How sports coaching develops athletic skill

Sports coaching is directing, instructing, and training a sports team or athlete. What helps coaches develop athletic skill, and how can they guide athletes as their skills grow? The lessons consider coaching approaches, skill development, and the ways instruction can support sound technique.

2 articles, 1 video, 1 book · about 23 min of reading and viewing

The reading path

1. Read
   

   sports coaching · Wikipedia · 16 min read

   Sports coaching development was first categorized with a 5 C's model: competence, confidence, connection, character and compassion. It was later shortened to a 4 C's model by combining character and compassion. In sports coaching, a 12-week randomized controlled trial with novice athletes found that online instruction led by professional athletes outperformed traditional in-person coaching in developing complex skills such as service accuracy and acrobatic spike execution, while producing comparable development in foundational ball control mechanics. Youth football coaches primarily aid players' technical-skill development. By senior level (aged 18 and over), players are expected to know the tactical basis of the game.

2. Read
   

   Weightlifting Coaching Cues: On and Off the Platform - Breaking Muscle · Breaking Muscle · 4 min read

   For snatch technique, a coach breaks the technique into learnable chunks, or parts to work on separately, and develops simple cues for the worst aspect of each chunk. Once the problem is corrected, the cue may only be used infrequently when the error creeps back or perhaps never again. Learning chunk is a part of technique broken down for learning. Two athletes may have different parts of the learning chunk that cause them problems.

3. Watch
   

   Strength Training Beats Functional Training for Athletic Performance | Educational Video | Biolayne · YouTube · 3 min watch

   A randomized trial of well-trained adolescent soccer players compared strength training, plyometrics plus sprint training, and functional training. Strength training produced better results across several performance measures.

4. Book
   

   The Talent Code: Greatness Isn't Born. It's Grown. Here's How. · Bookshop.org

   The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle describes his years investigating the possible origins of skill and argues that biology and myelin are major factors in producing success across fields including sports.

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