Being ready to deliver on the day – The ability to have your athletes ready to perform at their best at the required time is most important. That can be the final of the Olympic games or a high school state championship. Everything is directed to this goal.
Coaching is a careful blend of art and science – No more explanation is necessary
Emotional intelligence is the key to effective coaching – It is all about people and how we as coaches grow and develop ourselves and the people we work with.
An overemphasis on injury prevention will lead to injuries – Good injury prevention is a transparent part of a sound training program. What is happening today is an emphasis on so-called corrective exercise and special injury prevention exercises that normal training is being ignored. When training is ignored then the athlete is predisposed to injury because they are not ready to perform.
The ability to race is different than the ability to be paced to a fast time – Anyone with ability can hang on and be pulled to fast time the medals are won by those who can race. Those who are race hardened, who understand tactics and are fully adaptable to variety of race situations.
It is imperative to develop and refine physical literacy in parallel with skill development – Physical literacy slightly leads skill and technical development; it is impossible to have one without the other.
We must take a giant step back and look at what we are doing with recovery – I think we need to learn to use recovery methods more judiciously. Not necessary to ice bath after every workout. We need to understand that the inflammatory cascade is part of the adaptation process. Must educate the body to take advantage of this not interfere with this all the time.
Little things count – Big things are a given, they are hard to overlook but it is the little things that quickly add up.
Coaching men and women is different. “Men battle to bond. Women bond to battle.” Nigel Redman – I think this is pretty self-explanatory.