HAPPY 2015
Monthly Archive for December, 2014
The young players called in Italian football pulcini are the second category of the football school in order of age and include children aged 8 to 10 years. Very often coaches are extremely satisfacted of them, emphasizing the interest and enthusiasm that at this age children showt on the pitch. The satisfaction of the coaches is explained by the evolutionary moment that children of this age live. They live a break in their evolutionary process, they become masters of their body and their mental faculties, becoming aware of themselves, helped by a better definition of the body schema and also by a better level of sociability. All these features put your child away from the continuous self-discovery typical of the previous stage and still far from the confused adolescent storm. It is this that makes it possible to define the young players of this age as more coachable of the football school. This definition, however, does not delete the difficulties that can be encountered in the group management. Beyond the technical and tactical dimensions is important, as always, to know the psychological dynamics belonging to this age group and also the most effective communication style to be used with these young players. Here are some ideas about what to do when we are working with them.
What To Do:
- Engage constantly reducing at the minimum the pauses and waits
- Build their psychological autonomy (means to know how to solve problems)
- Propose exercises in which they must take decisions
- Reinforce not only the correctness of the choices, but the ability to make choices
- Promote the ability to take calculated risks
- Insert in training exercises teaching to maintain a balance between individual risk and collective game
- Lead to internalize the rules of the group
- Teaching to work in a competitive environment
- Structuring training with the aim to promote collaboration
- Decrease the individualism (at this age tend to feed itself: you do so, then, me too)
- Help them to assess what attitude or situation determine the mistakes even through personal examples
Knowing how to handle the young players means, not only to develop their technical and tactical skills, but also to support their enthusiasm and curiosity.
(by Daniela Sepio)
Lifestyle is responsible for up to 76% of changes in the ageing of the brain according to “Age UK and there are 5 steps people can take to maintain brain health and reduce their risk of developing dementia.
The review of academic studies and data reveals that about 76% of cognitive decline – changes in thinking skills with age including memory loss and speed of thinking – is accounted for by lifestyle and other environmental factors including level of education.
The finding from The Disconnected Mind, an Age UK funded research project into how thinking skills alter with age, which was part of the analysis, suggests that there is significant potential to influence these changes.
Furthermore, Age UK’s review, which included the latest international dementia studies, indicates that certain lifestyle factors – regular physical exercise, eating a Mediterranean diet, not smoking and drinking alcohol in moderation – decrease the risk of developing Alzheimer’s, and other forms of dementia. In addition, preventing and treating diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity were also found to reduce the risk of dementia.
Exercise ‘most effective’ way to prevent cognitive decline
One large UK study carried out over 30 years found that men aged between 45 and 59 who followed 4-5 of the identified lifestyle factors were found to have a 36% lower risk of developing cognitive decline and a 36% lower risk of developing dementia than those who did not.
Age UK’s evidence review also revealed that physical exercise – aerobic, resistance or balance - was the most effective way to ward off cognitive decline in healthy older people and reduce the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. Studies suggest that exercise 3 to 5 times a week for between 30 minutes and an hour is beneficial.
Significantly more cases of Alzheimer’s among smokers
But the evidence review also showed that a healthy diet, moderate alcohol intake and not smoking also play a role in ensuring healthy brain ageing as well as reducing the risk of developing dementia.
It found that there are significantly more new cases of Alzheimer’s among current smokers compared with those who have never smoked.
The review also backed up claims that very heavy drinking is also linked to dementia, resulting in the loss of brain tissue particularly in the parts of the brain responsible for memory and processing and interpreting visual information.
Moderate levels of alcohol, however, were found to protect brain tissue by increasing good cholesterol and lowering bad cholesterol.
According to the latest estimates, there are 850,000 people in the UK living with dementia. It will affect one in three people over the age of 65.
‘There are simple and effective ways to reduce our risk’
Age UK hopes the new evidence will spur people to make changes which will help them reduce the risk of developing dementia.
Caroline Abrahams, Charity Director of Age UK said ‘While there’s still no cure or way to reverse dementia, this evidence shows that there are simple and effective ways to reduce our risk of developing it to begin with.
‘What’s more, the changes that we need to make to keep our brains healthy are already proven to be good for the heart and overall health, so it’s common sense for us all to try to build them into our lives. The sooner we start, the better our chance of having a healthy later life.”
(From Age UK)
Sainsbury’s has recreated one of the most famous moments of the first world war in its new Christmas advert, retelling the story of Christmas Day in 1914, when opposing British and German soldiers emerged from their trenches to exchange gifts and play football.
Mark Given, head of brand communications at Sainsbury’s, said: “This year, we wanted to reflect that theme of sharing in our Christmas campaign through the lens of one of the most extraordinary moments of sharing in modern history when, on Christmas Day 1914, British and German soldiers laid down their arms, and came together on neutral territory to share stories, mementoes and even a game of football.”
Emiliano Bernardi, sport psychologist working with Cei Consulting, he’s consultant with the Italian youth futsal national team during the camp in Rieti.
The past week I met the various faces of youth football: coaches, managers and parents.
What I often notice is the desire of each of these categories to act out of their responsibilities, preferring to misrepresent the other roles, avoiding reflection on themselves and on their ability to change.
Parents, coaches and managers are blaming each other in a game with no winners.
I am very impressed that most of the talks turn into destructive criticism most often taken to hide the responsibilities, rather than to suggest healthy changes.
Constructive critic is a complex skill that includes empathy, communication skills, willingness to listen, managing their emotions and motivation to change. They are skills needed in sports and education to: express thoughts and ideas, identify the feelings, define and respect the individual and other limits, communicate and listen.
The role of educators toward the children implies the ability to assess and intervene on the mistakes made by others but also, and above all, to be able to highlight and corrects their own mistakes.
Constructive criticism, properly used, is used to improve performance, relationships, and, in general, the sense of efficacy of the various actors in the field for the education of children.
Make constructive critic means to understand the reality starting from own knowledge, listening carefully people and facts, accepting contradictory, trying to reach an assessment oriented to the good of the child. One of the deeper reasons for the conflict is not being able to make or accept critics. It is important to learn that our values and our personal opinions are not in danger when they are disputed but rather often reinforce.
How can we recognize a destructive criticism by a constructive critic?
The destructive criticism:
- It is addressed to the person, which is labeled negatively
- It is inaccurate
- Aims to blame the person
- Tends to close the dialog
The constructive critic:
- It’s addressed to the performance or behavior of the person.
- It’s given the opportunity to understand what are the behaviors to change
- It’s specific and provides tips
- It’s oriented to improve the performance and behavior
- Maintains open dialogue and conveys confidence
“We should make a long conscience examination before thinking to criticize others” (Molière)
(by Daniela Sepio)
The coaching to cope with the new challenges is an individual training. Its aim is to increase at the maximum level the personal competences, permitting at each one to become the best she can be.
The coaching is a road supporting the personal change, starting from a positive appreciation of the past performances and knowing that it is the continuous renewal that will permit to repeat the successes reached.
At this proposal it seems very specific the comparison between the manager skills and the top athletes skills because they have to perform at their best:
- they have reached most of the goals expected and planned in advance and they are oriented to achieve their next performance goals
- they are totally committed and very energetic in their activities
- they perceive themselves accountable about the results of their/team performances
- they are considered by the young collaborators/athletes as a model to emulate
- they like the challenges, compete and win
- they are solution oriented
- they search the contribution of the people able to help them to reach their goals
It is obvious that it is not easy to reach all these skills in one person and also in the high potential people these characteristics come from a strong commitment in this direction. For them the frustrating days and/or the unsuccessful performances represent hard situation to cope with, but they know the mistakes represent good learning opportunities to approach with confidence.
Athletes and coaches need to accept mistakes as a unique opportunity to obtain future better performance. To know how a coach reacts to the errors of the athletes ask him/her these questions:
Which coach are you?
1. When athletes do some good actions, approximately how many times the percentage that you answered with a reinforcement? _______%
2. When athletes are very committed (regardless of outcome), how many are in percentage the times you’ve responded with a reinforcement? _______%
3. How many times have reinforced the athletes for their accuracy in the field, for their support to the teamates and to have accepted the rules of the team? _______
4. When athletes make a mistake, approximately how many are in percentage the times you answered with a:
- Encouragement _____%
- Technical instructions provided with an encouraging style _____%
5. When mistakes are commtted, have you strongly emphasized the importance of learning from them? Yes No
6. You have strongly emphasized the importance of having fun during training and competitions? Yes No
7. Have you told your athletes to do their best is what you expect from them? Yes No
8. Have you told them that winning is important, but that commitment to improve skills is even more? Yes No
9. Have you said or done something to help your athletes to apply what they have learned today in other activities in their lives (for example, do the right things at school, at home or in social life)? Yes No
10. Something to think: would you do anything different if you had the opportunity to repeat this workout or this race?
On December we held 1 national and 2 international webinars on the theme: “Mental aspects of sport coaching.”
Alberto Cei: “It was a different experience from the one-hour lecture to an audience physically present in a hall. The webinar also motivate the speaker to maintain a fast pace in exposure and eliminate breaks and downtime, so you can convey more information than you would normally deliver when the action takes place in a hall.”
Emiliano Bernardi: “The webinar management needs two persons, because the speaker cannot maintain the contact with the participants. This is a new and effective way to talk about a subject, permitting to save time and money and allowing people from different geo-area to attend the event but in the comfort of their home or office.”
After 3 webinars we can say they represented a fantastic way to share knowledge and we also think that in the case of sport psychology the webinar could be used to create a community of people interested in this professional area. The comments we have received were positive and in 2015 these webinars will be followed by others on the issues more relevant for the athletes, coaches and sports professionals.
