Expert Periodisation

I ask you to think through your previous coaching history, whether it be of you coaching yourself or being coached as an athlete. Think back deeply, seriously, try and envisage who was the very best coach you've had. What did they do that separated them from the others? Or you from the rest? It really is worth asking what made others better than you, it's a great form of self review, as is looking at the reasoning why you were better than them. Can you be the expert pedagogue?

The expert pedagogue, somehow, is seemingly achieved through largely being negative when relating to performance. Upon review of one of the most successful coaches of all time, John Wooden, it was shown that the vast majority of his comments were short, to the point and negative. If this were the model that all coaches were to follow, I fear I would be a failure as I struggle to see the bad in people. The bad in people's performance, that I can sport a tad more easily.

I feel that the expert pedagogue has a larger influence off the field than on. It may simply be that the coach that can in still the best work ethic and qualities off the court can consistently get the best out of his players on it. It needs to be understood that what happens off the court is far more important than what happens on it. The expert pedagogue understands this.

Periodisation is also a difficult issue to cover. Being able to read an athlete, see where they are at and adapt the training plan to still peak at the same time is a dark art that few coaches of individual athletes have successfully mastered, let alone those of team sports. By understanding the athlete, the feel and the mood of the team, reading between the lines of the results and succeeding in gathering all this down into a few manipulations of a training plan the coach can be the difference when medals are on the line, and the athlete simply has to do the physical work.

A pedagogue understands.