Tag Archive for 'master'

The sport system do not support lifelong participation

Published on March 17, 2023 in Allenatori, Calcio, Corsa, Generale, Giovani, Mental coaching, Olimpiadi, Stress, Tennis and Tiro a volo. 0 Comments Tags: maratona, master.

The new season of major marathons in European capitals and around the world begins. This occasion brings to the forefront a little-addressed issue in scientific research and in the world of sports, which refers to the training of adults (the over35s) and in particular the masters athletes who build the largest group of marathon entrants and encapsulate every age group of adulthood up to and beyond the over80s.

It is the already large age group of sports practitioners enclosed in a period that covers more than 50 years. There are well-established age-related beliefs that can be summarized in the following concept: adults do not improve and are limited to social and fitness activities in their free time. It has been found that this age belief can lead coaches to believe that it is not necessary to coach master athletes. Do we still demand quality coaching if young athletes do not become Olympians or professionals? Yes, of course. Therefore, quality coaching should be an intrinsic feature of master sports and older adult sports.

Recently Bettina Callary, Editor-in-Chief of the International Sport Coaching Journal wrote about this issue and which I have summarized in the following points:

Much of the research in sport is geared towards high performance or youth sport participation.
The LTD uses a rectangular diagram to outline a framework for developmental pathways in sport and physical activity. It depicts a large section devoted to Active for Life, as an alternative to the Podium Pathway towards high performance. This is excellent, as it includes the large number of people (including adults and older adults) who are not on the trajectory toward podium performances at the highest level of sport yet continue to engage in sport and physical activity.
However, while the LTD acknowledges aging adults as an underserviced and under-supported group within the sport and physical activity ecosystem, the information in the framework itself is mostly associated with children, youth, and young adults.
Adult development in sport is often focused on becoming coaches or officials, joining the board of directors for the youth sport team or club, fundraising and volunteering.
While there are recreational adult sports that most often do not have coaches, in Masters sport the coaches can play important roles.
Masters sport is defined as sport events, leagues, and competitions for adults typically over 35 years of age (although this differs based on the sport and can be as young as 18 years old). Within this cohort of more serious-minded adult athletes, effective coaches play an important role in meeting athletes’ psychosocial needs and validating their decision to pursue sport.

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Physiology and training of a 75-year old world record holder

Published on December 6, 2022 in Allenatori, Calcio, Corsa, Generale, Mental coaching, Olimpiadi, Stress, Tennis and Tiro a volo. 0 Comments Tags: consumo di ossigeno, master.

Bas Van Hooren Guy Plasqui and Romuald Lepers Physiological, Spatiotemporal, Anthropometric, Training, and Performance Characteristics of a 75-Year-Old Multiple World Record Holder Middle-Distance Runner in International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance online 30 november 2022.

Master athletes constantly attract the attention of sport scientists and exercise physiologists because they represent a group that can provide essential insights into the ability of humans to maintain physical performance and physiological function with advancing age. Age-related changes in physiological characteristics in master athletes have been mainly examined in endurance athletes such as marathoners. Recent studies evidenced that some world-class endurance master athletes have a very high cardiorespiratory capacity as shown through a maximal oxygen uptake (VO2max) of 64.5 mL·kg−1·min−1 at 60 years and 46.9 mL·kg−1·min−1 at the age of 70 years, respectively.

To our knowledge, the physiological profile of world-class master middle-distance runners has never been examined. While long-distance running performances are typically explained by 3 primary physiological variables (maximum oxygen uptake, running economy, and lactate threshold), maximal sprinting speed is also considered as an essential performance determining factor for middle-distance running performances, in particular among athletes with the same maximal aerobic speed. In the present study, we investigated cardiorespiratory variables, maximal sprint speed, anthropometrics, and spatiotemporal variables of a 75-year-old world-class middle-distance runner who ran a 1500 m in 5 minutes 16 seconds in 2022, the second world fastest time in the age group of 75–79 years ever recorded.

Conclusion

In conclusion, this 75-year-old world-class middle-distance runner presents an exceptionally high VO2max and anaerobic speed reserve ratio. In addition, his resilience to injuries enabled him to sustain regular training since his 50s and achieve international performances in different age-group categories. Further research is needed to better understand the interaction between injury occurrence, physiological capacity, and performance level with advancing aging.

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28° master in sport psichology

Published on June 15, 2022 in Allenatori, Calcio, Corsa, Generale, Giovani, Mental coaching, Olimpiadi, Stress, Tennis and Tiro a volo. 0 Comments Tags: master.

Si è concluso il 28 master in Psicologia dello Sport di Psicosport, in cui come coordinatrice didattica insieme al Prof. Alberto Cei, Direttore scientifico, abbiamo potuto costruire un percorso che portasse i nostri allievi a sostenere con professionalità e competenza il ruolo di psicologo dello Sport. Hanno dimostrato di poterlo fare, portando a termine con successo e soddisfazione il loro tirocinio e vedendo confermata, per gran parte di loro, una collaborazione che si trasformerà nel loro primo lavoro nello sport. Sono orgogliosa di questo gruppo e soddisfatta di poter contare su una rete rafforzata che include nuovi colleghi. Auguro loro Buon Lavoro e spero di ritrovarli e coinvolgerli presto in nuove opportunità professionali.

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Coaching: 10 ideas for thinking

Published on April 2, 2022 in Allenatori, Calcio, Corsa, Generale, Giovani, Mental coaching, Olimpiadi, Stress, Tennis and Tiro a volo. 0 Comments Tags: master, psicologia dello sport.

Today at the Master of Sport Psychology we talked about training with Prof. Bruno Ruscello, Tor Vergata University.

What we learned:

The ability to listen, guide and give constructive feedback for a coach is important.
Too often, youth coaching is left to inexperienced coaches.
The invisible aspect of coaching is just as important as the visible aspect.
The invisible aspect is about the lifestyle of the athlete.
The data scientist is an essential role to use at every level of expertise, finding the necessary adaptations.
The coach is a curious person who must continually deepen and broaden his or her skills.
Coaching is getting out of the comfort zone.
For a player, the following are decisive: anticipation, decision-making ability, speed, ability to cooperate.
The coach is a visionary who builds ladders to reach his dreams.
The team game is not the sum of the performance of individuals but the product of their cooperation.

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Sport psychology: a decision for a life

Published on March 21, 2022 in Allenatori, Calcio, Corsa, Generale, Giovani, Mental coaching, Olimpiadi, Stress, Tennis and Tiro a volo. 0 Comments Tags: master, professione, psicologia dello sport, psicologo.

Started the Master of Sport Psychology in Rome. Needless to say it was a great satisfaction to be able to realize two in the same time in Milan and Rome.

The master’s degree is part of a process of continuous education that also for sport psychology is taking place all over the world thanks to the work of the International Society of Sport Psychology (ISSP) and the European Federation of Sport Psychology (FEPSAC). Enrolling in a master’s degree program and then continuing, as planned, with a phase of documented and partially supervised professional practice is the path that is expected and that in the coming years should spread in our field of work.

For an Italian psychologist, taking this path after graduation is a real existential choice because it is not only a matter of acquiring psychological strategies and techniques suitable for working in sports. In fact, it corresponds to a choice to become competent in a field that is not psychotherapy, not work, not research and not school. It is one in which the emphasis is placed on the knowledge and use of psychological knowledge in a world, that of sport and motor activity, which is very complex, since it is articulated in many specific areas and is aimed at people of all ages, levels of competence and psychosocial well-being. Moreover, it is intertwined with aspects of other psychological domains.

So let’s forget that it’s just a matter of acquiring some new psychological technique to be learned in online or short-term courses. The career path of the psychologist of the future will increasingly involve the whole person. In relation, to performance psychology many topics require a very strong personal involvement. When we talk about sport of domination, for example, or tenacity or working with disability, what is the existential position of the psychologist in the face of these issues, with what attitude do we approach these very engaging topics. These are precisely issues that challenge the professional even before defining what are the best strategies and techniques to work with.

In order to train effective professionals capable of maintaining high standards of operation with continuity, it is necessary to have training that takes these aspects into account, otherwise this profession will not withstand the wear and tear of time and the speed of change in our society and its increasingly pressing demands.

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Master in Sport Psychology: 40 years later

Published on March 14, 2022 in Allenatori, Calcio, Corsa, Generale, Mental coaching, Olimpiadi, Stress, Tennis and Tiro a volo. 0 Comments Tags: master, psicologia dello sport, psicosport.

This week starts the new Master in Sport Psychology organized by Psicosport in Rome.

I am happy because this new Master starts exactly 40 years after I obtained the specialization in sport psychology with a training course held in 1982 at the School of Sport in Rome under the direction of Ferruccio Antonelli.

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Too much sedentary life for young

Published on February 18, 2022 in Allenatori, Calcio, Corsa, Generale, Giovani, Mental coaching, Olimpiadi, Stress, Tennis and Tiro a volo. 0 Comments Tags: Dino Zoff, genitori, master, psicologi.

Since young Italian people, children and adolescents, no longer have the opportunity to play and do sports spontaneously in the oratory, in the street or in the gardens of the city and spend only two hours a week in school doing physical activity, the only way not to create sedentary people or people who are for too many hours of the day sitting at a desk or on the couch at home is necessary that municipal organizations, sports, schools, federations and parents build a network to overcome this very serious problem, which limits the development of young Italians.

Interview with Dino Zoff

How have young people changed?

“We used to go out of the house and play until dark. There was a sense of freedom that is unthinkable today. They have to be brought in to play sports and they have an hour. And they pay. And when you pay, everything changes. Just as parents have changed, covering for them when they make mistakes, defending them. A self-defensive behavior: they do it only to cover and defend their own limits as parents. Their own mistakes. Then you see things at 12, 13 that you can’t explain. Yes, the kids have changed and with them, inevitably, the sport has changed. And maybe this is the thing that pains me the most”.

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The training in sport psychology

Published on January 28, 2022 in Allenatori, Calcio, Corsa, Generale, Giovani, Mental coaching, Olimpiadi, Stress, Tennis and Tiro a volo. 0 Comments Tags: formazione, master, ordine psicologi, psicologia dello sport.

In Italy in the last 5 years, the number of members of the Order of Psychologists has increased by thousands of professionals, in 2016 were 100,566 and in 2020 became 117,762. In 2011 there were far fewer, 81,757.

At this time, I am busy organizing a master’s program in sport psychology and I am realizing that it is not easy to reach a large number of enrollees. Some colleagues tell me that this is due to competition from other masters, some online, which better meet the needs of young psychologists and consequently have a more limited cost.

This explanation, however, I do not find convincing for the simple fact that in the last 10 years the number of psychologists enrolled in the Order has increased 36,005 units and only in the last 5 years by 17,196; with an increase of about 5,000 new psychologists enrolled in 2020 compared to the previous year. Therefore, there is a large number of psychologists who after finishing their studies should undertake postgraduate training in one in the different fields of psychology.

Sport psychology is often not chosen because it is not clear what career paths this field of work can offer. In our country people often live sport psychology as a choice between two options, to be lucky enough to work with a Champion or to work at the level of youth activities (such as soccer schools), which is considered a job that does not require specific skills.

It is clear that if this is the reading of the labor market, it is useless to engage in a demanding training. As a result, being ill-prepared to deal with complex professional situations for lack of adequate training, job opportunities will concern only simple situations and easily manageable with the skills possessed.

The Master organized by Psicosport aims to fill this gap by providing a qualified training, with university professors and consultants of high profile recognizable by their curriculum, a five-month internship at sports clubs supervised and a program of involvement of psychologists even after the end of the Master.

Those interested in learning more about the topic of new professional orientations in psychology can write to me and I will send them the article I published on this topic in the magazine of the Scuola dello Sport.

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