The Roles of Applied Coaching - Article Example

Applied coaching Coaching is the practice of being trained by a trained coach. The person being trained is educated on coaching tips at the time with an aim of gaining professional or personal gain. Coaching can also be looked at as a situation when an individual with greater expertise and lots of experience leads the training of an individual with lesser experience after which the trained individual gains the knowledge after the exercise. Coaching is not an easy task as it requires a person with exceptional skills. The roles of a coach are so many and always varied, they include, 1. Giving advice to the athletes on the kind of training to be undertaken and advising them on the best kit and the right equipment to be used in training. 2. Always being able to assess the performance of the athletes during training and competitive participation. 3. The coach should demonstrate skills to the athletes which are required to better their performance. 4. When one becomes a coach of a certain team for long, there grows a close relationship which makes the coach a friend other than a profession. Such a status improves the interaction between the athletes and coaches thus better performances in the field and track. 5. The coach is able to identify friendly competitions, which are suitable to bring out healthy competition to assist them achieve their objectives. 6. Giving instructions to the athletes on the skills needed in their area of sport and also provide motivation and advice whenever needed. 7. A coach should be a mentor to the athletes as well as monitoring their safety and health both in training period and while competing.. Coaching may be complicated, but the coach should maintain some characters in order to make the training more efficient, and some of them may include, 1. The coach must be consistent in whatever is being addressed. A coach should not send complicated messages or contradict himself resulting in a state of confusion. The players trust is all vested in the coach. 2. A coach should always be honest with the team. The coach is expected to maintain coaching ethics through telling to the athletes just the way things are no matter the relationship between the two. The coach is expected to correct any mistake whenever it occurs in a positive manner so that the athlete may gladly accept to correct the mistake. When addressing a certain mistake, the coach should start on positive remarks but in between fix on how it would have been handled well than how it was done, and this may make the players ready to follow the right way. 3. Consistency should prevail when the coach is handling the players. The coach is not expected to make unclear statements to the team. A thought that is to be passed across the team should be clearly comprehended so that the idea conveyed is clear and consistent idea. A coach is expected to be to remain professional both in and out of the filed. 4. Body language is also observed when a coach is addressing the team. A coach is expected to present a body posture that suggests lots of enthusiasm and confidence. Even while congratulating athlete certain body languages are observed like giving a handshake or even hugging the athlete. The physical contact can depict different emotions to the players like happiness, affection and approval (BIZLEY, 1994,p. 78) 5. A skilled coach should be an excellent listener as they need to pay keen attention to the players. A coach should at all times be keen to listen and observe the verbal and non verbal languages of their players. The players should never have a problem recalling what was trained or failing to implement what they suggested if the coach is an excellent listener. In the UK, coaching has been identified by sports department to be an important factor in improved performances. Coaching has significantly supported services like sports science, lifestyle performance, innovation and research and this has helped improve the working conditions of the British athletes. The sport coaching programme in the UK ensures that coaching of high quality is delivered to the UK athletes who are on the UK Sports World Class Performance Pathway, and this is a scheme that has been created to discover, identify and improve the talents in the UK athletes. In order to achieve what is planned, the UK World Class Strategy is to provide programmes that are innovative and specific interventions aimed to satisfy the world class coaches’ needs (GALLIGAN, 2000, p. 82) Effective coaching in the UK is regarded the situation where the coach is always prompt at his/she work and the outcome being desirable. This will a sure the skills of the trained are improved. An effective training system should be the one in position to understands its participant’s needs, comprise of a highly trained and professional coaches and with the team being supportive of each other. Sport in England is viewed as a lottery that is distributed nationally as well as a public organization that is a non departmental. It is a body that is aimed at increasing levels of sport participation and creating a sports leading community system worldwide. The new strategy of sport England was officially started on 10th of June 2008, and it aimed at attaining its objectives come 2012/2013. Some of the objectives include, encouraging one million individuals to join sports, a 22% drop in the rate of 16 to 18 year old youths who quit various sports, a significance rise in people’s confidence in their level of experience in sporting and a delivery of sporting hours to the children and youth (BEASHEL and TAYLOR, 1997, p. 245) There is a programme that is being funded by sport England, which financially supports sport coaches that are ambitious in getting higher professional training and thus increasing the number of professional coaches who help in training of the players. High quality of coaching is believed to be an overriding factor in convincing people to join different sports and making it a habit forever. Survey that was carried out by sport England on the sports experiences showed that over 7.5 million individuals gained skills from coaching in the year 2007/2008 (McARDLE, 2000, p. 891) Sport England programme was set up to provide funding to the following activities, over 3900 bursaries to support individuals who were taking courses in sport coaching, supporting 1800 coaches and instructors who were willing to improve on their qualifications and supporting professional schemes used in coaching like the use of e-learning tool and other resources that are needed by professional coaches. The program has committed itself to invest in coaching for the next four years to come as it believes that the world needs professional coaches in order improve the sporting activities worldwide. An increase in the number of highly trained coaches will assist in achieving the set goal of attracting million players who enjoy sport and those who discover their talents and improve them. The programme was coordinated by the National Skills Academy for sports and Active Leisure, and it support the coaches by training, educating and offering them bursaries. Florence Orban who is the CEO was so happy in helping sport England fulfill their main objective of involving more people in sports and helping nature the talent of those that had an interest in sport. Their partnership helped in the growth of a long-lasting and skilled workforce that was aimed to improve sporting come 2012 in the Olympics (DAVIS, 2000, p. 123) The national council of youth sports is a programme that supports and encourages sporting activities among the youths. It was started in 1979, and its memberships comprise of over 200 associations, which serves over 60,000,000 participants from registered youth sports programmes (BEASHEL and TAYLOR, 1996, p. 78). The NCYS is designed to promote and encourage safe places and environments for the youth to explore their talents in the sporting activity. The programme exists to promote sports to the youth for today and the near future. NCYS is extremely rooted in America. Some of the youth sports organizations include :American Youth Soccer Organization whose season mainly falls between august and December and is for youths between 5 to 19 years, Charter Oak Youth Baseball and Softball Association which falls between February and June and for youths aged 4 to 14 years and many more. Bibliography BEASHEL, P. & TAYLOR, 1997. The World of Sport Examined, Thomas Nelson & Sons Ltd, London BEASHEL, P. & TAYLOR, J. 1996. Advanced Studies in Physical Education and Sport. Thomas Nelson & Sons Ltd, London BIZLEY, K. 1994, Examining Physical Education, Heinemann Educational Publishers, Oxford DAVIS, B. et al. 2000, Physical Education and the Study of Sport. Harcourt Publishers, London GALLIGAN, F. et al. 2000. Advanced PE for Edexcel, Heinemann Educational Publishers, Oxford McARDLE, W. et al. 2000. Essentials of Exercise Physiology. 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