The Practice Environment: How Coaches May Promote Athlete Learning

Does This Also Need Your Reflection?

I observed recently a Soccer training session, and began to question the purpose of the entire session. There was no obvious ‘Internal Flow’ that connected whatever was supposed to be happening in that session. An excellent delivery of a training session is conducted in progressive steps (Individual and Team sports).

• Proper Pre-training phase (Warm-up), which connects to and ‘flows’ into the imminent training session, consists of:

  • General Movement Competencies (General Physical Components)

  • Sport-specific Movment Competencies (soccer Specific Physical Components)

  • Training Session Movement Competencies (those physical components that are needed to successfully perform required Skills/Drills, and Activities)

• Introduction or Explanation of the purpose and goals for the training session.

• Organized Warm-up session. Correct movement and body position. Coaches rotate among athletes to make corrections versus standing in a cluster at the sideline.

• Athletes should be active 80% of the time, i.e. not standing around while coaches correct technical errors of other players as the HR needs to be kept up and muscles need to stay warm to avoid the risk of injury.

• Demonstrations and drill explanations should be short – perform the skill – call the group in – explain the new drill, etc.. Athletes remain standing, not sittitng down - lowers the HR.

• Error Detection/Correction (EDC) is quick, not lengthy, as athletes lose concentration!

• Training session in Team sports: consists of a Triad (session is divided into 3 parts)

  • Introduce the Drill or Review previous sesion drill if needed or Refine a given skill – 1/3rd

  • Perform the drill(s) in a controlled game situation (limited or modified situation, example: playing without the defense) – 2/3rd

  • Play the game in full effort without limitations (3/3rd). In this part of the session, the pressure is applied to observe potential errors or play breakdown. It is here where EDC occurs and is discussed, not at the actial game day, whereby players then are scolded for committing errors.

• Evaluation of the Training session: Athletes and Coaches:

Athletes:

• Were the Process Goals accomplished as planned?

• What was the Performance Rate: Percentage: 1-100% or Scale: 1-10?

• What Errors occured? Reason?

• What was the Focus/Concentration?

• What was the Motivation level?

• What was the Interaction?

Coaches:

• Was the Training completed as planned (Pre-impact)?

• Was the delivery of the traing successful (Impact)?

• What needs to be Reviewed/Retaught?

• What is the Post-impact?

Abstract from the References listed below.

The coaching environment is the primary teaching and learning medium for the development of athlete skills. Therefore, by understanding how practice environments are designed to facilitate learning, coaches can make decisions around the structure of specific activities and behavior to promote athlete learning and development. This short review examines the coaching environment literature, with a particular focus on the structure and content within a practice session. The review will highlight the specific activities coaches utilize to develop athletes technical and tactical skills. Further, the coaching behaviors used to promote athlete learning is discussed, and how coach athlete interactions may influence learning. Finally, we provide applied recommendations for coaches, and highlight areas for future coaching science research.

Reference:

Larkin, P., Barkell, J., & O’Connor, D. (2022). The practice environment-How coaches may promote athlete learning.

Front Sports Act Front Sports Act Living. Jul 22:4:957086.

National Library of Medicine (NIH). National Center for Biotechnology Information. doi: 10.3389/fspor.2022.957086. eCollection 2022.