Motor learning

Rehabilitation and Return to Performance Following Injury

Rehabilitation and Return to Performance Following Injury

In elite and professional sports there is obvious incentive to ensure athletes make a prompt and successful return to action following injury. There is a clear impetus to push the envelope in an attempt to accelerate the recovery process and minimise the time spent on the sidelines. The impressive recovery times reported with common injuries in professional sports are testimony to the success of the progressive and innovative approaches presently employed. In a ‘high performance’ setting athletes benefit from having a staff of professionals at their disposal on a daily basis to support the endeavour. Given such dedicated support it is perhaps unsurprising that athletes at the top level also show a far higher likelihood of making a successful return to their preinjury level following severe injuries such as ACL rupture, compared to what is reported with performers at lower levels of competition. The stakes involved might differ below the elite level but there are nevertheless lessons to be learned from their approach to performance rehabilitation and return to competition. In this latest offering we explore the advances in how we deal with sports injuries and consider what lessons we might adopt to improve outcomes for performers at all levels.

Clues for Successful Youth Sports Parenting

Clues for Successful Youth Sports Parenting

Parents play a vital role in supporting their child to participate in youth sport. Parents are quite literally the driver, providing both the opportunity and transportation. Youth sports parenting is a full time job in itself, demanding considerable investment in terms of both money and time. It is parental support that affords kids the opportunity to participate and derive the myriad benefits associated with youth sports, which span athletic, health, scholastic, and life skill realms. Naturally, parents are invested in their child’s youth sports participation, and this investment often leads to increasing involvement. Yet despite the best intentions there are adverse consequences when parental involvement or intervention becomes excessive. In this Informed Blog post we unravel the complexity and challenges of being the parent of a youth sports athlete, and attempt to offer some clues to help guide parents to walk this fine line at different phases in the youth sports journey.

Emotional Aptitude in Athlete Preparation

Emotional Aptitude in Athlete Preparation

Emotion has traditionally been viewed as something to be suppressed. The logic goes that as leaders and people in positions of authority we should be detached and act ‘without emotion’. If somebody is described as ‘emotional’ generally this is construed as a bad thing; when we become ‘emotional’ the implication is that we are no longer being rational or we are not capable of reason. Conventional wisdom advocates we avoid an emotional response or making emotional decisions. In contrast to these established views, more recent study in this area demonstrates that emotion is in fact integral to reasoning, decision making, guiding our behaviour, and our ability to relate to others. Emotional intelligence is accordingly becoming recognised as being at least as important as more established forms of intelligence. Indeed we increasingly hear commentators proclaim that ‘EQ trumps IQ’. In this latest Informed Blog we delve into the role of emotion in coaching and our work with athletes, and explore what aptitudes we need to possess in this area as leaders, coaches, and practitioners.

A Wake Up Call on Sleep

A Wake Up Call on Sleep

Sleep is essential to sustaining life. Yet the majority of us are casually dismissive when it comes to sleep. We routinely deny ourselves this most critical sustenance of our own volition. The attitudes towards sleep among high performing individuals in different realms and society in general are quite baffling. We also largely fail to make the connection between the reckless lack of care and attention we give to our sleep and the dizzying array of consequences that inevitably follow. Objectively this behaviour is bizarre, and our failure to prioritise sleep defies logic. With this latest Informed Blog we explore the myriad ways you lose when you don’t snooze sufficiently.

The Why, What, and How of Coaching Movement: Part 2

The Why, What, and How of Coaching Movement: Part 2

As practitioners we are all essentially coaches, and in our various realms we find ourselves directing athletes on how we want them to move. In the first part of this 3-part post we delved into the why, as we attempted to elucidate what roles we should play, and define what objectives we should be seeking to fulfil when providing instruction to athletes. With this second part on coaching movement we get into the 'what'.

A 'Meta-Learning' Approach for More Productive Training

A 'Meta-Learning' Approach for More Productive Training

Athletes and coaches across all sports incessantly speak about the importance of 'focussing on the process', and process goals. As coaches and practitioners we are likewise ever mindful of scheduling constraints and the need to make best use of the finite time permitted to prepare our athletes. In previous posts we have spoken about the importance of mobilising mental resources, and the critical role of athletes' perception in relation to training responses. Here we will venture into the realms of teaching and learning, in order to make meaningful use of the notion of 'process focus' in the context of sport. In our quest for more purposeful training we will explore the concept of 'meta-learning', and outline how these principles might be applied to the process and the practice of preparing athletes.

Perils of the 'Talent' Label

Perils of the 'Talent' Label

Athletic talent and sporting potential are hard to define and harder still to capture. Such ambiguity presents a major challenge for 'talent identification' and 'talent development' programmes in sport. Marking out a youngster as 'talented' is not only fraught with uncertainty, doing so can also carry negative consequences for their development moving forward. In this post we will explore the topic of 'talent' and discuss the challenges inherent in the processes of talent identification and development. In light of these issues we will examine how we might best nurture and develop young athletes whilst avoiding the pitfalls that can result from labeling them as 'talented'.

Mobilising Athletes' Mental Resources During Training

Mobilising Athletes' Mental Resources During Training

Ask any athlete or coach and they will readily acknowledge the mental side of training. The mind is an integral part of training the body. How an athlete perceives the training prescribed can be hugely influential in determining how they experience it. In turn this perception can affect how the athlete responds to the training performed. Despite their apparent importance, mental aspects of the training process are typically not accounted for in any structured or meaningful way. In this post we will elucidate what these critical elements or 'mental resources' are in relation to the training process. We will then explore how each of these aspects can be accounted for and harnessed to best effect in the way athletes' training plans are presented and delivered.

What do we mean by 'Athletic'? The 10 Pillars of Athleticism

What do we mean by 'Athletic'? The 10 Pillars of Athleticism

Practitioners working in the realms of physical preparation, 'strength and conditioning', athletic development, sports coaching and sports medicine all share the desire that their athletes become more 'athletic'. Feats of athleticism can be readily recognised and appreciated. Yet observers and practitioners alike would struggle to describe with any clarity or detail what exactly constitutes 'athleticism'. Clearly we must first define qualities such as athleticism in order to understand how we might go about developing them. From a talent identification and talent development viewpoint, what do we need to identify and develop in a young athlete? In this post we aim to elucidate what athleticism is, and explore the constituent parts that underpin athleticism.

Solving the Puzzle of Training Young Athletes

Solving the Puzzle of Training Young Athletes

A famous and often cited quote in relation to training youth is that 'children are not mini adults'. Clearly the approach to physical preparation for children and adolescents should differ to what is employed with athletes competing at senior level. This is evident from biological, physiological and long term development perspectives. What is less clearly defined are the specifics of how our approach should differ, and how this will alter according to the respective phase of growth and maturation. In this post we will aim to shed some light on this topic.