In sport if an athlete is made to train they will in time quit – they need to want it. An effort of will or effort is tiring. If you have had to force yourself to do something or made to do it your resistance to the temptations to do something else will weaken. This is known as ego depletion. After Roy Baumeister (1998) in Daniel Kahneman’s 2011book ‘Thinking, fast and slow’.
There are eleven modules to complete to qualify as an ASA (Amateur Swimming Association) Level 3 Senior Club Coach – I have now passed all the first ten modules which in each case has included reading resources, attending a day long workshops (when I did it Long Term Athlete Development ran over two days), reflecting on practice in your own club (applied learning) then completing and submitting an assignment (less an essay, then fill in the spaces with phrases, sentences or single words).
Due to a year working away from home I became ‘freelance’ and find myself without a club to complete my final, poolside assessment. I am prepared to give 12 hours a week for a year to the right club so long as I have a squad (say 8 to 12 swimmers) of at least County or Regional standard. I live in Lewes, East Sussex and work 30 hours a week in Brighton during the day. Within reason I can make early morning sessions, while evenings and weekends are best.
With the permission of the club and the parents I would either have a camera on a headband or a cameraman shooting what I ask them to record. I would in return analyse all stroke problems and share with parents/guardians and in appropriate way with the young swimmers.
All swimming problems can be fixed but each swimmer has to be treated individually where possible as too often there is a problem unique to them that does not apply to the group. Ideally we’d have one teacher per swimmer of course, the times this occurs it is remarkable who a long standing problem can be fixed for good. Indeed, you can deal with several problems in 45 mins if you have only one swimmer.
I saw 13 swimmers in three groups over 2 hours+. Very manageable. Had I 8 swimmers in each session would it have been harder? You adjust everything you do to suit the skills, mood, problems of the swimmers you are presented with, by grade, gender and skill-set.
Patterns you see in the first week usually continue across the weeks, though the surprise is when a swimmer pulls it all together … or less often, starts to fall behind. The reasons are usually very simple: regular attendance, which at this age needs to be twice a week and is great if they make three times a week.
In the back of my mind is an ASA Level III Coaching qualification which requires me to be working with competitive squad swimmers, however, I enjoy spotting the talent as well as fixing problems for any swimmer from about age 7 up.
ASSESSMENTS
I do these early in order to try and fix problems ahead of the final assessment some weeks later. If a fault is too elementary it is not possible to fix: diving if a swimmer cannot somersault in the water for example, even a screw kick in breaststroke can be hard to undo in a group of swimmers. And there are problems like a straight arm recovery in front crawl that may be wrong, but if the swimmer is winning races keep it for something to fix gradually.
Diving is key. Kids have no opportunity to learn to dive outside a formal lesson. They should be practising their diving and building confidence in ‘free time’ in the pool. However, pools these days ban all diving 😦 I wish they could be made to understand how disabling this is for swimming clubs. That they are creating a problem.
Sport Psycology p7 notes
Story of Jules in Australia wanting to quit at 18. 400m IM National Champion then didn’t make the finals persuaded to stay.
Belief about success
Entity
winning
better
low effort
Incremental
Tasks
Self–improvement
Most elite athletes are high in both.
Need the work ethic.
Recreational athletes
High task, low entity
Age Group Swimmers
Low/low
Dragged in by their parents
EGO TYPES
Denial
Ignore outcome
Blame othersy
Avoidance
Avoid failure situations
Minimal effort
Impossible tasks
Responses to perception of failure
Maintain self–esteem/ego
Bad when its on its own and isn’t backed up with the task orientation.
e.g. gymnasts story – winning = treats
Understand what the ’urine?’ is …
Motivational Climate
Mastery
task
Pursuit of progress
Learn from mistakes
Performance
ego
Constant comparisons
Worried about making mistakes
GOAL SETTING
Specific
Measurable
Achievable (Adjustable)
Relevant (Realistic- so that they don’t become a source of stress)
Time (Focused/phased)
Exciting
Recordable
Triangle
Outocme (will lose but no control over it)
Performance
Process (get this right and the others will come)
Set training goals every session.
SESSION GOALS
Don’t worry about the w/u or s/d
Fast rotation into the wall
Fast rotation off the wall
4/5 fly kicks off the wall
So can think back and believe they’ve achieved their goal.
Feeding into competition so that they don’t tense up.
EVALUATION
after an event
Wait
Quiet
Positive
*to maintain self–esteem
*Pick out 3
*be creative
Improvement (moving forward)
Compare
Pushy parents and what to do with them!
Set goals strategically they can achieve things incrementally.
Read the athelte
set the ‘baby goals’
Set task and ego
Task – PBs
Mastery of skills
Hard work
EGO
Winning
Being the best
how are you going to become this person?
Motivation
Camps
Team captains
Shield
Gala trophies and medals
Newsletters
Websites/recognition
True loe as a motivation!
Importance of socialising
PHSYCHOLOGICAL PROFILING
What does it take to reach elite level?
Ratin scale. Physical/phsychological/tactical
strategical/lifestyle
eg performance wheel
with yiung swimmes:
confidence
creating patterns
teams
and then the colour in the lines to where they think they are with 10 best in the world.
A subjective tool as it is how the swimmer perceives.
So thinking about the process goals.
Get them to choose and fill in.
You make choices adn they fill it in.
You fill it all in and compare to gain understanding
Performance profile
and calculate to define priorities closer so 100 the more you need focus.
Relaxation exercise
vs negative thoughts and anxiety
e.g. a script to help anxious athletes relax the night before a big event (first event)
A lot of psychology is trial and error to figure out what each individual reacts to.
OPTIMAL p10
Comeptive stress
defintion
ongoing and long term
stresses
Environmental demands
Anxiety
specifc rsponses to stressors
Trait anxiety
Personality disportion
Predispotion to experience
State
Arousal state (right now feelings that change to circumstances)
cogntive
somatic
If a predisposed state will react to more sensors
Demands perception arousal otucome
+ve eustress and enhanced performance
-ve distress and impaired performance
ref Wilkinson 2003 Johnny (Rugby)
5.2
relaxation script. Can turn to it repeatedly.
visualization
Sticking to the plan.
For those for whom it isn’t a recurrent problem, get into a routine.
Seaking advice/support/understanding
Distraction/variety – all personalised.
Degree of trial and error.
Keep doing it until it becomes second nature especially for thise who are predispoed to stress.
Thought stopping. Having something to block out a tirgger from out of the blue.
Leadship skills
professional
good humoured
enthusiasic
knowledgeable
accessisbke
team notices website rewards social
5.4 Has only been applied to top 16 or so swimmers rather than across squads.
Make the time to spend with each swimmer in turn – probably after a session or at a separate time entirely.
5.5 amonths, annually CBT/swim21
5.6 Process goals
what actions need to be taken to achieve something?
Intrinsic goals
Listening to them
Respecting their individual choices
and supporting these
SWOT
always have socila fitnessclooks
times to certain or next standard
County/Regional/National
5.8
Democractoc approach
serve of control
Their choice and the worth of it
Personalised to them
Exploiting who they are
Better times
Club engagement
training groups
Creation of a Junior Masters
13–15 needing some control
Give them a choice of sessions,
Also start 6.15 or 6.30
through to 7.15 or 7.30
Identify a & b streams in BSG anda seek thei ‘buy in’ coub teacher/swimmer presentation
I’m reading through this (again) two years after attending the Module 5, Amateur Swimming Association Level 3 Senior Club Coach workshop at the Commonwealth Pool, Manchester. The session was run by the former Ireland Olympic IM Swimmer Julie Douglas (now at Chelsea & Westminster SC I believe).
As well as the book and my notes (and copious notes, Julie was studying for a PhD so was more than able to supply references, several of which I’ve followed up and downloaded courtesy of my being an Open University student with access to an enormous digital catalogue) I am doing through the Level 3 Resources too.
Wonderful that there is overlap with personality types from the OU MBA Module B822 ‘Creativity, Innovation & Change’ and from an educational perspective the Masters in Open & Distance Education (MAODE) that I have nearly completed.
I’m reading the notes I took attending a day long workshop Sport Psychology with the Ireland Olympic Swimmer Julie Douglas, now a sport scientist doing her PhD having started out with a degree in PE from Loughborough a decade before.
I love that so much of what I did in my recent Open University Module ‘Creativity, Innovation and Change’ relate to personality type and the role it plays.
I have perspectives on this now from education, from business and from sport as well as two years of cognitive behavioural therapy to make me less a hedgehog and more a guinea-pig (my words!)
This from Eynsenk & Cattell
For Unit 5 I went up to the Commonwealth Pool in Manchester for the workshop. I wrote up the assignment but never got round to sending it in. It was on the Psychology of Sport.
An introduction to sports fitness from the Open University
From jamie’s year.
Coaching and Teaching Swimming 