In any type of performance what really matters is:
to know how to learn,
to know how to correct the mistakes
and
to practice these two principles every day incessantly
Monthly Archive for January, 2015
Coaches are strongly aware of the close interaction between motivation and learning. The motivation, however, is a theoretical concept that can not be directly observed and that can only be speculated on the basis of the behavior of athletes. In any case, the knowledge of the motivational processes is a crucial factor for every coach, who wants to teach effectively.
The most important reasons recognized by young athletes are related to:
- competence (learn and improve their sports skills)
- fun (excitement, challenge and action)
- affiliation (being with friends and making new friends),
- team (being part of a group or team)
- compete (compete, succeed, win)
- fitness (feeling fit or feel stronger)
Conversely, the main causes of the decrease in sport motivation or drop out are to be ascribed to a lack of fun, lack of success, competition stress, lack of support from parents, misunderstandings with the coach, boredom and sport injuries.
In summary, these are the three main needs that the athlete wants to meet through the sport:
- fun- it satisfies the need for stimulation and excitement;
- competence – it fulfills the need to acquire skills and to feel self-determined in the activities
- being with others – it satisfies the need for affiliation with others and being in a group.
With reference to the need of stimulation it can be stated that:
- The success is built by calibrating the program to be carried out with the skills and the age of the athlete.
- The training must be kept challenging and varied.
- Each athlete must be active; do not let the athletes time to get bored.
- During training the coach has to provide athletes with the opportunity to perform challenging exercises.
- The coach must teach athletes to identify realistic goals.
- During the training is useful to establish times when athletes practice without being evaluated by the coach.
Regarding the need for competence, it’s up to the coach to stimulate both the child and the expert not only to learn specific sport techniques but, also, to develop the desire to progress and curiosity about themselves and the environment in which they act.
At this regard, the coach has to remember that:
- Specific goals, which are difficult and a challenge are more effective than specific targets but easy to reach, the goals defined in terms of the do-your-best and non-targets.
- Athletes must have enough skills to reach their goals.
- The goals are more effective when they are defined in terms of specific behavior than when they are defined in a vague manner.
- The intermediate goals have to interact with the long-term goals.
As for the need to affiliation, it’s based on the need to belong to a group and to be accepted, establishing meaningful relationships. Satisfying the need for affiliation and self-esteem, the athletes experience greater confidence in themselves and more self-control. In fact every athlete and coach knows from experience that when there are communication problems between them it’s difficult to follow the training program that has been set.
The key points to satisfy the need for affiliation and self-esteem of the athletes can be summarized as follows:
- Listen to the demands of athletes.
- Understanding the needs expressed, orienting them within the annual program of training.
- Determine the role of each athlete, setting realistic goals for each one.
- Openly acknowledge the efforts made to collaborate on team goals.
- Teach players to correct each other.
- Provide technical instruction and encourage personal commitment.
- Reduce the competitive stress rewarding their commitment and reducing the importance attached to the result.
In other words, the coachs to develop in their athletes the sense of belonging to that particular group, must appear credible and consistent in their attitudes and behaviors. To be credible the coaches must be truthful with all their athletes: young and old, experienced and inexperienced. At this regards it’s necessary to:
- Share with the athletes the technical program, highlighting their skills and areas for improvement.
- Explain the reasons of techniques and strategies: so they will remember better.
- Do not make promises, personally or indirectly, that they might not be able to maintain.
- Answer questions with competence, honesty and sensitivity.
- Avoid pronounce phrases which might affect the athletes’ sel-esteem (eg:”You’ll never part of the group of the best). As a guide the coaches has to ask themselves:” If I were an athlete, I would be told this by the coach? “
Today staying young seems to be the desire of many people. Again, as happens in sports, the use of drugs seems to be the most effective way to satisfy this desire. How much it’s absolutely necessary to maintain a flexible mind, open to innovation and change-oriented is too little stressed.
The body must be solicited effectively but the same goes for the mind. Otherwise dominate only the appearance, “have the Mr. Universe body”, but the mind will be totally abandoned. We know that we have to be physically active, but do we also know that we have to be mentally active?
We need to develop a social culture integrating these aspects, which are absolutely the same thing in the biological reality of each individual. There is no body and mind, there is the individual composed of different systems interacting continuously to facilitate adaptation and change.
Lack of exercise is twice as likely to determine the obesity beginning and a daily break of 20-minute walk permits to avoid the premature death.
The effects of obesity and exercise have been studied on 334,161 men and women for 12 years period . Although the impact of exercise was greatest among people of a normal weight, even those with a high body mass index (BMI) levels saw a benefit. Lack of exercise was thought to have caused almost 700,000 deaths across Europe in 2008.
Study leader Prof Ulf Ekelund – Medical Research Council (MRC) epidemiology unit at Cambridge University, said: “This is a simple message: just a small amount of physical activity each day could have substantial health benefits for people who are physically inactive. Although we found that just 20 minutes would make a difference, we should really be looking to do more than this – physical activity has many proven health benefits and should be an important part of our daily life.”
Participants in the research, who had an average age of about 50, were recruited to the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer (Epic) study conducted across 10 European countries, including the UK. All had their height, weight and waist sizes measured and provided self-assessments of physical activity levels.
Just under a quarter (22.7%) were categorised as inactive, working in sedentary jobs without engaging in any recreational exercise.
The findings, which are published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, say the greatest reductions in the risk of premature death were seen when comparing moderately active groups with those who were completely inactive.
Using the most recent available public data, the researchers calculated that 337,000 of the 9.2m deaths that occurred in Europe in 2008 could be attributed to obesity, but physical inactivity was thought to be responsible for almost double this number – 676,000 deaths.
Co-author Prof Nick Wareham, director of the MRC epidemiology unit, said: “Helping people to lose weight can be a real challenge and, whilst we should continue to aim at reducing population levels of obesity, public health interventions that encourage people to make small but achievable changes in physical activity can have significant health benefits and may be easier to achieve and maintain.”
June Davison, senior cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation, said: “The results of this study are a clear reminder that being regularly physically active can reduce the risk of dying from coronary heart disease.
“The research suggests that just a modest increase in physical activity can have health benefits. Adults should aim to do at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity activity a week, carrying it out in sessions of 10 minutes or more.
“Whether it’s going for a walk, taking a bike ride or using the stairs instead of the lift, keeping active every day will help reduce the risk of developing coronary heart disease.”
Aula Magna of the Italian Olympic Committee, Rome, the 20th of April, 1965. That was the place and moment of the inception of the International Society of Sport Psychology – ISSP, by the hands of a small group of pioneers, led by the Italian psychiatrist Ferruccio Antonelli. This happened during the 1st International ISSP World Congress of Sport Psychology marking the Modern Era of our scientific field.
From that moment professional and scientific networks were initiated, sport psychology was spread internationally, and the knowledge in this field was developed enormously. Continental societies appeared, with the North American Society of Sport and Physical Activity (NASSPA) and the European Federation of Sport Psychology (FEPSAC), being the first two. Concurrently, National societies began to be established, mainly in the European countries. The International Journal of Sport Psychology, the very first scientific journal in the area and for many years the ISSP official publication, was founded by Antonelli and published by Luigi Pozzi Editors in Rome.
Exactly fifty years after, this historical occasion will be celebrated in the very same place of the Italian Olympic Committee Centre, in Rome. For two days (April, 2015, 19-20), the ISSP 50th Anniversary Seminar will honor the past and all those who worked for the development of the Society. Celebrating the ISSP history is also an opportunity to look to the future. Hence, the motto of the event is “A Bridge from the Past to the Future”.
The program of the ISSP 50th Anniversary Seminar will include invited keynote lectures, symposia and workshops, as well as submitted poster sessions. Reflections on the historical route will be done, namely during the Past-Presidents round-table, and the future will be symbolically represented by the lectures presented by the 2013 ISSP Developing Scholar Award winners. The 50th Anniversary Gala Banquet sponsored by Luigi Pozzi Editors will be the perfect moment for the social interaction among all the participants.
All the information on: http://www.events-communication.net/b57/index.php?lang=en
If countries are hoping to come out on top during the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, they better start minding their gender gaps. According to a new study by the University of British Columbia, countries with more gender equality tend to win more Olympic medals.
“I think there’s a stereotype that more macho nations that valorize masculinity or male dominance might be more dominant in male sport, we found that it’s actually the opposite,” says lead author Jennifer Berdahl, a professor of diversity and women’s studies at the UBC’s Sauder School of Business.
Berdahl studied 121 countries using data from the World Economic forum’s 2013 Global Gender Gap Report and compared it with the medal counts for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi using a statistical model that controlled for factors such as GDP, income inequality and population size. Her findings reveal that both women and men tend to win more medals if their country exhibits greater gender equality, especially when it comes to educational attainment.
“Our study makes apparent that gender equality has a tendency to lift everyone up within a country,” Berdahl says. “Olympic glory is likely only one example of how whole societies can benefit from greater parity between the sexes.”
To corroborate her conclusions and account for countries’ performance differences in the winter versus summer games, Berdahl also studied the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London and found the same results.
The findings contradict society’s belief in what Berdahl calls a “zero-sum game” when it comes to gender rights, which is the idea that affording more opportunity to women tends to limit opportunity for men.
“Rather, gender inequality is likely to hurt both women and men by encouraging stereotypes that limit their ability to reach their full potential as individuals,” Berdahl concludes in the study. “Eroding false and antiquated norms regarding what men and women can and cannot do is a ‘win-win’ that allows members of both genders to realize their true potential.”
The new conditions of growth and socialization, albeit positive, can take the kids not to be able to cope with the complex situations. We live in a changing society, requiring new types of adaptation: in sport, but not only, we pretend the children reach the goals faster than in the past, developing abilities ever earlier, in the same time the basic needs of children have an even smaller space. The consequence of this change is often the child’s invisible social malaise.
Each youth coach, but also the parents and educators, should know that the main tool to stay in touch with children is the listening. Listen means active listening, that it’s the ability to understand the meaning of indirect messages of him/her who is speaking.
The children do not have the richness of the language to express their psychological distress and for this reason they show behavioral changes, becoming what coaches usually call difficult child. Behaviors such as to leave the pitch, not to listen the coach, be aggressive with the teammates, not being able to live the locker room, kick balls off the pitch often labeled as whims or rudeness, are instead most often alarm behaviors. Through them the children unheard by the adults send their hidden messages. Too often the adults’ reactions are the punitive classic behaviors. To deal with these situations it’s important to be creative by observing the children’s behaviors and especially listening to the indirect meaning of their messages. Both the parents and the coaches must know that every deviant behavior is a message they have to understand. Therefore, the first step should always be to ask: what are you telling me? Which is the reason to behave like this? What does it mean this behavior?
In most cases there is only a tool that can help to understand the demand, leading to an educational response: the listening.
The coaches who listen use this approach:
- Use the children’s words to show them they have understood the communication
- Repeat and paraphrase what they heard
- Use expressions like, “if I understand you want to say that …”, you’re telling me that … “
- Use non-verbal language to support their communication: they watch the group or the athlete and turn their body toward them
- Recognize the children’s moods, emphasizing their relevance, working to reduce or increase the mood intensity as a function of the situations
- Summarize the children’s thought, highlighting the value of individual/collective contributions to achieve the goals
If the coaches want to know their listening skills, they can answer these three questions:
- Do I spend time listening to my young athletes?
- How do I show interest to listening during the practice?
- What is my most effective way to show interest toward the athletes’ thoughts, emotions and behaviors?
“Nature has given us two ears but only one tongue, because we are required to listen more than talk.” (Plutarco)
(by Daniela Sepio)
Yesterday’s match AC Milan-Atalanta is an example of how the defeat could depend on the lack of will, which it has been showed during the match in terms of reduced commitment, lack of fighting spirit, excessive distractions and misakes, distance between players and so on. Inzaghi has said that the team, saw yesterday, is not the real one, “after beating Napoli and deserved to win against Roma we cannot be these one … serve availability, will, heart.” This sentence contains two important truths. The first: it is easier to play with serenity against top teams because the team has nothing to lose. Against them Milan does not have to win at all costs and thus the team can play more confident. Second, it is much more difficult to show that attitude against the other teams, which in turn want to get a winning result, because they play against the team second in the world for trophies won. It’s just against these teams that Milan should show the availability and willingness asked by Inzaghi. To achieve this goal it needs as recalled the journalist Gianni Mura “less narcissises and more true players.” It’s around these mental group aspects that Inzaghi should coach the team, otherwise whatever type of play he will propose he will not see it ever implemented for lack of will.
Inzaghi has to coach the will of his players by acting on personal and group motivation, self-determination, will to take initiatives, fast mistake control, volitional efficacy, awareness of the player roles in the pitch, goal maintenance during the match . He must daily challenge the players to show this attitude against any team regardless of its name and rank.
This Girl Can is a sassy celebration of active women everywhere and proves that whatever our size, ability or previous experience, sport can be a fun and enjoyable part of our lives.
It is a national campaign, developed by Sport England and delivered in partnership with a wide range of organisations, to the persistent gender gap which means that more men play sport than women at every age.
