Monthly Archive for February, 2023

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Wrtite an essay is like to attend to a competition

Published on February 20, 2023 in Allenatori, Calcio, Corsa, Generale, Giovani, Mental coaching, Olimpiadi, Stress, Tennis and Tiro a volo. 0 Comments

I have begun to associate competing in the sport contest with writing an essay.

The title of the essay and the competition is about how to develop the best performance one is capable of based on one’s skills.

In both tests, the quality of performance is determined by the integration of physical and motor, technical-tactical and mental aspects. In writing as well as in sports performance, the physical and motor aspects are fundamental. In the former there is the fine coordination required to write fluidly and continuously, which in sports is equally present although manifested differently.

The technical-tactical aspects in the essay concern knowledge of grammar and the ability to know how to introduce an argument, develop it, and finally conclude the essay. In sports, we talk about the basic aspects of a sports discipline and how to compete in function not only of oneself but in relation to the external environment, the times to be respected, the duration, and so on.

The mental part is about the concepts one wants to organize and express as well as in sports it is about, among other things, maintaining self-control and managing stress.

The theme and the race also have in common that to become proficient in performing these tasks has taken many years of study and training as well as trials that have become more challenging from simple.

It is clear that what matters in the competition is the quality of performance and in the theme the quality of the content expressed but all this is also based on the structural factors of these two tests which are the physical-motor component and the technical-tactical skills.

To confirm this, many researches have amply demonstrated that sports and school activities are mutually reinforcing and are by no means alternatives.

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Which is the goal to manage the pause during the performance

Published on February 16, 2023 in Allenatori, Calcio, Corsa, Generale, Giovani, Mental coaching, Olimpiadi, Stress, Tennis and Tiro a volo. 0 Comments Tags: pausa, routine.

In many sports there are breaks between points. There are in fencing, shooting and shooting, tennis and table tennis, but also in team sports such as volleyball. Often, however, athletes do not make good use of these moments, viewing them as suspension phases and not as moments that are integral to their performance. When this belief is dominant, pauses are experienced as a waiting time before the actual action begins. In general, it can be said that only elite athletes make good use of these moments to reduce stress and refocus on what is about to happen. And yet it is not uncommon to see breaks misused even by athletes who are in the top 100 in tennis and table tennis, hence professionals.

Many athletes are unaware of a simple rule and that is that the before determines the after. They do not know that what they do during the break will determine the quality of their performance at the next point. In competition they become prey to their worries, they put doubts in their minds and think about the result. They are convinced that just being fit is enough to deliver an excellent performance; they do not think that it is their beliefs before the action that will enable them to perform the next point in the way they are capable. On the other hand, many young people do not train to handle breaks, so how can they do something in competition that they never do in training?

I don’t want to get into how to train breaks and how to use them in competition, I’m interested, meanwhile, in stimulating coaches to teach their athletes what to do during breaks and for athletes to practice this approach in training for the purpose of stabilizing their own routine, consistent with the different phases of competition and scoring.

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Tennis mental coaching

Published on February 15, 2023 in Allenatori, Calcio, Corsa, Generale, Giovani, Mental coaching, Olimpiadi, Stress, Tennis and Tiro a volo. 0 Comments

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In competition we need to understand what mistakes are being made

Published on February 15, 2023 in Allenatori, Calcio, Corsa and Generale. 0 Comments

Have you ever thought that the individual mistakes that athletes make in competition can be attributed to different ways regardless of the causes behind them. One can make mistakes because one is too anxious or unconvinced of one’s abilities. So mistakes are made for different reasons, which may also be mental in origin. However, we must learn to ask ourselves what mistakes Mario and Giovanna make when they experience these mental states.

Mistakes are made because:

Thinks too much – The athlete does not choose among several alternatives that come to mind, is too analytical and loses the rhythm of the race

Thinks too little – Throughout the race the athlete pursues a single thought without committing to something different, shows a rigid and reduced type of attention

Acts before thinking – The ‘athlete commits to reacting to the situation but without having any ideas to implement, behaves impulsively

Frequently changes his or her mind – The athlete frequently changes the race plan, magnifying the importance of mistakes made

Setting specific goals to pursue, mental repetition of the race, and being prepared for mistakes are three useful strategies, if practiced together, to reduce these limitations.

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The difficulties of the manager’s role in soccer

Published on February 13, 2023 in Allenatori, Calcio, Corsa, Generale, Giovani, Mental coaching, Olimpiadi, Stress, Tennis and Tiro a volo. 0 Comments

In the last few blogs I have been talking about coaches and leadership, a profession and role that is difficult to live, since it requires constant decision-making, building team development plan and managing euphoric and depressive moments. The coach, the manager as it would be better to say, since his job is to lead a team, to do so he plays different roles consistent with the situations of the players and the team. The description of this role multiplicity has been well described by Marguerite Yourcenar at regard of the Emperor Hadrian.

“It would be easy to construe what I have just told as the story of a too scholarly soldier who wishes to be forgiven his love for books. But such simplified perspectives are false. Different persons ruled in me in turn, though no one of them for long; each fallen tyrant was quick to regain power. Thus have I played host successively to the meticulous officer, fanatic in discipline, but gaily sharing with his men the privations of war; to the melancholy dreamer intent on the gods; the lover ready to risk all for a moment’s rapture; the haughty young lieutenant retiring to his tent to study his maps by lamplight, making clear to his friends his disdain for the way the world goes; and finally the future statesman. … But little by little a newcomer was taking hold, a stage director and manager. I was beginning to know the names of my actors, and could arrange plausible entrances for them, or exits; I cut short superfluous lines, and came gradually to avoid the most obvious effects. Last, I learned not to indulge too much in monologue. And gradually, in turn, my actions were forming me.”

The job of a coach is a risky profession given the frequency with which they are exonerated in soccer and requires, therefore, the development of a rather complex set of interlocking skills. among which stand out:

possess a personal and professional vision that is consistent and in line with the club’s core values
develop key skills in evaluating performance and giving constructive feedback
optimizing the management of priorities
understand and manage conflict
improve communication effectiveness
most effectively manage interpersonal relationships
develop a network of personal and working relationships with staff and management
demonstrate understanding of key skills and areas of player development
cope with work overloads and balance stress
achieve a work-life balance

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Saudi Arabia cannot be FIFA sponsor

Published on February 10, 2023 in Allenatori, Calcio, Corsa, Generale, Giovani, Mental coaching, Olimpiadi, Stress, Tennis and Tiro a volo. 0 Comments Tags: Alex Morgan, Arabia Saudita.

“I think it’s bizarre that Fifa has looked to have a ‘Visit Saudi’ sponsorship for the Women’s World Cup when I would not even be supported and accepted in that country, so I just don’t understand it,” Alex Morgan, star of the US soccer team, said. “Pretty much everyone has spoken out against that because morally, it just doesn’t make sense.

“I think that what Saudi Arabia can do is put efforts into their women’s team that was just formed only a couple of years ago and doesn’t even have a current ranking within the Fifa ranking system because of the few games that they’ve played. So that would be my advice to them. And I really hope that Fifa does the right thing.”

“US Soccer strongly supports human rights and equity for all and believes in the power of our sport to have a positive impact,” the federation said in a statement to the Athletic. “While we cannot control how other organisations manage sponsorship selections for the tournaments we compete in, we can voice our concerns and will continue to support our players.”

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How do they work in soccer to improve the psychological maturity of soccer players?

Published on February 10, 2023 in Allenatori, Calcio, Corsa, Generale, Giovani, Mental coaching, Olimpiadi, Stress, Tennis and Tiro a volo. 0 Comments Tags: Milan, Pioli.

The Milan manager, Pioli, returned to the same theme mentioned by Maldini days ago regarding the need to have time to allow players to mature in order to get to be able to handle competitive stress in the most important moments: “The club did not make the wrong signings, they are all talented players. It is simply better to let the most solid ones play in the difficult moments. Everyone has their own growth, and I assure you that our guys are growing.”

Being involved with young athletes/and I too find myself thinking the same things and working with them on developing these skills. What Maldini and Pioli are talking about is the most important difficulty, in my opinion, that athletes have to overcome regardless of their talent and the amount of training. You can train even 20 hours a week but if you do not put in focus this goal if you will keep the same limit intact.

I think most soccer players put in a lot of effort, I don’t think that’s their problem. I think this limitation can be seen in his reaction to a foul. Does he suffer a foul but is he/she immediately ready to follow up the action or does he/shr suffer a foul, protest and resume playing?. The former attitude is a demonstration of psychological maturity while the latter is not. A soccer game, is full of such episodes that allow one to understand the degree of mental maturity of a young player.

At this point my question is: how often do they train the footballers’ awareness of these episodes that highlight their limitations and how the coaches teach them to develop a different attitude on the pitch. The question is rather easy to define. It is the players’ attitude with respect to the game that determines how they will develop on the pitch the tasks they have been given. If the attitude is wrong because they are unmotivated, frustrated by the aggressiveness of the opponents, they want to be the undisputed protagonist without cooperating with their teammates then it is likely that their contribute will be insufficient and will tend to exclude them from the game.

I am not surprised by the presence of these limitations, because they are bottlenecks from which athletes have to pass in order to become top level athletes or very good soccer players. I wonder why in soccer, working with such young people but earning millions, the managers and the clubs do not realize the importance of the loss (economic and performance) and therefore the urgency of limiting to a minimum the time during which players are in this situation that is truly detrimental to the team and to themselves. Pioli says “I assure you that they are growing.”
In the teams where I work, there is a lot of focus on this issue, and we are constantly asking what is the best training for them, how to intervene to improve awareness rather than accountability, how to improve their ability to handle frustrations, and so on. In essence, it is a daily work done to reduce these issues. To put it simply, we teach athletes to be comfortable in uncomfortable situations. Do they the same in the teams? Do they do the same in soccer teams?

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Tennis and winning mind

Published on February 8, 2023 in Allenatori, Calcio, Corsa, Generale, Giovani, Mental coaching, Olimpiadi, Stress, Tennis and Tiro a volo. 0 Comments

In tennis many people talk about the winning mind. Some confuse it with the male attributes while others consider it as the expression of an extreme self-confidence, others think it is a question of character and therefore the responsibility of its emergence would depend on an innate factor and not trainable, finally there are also those who believe that a low social status determines the will to succeed that show the champions. These explanations are used to build a rigid and magic idea ofwinning mentality and put the tennis players in a position to suffer their origins, if they did not match the above said they will never emerge as a winners.

Based on my experience with many successful athletes, including 10 medal winners at the Olympic Games and as documented by sportpsychology in relation to top athletes the question is a very different and more detailed. In this short article I want to provide some practical advice that every tennis player could commit to follow with the confidence to improve the performance, which of course i twill be tailored to her technical level, fitness and play style.

Don’t have expectations, be committed to do your best - Every player wants to win the game that will play, but she has to put in the farthest point of the mind this idea and think just playing. No one knows what it will happen, otherwise everyone can stay focus on the present, on serve and response. In the hands of the tennis players there is the opportunity to be committed at their best but not to win a point, then the focus should be only on the game … and then at the end of the exchange he will see if the maximum has been sufficient or if the opponent has been better.

Be patient, the negative moments are coming - Tennis is a game where the player who makes fewer mistakes than the opponent wins the match, the goal is to make less mistakes than the other. The negative moments are there in each set and you should not believe that time will not come. We must accept this limit and when it happens there is no need to get angry or depressed but show patience and keep the focus on play.

Do not let the score determines your emotions - The players with little experience and many teenagers get excited when they play well and lose control emotionally when they lose points. These players show little stability in their behaviors. Thus, their mood determines how they will play. Often I say to these people that they should be the biggest fan of themselves, but instead they behave like those fans who applaud when their team wins and whistle when it loses.

Manage competitive stress and accept your fears - In tennis many male players are so afraid of their fears that they prefer to believe that: “today I did not feel the blows,” “I was stiff, the legs woody”, “the other did the game of life “. The girl player however are often more emotionally swaying, loading or unloading on the basis of won or lost points. Tennis players must have the courage to accept the fears, learning how to manage them. This is one of the big differences between the champions and other athletes.

Think about the game - Whatever it’s the technical level, the tennis players have to think about how they want to play. It can also be a simple “run and throw it over there” but they have to think. This approach is particularly evident in the serve: “how distressed I put my opponent?” “What did I do when I won the points.” There are technical thoughts and thoughts useful to support the motivation and an active approach to the game. They need both.

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Positive youth development through sport: A review

Published on February 7, 2023 in Allenatori, Calcio, Corsa, Generale, Giovani, Mental coaching, Olimpiadi, Stress, Tennis and Tiro a volo. 0 Comments

The topic of how sport and motor activity participate in the development of young people should be one of the most discussed topics both by the scientific world and by sports organizations, in order to reinforce more and more the relationship between scientific data and applicative fallout in training programs. I have been very much involved in it since the time of the promotion of minivolley, in Italy, in the 1980s under the leadership of Carmelo Pittera and with other psychologists, developing a pathway that included the development of psychological skills such as global and motor self-esteem, motivation and collaboration, and how teachers should act in order to be effective in their work with children. For many years there was also within the School of Sports a great interest in this area, which led to the introduction of a new teaching called “Methodology of Sports Teaching,” precisely to emphasize the centrality not only of training programs but on an equal level of teaching strategies and techniques and systems for evaluating the behavior of coaches and youth. In my country in relation to nowadays, it seems to me that the centrality of youth development has become a topic certainly recognized as relevant but little studied. Above all, it seems to me that there is little knowledge and sharing of what is being done in the federations and major sports organizations on this topic. I am convinced that knowing how to do-do-letting to know continues to be a duty from those who work, so as to allow comparisons between ideas, practices, and results obtained. The opposite case leads to think that there is no data on which to compare and that the programs carried out are not disseminated for fear of receiving critical remarks, or perhaps more simply not disseminated out of intellectual laziness and lack of motivation toward this type of activity.

To stimulate the return to talk about this issue I report below a brief summary of an article from 2011 but still relevant, it reports a summary of approaches on the topic of positive youth development through sports and those who want through a search of the mentioned authors will be able to know their most recent investigations.

Nicholas L. Holt & Kacey C. Neely. (2011). Positive youth development through sport: A review. Revista Iberoamericana de Psicologia del Ejercicio y del Porte, 6, 299-316.

The concept of Positive Youth Development (PYD) has become a ‘hot topic’ in developmental and sport psychology in recent years.

Optimal development can be defined as ways of “enabling individuals to lead a healthy, satisfying, and productive life, as youth and later as adults, because they gain the competence to earn a living, to engage in civic activities, to nurture others, and to participate in social relations and cultural activities” (Hamilton, Hamilton, & Pittman, 2004).

Youth sport has been associated with numerous negative outcomes, including (but not limited to) issues associated with adults modeling inappropriate behaviors (Hansen, Larson, & Dworkin, 2003), the misuse of alcohol (O’Brien, Blackie, & Hunter, 2005), engagement in delinquent behaviours (Begg, Langley, Moffitt, & Marshall, 1996), and use of performance-enhancing drugs (Siegenthaler & Gonzalez, 1997). Competition with peers for positions on a team can lead to feelings of rivalry (Brustad, Babkes, & Smith, 2001) and impede youth from taking the perspective of others, interfering with moral development (Shields & Bredemeier, 1995). Youth sport participation has also been associated with increased fear and occurrence of injury (DuRant, Pendergrast, Seymore, Gaillard, & Donner, 1991). In fact, based on a review of literature, Morris, Sallybanks, Willis, and Makkai (2003) concluded there is a lack of robust evidence for influence of sport participation on positive development.

Compared to their peers who do not participate in sport, participants have reported higher levels of self-esteem, emotional regulation, problem-solving, goal attainment, and social skills (e.g., Barber, Eccles, & Stone, 2001; Eccles, Barber, Stone & Hunt, 2003; Richman & Shaffer, 2000). Sport participation has also been linked to a lower likelihood of school dropout, improved grade point averages, and higher rates of college attendance for low achieving and working class males (Eccles et al., 2003; Marsh & Kleitman, 2003). As Larson and Seepersad (2003) Nicholas L. Holt, & Kacey C. Neely observed, adolescents’ experiences in sport stand out from nearly all other activities (including socializing and schoolwork) in providing opportunities for enjoyment while they exert concerted effort toward a goal.

The external and internal assets specified for children have an increased emphasis on the role of parents in helping children develop the assets. For example, within positive values, it is suggested that adolescents should accept and take personal responsibility, whereas in childhood parents should encourage children to accept and take responsibility for their actions at school or at home.

…

They identified six domains of learning experiences that were divided into personal and interpersonal development. Personal development described developmental processes that occur within the individual and included three domains: identity work, the development of initiative, and emotional regulation. Interpersonal development described developmental processes that involved developing social connections. It included the domains of teamwork and social skills, positive relationships including acquiring prosocial norms and diverse peer relationships, and the development of adult networks and social capital.

…

They found that PYD was fostered when programs strengthened social, emotional, behavioral, cognitive, and moral competencies; built self-efficacy; shaped messages from family and community about clear standards for youth behavior; increased healthy bonding with adults, peers and younger children; expanded opportunities and recognition for youth; provided structure and consistency in program delivery; and intervened with youth for at least nine months or more. These themes are characteristics of high quality PYD programs.

The National Research Council and Institute of Medicine (2002) suggested eight features of developmental developmental contexts that are linked to PYD: (a) safe and health-promoting facilities, (b) clear and consistent rules and expectations, (c) warm, supportive relationships, (d) opportunities for meaningful inclusion and belonging, (e) positive social norms, (f) support for efficacy and autonomy, (g) opportunities for skill building, (h) coordination among family, school, and community efforts.

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