Informed Coach, Informed Leader, Informed Practitioner
Paul Gamble
Crimes Against Critical Thinking in the Face of ...

As the saying goes ‘never let the truth get in the way of a good story’. But it truly is quite remarkable how readily we will override our capacity for critical thinking in the face of a story we want to hear. As we will see, if the message on offer appeals enough to a particular desire or bias, it appears we will happily overlook whatever shortcomings in methodology and inconvenient flaws in logic are apparent. In this way, we can be active participants in ‘group think’.

We might then question our roles in upholding the conventions that abound in performance sport. Upon closer inspection, there is rarely logic in convention. It is beguilingly easy to fall prey to participating in such group delusion. On some level, we could argue that we willingly enter into this to prop up a particular tenet of our belief system in relation to theory and practice.

Crimes Against Critical Thinking in the Face of a Good Story
Informed Coach, Informed Sport Parent, Informed Leader
Paul Gamble
Uniting Participation and Performance

There is a strange insistence that participation and performance are entirely distinct and never the twain shall meet. But is there really no common ground to be found here? I will argue that participation and performance are NOT in fact mutually exclusive - especially in the case of youth sport. There is in fact plenty of overlap. So why should we keep them apart? Is it possible that bringing participation and performance back under the same roof might provide benefits in both directions?

Uniting Participation and Performance
Informed Leader, Informed Practitioner, Informed Coach
Paul Gamble
The Tyranny of Safeguarding in Sport

A provocative title, so allow me to specify at the outset what exactly I am highlighting and the limits of the argument. Firstly and most importantly, let me make it clear that I am excluding from the discussion the necessary and vitally important domain of child-protection and the protection of vulnerable adults under law. What I am specifically referring to is the concept creep that has seen the safeguarding approach extended to sportsmen and women at senior level, who are otherwise (in the eyes of the law) deemed responsible adults capable of providing informed consent, making decisions and advocating on their own behalf. I am also excluding clear cases of misconduct that unamibiguously violate professional ethics and the boundaries of the athlete-coach relationship - for instance, sexually inappropriate behaviour or physical abuse. What I am also highlighting is the mission creep of those charged with investigating such claims and the present danger of over-reach. Why I feel these trends need to be challenged is that the safeguarding system if left unchecked threatens to penalise coaches simply for carrying out their proper duties.

The Tyranny of Safeguarding in Sport
Paul Gamble
Special Post: Choosing the Right Programme

EDITOR’S NOTE:

To celebrate the imminent release of the new title ‘Sports Parenting: Negotiating the Challenges of the Youth Sports Journey to Help Kids Thrive’ we are sharing this special post. The excerpt featured is from the chapter ‘Choosing the Right Programme’.

Environment is everything when it comes to developing talent. Parents are naturally highly motivated to find the programme that provides most optimal conditions to allow their child’s talents to flourish. Seeing past the sales pitch and making the right choice is however not a straightforward proposition. Being successful on this endeavour begins with understanding the key features that make for the most conducive setting to enable young performers to realise their athletic potential. In this chapter we aim to provide parents with some criteria to guide the search.

Special Post: Choosing the Right Programme
Informed Coach, Informed Leader, Informed Practitioner
Paul Gamble
Ingredients for Progress: Heretics and Dissent

The inclination to question is not common - looking back, most of us would admit that we uncritically accepted what we were taught. There is a general assumption that authority figures know what they are doing, so it may not necessarily occur to us that the consensus view that is espoused might be flawed or even untrue. Yet it is always worth allowing for the possibility that the prevailing view may not necessarily have a sound basis or at least might be missing something important. It might serve us well to consciously foster in ourselves and others a readiness to challenge preconceived ideas and the received wisdom, simply in the interests of our own enlightenment. More broadly, it merits highlighting that willingness to question and to offer competing ideas are necessary ingredients for progress. Clearly this has some important implications for leaders and organisations, as well as for the professions and fields of study that we are part of.

Ingredients for Progress: Heretics and Dissent
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The Why, What, and How of Coaching Movement: Part 3

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The Why, What, and How of Coaching Movement: Part 3

The current post is the culmination of a three-part series on coaching athletic movement. In the opening part of the series, we delved into the ‘why’, and sought to elucidate what roles we have to play in this space. With part two we got into the ‘what’, and proposed that the lenses of mechanical effectiveness and efficiency might unite our aims in both performance and injury realms. With this final instalment, we get into the ‘how’, and provide some practical guidance on how we might deliver what we outlined in part two, and ultimately fulfill the roles we identified in part one.

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

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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'.

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The Why, What, and How of Coaching Movement: Part 1

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The Why, What, and How of Coaching Movement: Part 1

In an early post entitled ‘The Rise of the Movement Specialist’ we identified an apparent gap in the technical input and direction provided to athletes when it comes to athletic movement skills. The appearance in recent times of hordes of self-styled ‘movement specialists’ seeking to fill the void, or rather recognising a niche in the market, is indicative that something is presently lacking. With this 3-part post we attempt to tackle the question of what our role is in this space, and offer some guidance on how we can do better.

In this first part of the 3-part series, we start with ‘why’…

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Perils of Binary Thinking and Polarised Debates

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Perils of Binary Thinking and Polarised Debates

For a practitioner who spends any time on social media it is easy to get the sense we are in the death throes of informed debate. Authorities (often self-proclaimed) seem to constantly spew forth evangelical proclamations, push their ideology and promote others who espouse their doctrine, and decry those who express contrary views. Sadly, it appears there are no shortage of young zealots eager to answer the call to join the modern crusades conducted on a social media battlefield. In this post we will explore the trend for binary thinking and polarised arguments that fuels the tribalism we see on these platforms, and how this is increasingly creeping into sports science and medicine circles. We will then attempt to plot a path back from the edge of the abyss, and bridge the divide between factions to allow us to return to real debate.

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Rejecting the Industry

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Rejecting the Industry

Practitioners across different domains will be familiar with their field of practice being referred to as an 'industry'. We frequently hear mention of the strength and conditioning industry, the sports physiotherapy industry, even the sports coaching industry. In this post we consider these trends for terming our professions in this way, and explore why an 'industry approach' might be problematic. From these discussions we can attempt to plot a path back to cultivating our craft, and restoring pride in our chosen profession by rejecting this ‘industry’ mindset.

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The 'C' Word

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The 'C' Word

The word 'culture' is often thrown around in the context of teams and organisations. Everybody is talking about culture. Despite being a nebulous term and intangible in nature, culture is cited over and over again by teams and organisations. Everybody seems to be in agreement that culture is critical to success in different realms, even if we are not necessarily clear on what it is. Culture is simultaneously cited as both the root cause and universal solution to all ills. In this post we will try to get a handle on the 'C' word. More importantly we will attempt to get to the bottom of what creates culture, and explore how we might go about effecting a change in team or organisational culture.

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Ego is the Enemy of Discovery and Progress

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Ego is the Enemy of Discovery and Progress

It is a common viewpoint that ego stunts personal growth, and most would agree that ego undermines our effectiveness as coaches and practitioners. What is less often considered is that unconstrained ego similarly obstructs progress and discovery in the areas of scientific study that exist to inform practice. At present the respective disciplines encompassed within coaching science, sports science and sports medicine are plagued with these difficulties. Einstein famously quoted to the effect that ego has an inverse relationship to knowledge – “more the knowledge, lesser the ego; lesser the knowledge, more the ego”. Yet researchers in the fields of sports science and sports medicine are showing themselves to be particularly prone to ego and the excesses associated with it. In this post we tackle the issue of ego in sports science and sport medicine, and attempt to plot a path back to sanity.

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Major Competition Coaching

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Major Competition Coaching

Major competition poses unique challenges not only for the athlete, but also the coach and wider support staff. From a logistical viewpoint there are a host of additional factors to manage, but on a more personal level, each member of the team must also manage themselves and how they interact with the athlete. In the crucible of a major competition environment the mettle of all individuals concerned is tested, and every member of staff connected to the athlete has a responsibility. In this post we will dig deeper on this topic, and explore ways we can support athletes in handling the pressures to compete at their best on the biggest stage.

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Nuance - The Path to Enlightenment in Athletic Preparation

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Nuance - The Path to Enlightenment in Athletic Preparation

Nuance is an under recognised keystone of practice in elite sport. We have spoken previously about critical thinking as a critical skill for coaches and practitioners in the Information Age, as a means to evaluate and integrate information from different sources. Nuanced understanding is critical for the steps that follow. Nuance is required to derive real meaning from the knowledge acquired and make use of it. Nuance is also critical to cope with the complexity inherent in human performance. In this post we will make the case for practicing nuance as an active skill in order to combat the epidemics of superficial knowledge and binary thinking.

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A 'Meta-Learning' Approach for More Productive Training

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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.