So January comes around again and everybody sets out with fantastic aims of losing weight and improving their health after the Christmas excess. Gyms and weight loss clinics are full to the brim with new enthusiastic and eager customers looking to change their lives and improve their health for the better. However, scientific research has […]
Jose Mourinho sat with an unshaven beard and shaved head at the club’s Cobham training ground for the club’s annual Christmas meal just hours before he was sacked. He was in a disheveled state compared to the one we have come to know as the self proclaimed “special one” He has taken the club from […]
Coaching is far more than just teaching sports skills to individuals and teams. It is also about inspiring, giving confidence and motivating others by building quality relationships. You need to poses the emotional expertise in order to build those relationships with an individual or within a sports team. In sports psychology this emotional expertise is […]
For those of us who take an interest in what’s going on in the world of sport and performance psychology, the concepts of growth and fixed mindsets will be nothing new. Simply put, if you have a growth mindset you believe that abilities are not innate – they are developed through hard work and practice. Failure […]
THEORY: Stress is both good (positive) and bad (negative). It is how we deal with stress that is important. We need stress in our lives to provide us with opportunity. However, too much stress can lead to anxiety and an inability to perform. Positive stress encourages focus and maintains our ability to stay in tune […]
Youth sport is unique because it involves communication, coordination, and maintenance of relationships among multiple adults, all of whom are key stakeholders in a child-athlete’s sporting experience (Blom et al, 2013). The interpersonal relationships between the parent, coach and athlete are often referred to as the athletic triangle (Wylleman, 2000). Specifically in football, although it […]
The term ‘culture’ is thrown around a lot in sport. However, what does it mean exactly and, as coaches, how do we create and maintain it? While it is, largely, accepted that developing culture is important, particularly as we progress up the sporting pyramid to elite levels, there are common mistakes made. It is essential that coaches have […]
Injury is one of the most common threats that athletes encounter during the season. Athletes frequently take part in major competitions despite ‘having a niggle’ or carrying a larger injury, ignoring the pain and pushing through the pain barrier in order to achieve their goals. In the end, this can result in further injury and […]
There are around 2.7 million people diagnosed with diabetes in England, 90% of who have Type 2 diabetes (UK Health and Social Care Information Centre 2013); a chronic disease characterised by the body’s inability to regulate blood glucose concentrations. Incidence rate has been strongly associated with physical inactivity. (National Institute for Clinical Excellence 2012), which poses […]
Most coaches that I’ve encountered have what they call a “coaching philosophy” which seems to me a quite broad and unexplained term. It can be anything from “give 110%” to an entire page of rules and regulations, and everything in between. I see it so often that I wonder if that broad term can help […]