs.

• PALTs: Poor on Attitude – Low on Talent: PALTs lack both the attitude and aptitude to be successful in high performance sport and therefore don’t make it much past schools level competition – (and usually then they are only involved in sport because they have been forced to be involved);
• PAHTs: Poor on Attitude – High on Talent: In many ways, PAHTs are the most challenging and demanding athletes to coach. They have the physical talent and natural physical abilities to succeed but their lack of commitment, determination and professionalism bring more frustration than fun for coaches.  Many of the issues involving team discipline come from PAHTs. Often, PAHTs have been early maturers or athletes who demonstrated a precocious talent when they were young and never learnt the key preparation fundamentals of discipline, hard work, commitment and perseverance: they had too much – too soon – too easy.
• GALTSs: Great on Attitude – Low on Talent: The vast majority of elite athletes, even at professional level are GALTS – athletes with some talent (otherwise they could not have got to professional level) but whose great strengths are their attitude, their dedication, their discipline, their values, their off field professionalism, their honesty, their desire to play the game and their passion to prepare. Coaches are usually great at working with these athletes…they have to be…because they see so many of them;
• GAHTs: Great on Attitude – High on Talent: Possessing the complete package – GAHTs are the champions, the world record holders, the Olympic Gold medalists, the All-Stars players, the MVPS, the best of the best. GAHTs are harder to hide than to find - and will succeed regardless of the situation, the challenge, the environment, the adversity or the difficulties they face.

The big question then is can you turn a PALT, PAHT or GALT into a GAHT? And if so, how?

Without doubt, when I work with coaches and teams, this one issue dominates all others: “how do I ensure every player in my team is preparing – consistently – to the best of their ability – so that their passion to prepare is equal to or greater than their potential to perform”.

You can’t buy a premiership or a gold medal or a world record or a title.

Investing in a world class high performance environment (i.e. anything you can build or buy), gym facilities, sports science, recovery centres and similar high performance tools is useless without also investing in the human factor – investing in creating a culture where each player takes full advantage of the high performance environment through their passion to prepare.

Which would you rather have? A brand new gym, with the best of the best machines, training equipment and power training devices but where the players arrive late, perform their routines with poor technique, cut reps out of their programs and finish early….

Or an older gym, with ten year old machines, equipment and devices but where every player works to their full potential every time they walk in the gym door?

The answer is of course…..we want both: we want the latest in high performance training tools and we want a winning attitude to drive them.

Can we have both?

What do you think? Let me know.

Wayne Goldsmith

© 2012, Wayne Goldsmith. All rights reserved.

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What will sports coaching look like in 20 years?

How will a training session differ in 2030 to a training session in 2010?

How will our coaching have changed, improved and evolved over the next 20 years?

It will have changed so much that it will be barely recognisable.

The future is already here. And it is a scary place for those living in the past.

Are you ready for it? Will you race towards it? Will you resist it?

Read on.

Where is the world heading?

To see where Sports Coaching is going – look at where the world is going:

1. People can access just about any information, anywhere, anytime and for free;
2. People are happy to share ideas, information and innovations with their colleagues, friends and the public on line for free;
3. People have unprecedented access to learning tools, articles, on-line video, slide presentations, audio files and research journals – and mostly for free;
4. People are adopting a “do it yourself” approach to many things – look at the abundance of TV shows, web sites, blogs and on line information available on any topic – average, ordinary people are becoming experts at all things;
5. People are happy to work cross disciplinary and “have a go” at things, rather than seek the opinions and views of experts and professionals.

Coaching knowledge - is – for all intents and purposes – worthless.

When what you have is easily and freely available to everyone – it is worthless.

How much would diamonds be worth it you could find them anywhere, anytime and they were as common as ordinary pebbles? They might still look great, sparkle in the sun, be incredibly useful but they would be worth nothing.

And your coaching knowledge – all those “secret” training sets, all those “unique training systems”, all those “miracle plays” that you have built your coaching career around….are also worth nothing. Scary.

Don’t believe me?

Go to YouTube – www.youtube.com  and search for videos demonstrating the skills of your sport. Off you go – I’ll wait right here.

OK – you’re back. What did you find out?

That many of the techniques, strategies and ideas of your sport are now available free on-line, anytime, anywhere for anyone and for free?

Funny about that. Don’t say I didn’t tell you.

Even very traditional sports like martial arts – where techniques have been kept within a close circle of experts and handed down through traditional teaching methods and structured learning environments are freely available in video form at YouTube. And people are using YouTube to learn martial arts – and piano and Greek and Tennis and how to build a fence and how to service a car……………..the knowledge you need to be an expert is everywhere - and it’s free.

So you might counter my argument with a yesbut – a “Yes, but…” and try to convince me that your sport is different, that athletes need coaches, that the people doing the free YouTube videos about your sport are not the best people, that your sport is a people sport…..yada, yada, yada – I have heard them all.

People don’t care what or who is providing the information – only that they can get it right now and for free.

The average person does not care about the quality of the source or their qualifications or the University they studied at – they just want the information, they want it now, they want it to look good, they want to feel it is pitched at a level they can understand and they don’t want to pay for it.

If you want to know where sports coaching will be in 20 years – the starting point is to ask yourself these three questions:

1. What do I have to offer my clients (athletes, players) other than knowledge of the sport, e.g. skills, drills, tactics, strategies, physical preparation techniques because anyone get these things anywhere, anytime for free!
2. What will my clients need in 20 years that only I can provide, i.e. accepting that your knowledge is no longer what your clients will need.
3. What unique talents, gifts and abilities do I possess that will ensure my coaching future - again apart from what I know?

OK, OK – there will be some of you thinking, “That’s all very interesting, but that will not happen in my sport. My sport is different”.

Try to get your head around this then.

Sport…..it’s only one very small part of a very big world.

Sport – as an institution and as an industry – represents about 1% of that big box we call society.

And the most popular sport in the world – football (soccer) makes up the vast majority of that 1%.

So your sport – particularly if it is one of the traditional Olympic sports like swimming, track and field, field hockey, rowing, cycling etc makes up a fraction of the institution which is sport.

We know that trends in some of the big institutions like health, like education, like the environment, like energy and like communications are all heading towards the open sharing of ideas, collaborative research methods and the collective sharing of knowledge, information and experiences.

So hanging to the “my sport will not change” thinking is like trying to hold back the Ocean with one grain of sand…..it is futile.

This has enormous implications not just for sports coaches but for sport coach educators. Coach education needs a total re-think and re-structure.

And the reason is simple.

All sports coaching education and training programs are content based. We bring coaches together for a day or two, we throw lots and lots of content, ideas, information and sports specific knowledge at them, assess their ability to learn and apply that knowledge and call them “coaches”.

Now think about Sports Coaching 2030 - If knowledge is worthless and ideas and information are available anytime, anywhere and for free, who is going to go to a coaching course? No one! No one unless sports coach educators completely change they way they go about educating and developing coaches.

Summary:

1. To steal a line from the environmental warriors -“think global; act local”. Be aware of world wide trends in communication, in education and in the way ideas, information and innovations are being discussed and shared but make it relevant to your own program, your own coaching and your own philosophies;
2. You can’t change the world – but you can change your world – and you can achieve this by being open to the possibilities and embracing of the new opportunities provided by the acceleration of learning that is currently possible;
3. Imagine a world where knowledge is worthless and your current beliefs about gaining a competitive edge being in “what” you know are wrong…..how will you be a successful coach? How will you continue to find a performance edge for your athletes and players?

In future posts I will discuss the amazing opportunities that the future presents..for those who are ready for it.

Wayne Goldsmith

© 2012, Wayne Goldsmith. All rights reserved.

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The sporting world has gone Recovery Crazy.

Over the past ten years, Recovery has gone from being something you did when you got tired, to an integral aspect of every training session, every day, all year round.

First it was massage.

Then came all the countless variations of hydrotherapies: spas, saunas, ice baths, contrast showers, high-flow shower massage, wading pools, hydro pools…….

Then the recovery nutrition stuff: creatine, sports drinks, gels, bars, Slushies….

Now the focus is on sleep: sleep research, quality of sleep, quantity of sleep, timing of sleep, power naps, managing sleep, monitoring sleep and even the genetics of sleep.

It is now at the point where many coaches and athletes are making Recovery a higher priority than actual hard training! (The only time this should happen is in the dictionary).

So it’s time to Recover from Recovery: let’s consider Recovery in Perspective.

What is Recovery?

A good practical definition of Recovery is the deliberate use of interventions aimed at enhancing an athlete’s capacity to adapt to the physical and mental demands of preparation and performance.

In other words, doing something which is likely to help an athlete recover more effectively from their training and / or competition loads.

How can you enhance an athlete’s recovery?

A good way to remember the different recovery techniques is to remember WASHUP :

Water: the use of different forms of water, e.g cryotherapy (ice), hydrotherapies (contrast showers, “hot-cold” baths, spas, saunas, swimming pools etc).

Active Rest: doing something physically active other than the primary training and competition activity, e.g. walking, swimming or cycling instead of running.

Sleep: ensuring adequate quality and quantity of sleep.

Hydration and refueling: drinking the right fluids and eating the right foods at the right time, in the right quantity and of the right type to enhance recovery.

Unwind mentally: mental and emotional recovery is just as important as the physical aspects of recovery.

Physical Therapies: including massage, physiotherapy, stretching and Yoga.

So is Recovery important?

Absolutely. There is no doubt that Recovery is critical for athletes: to train hard then to dedicate energy, effort and enthusiasm to their recovery program.

The one thing we know for certain about succeeding in high performance sport is that you need to consistently train hard.

And using WASHUP recovery techniques means that athletes can recover faster and more effectively and therefore they can train harder more often.

So how did all this Recovery stuff start?

In the “old days” the pathway to sporting success was primarily focused on hard, physical preparation. The culture of most sports, particularly the Olympic sports where physiology is such a critical aspect of performance, e.g. running, swimming, rowing, gymnastics, diving, triathlon and cycling, was to work and work and work until you couldn’t work any more.

With the growth of the sports science industry and the deeper understanding of applied sports physiology, people began to realise that an important limiting factor in the physical aspect of sports performance was the athlete’s ability to recover.

This led to some athletes, coaches and even nations to try and find ways of enhancing an athlete’s recovery ability – by any means necessary in some cases - and the unfortunate rise of the use of substances such as anabolic steroids and other artificial and illegal recovery enhancing substances and techniques.

In more recent times however, the race has been on to find better, smarter (and importantly safe, ethical and legal) ways of accelerating an athlete’s capacity to recover.

And what’s the bottom line?

The bottom line is….the reason athletes and coaches would introduce a smart recovery program is so the athlete can work harder.

And this is where the whole Recovery thing has got out of control.

Too many athletes and coaches have misinterpreted the Recovery principle and have decreased training loads whilst at the same time increasing their emphasis on Recovery.

Again, at the risk of labouring the point, the reason an athlete or coach would introduce a smart, WASHUP based recovery program is to accelerate the athlete’s rate of recovery and therefore provide the opportunity to work harder more often.

The Recovery / Hard Training Matrix

When it comes to managing training and recovery, you have four options:

1. Don’t train hard and don’t introduce a WASHUP based recovery program – doesn’t make any sense if success is your goal.
2. Train hard but don’t introduce a WASHUP based recovery program – works for a while but eventually illness, injury and fatigue will limit your potential for success.
3. Don’t train hard but introduce a WASHUP based recovery program – unlikely to produce anything but a well-rested but under-prepared athlete.
4. Train hard and introduce a WASHUP based recovery program – work hard, recover well, do it consistently and success is practically inevitable.

Summary:

1. Recovery is one of the buzz words around sport at the moment but like all ”fads and fashions” it needs to be considered in balance with all other aspects of your training and competition program. Keep it in perspective!
2. The key to Recovery is remembering that its purpose is to accelerate an athlete’s capacity to adapt to the physical and mental demands of their training and competition schedule…faster recovery means that an athlete can work harder, more often.
3. Whilst the research around the impact of a smart Recovery program on the competition performances of athletes is still very sketchy at best, there is some evidence that systematically introducing a smart recovery program incorporating the WASHUP techniques can enhance an athlete’s capacity to rest, restore and regenerate and be more ready for their next training and competition activity.

Wayne Goldsmith

© 2012, Wayne Goldsmith. All rights reserved.

Related posts:

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Yes you can!

The Big Issues:

Without doubt, the biggest impediment to success in all sporting teams involve leadership, personalities and politics.

When clients ask me to come in and undertake a review of their high performance programs, they usually begin with a “brief”.

The brief gives me an idea of the scope of the review, what the outcomes will be, what specific areas they would like me to look at and time-frames for completion.

And time and time again, in spite of the brief outlining that the clients perceive that the problems with the team revolve around money, recruitment, player depth, coaching, sports science and injury management, the solutions to their high performance problems very often reside in leadership (or a lack of it), personality issues and political conflicts.

The Five Assumptions.

Here are the five assumptions I have developed to underpin the process of reviewing and then enhancing high performance programs in sport:

1. Money is unlikely to be the real problem;
2. Most people don’t really understand the two core concepts in high performance sport – a. how to create and sustain a high performance environment and b. how to create and sustain a winning culture;
3. People are unlikely to reveal the real truth – mainly because most of the time they don’t know what it is;
4. People will blame things and other people for a lack of performance before they are prepared to look honestly at their own performance – ego extinguishes excellence;
5. A fish rots from the head- most of the problems in sporting organisations are due to poor leadership, a lack of vision and the inability of the leaders (be that the Board, the Executive Management team or the Head Coach) to see beyond leadership, personality and political issues.

Amazing but True.

It never ceases to amaze me. People will claim they are all about high performance, that they understand how to create and sustain a high performance environment, spend lots of money on recruitment, facilities, equipment, sports science, sports medicine and all the “tricks of the trade” but fail to look honestly, clearly, sincerely and professionally at the most influential high performance “tricks” of all - leadership, personalities and politics.

And why? Human nature! Buying an instant, quick fix solution is always easier than creating and growing a more difficult, long term solution from within.

It is easy to think “if we were fitter we would win more games” and then go  buy better training equipment.

It is easy to think “if we had some better players we would win more games” then go on a recruitment spending spree.

It is easy to think “if we had a better recovery program, we would win more games”, then build a recovery centre.

It is not easy to think,”the best way for us to win more games is to consistently embrace excellence in everything we do, to work hard and to our full potential every day, to manage relationships with honesty and openness and to lead with integrity, humility, courage, vision and passion without succumbing to the limitations of personality conflicts and political squabbles”.

Here’s a common scenario.

The team has great facilities. They have excellent players. They have professional, well trained, experienced staff. They have a strong coaching team. But they are not winning – why?

They will tell the press and the fans,“we are in a rebuilding phase”or “we are focusing on the future” or some other such rubbish.

In reality the only thing they are “re-building” is a bull%&@ story that they think will keep the media, the fans and their sponsors happy while they hope things improve.

Imagine you had a Formula One Car with the latest in engineering, technology, fuel, tyres, braking and a world class support team: the best of the best equipment, facilities and people. And it didn’t perform. Who is responsible? The team manager, the driver and the (lack of) cohesion between the various performance areas.

And here’s the good news….fixing leadership, personality and political problems costs nothing, takes very little time but is worth everything.

Five useful tips.

Here are five tips for solving most problems in high performance sporting organisations;

1. Build and grow solutions to performance problems from within; don’t look to buy solutions from outside;
2. Focus on people – their potential, their leadership abilities, their motivation, their talent first – then worry about everything else;
3. Accept that money is rarely the real problem: money only solves problems when you have real, practical, effective solutions to spend it on – and that means innovative, creative and intelligent leadership;
4. Personality and political problems in high performance sporting organisations are like open wounds. Do not allow them to fester and hope they will get better by themselves. Diagnose them quickly and then treat them immediately, aggressively and consistently until they heal;
5. Don’t just look at the parts – look at the “whole” - regardless of the skills, experience and knowledge of individuals in the team, it is their ability and desire to work collaboratively and cohesively as a high performance team that  makes the difference.

And – um – call me if you get stuck!

Wayne Goldsmith

© 2011 – 2012, Wayne Goldsmith. All rights reserved.

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So much of the world’s high performance sports dollars (or Yens or Yuans or Euros or Pounds or Pesos or Rands depending on where you come from), time, energy, focus and attention is spent on three things:

1. Talent identification;
2. Talent recruitment;
3. Talent development.

Or if you like, find them, sign them, refine them.

And most of the world has still got it wrong. There is a better way.

First item on the Talent Identification agenda…can we please change the name!!!

Let’s all agree to call it the ”Talent Management” Program or the ”Targeting Success” Program or something catchy like T.O.P. (Talent Optimization Program) but the term T.I.D. should be killed off, given a nice funeral and buried by the world’s sporting community once and for all.

Calling the overall process of finding, recruiting and optimising the performance potential of athletes “talent identification” is like calling a game of football “the kick off”. Finding talent is just the first step in a long, long process to turn potential into performance.

Number 2: Adopt an integrated approach.

There is too much focus on physical talent and physiological factors in all T.O.P.s all over the world. Success in high performance sport comes about from the integration and blending of physical, mental, technical, tactical, cultural / family and genetic factors or…my “big six”:

• Physical abilities;
• Personality characteristics;
• Playing skills;
• Performance abilities;
• Pedigree (i.e. genetic makeup);
• Preparation ((i.e. environment, family, culture).

Number 3: Invest ten times more money on talent optimisation and talent development than talent I.D because Real talent is harder to hide than it is to find: Finding talent is not hard.

Open your eyes! It is not hard to find kids who are bigger, stronger, faster or more skillful than their peers. Finding them is not the challenge – it’s what to do once you have found them that is the tricky part. The protocols used to screen athletes for “talent” have been around for over 60 years – test protocols are not the problem. It’s creating an optimal, integrated talent development pathway to turn potential into performance that’s the problem.

Number 4: Make your objective measurements of talent more subjective and your subjective measurements of talent more objective:

This the real trick in all applied sports science. There are no totally objective, research proven, evidence based methods of testing which can measure the “talent” and potential of an athlete and guarantee their elite level competition performance success. And similarly, the old days of just looking at an athlete and using some mystical “eye” or instinct to accurately predict their elite level competition performance success are over. It’s the blending of the objective with the subjective that gives the best results in any T.O.P. process.

Number 5: Any investment in a T.O.P. for athletes must be matched by a T.O.P. for coaches:

Governments and sporting organisations will spend millions on mass T.I.D. screening programs and implementing T.I.D. testing protocols then allocate pittance to educating and developing the people charged with developing that talent to its full potential: i.e. coaches. That just does not make any sense.

Number 6: Educate parents and the talented athlete’s immediate cultural influences:

You play like your place! Athletes – no matter how talented – need people and places around them which nurture them, support them, nourish them and love them. It is critical to influence, support, educate and help the parents, partners and peers of talented athletes so that they can better create an environment which enriches the athlete’s real performance potential.

Number 7: Stop beating around the bush with genetic testing- just get on with it:

We all know its coming – let’s face it – it is already here and the whole industry of Sport Genetics is an unstoppable force. Once we get around the ethical, religious and philosophical zealotry surrounding the genetic testing of athletes, everyone will be doing it. My advice – do it now. Just get on with it or risk being left behind by your competition.

Number 8: You need to learn to recognise genius, uniqueness and difference:

Sport is about health, fitness and lifestyle. It’s about providing opportunities for people to play sport through the implementation of standardised systems, structures and programs. High performance is completely different! High performance is about providing unique opportunities for unique individuals to realise their full potential. Too many T.O.P.s fail because they fail to recognise genius. They spend millions finding and recruiting talented athletes, then force them into standard programs to fit a funding model or some mythical all encompassing athlete development system. High performance means being different, being unique, being an individual and thinking, talking and acting outside the box.

Number 9: It has to be a“non-system” system:

As per number 8 – there is no system you can create which will guarantee the success of your team, your sport, your club or your nation in high performance sport. That’s because greatness and uniqueness are intimately entwined and uniqueness does not flourish in a system. That’s why the best win – they do it their way, they do it uniquely, they do it differently to the rest….and any high performance sport system which discourages difference will fail.

Number 10: There has to be multiple entry (and exit) points:

Too many teams,  sports and even nations miss talent because of stringent rules about T.T.T. – Talent Testing Timing. Some of the biggest mistakes here include:

• Setting an age range – i.e. “we test kids aged 12-15″ years;
• Creating elite junior development pathways which are rigid and inflexible (i.e. “you are either in or out”);
• Testing for now and not for the future – i.e. looking for talent and potential to sustain the team’s current style or system of play without thought of evolving it over time;
• Relying on historical data to provide a framework for the future, i.e. using test data from talented athletes from the past to evaluate the performance potential of athletes to be successful in the future.

Conclusion:

• There is no doubt that an effective T.O.P. is important for the success of every sporting team, organisation and nation.
• However, the way it has been done to date lacks real sophistication, practicality and effectiveness and it is time the whole concept of T.I.D. was revisited, revamped and re-developed.

There’s my Top Ten Talent I.D. Tips for High Performance Sp0rt – the T.O.P. Approach….what’s yours?

Wayne Goldsmith

© 2011 – 2012, Wayne Goldsmith. All rights reserved.

Related posts:

1. The Player Potential Profile – an integrated, practical approach to Talent Identification and Recruitment in High Performance Sport – Part One Hot Football On Fire from Crestock Stock Photos Every now...
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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.

It’s not what you do….it’s how you do it.

The “secret’ set, the “wonder-workout”, the “magic-session” – it all means the same thing…that coaches are convinced that all it takes to be successful is to come up with the magic formula based on training physiology. The on-line coaching industry is full of this: “Buy our unique workouts and you will see amazing results” etc etc.

A well crafted workout, with a lot of thought behind the physiology of the training sets, reps, drills, etc that is performed poorly is a bad workout.

Whereas, a workout which may lack the precision of a finely tuned training activity designed by someone with a strong knowledge of sports science but is a workout which engages the heart and mind of every athlete so that all activities are performed with passion, precision and perfection is a great workout.

Of course, the ideal situation is to create an effective workout based on sound physiological principles but one which also engages the athletes so that they give their best to the full extent of their potential: i.e. the science and the art of coaching working in harmony.

The big assumption behind all workouts.

There is an underlying assumption in all workouts: the one premise that all workouts are designed on: that the athletes will complete the training session as it was written.

When coaches write a workout, they write it assuming that the athletes will complete the workout with same intent behind it’s design. No coach writes a workout thinking, “This is what I want the athletes to do but I know most of them will not do it this way”.

Example:

A coach writes a workout for a track sprinter. On paper, the workout reads:

• Warm up: 1000 metres easy
• Drills: 8 x High knee drills with walk back recovery
• Run throughs: 6 x 40 metres increasing in speed from 400 metre speed to 100 metre speed progressively over the set. Walk back recovery.
• Main set: 4 x 80 metres at 200 metre pace on 3 minutes. 5 minute rest. 4 x 120 metres at 200 metre pace on 3 minutes 30.
• Cool down: 1000 metres easy.

The underlying assumptions are:

• Warm-up: Completed with relaxation and rhythm, focusing on breathing and ease of movement.
• Drills: Each stride completed with technical excellence and rhythm and flow.
• Run throughs: Each repeat done with technical excellence and at precisely the target pace.
• Main set: All efforts completed with technical excellence, rhythm and flow with a focus on breathing and ease of movement as the distance increases, i.e. technique under fatigue.
• Cool down: Completed with relaxation and rhythm, focusing on breathing and ease of movement.

It is not the workout that determines the success of the athlete: it is how the athlete is intrinsically driven to complete every activity in their training program to the best of their ability.

And this is why the concepts of engagement and motivationare so important: without doubt the two most important concepts in effective coaching.

Engagement and Motivation: The Coach’s Best Friends.

All the things that are written about sport science, exercise physiology, training aids, fitness equipment…all the “what” stuff are of limited value without understanding engagement and motivation.

Engagement can be defined as the ability of a coach to create a performance environment where every athlete wants to give more than can reasonably be expected.

Motivation is the desire: the fire that drives an athlete towards a goal or achievement.

So, the key to great coaching is not sports science and it’s not actually coaching per se: it’s providing athletes with the environment and opportunity to express their engagement and motivation through their training: through the way they complete their workouts.

And this lays the foundation for a critical concept in successful coaching….win the workout.

Win the Workout philosophy:

The logic of the Win the Workout philosophy is pretty simple:

1. If you want to be the best in the world or the best in your competition;
2. You must be the best in your own Club or training squad and
3. Therefore you must be the best in each training session and workout.

Think about this for a moment. It makes sense.

You can’t be the best in your football competition or the best in the national swimming championships or the best in the state school athletics championships without first being the best in your team or lane or squad or group.

Sorry coaches….but the truth is you are all doing pretty much the same things.

Not many coaches who read this bit will accept it but, the truth is, you are all doing pretty much the same things.

Whether it be consciously or sub-consciously, the reality is that with so much free information available through the Internet, books, conferences, workshops, seminars, coaching courses etc – everyone in your sport more or less knows what everyone else in your sport knows. Your workouts are no longer your “magic-secret” to success because everyone in your sport has either seen them, has heard about them, knows about them, has tried them and in some cases has even improved on them.

And this means…..it is not your workouts that will determine the success of your athletes, your team, your program or you!

Your success, now, more than ever, is totally reliant on your ability to create an environment where win the workout, i.e. an environment built on athlete engagement and motivation is the core philosophy of your athletes.

This is what a Winning Culture is all about.

Many people talk about wanting to create a Winning Culture. They spend a lot of time and resources trying to create it, build it, grow it and sustain it.

Having a Winning Culture means that every athlete – and for that matter every person involved in your program – is totally, uncompromisingly and completely engaged with the program and is motivated to complete everything they do consistently to a higher standard than anyone of their competitors.

Your coaches want to out-coach every coach in the competition.

Your team manager wants to out-manage every manager in the competition.

Everyone strives to be the best in their role….the cumulative effect resulting in excellence across every aspect of your organisation.

Winning cultures grow when one person or a small group of people make the commitment to consistently out prepare, in every way, their opposition.

You can’t force a winning culture. You can’t run a motivation session and make it happen. You can’t buy t-shirts with slogans on them and turn your culture into a winning culture.

All it takes is one person.

It starts with one person: one person with a complete sense of engagement and the absolute motivation to do whatever it takes to be the best.

In other words, it starts with you, coach.  It starts with your own engagement and motivation and with your ability to provide the environment for others to be similarly engaged and motivated: it starts when you make the commitment to “win the workout”.

Summary:

1. Workouts do not win: athletes win by winning the workouts.
2. Winning the workouts is a culture: a core philosophy which, if embraced by everyone in your program, is an unstoppable force.
3. Creating and sustaining a winning culture: one which is built on the win the workout philosophy begins and ends with the coach and the coach’s ability to create an environment where engagement and motivation are the central, driving forces behind success.

Wayne Goldsmith

© 2011, Wayne Goldsmith. All rights reserved.

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Typically the end of season means a well earned rest, a few quiet drinks with team mates, some time with family and then… the end of season review.

Every team does some kind of season reflection or review – in most cases motivated by one or more “P” – Performance, Politics, Pressure.

• The Performance Review: is one motivated by a drive to improve the performance of the team – players, coaches and staff – for next season.
• The Political Review: is a review often driven by the Board or Executive to achieve a political agenda or philosophical shift in the club.
• The Pressure Review: is one forced on a team by media, fans, club, Board or other stakeholders as a result of a poor performance.

By far the most effective review is one that is deliberately and strategically placed in the team’s “performance cycle” each year and is embraced by coaches, players, staff, Management and Board as being an important and positive aspect of progressive performance from season to season.

The Performance Cycle: The review is a key part to the overall performance cycle of the team.

Every team – every club – every coach – every player – is seeking one thing -Sustained Competitiveness: the ability to be competitive year after year after year.

A well structured review process ensures that by systematically reviewing and evaluating all aspects of performance, the opportunity to sustain competitiveness is integrated into the culture of the club.

Here are some tips to help make this year’s RE- view and PRE-view of success next season.

Review with next year in mind – don’t waste time looking back in anger

Reviews can make people very nervous and many coaches and players see it as a negative process. A well planned and well implemented review can be THE most critical element of planning for the next season and is an opportunity to move forward. It can be one of the most positive and productive times of the year. It is the time when feedback can be given and received with real positive energy and enthusiasm.

Don’t waste the review time by looking back and micro-analysing every aspect of every game, tackles missed in game one etc. This has all been done through the season. Use the RE-view as a PRE-VIEW: use it as an opportunity to get your best people together and work co-operatively and honestly to improve next season.

Benchmark against the best, whoever and wherever they may be

All sports are close communities and secrets do not stay secrets for long. It is safe to say that everyone knows what you know. In this closed environment, teams need to look outside your sport for the best solution – not just the AFL solution or the baseball solution or the swimming solution……the BEST solution!

If you were looking to improve the individualisation of player’s preparation, the answer might lie in one of the Olympic sports. If you were looking to improve on field endurance, the answer might lie in soccer or Rugby league. If you were looking to improve player leadership skills, the answer might lie in the corporate sector, business community or even politics! Once you have identified the problems, look for THE best solutions.

Keep the things that you do well, change the things that aren’t working – 10% rule

One of the biggest mistakes teams make at review time is to throw everything out and start again. Most clubs do far more right than they do wrong. If your car’s gearbox is broken, fix the gear box – don’t replace the engine, tyres, brakes, steering, cooling system and stereo. Build on the things that work well and change or eliminate the things that don’t. Try to adopt this simple three step review process of each area:

• What do we do that works? – What should we keep doing?
• What do we do that doesn’t work? – What do we do that we should stop doing?
• What are things that we can introduce that will positively impact on performance? – What should we start doing?

Make sure you know what the budget is for next season BEFORE you start planning

Before you start planning for next season, make sure you are clear on what you can and can’t do from a budget perspective. Everyone has millions of ideas and suggestions of things that might work but in a real world, most clubs are working on a tight budget and it is a matter of prioritising.

• Start with the things you must do – e.g. train hard, eat well, sleep and recover well, manage and minimise injuries.
• Then start to look at things you want to do – e.g. introduce new equipment, new specialist coaches and staff, training camps, new facilities.
• Then look at things you wish you could do – e.g. altitude camps, individualised diet management, specialist coaching services for individual positions.

Be Systematic: Look at everything: little things can make a big difference

At the beginning of the review process, write down a list of everything in your program that can make a difference. The easiest way to do this is to ask each person – coaches, sports scientists, medical team, team manager and players to review their own performance using the Keep, Stop, Start method and to highlight the key factors of their specialist areas.

Aim to make everything subject to a genuine 360 review process, i.e.

• Each person reviews their own performance
• Each person is reviewed by their peers
• Each person is reviewed by their immediate report, i.e. the person they report to
• Each person is reviewed by the people who report to them

For example, a team defensive skills coach would be reviewed by himself, the other team skills coaches, the head coach and the players.

Start with a philosophy: If you don’t stand for something, you will fall for anything.

With the review process comes a flood of ideas, innovations, new technologies, new supplements, gym equipment and gimmicks. Everyone will have great ideas and new products that will “guarantee” success next year.

Start the review with a philosophy. This keeps you grounded and keeps you focused on improving the right things. The process starts with understanding what you are about as a team and club.

Ask yourself three questions:

• What do we stand for? Who are we? This will help you clearly identify what it is about the team and the club culture that is unique, special and worth keeping.
• What are things we do well that will sustain this culture?
• What do we need? Who can we recruit to add value to this culture?

The real trick in program reviews and strategic planning is deciding what not to do – finding new ideas is the easy part – finding out what will work and add genuine value to the team is the real art.

Get someone independent to help with the review process – take personalities, politics and emotions out of it.

In the majority of cases, reviews are commissioned on political grounds. Someone in the club has decided that the performance of the coach, players and team is an issue and commissions someone to review the program. In many cases, the reviewer may also have political connections to the club and an agenda for change that may not be in the best interest of the team and the team’s performance next season.

Find someone independent, objective and politically neutral to co-ordinate the review process. Aim to identify someone who will establish a professional process – one that systematically analyses and reviews all key performance areas and is focused on improving the performance of the team, players, coaches and staff without any political or personality bias or prejudice.

Do it sooner rather than later. A season’s memories fade quickly

The ideal time to do a review is 3-5 days after the end of the season. Doing it immediately is often a bad idea as there is too much emotion, fatigue (and maybe hangovers) for it to be effective. Waiting until after players and staff have a long break is less than ideal as the accuracy of memories can fade quickly at the end of the season and a lot of detail forgotten.

The key is to build the review into the season and that the review is seen as integral to the overall team performance cycle rather than something distinct, separate and unrelated.

If you have to change personnel. Do it soon.

Unfortunately, sometimes reviews come up with a solution that results in the need to change coaches, players, staff or management. If this happens, make the changes quickly – fairly, honestly, with integrity and compassion, but quickly. The outgoing people need time to find new employment opportunities before the next season and the new personnel need the maximum possible time together to form an effective team and to provide the best possible performance environment for the team to succeed.

The aim of the review process is to ensure that the rate of acceleration of improvement in your team is greater than that of your opposition.

No one goes backwards in this business. There are too many great people working 24/7 in every team for performance to actually regress. Everyone is improving – it is the rate of improvement that is the key issue.

The aim is to progress at a faster rate than your opposition. And to do this means you have to be:

• Honest – about where you are now
• Clear – about where you want to go
• Committed – to getting there faster than anyone else
• Consistent – in doing the things that will make the difference better than anyone else, everyday.

Summary:

• A review is a positive, constructive opportunity to improve performance, sustain competitiveness and progress from season to season.
• It should be systematically planned and scheduled into the overall performance cycle each year.
• Keep it simple – look at it through a simple Keep Doing, Stop Doing, Start Doing perspective.
• Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater – a well thought out, intelligent 10% change in key areas is usually enough to significantly improve performance.

About the author: Wayne has worked at the highest level of elite sport for 15 years and has worked with some of Australia’s leading sports, clubs, coaches, players and teams. He specialises in working with people and organisations to help them develop peak performance environments and cultures designed to achieve success and sustain competitiveness.

Wayne Goldsmith

© 2011 – 2012, Wayne Goldsmith. All rights reserved.

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There have been many attempts to define and measure mental toughness in coaching textbooks, academic literature and even in the popular media.

Words like “persistence”, “perseverance”, “determination”, “commitment”, “resilience” and “uncompromising” seem to be used to describe mental toughness: something which clearly means different things to different people.

For some people, mental toughness is about being able to maintain composure, calm and control in difficult situations.

For others, mental toughness is related to physical “hardness” and the ability to endure pain, fatigue and stress in competition conditions and still prevail.

There has been a lot of work from the academic sector to attempt to define and measure mental toughness, with most of the recent literature discussing mental toughness in terms of “situations” and that mental toughness is a complex set of different attributes expressed differently by people in different situations.

Coaches all agree however, that for competitive athletes, mental toughness is a highly desirable athletic quality: one which is as prized as outstanding physical abilities, excellence in skills and technical knowledge.

But how can you coach an athlete to be mentally tough?

 Mental Toughness: Two Basic Coaching Approaches

There are two basic approaches to coaching mental toughness:

1. Toughen the body to toughen the mind and
2. Toughen the mind to toughen the body.

“All of us get knocked down, but it’s resiliency that really matters. All of us do well when things are going well, but the thing that distinguishes athletes is the ability to do well in times of great stress, urgency and pressure.”

Roger Staubach

Mental Toughness Coaching Approach 1: Toughen the body to toughen the mind

This has been the most commonly used approach by coaches to try and develop mental toughness in their athletes.  The essence of this approach is hard work, i.e. the harder I work, the tougher I get.

The core philosophy behind this approach is: “Make training more challenging and more demanding, physically and mentally, than the competition you are preparing for”.

This approach has several good things going for it and it is relatively simple to do. Through this approach, athletes develop confidence in their ability to meet the physical demands of the competition environment and in their ability to deal with whatever is “thrown” at them during competition because they know ( i.e. confidence comes from knowing) that their preparation has been better in every detail than that of their opposition.

Many, many football competitions, world championships and Olympic Gold medals have been won by coaches and athletes adopting the toughen the body to toughen the mind approach.

However, for some athletes this approach can be too confronting, too demanding and ultimately can actually cause athletes to become de-motivated and even intimated by the training environment. Some athletes will fall to the stress and strain of the intense physical loads required by this approach and break down through over-training.

A big mistake however that coaches make is to assume that athletes who fail to respond to this approach are “soft” and therefore unable to compete successfully. The fact is that all athletes (people) are different. Some respond incredibly well to endurance training…some don’t. Some respond positively to strength training…some don’t. Some respond strongly to the toughen the body to toughen the mind approach…some don’t.

Mental Toughness Coaching Approach 2: Toughen the mind to toughen the body

The second approach to Coaching Mental Toughness is the toughen the mind to toughen the body approach. Coaches who adopt this approach focus on developing the athlete’s mental skills and teaching them the psychological techniques to thrive in the competitive environment.

There are many excellent mental skills techniques which can enhance an athlete’s ability to perform to their full potential under the pressure of competition including Sports Mindfulness which among other things teaches athletes to live in the moment and to not overly think about the past (e.g. mistakes which may have just been made) or the future (e.g. the pressure of the situation and the need to score points).

An athlete who masters a technique like Sports Mindfulness can be, by any definition, mentally tough, as they have the ability to perform to their full potential regardless of the situation.

So which approach is the right approach?

The right approach is:

a. The one which suits your own personal coaching philosophy and

b. The one which works with the individual athlete you are a coaching.

There is no one size fits all coaching method to enhance mental toughness. Some athletes respond well to Mental Toughness Coaching Approach 1. They thrive on hard work. They love being physically challenged. They grow and mature as athletes through an uncompromising commitment to training as hard as possible. And some athletes do not respond this approach. Others respond far better by learning to master their mind and to tap into the almost unlimited potential that lives between their ears!

“Win or lose you will never regret working hard, making sacrifices, being disciplined or focusing too much. Success is measured by what we have done to prepare for competition.”

John Smith

And the biggest question of all….can you turn a “soft” athlete into a “hard” athlete through great coaching?

The short answer is Yes.

A “soft” athlete is one who lacks the mental abilities to compete to their full potential – particularly when things get difficult, challenging or unpredictable. Coaches, believing they can identify “soft” athletes then embark on a training program to help the athlete develop the skills and abilities to better manage competitive situations and therein become “hard”, i.e. tough, resilient etc.

Some athletes are naturally hard: and by naturally, I mean they have learnt to be hard through necessity, overcoming adversity and set backs in their lives both inside and outside of sport. They then carry this “hardness” into their preparation and performance, i.e. “the way you do anything, is the way you do everything”.

For others, “hardness” (mental toughness) is a skill and like any skill it can be learnt, practiced, enhanced and mastered. In the same way you would not teach an athlete complex, difficult, advanced sporting skills and techniques in their first year of training, mental toughness is not something that athletes learn from a single lecture, sporting autobiography or audio recording. Mental toughness needs to be introduced, nurtured, developed and enhanced and systematically measured in both training and in competition situations over an athlete’s career just as any other sporting skill or technique.

“I’ve never known anybody to achieve anything without overcoming adversity.”

Lou Holtz

Summary

1. Mental toughness is a much talked about, much investigated aspect of sports performance yet surprisingly, while many people believe they know what it is, where it is and how to find it, very little is understood about coaching it.
2. Whether you adopt the “body to mind” approach or the “mind to body” approach, coaching mental toughness is about understanding your athlete and what they need to enhance their mental abilities to thrive in competitive situations.
3. There are times when both approaches can be used effectively in the preparation of athletes. Coaching is an art form: and an important part of the art is knowing what to do, when and how.

“It may sound strange, but many champions are made champions by setbacks.”

Bob Richards

The Sports Coaching Brain has recently developed a partnership with the US company Athlete IQ. One of the features of Athlete IQ’s excellent and highly innovative approach to performance measurement and enhancement is the introduction of a test for mental toughness involving both athletes and their coaches.

For more information contact Athlete IQ today.

Wayne Goldsmith

© 2011, Wayne Goldsmith. All rights reserved.

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Whoopee!

You finished your Uni degree. Bachelor of Applied Science in Sports Studies. Or Bachelor of Science in Human Movement. Or Masters in Exercise Science. Congratulations!!! Mum, Dad and Aunt Lucy are all proud of you. You did it!

You have a nice shiny new degree, a huge brain full of ideas and intelligence and a heart full of optimism, passion and drive just itching to enter a career in high performance sport.

So you start digging through the Sports employment adverts, you visit the sports jobs web sites and you sign up for a few sports career update newsletters.

And you wait.

And you apply for a few jobs.

And you wait.

And maybe you get an interview.

And you wait.

And then, six months after graduation you find out that maybe getting a job in high performance sport wasn’t as easy as you thought and you might want to start learning lines like, “Would you like to Super Size that today, Sir”, “Can I tell you about our blackboard specials today Ma’am” and “Did you have discount coupon to get 4 cents off your fuel purchase?”.

So to help you get in and stay in the world of high performance sport, here is a guide on how to read those all too appealing job advertisements in the high performance sports industry.

The Three Golden Rules of Getting a Job in High Performance Sport.

There are three rules when it comes to getting a dream job in high performance sport – and for that matter a dream job in any industry:

1. It’s about who you know;
2. It’s about who you know;
3. It’s about who you know.

And, my friends, here’s another piece of advice – it is no good wining, whinging and complaining about it: you need to be as committed to making contacts and industry connections as you are about study, research, coaching and high performance programs. Fact of life: accept it – move on.

The next piece of truth for you budding high performance sports professionals to accept is that very few advertised jobs in the sports industry are actually really open to all applicants.

Take a list of 100 advertised jobs in high performance sport.

A large percentage of these 100 jobs, (particuarly the government sports jobs) are often opened to internal applicants only (in spite of what it says on the official job advertisement). It’s what large sporting organisations do when they have had a review, have re-schuffled a few roles, re-named a couple of departments and now have to get the incumbents to re-apply for their own jobs – usually at higher salaries. Goes on all the time.

Now take off another large percentage of these 100 jobs who are informally taken by head nods, hand shakes and agreements signed with cappuccinos, (with most jobs in high performance sport its more about dinner than your degree).

Now take off another percentage of the 100 jobs which will go to former athletes and coaches and people who have political and personal connections within the sport.

What are you left with? Three jobs out of 100 that you can actually apply for:

1. Development Officer for Junior Underwater Trampolining;
2. Sports Administrator for Regional Tug-a-war;
3. Assistant to the assistant deputy, vice, assistant Treasurer of Kurdistan Cricket.

Good luck with your application - feel free to list me as a referee!

Sports Speak

In addition to having great networking skills, there is an art to applying for jobs in the high performance sports industry: you have to master Sports Speak.

Sports Speak is a special secret magic language that people in sport use to communicate secret messages to other people in sport through the medium of position descriptions and advertisements and unless you are fluent in this language, your chances of securing that high level high performance gig are about as good as Paris Hilton winning the Nobel Prize for Literature this year.

Sports Speak must become your second language and to master it means that dream job with professional sport, an Olympic team or a government run sports institute is within your grasp.

Here’s some examples of Sports Speak to help you on your pathway to success:

• “Demonstrated experience in leading people“: Sports Speak Translation = Have been in charge of staff but never introduced any changes which upset them or created any problems;
• “Proven record of stakeholder engagement”:  Sports Speak Translation =Listen to everyone, pander to factions and splinter groups, compromise all decisions to avoid conflict and get nothing of real significance actually done;
• “Change management skills”: Sports Speak Translation = Must make a few minor, largely ineffective, cosmetic changes but not too many and not too fast – you might wake up some of the staff;
• “Demonstrated decision making skills”: Sports Speak Translation =  Being able to do what you are told to do;
• “Innovative”: Sports Speak Translation = Copy the best ideas of other organisations after doing benchmarking junkets all over the world and claim them as your own;
• “Ability to develop financial and strategic plans”: Sports Speak Translation = Desk Job - mostly administrative;
• “Ability to monitor progress towards objectives and use evaluation and research information to improve effectiveness”: Sports Speak Translation = Desk Job – totally administrative.
• “Understanding of the structure and dynamics of sport and government processes”: Sports Speak Translation = Have lots of connections and contacts in the sport world who you can use as consultants to help sort out problems.

The Position Description you will never see.

Here’s a list of things that you will never see on a position description or job application for a role in high performance sport – and this is a fundamental reason why sport continues to be a remarkably conservative institution around the world where change, innovation and creativity - and by extension the industry as a whole – does not progress to a level that is anywhere near it’s potential:

Wanted: Sports Leader – to lead us to be the best in the world.

Qualities and attributes:

• Someone who thinks about, talks about and openly embraces winning;
• Visionary leadership: able to lead consistently with passion, drive and enthusiasm;
• Team inspirer: able to create and sustain a high quality collaborative team environment where every one’s talent is optimised and every individual consistently contributes to their full potential;
• Creative and innovative: prepared to take risks, to think laterally, to think things and do things that no one else in the industry is prepared to;
• Uncompromising in their commitment to create a winning environmentfor all athletes, coaches and people involved in the sport (sorry – can’t say stakeholders. The only people who should be called stakeholders are those planting tomatoes or installing picket fences);
• Integrated thinker: thinks and acts across disciplines, across sports, across industries to search for the best possible solutions to performance problems;
• Experience valued but only if you are capable of thinking, learning and growing faster than at any time in your professional career;
• Change management not needed: you must live change and thirst for continuous improvement.

If the Universities and other sports industry training organisations were serious about preparing people for a career in high performance sport, instead of pumping students through a Bachelor of Applied Science (Human Movement), they would create a new, more practical, more realistic list of course offerings:

• Bachelor of Language (Sports Speak);
• Bachelor of Applied Sports Networking (Sports Management Systems);
• Masters of Sports Contacts and Connections.

What does your degree say?

Wayne Goldsmith

© 2011, Wayne Goldsmith. All rights reserved.

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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.

And what’s worse – you may be the major cause of their failure.

Tennis is a tough sport.

To make it to the top means years of hard work, dedication, commitment, training and skills development. It also takes a total commitment from the player, their coach and the player’s family to become a successful, professional player.

None of this is news to you of course.

However what may be news is that the more you want your child to be successful, the more you drive them, the more you obsess over their training, the more you talk about their game and focus on their career, the less likely they are to be successful.

Hold it right there you say! I know that at this point, the majority of tennis parents are thinking, “I’m not pushy. I’m just supporting my child to achieve their dreams. I am not one of those parents this article is referring to”.

Wrong – you are!

It is next to impossible for you to be objective about your child’s sporting talent and your own behaviour relating to it.

• The percentage of players who make it to the top is very small.
• The percentage of players who make it to the top after being outstanding talents and tournament winners at 12 is next to zero.
• The percentage of players who make it to the top after being outstanding talents and tournament winners at 12 and whose parents are obsessed with them getting there is less than zero.

So how can you be an outstanding tennis parent?

Sit down with your child’s coach.

Ask them for honest, hard hitting, direct feedback on the job you are doing as a tennis parent. In the same way that your child seeks and receives honest feedback on their backhand, serve, volley etc – you too need honest, direct, regular feedback to improve your tennis parenting skills. And…..be prepared to listen to it and act upon it.

Now, let’s look at things from a Positive Parenting Perspective.

Can you answer “Yes” to two or more of these questions about the future?

• Can you give your child unconditional love, support and encouragement regardless of their on court performances?
• Do you believe that the most important skills for your child to develop are confidence, self belief, honesty, integrity and humility?
• Do you believe you should give your child a day or two off each week just to relax and enjoy being a kid?
• Can you promise not to discuss tennis away from the court?
• Can you encourage your child to develop skills in other sports and activities and to continue their education?
• Can you provide your child with a loving, caring, supportive, stable family environment?
• Can you stay away from the training court for a few days without getting anxious?
• Can you give your child’s coach total and unconditional support – particularly when your child hits a rough patch or form slump?
• If your child does not make it as a professional player, will you still love them, care for them, support them, nurture them and be there for them unconditionally?
• Can you show dignity, maturity and decency when your child is defeated in a tournament?

Scoring Key:

Score 2-3: can I suggest another sport?

Score 4-6: a good chance of developing a well rounded, confident, balanced child.

Score 7-10: congratulations – you are an outstanding tennis parent and you have all the skills you need to help your child become the best they can be – in life, in sport, at school, in the family…..and maybe even tennis.

Being a tennis parent is a tough job. And like all tough jobs, you need good training and lots of education to do it well.

Wayne Goldsmith

© 2011, Wayne Goldsmith. All rights reserved.

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