Tags: Mechanical Stress; Mechanical Stress 2; Coaching Vs Science; Programming; Plyometrics; Speed; Weightlifting Skills; Coaching Vs Performance Led
When S&C Coaches talk about supporting ‘performance’ what do they mean?
Working as professional practitioners supporting performance can at times be confusing, lack clarity of purpose and at its worst, dismiss some of the first principles that delivery should be based upon (see link on MDT process). What are S&C practitioners going after and why? If I had a £10.00 for every coach who said they are going after performance but then couldn’t articulate objectively what they meant by this, I would be better of than I am now.
The language within the profession can be confusing. I recently read that agility is underpinned by the attributes of sprinting – what does this mean and how is it helpful?
It got me thinking about attributes, characteristics, skills and qualities and how these terms relate to the individual athlete, the sport they play, the demands that are placed on them and that they are exposed to. I wonder whether we could be clearer as S&C coaches about what we can affect, how we might do this and what we might expect our outcomes to be? Improving qualities that underpin the ability to execute agility (or any sporting skill) is a very different intervention to trying to enhance or coach the skill itself. Similarly, there is a difference between the attributes of an individual performing agility and the attributes of agility. If we consider agility in a few different sports (consider squash, tennis and rugby) the agility characteristics are completely different as are two separate individuals performing game related agility. Consider the questions below:
- Does an athletes personal attributes and characteristics effect their ability to perform sporting skills?
- Are the physical qualities required by an athlete to perform their sport key determinants of success or just a contributing characteristic of the activity?
- What would be the key characteristics of a temporal force trace and would this be effected by the characteristics of the skill executed or the attributes of the individual performing them?
- What are the qualities, characteristics and attributes of strength related skills?
- Do sporting skills have attributes and characteristics and what are the contributing key physical qualities?
- Should S&C Coaches, Coaches, Physiotherapists and Trainers be more specific, precise and deliberate about what they attempting to affect and why and clearer about its objective impact on performance?
Is it possible to define types of S&C Coach? Movement and Skill Acquisition Coaches may be trying to effect skill execution in game related tasks where as Strength Coaches might be trying to effect physical qualities through skills that require a variety of characteristics of strength. Two very different approaches; the affect of which will drive very different outcomes.