“To be able to face the youngest I had to reinvent my way to play tennis is constantly evolving.”
Federer shows that we can change even when we are 38.
Archive for the 'Allenatori' Category
“We are what we communicate.” Let’s tell all club presidents, coaches, fans, parents and sons: words and behaviors tell who we are and what we believe in and everyone takes responsibility for their actions.
Preparation for the new competitive season has begun with the best Italian U18 women tennis players at the National Centre in Formia. Great expectations and a lot of responsibility to provide the most effective opportunities for physical, technical/tactical and mental training.
To fully understand the commitment required to the athletes and staff, the following is a list of the main situations they will face.
Psychological preparation with athletes and coaches usually takes place with people who speak the same mother tongue, because sharing the same cultural climate promotes relationship and change.
When I was involved in this consultancy activity in non-English speaking countries such as Cyprus, India, Malta, United Arab Emirates and Iran, I have been aware that English, even as a second language, still allowed for a constructive and equally effective dialogue with athletes.
I recently spent two weeks in China, in Beijing, working with the Chinese national shooting team. In this country, I hav had to cope in a different environment, having to work with an interpreter who, although an expert, limited the relationship with athletes and coaches and consequently I run the risk to reduce the effectiveness of the psychological preparation. As a result, the work done was essentially focused on practical experiences to be carried out collectively in the gym and individually on the shooting range.
In this way, the athletes were able to immediately apply in training psychological strategies and techniques to improve: (a) their ability to be focused in conditions of competitive stress and (b) how to refocus themselves after a mistake or unexpected events.
This experience has further confirmed to me that, even with our Italian athletes, we often spend too much time describing what they should do/think/feel rather than more pragmatically allow them to make experiences of change and optimization of their psychological resources through a specific training consisting of exercises. On the other hand, the athletes know these systems very well, since the physical preparation and technical training are based on the practice repeated over time with the desired intensity.
The 10 rules for successful training
- Self-awareness - The purpose of training is the improvement and optimization of all the athletes’ skills and the development of awareness of what they can do, what they still need to improve and what they need to learn.
- Want to learn - The athlete lives in a continuous process of improving the performances and they must be fully aware of it.
- Recognizing opportunities - Training consists of a set of situations to be addressed and resolved with the full commitment.
- Commitment with consistency and accuracy – Motivation is based on these two aspects that are the basis of any activity in which the athletes are engaged.
- Wanting to take risks - Training is not an exact science and even the best trainings are based on the athletes willingness to take the risk of making mistakes.
- Tolerate difficulties - The athletes must be aware that every time they reaches a level of performance higher than the previous one, he detaches the ticket to face new difficulties.
- Accepting defeats - In sport, mistakes happen frequently and they must be accepted as unavoidable facts; for top athletes, they may be infrequent but are often decisive in preventing a winning performance.
- Give importance to time – To become expert it takes a long time and the athletes must be fully aware of this condition.
- Collaborate with coaches and staff - Recognizing the coach and staff leadership is a decisive factor for the athletes’ success.
- Analyzing one’s own performance - The athletes must know how to evaluate they performances with specific and precise criteria, without evaluating them only in terms of results.
If the marathon is a metaphor for life; Eliud Kipchoge’s performance is the demonstration that the limits are a cultural expression that can be overcome with work.
You have to lead a life adequate to the goals you want to achieve and what you want to succeed.
Some people argue that unexpected events can prevent this from happening. That is true, but you have to commit yourself every day as if it could not happen.
Excellence does not require two lose the private life, which instead must find a place within the project.
It is said that “if you don’t dream big, you’re not realistic”, we have to teach it to young people.
You have to want everything, knowing that only by working hard and at best you could get it, but nothing and no one can ever guarantee this satisfaction: you have to run the risk of failure having given everything.
Da Memorie di Adriano di Marguerite Yourcenar
“Different characters reigned in me from time to time, none of them very long; but soon the exhausted one regained power: the meticulous officer, fanatic of the discipline, ready to share with joy the privations of the war with his men; … the young haughty lieutenant who retires under the tent, studies his maps, and makes no mystery to his friends of his contempt for how the world goes; even the future statesman ….Little by little, a newcomer, a company director, a director came into operation. I knew the names of my actors; I regulated their plausible entries and exits; I cut off useless answers; I carefully avoided vulgar effects. Finally, I learned not to abuse the monologue: Little by little, my actions formed me.
… but do coaches make a list of what has to happen to be fired from a football team and preview effective countermeasures? Or do they always go to the wrong place? #MIlan #Sampdoria #Genoa and others.
At the end, they do no t lose the money … and then why should they be more flexible, lose their jobs but risk nothing in terms of economic security.
They are little Caesars, not willing to change their game ideas … for the series will go better next time?
How much do they questions their ideas afterhave been fired? Or do they just live waiting for another team to demonstrate the goodness of their ideas?
In this early period of the team games season, I am often asked how to improve the cohesion of a team especially by the coaches who work in junior teams and and also not professional teams. I make this distinction because among these coaches there is a widespread idea that having little time available, everything that goes beyond the technical work done in the field is unnecessary work, which we do not have time to do, precisely because: “We are not a professional team, where the players are always available.”
This attitude is the motivation that drives many coaches to believe that the players must adapt to their working method and the hierarchies proposed. Physical and technical/tactical preparation are the masters and if someone doesn’t agree, it’s worse for him/her.
Leadership is essentially manifested in the administration of a training program that must be followed without discussion. They start from correct considerations (limited time, reduced economic resources, not optimal hours for training) to arrive at wrong conclusions. Those who do not accept this approach are usually labeled as lazy, unwilling to make sacrifices or presumptuous.
Unfortunately for them, the culture of work and team cohesion are essential factors in a team sport and are not built with this approach. Team performance instead draws its strength from the daily training of the concept of US: the winning performance comes from the integration of the behavior of various players, teaching more players to do different things well, together and at the same time.
Coach has to:
- Encourage participation by listening to the players’ suggestions
- Avoide favouritism
- Reward altruistic behaviour
- Reduce individualistic behaviour
- Assign challenging and achievable goals to each player
- Assign each player a specific role
- Encourage a learning and collaborative training climate
- Stimulate maximum commitment and constantly reinforce it
- Always support the team when it is in negative momentum
- Spend time with athletes to evaluate their commitment to training
- Analyse coldly with the team the results of the matches
The question for coaches is: how much time do you spend developing these performance factors?
