Interessante conferenza di Reinhard Stelter, Università di Copenaghen, sulle nuove prospettive del coaching.
Tag Archive for 'coaching'
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Youth sport is becoming a great problem and an article published in the magazine of US Olympic Committee helps to understand what might be the reasons and proposals for solutions. I wrote in a short summary but the article by Christine M. Brooks (Summer 2016) is certainly wider and interesting to read.
- There is a high pediatric dropout rate from sports (between 2008 and 2013 there were 2.6 million fewer six to twelve year-old kids participating the six traditional sports).
- Coaches are using higher training intensities at younger ages than ever before possibly causing long-term harm to young athletes (the LTAD model attempts to guide coaches about the appropriate training for children who are at different maturational phases).
- There is an increase in childhood obesity and subsequent health problems (in the United States, 17 to 31 percent of children and adolescents are obese).
Goals
- The principle of enjoyment embraces Mihály Csíkszentmihályi’s notion of ‘FLOW,’ that in turn, explains why individuals enjoy an activity. Approximately 40 percent of pediatric athletes in one survey claim they dropped out of sports because they were not having fun. The coaching goal is to train athletes in small, manageable learning steps so they remain in the zone of FLOW. Research indicates that educated coaches lower kids’ anxiety levels and lift their self-esteem.
- The principle of striving for improvement involves enticing young athletes to constantly strive for the upper limits of their genetic potential while concurrently keeping them in FLOW. If they are out of ‘FLOW,’ it is theoretically impossible to motivate ongoing practice and striving, and therefore progress toward full genetic potential will be blunted.
- The principle of appropriate training goes hand-in-hand with the child’s growth and maturation. The LTAD model attempts to match structural growth and maturation to the appropriate motor skill complexity and intensity of physical training.
- The principle of doing no harm is at the basis of coaching. Four million school-age children in the US are injured while playing sports every year. The reason can partly be attributed to stressing a body that has immature balance and coordination beyond its capacity.
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.
7 Things We Don’t Know!
Coaching Challenges in Sport Psychology and Skill Acquisistion
Jean Fournier and Damian Farrow
Mindeval Canada Inc, 2013
The link to read the first chapter is here: www.mindeval.com/en/
7 Things We Don’t Know! is a book designed for progressive coaches who are motivated to consider and potentially adjust their current coaching or training programs so that they are getting the most out of contemporary Sport Psychology and Skill Acquisition research. I believe it will also relevant for the sport psychologists because the authors talk about coaching problem, imagery, cognitive processes like anticipation and attention from a perspective different from usual. In this way, many practitioners could start to think in a different way your daily job with athletes and coaches.
Second, what makes this book different from many other texts on Sport Psychology and Skill Acquisition is that the content is presented in the most applicable manner to coaches and athletes. It is written with a short and concise style, and numerous practical examples are provided to illustrate how the theories could be applied to practice.
The imagery is discussed in light of its practical application, it’s well explained the use of this skill must match well with the athletes’ needs, integrating this mental activity in the coaching sessions. The second chapter is devoted to the use of mindfulness in mental coaching. Jean Fournier propose a mindfulness program based on his experiences in different sports and the pages on this topic illustrate his approach based on four steps: presentation of the method and assessment, mindfulness training, acceptance training and attention training. The third regards the thinking. He try to clarify: what does focus mean? The readers will find suggestions to find the relevant focus point in different sports and different situations, to improve the focus in training and to apply all these things during the competitions. The following chapter is about the use of the routines, it’s explained why they are useful in sports but there is a new aspect introduced in this presentation, regarding the use of mindfulness in the routine planned by the athletes. The next four chapters are written by the other author, Damian Farrow. His first chapter talks about the relevance of variability during training and the need to organize the drills in a way very near to the competition rules and development. It’s a chapter that I suppose very useful for the coaches, who must always to cope with the dilemma about necessity to integrate the repetitions and athletes’ motivation and about the relation between the standard repetitions and drills more similar to the game characteristics. In these pages Farrow provides information confirming the concept that the athletes learn to anticipate instead to be born with this gift and he talks about a number of training approaches to improve this skill. Goal of the following chapter is to encourage coaches to use implicit coaching style instead to use only an explicit style. Farrow remember that probably the best implicit information an athlete can receive is the Nike motto: “Just do it.” The last chapter regards another relevant question: have the athletes need of a coach feedback provided in a real time? Today coaches with the help of the new technologies have the opportunity to provide information in real time with great precision. The problem they have to cope with regards their competences to use the correct timing without the risk to overload the athletes’ mind. Farrow talks about the definition of the bandwidth of correctness for a movement. Established this range of correctness the coaches will know exactly when to provide a corrective feedback.
Final comment: read this book with the spirit to find some new ideas for our work and to change something in our approach with the athletes.
A Guide to Third Generation Coaching
Reinhard Stelter
Dordrecht: Springer Science, 2014, p.254
http://www.springer.com/new+%26+forthcoming+titles+(default)/book/978-94-007-7185-7
This book talks about coaching from a societal perspective. Since the beginning coaching has been interpreted as a process to increase managers’ skills and in any case as a system to approach and solve problems. Third Generation Coaching is oriented on values and create meaning underlying aspirations, passions and habits. This concept remember me the Amartya Sen identity idea, when he explains that every day we are part of different groups and in this way we have a multiple identity, build on this different contexts and roles. Thus, Third Generation Coaching talks about our identity, view as interpersonal process continuously in movement. Coachees and coaches live a space of self-reflection not to improve specific competences but to permit to the coachees to know better themselves and may be to see their life in a new perspective. Really, this coaching vision is an invitation to change stride, moving to a different interpretation of our life. For this reason Stelter underlines the main role played by values “as important landmarks for navigating in life.” Today where financial fraud in business and doping in sport are so diffuse, a changing process based on values and ethics became fundamental to guarantee social respect and freedom form illegal actions. In fact, Stelter developed this new coaching approach in a time where values are not very well represented in our society, where at the contrary every day the newspapers published news about bankruptcies or doping cases like the most famous is Lance Amstrong fall. The book talks about the necessity to build in professional or every life meaning-experiences, based on our past stories and the present in order to have a better future. Third Generation Coaching changed also the coach role, he/she became a facilitator of the coachee’s reflections concerning is cultural roots and social relations, very important because determining his/her confidence into the social environments. Third generation coaching proposes a form of dialogue where coach and coachee are focused on creating space for reflection through collaborative practices and less concerned with fabricating quick solutions. Aspiring to achieve moments of symmetry between coach and coachee, where their dialogue is driven by a strong emphasis on meaning-making, values, aspirations and identity issues. Coach and coachee meet as fellow-humans in a genuine dialogue. I can say that also in sport we assisted in an evolution of this kind in the program of athletes’ mental coaching. Till 10 years ago the programs for them were related almost exclusively to increase specific mental skills, to use during the most important events. At this approach, successively, has been added an approach more oriented to reflect about their life style, to the positive role the athletes can play in our society, to doping as negative value for them and for the society because based on deception.
Tell your dream. We will help you to reach it.
CEI Consulting helps athletes to:
- Identify their specific concentration strengths and weaknesses with the most sophisticated performance enhancement assessment system.
- Be aware of their performance profile with a 360° assessment program (technical, mental and physical).
- Be aware of their skills when compared with those of the best athletes in the world.
- Develop coaching programs for improving and performing at their best.
CEI Consulting uses The Athlete’s Mental Edge, an exclusive performance enhancement system used by Olympic and championship-level athletes worldwide. It is a distillation of 30 years of research made in USA and Canada, Europe and Australia and hands on consulting with many of the world’s greatest athletes.
CEI Consulting is an assessment and coaching program including the following areas:
- Your goals
- The stress management
- The concentration
- Which are your fears
- Planning the competition
- Think positive
- Work in team with the coach and mates
For any information please contact: info@ceiconsulting.it
The 3rd International Congress of Coaching Psychology 2013 will be held in Rome 16/17 May organized by SCP Italy (Society for Coaching Psychology Italy), Italian partner of ISCP (International Society for Coaching Psychology). It will be focused on the following three main themes:
- Surfing the Edge of chaos - the contribution of Coaching Psychology and patterns of self-organization in managing the complexity of organizational and socio-economic contexts;
- Third Generation Coaching - the contribution of Coaching Psychology as a development lever for organizations who, in addition to developing the potential of the individual, also want to build a culture of coaching and develop a management style and methods that are sustainable and integrated with their stakeholders;
- Evidence-Based Approach to the profession – the contribution of Coaching Psychology in the development of professionalism is founded on evidence-based practice that gains strength from research and on research that gives value to the practice. On this model of professional development the coach psychologist, as scientist-practitioner, builds its professional identity and distinctiveness and can offer added value to the coachee and the organization.
Experts say that Obama will give his best after wrong and when the pressure rises to the maximum. Like many I hope so. At the same time so this is the best description of the optimistic individual and fully illustrates the American said: “No matter how many times you fall but how quickly you rises.” This is the purpose of every mental training and coaching job.
Many speak of Coaching and often cause shouted, promising the moon after walking on hot coals. Coaching is a process of change and takes time. You do not change on a weekend but we may have insights into how we, and is a lot. We have to know that we can all improve, even if no one says it will be easy. If we are willing to accept this approach, then we can walk on this road led by a coach. Coaching in this sense allows us to find a concrete solution to the main questions that managers and young talent, athletes and coaches, team members and leaders, professionals and entrepreneurs. These are:
I want to do better rather than good
I want to do more with less
I want to make new ideas instead of always repeating
I want to convey energy and not resignation
I want to explore new ways without doing the same
I want to balance work and private life
I want to delegate rather than do it all alone
I want to encourage curiosity and not boredom at work
I want to listen without prejudice instead of thinking to be always right
I want to live in movement and not in a marsh
If you are interested in knowing more about this approach to change write me and I will give you more information
