Sport Coaching in Practice
Articles and Videos
Here is a collection of articles focused on the practical application of coaching. Covering a varied topic mix, they all relate to useful and relevant coaching issues, coaches face day in, day out. You may find our sections for our most recent articles, resources and materials, latest newsletters, or 5 Minutes with Bo Hanson video series valuable too.
Teaching and Sports Coaching Methods
There are many different learning strategies designed to help athletes develop. As a coach, what are your strategies? This article is a follow up from our article on the 11 Qualities of Optimal Learning Environments. In that article the fourth quality of an optimal learning environment was coaches providing multiple teaching and sports coaching methods to help their athlete’s progress. Learn more about the following methods in order to better communicate and educate your athletes.
11 Qualities of Optimal Sports Learning Environments
Our model of sport at Athlete Assessments sees coaches as teachers. In fact, we have often found the most effective coaches actually came from a teaching education background and are qualified in this area of skill and knowledge.
Critical Coaching Models to Understand
By Bo Hanson – 4x Olympian, Coaching Consultant & Director of Athlete Assessments As a coach, there are some models that it is vital you understand to get the best out of your athletes. In this article
Sport Tacit Knowledge (What you don’t know you know)
By Bo Hanson – 4x Olympian, Coaching Consultant & Director of Athlete Assessments Is your team missing its most important ingredient to success? Every coach knows how important it is for their team to have
What Lessons are you Coaching for Athlete Success?
By Bo Hanson – 4x Olympian, Coaching Consultant & Director of Athlete Assessments This article was written for those with an understanding of how the DISC model can be used in sport. So make sure to
The Coach’s Guide to Managing Conflict in Sport
We all know that in the highly stressful environment of elite sport (and even social sport), conflict is bound to occur. Coaches need to know the best way to understand, recognize and manage conflict in a way that results in a positive outcome. Dealing with conflict is a delicate yet necessary part of any coach’s role, so we have also included a guide to the Critical Conversations you will need to make regularly in your coaching career.
Making Effective Team Decisions
By Bo Hanson – 4x Olympian, Coaching Consultant & Director of Athlete Assessments One of the hallmarks of successful athletes, teams and coaches, is their ability to make effective decisions across a range of challenging environments.
Delivering Athlete Feedback
All athletes will perform at a level under their best at some point. How Coaches manage this impacts the athlete’s future performances. Studies into coaching effectiveness continually suggest everything we say and do as a Coach impacts our athlete’s performance. This article provides two simple athlete feedback mechanisms to use with your athletes to ensure their performance improves with your coaching feedback. The first technique is called the feedback sandwich. It is a three step model for giving constructive encouragement and athlete feedback.
Athlete Centered Coaching: Do Athletes Know How They Need to be Coached?
Today I had a great coaching moment. I volunteered to assist my old high school First Rowing VIII Crew and was working with one of the young rowers to change his hand movement during the rowing stroke.
Conscious Athlete Training: Athletes Improve Faster
By Bo Hanson – 4x Olympian, Coaching Consultant & Director of Athlete Assessments This article is specifically for athletes. Making the most of your training session is simple. You simply must never be on autopilot when
How To Be An Athlete Centered Coach
Athlete Centered Coaching is a coaching philosophy underpinned by a set of values and coaching behaviors, where the primary goal of the coach is to help their athletes take responsibility of their sporting behaviors that create their results. This article outlines what Athlete Centered Coaching is, the goals of this approach and how to be this type of coach.
Athlete Accountability in Sport: Are Your Athletes Accountable?
What is athlete accountability in sport? I recall having this conversation with my coach when I was rowing. Most coaches I speak to today tell me how their athletes do not accept accountability for their performance. Ultimately, accountability in sport means you believe that it is you (and only you) who creates your performance.
Do You Have Adaptability in Sport?
What if an athlete you’re coaching says: “Hey, Coach, I feel like I am getting stale with this training routine, can we mix it up a bit?” As you are a well-organized coach with a scientifically proven program, you know that even small changes will alter the physiological makeup of the program. But if you knew that making a small adjustment could improve your athlete’s mental state (and assuming this is as important as their physical preparation) then you’d make the adjustment, right? Even if this meant that you were the one who had to adjust the most. You would be willing to adapt your behavior a little bit.
Generation Y Athletes: Coaching Strategies for Best Results
By Bo Hanson – 4x Olympian, Coaching Consultant & Director of Athlete Assessments Sports programs today are predominately made up of Generation Y (“Gen Y”) athletes. We are almost at the end of the Generation X
Do Your Athletes Listen? (Increasing the impact of your coaching messages)
By Bo Hanson – 4x Olympian, Coaching Consultant & Director of Athlete Assessments Rather than ask “Do your athletes listen?” a more useful question is “What do your athletes listen for?” For close to a decade
Sports Team Travel Tips
By Bo Hanson – 4x Olympian, Coaching Consultant & Director of Athlete Assessments Make the most of your team’s travel time with these valuable sports team travel tips and activities to deepen their understanding of each
Prevent Choking in Sport using Holistic Word Cues
This article delves into more depth on how choking can be prevented at the highest level of sport and how can you ensure you “make it happen”.
A Coach’s Role is Critical
A coach’s role is critical in the context of our society. What I want to share with you in this article is my philosophy on the role of sport and the significant contribution coaches make. This is particularly important for your sport and every sport.
Creating a high-performance Coaching Style
Every coach has their unique approach or style to coaching. Whether or not this leads to a high-performance coaching style, where their athletes are reaching their full potential, comes down to a few core elements. The
Best Sports Coaches: What Level are you Coaching at?
By Bo Hanson – 4x Olympian, Coaching Consultant & Director of Athlete Assessments The 2008 Beijing Olympic Study, undertaken by the Canadian Olympic Team, shed light on the factors leading to either personal best performances or
8 Characteristics of Expert Sport Coaches
Ever spent time wondering how expert coaches operate? In this article we take a quick look at what the ‘experts’ do that makes them experts. This research was derived from how experts conduct themselves across a wide domain of industries and areas of endeavor. Expertise is universal and we apply this to coaching sport.
Coaching Philosophies from Sports Coaches
At Athlete Assessments, we have found that our readers have a great interest in the coaching philosophies of other Coaches. And why wouldn’t they? Now you can benefit from the philosophies other Coaches have shared with us. You might find these useful in developing or further defining what your own coaching philosophy is. Or you might simply be interested in reading examples of coaching philosophies from other sports Coaches. Please contribute your coaching philosophy too! There is a form at the bottom of the page where you can contribute!
Sports Team Chemistry and Dynamics in Sport
Using DISC to Create high-performance Teams Great teamwork happens when your athletes embrace the philosophy that they should be the best person for the team rather than the best person on the team. In the selection
Tuckman’s Stages of Team Development in Sport
Every high-performance sports team goes through the four main stages of team development. As a Coach you should understand the Stages of Team Development your team will be working through and how to help them achieve their best during each stage.
Sport Pre-Season Preparation using the GRIP Model
Many of our clients ask us for help on what we prescribe for best practice sport pre-season preparation, focusing on both mental and physical development. This article is written to give you the exact methods we
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Learn more about Athlete Assessments
DISC Profiling
Learn how to master the people side of sport using DISC Profiling...
What We Do
We specialize in helping our clients create and sustain winning results...
Our Clients
See who we work with and read what they say about us...
