The FUNdamentals of Movement

The FUNdamentals of movement are usually referred to as the A,B,C's, this is because the 3 skills that can be transferred to any sport are agility, balance and coordination. It is suggested that developing the A,B,C's at a young age can help the athlete develop more complex skills as they progress. The reason for this is that the athlete develops a good foundation of the 3 basic skills and as a result the athlete will be able to adapt and learn new skills a lot faster. Top coaches also suggest that if an athlete develops a good foundation the athlete should theoretically be able to play all sports, in my opinion I think that the A,B,C's are not taken as seriously as they should be and coaches/teachers don't pay enough attention to this area, for example I have seen too many children aged 9-12 who can not catch a ball or can't demonstrate changes of direction and they carry on running in straight lines.

You can train the A,B,C's with simple activities such as ladders; ladders help develop the athlete's coordination and balance is developed to a degree. The activities need to be targeting all areas, for example in coordination both foot and hand eye coordination need to be trained. In my opinion the A,B,C's should be developed frequently during sessions and they should target all ages to help retain the athletes skill base. Furthermore I think it is more important to do A,B,C's at 13-14 years as wells as 7-8 years of age, this is because through puberty and growth spurts the athlete will lose coordination as limbs grow at different rates. I have had experience of this in the past as I went through a big growth spurt around 14/15 years and my balance was dramatically affected and my coordination suffered in terms of catching and kicking a football. My football coach at the time wasn't really aware of the difficulties I was facing and this resulted in losing my starting place in the team. I quickly lost patience with the sport as I thought I was not good enough but really I just needed to go back to basics.

I attended a rugby league coaching course called 'becoming caypable' (yes that is how they spelt it) the course was similar to a level one in terms of basic games and activities you can do with a group. When watching a group demonstrate a few of the games I began to see the quality and I appreciated the game in terms of A,B,C development. The game that I saw was a game called 'king of the ring', the game is played in a circle and the athletes wear tag rugby belts and have to steal the tags off their opponents until they are the last man standing. After analysing the game I found that it was fun, engaging and effective. The athletes had to grab the tags off each other and this helped their balance by leaning and also their hand eye coordination. The athletes also had to dodge opponents and change direction very quickly to protect their tags. This game covers all 3 areas and is very fun, I am trying to look for more games that allow all 3 skills to be developed.

Finally, to summarise the above the FUNdamental movements otherwise known as the A,B,C's are essential in developing an athletes skill foundation. There is research to suggest that developing a good skill foundation will set the athlete up to develop their skills more effectively and at a faster rate, also if the athlete has developed a good foundation they should be able to transfer the skills to nearly any other sport. The A,B,C's should be developed as early as possible to develop the skill foundation however, from playing experience I think that they need to be continually tested and developed along with growth spurts and puberty. This is because limbs grow at different rates and the A,B,C's will be affected in one way or another. The activities need to be fun for them to be effective, the clue is in the first 3 letters 'FUNdamentals', the athletes will enjoy the activities and take a lot from them if they are fun no matter how old the group is.

The Reflective Coach

Reflection is when you cast your mind back at recent events and then describe what happened. We usually ask questions about the experiences, for example what happened? Why did it happen? How did it happen? It is very useful to look into feelings and explore how you felt and why you felt that way etc.

A coach can reflect on their sessions to see if they have achieved the aims and objectives. Reflection also allows you as a coach to look back at past performances to see if you did the best you could of done and to see if there is anything you could have done better.

It is recommended that you reflect a few days after the session so that you will have a clearer mind, for example if you are angry at how bad the session went your view will be very biased if you reflect straight after, where as if you reflect a few days after you could find that the session was not as bad as you thought.

The way to reflect on a coaching session is to have a few questions or a model to follow. The model that I find is really effective but also easy to follow is Gibb's reflective cycle (pictured below). A few days after the session take a look back; identify the positives of the session, then explore what made it a positive element? Was it your demonstration that made it so successful? Then write down what you did, for example 'my demonstration helped the athletes understand the drill a lot better because I did a good example and a bad example'. Next look at a possible improvement, so what didn't go so well? What could I do to make it better? For example, 'my explanation was poor because I rambled on, so next time I need to communicate verbally in 3 sharp clear points.'

There are many benefits reflection can have on you as a coach, reflection helps identify positives and improvements within the session. This will help your development because as a coach it's all about learning, it's a fact that activities you deliver will at times not have the desired outcome. However it's how you adapt the sessions or change the way you deliver the session that will help improve the outcome. Furthermore the problem could be with a child, the child could be misbehaving and you reflect on how you handled it. It is worth noting everything down because you can look back on it at a later date when you need some help or a reminder of what worked last time with a certain child or group.

I engage in a lot of reflection due to a lot of university modules and I have found that reflection has had a massive impact on my coaching. Reflection has made me look at my coaching in a whole different way, I also look at how to make my coaching better because I find it easier highlighting what went wrong rather than what went well. A tutor told me if a referee can't remember the game they have had a good game. We all focus on the negatives but really we should look at what was positive and why did it go well? I have had a good experience of reflecting and will continue to reflect on my sessions as it helps me develop as a coach by improving on weaknesses but also helps me highlight the successes.

To conclude, reflecting on a session helps you as a coach to identify positives and weaknesses of a session, however the deeper you reflect the more you will get out of it. So asking why and how will help get deeper into the reflection. The reflection should take place a few days after because you will be biased towards the session it will be more effective if you have a clear mind. Then the next stage is to act upon the reflection and develop this into future sessions.

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Session Planning

This post is looking at planning a coaching sessions and some key points that need to be considered.

An interesting quote to consider “Fail to plan, plan to fail.” ― Hillary Rodham Clinton


A session plan obviously needs to be tailored to the group that you are coaching, this includes; age, gender, stage of physical development, religion, past experience and learning styles. There are a vast amount of factors that need to be considered and I have probably missed a few off the list. The plan helps add structure to the session and helps explain the session to other coaches who may see it. A session plan is usually split into 3 parts; Warm up, main session and cool down. These 3 parts are sometimes broken down again into smaller parts. For example my sessions start with a warm up, then we have 3 stations for the main session and then a cool down with a debrief.

The main point I want to stress is that the session needs to be fun and engaging, this helps the athletes stay focused and enjoy the session. At the end of the day you need to make the session enjoyable so the athletes actually turn up again the week after. At times as a coach this can be a struggle with certain aspects of a sport can be a little bit boring and tedious but it's the coach's role to make the boring aspect into a interesting fun one. A good example of a session which allows the athlete to have a bit of fun is one i have heard from the UKA tutors who explained that Phillips Idowu (Olympic Triple Jumper)plays basketball in his triple jump sessions for the warm up and cool downs. This keeps him motivated and happy because before joining athletics he came from a basketball background however, what is even more interesting it ticks the relevant boxes that make a good warm up. It raises his pulse, there is some element of stretching trying to block the ball and the joints have the opportunity to be mobilised with different movements with dribbling,passing and shooting. Another interesting point, is with triple jump there is a huge amount of force going through the knee, there is research to suggest that it's around 10x of your body weight that goes through the knee when executing the sequence. In basketball there are elements of jumping and landing and this allows Phillips to gradually get his body ready for the stress that will be put on his body during the session.

A good learning environment needs to be in incorporated for the session to be as effect as possible. Again, this comes down to the group of athletes you have to work with and as a coach you will have to decide how the learning will take place. There are many coaching methods that can encourage learning, examples of these can be athlete lead sessions, guided discovery and problem based scenarios. When choosing a method it is crucial that the coach considers the different learnt styles within the group, this will relate to the amount of learning that will take place. The more accommodating you are for the group's learning styles, the better chance of quality learning taking place.

With session plans it is important to have a session goal for the athletes but it is just as important to have a coaching goal for yourself. By going through the UKA athletics coaching courses they promote that you have a coaching goal incorporated within your session. An example of a coaching goal is clear concise instructions and explanations. It is crucial as a coach you develop as a coach because coaching and sport is constantly changing and you will have to change along with it.

The session plan needs to include an opportunity for a debrief to check the understanding of the athletes. This also allows the opportunity to justify to the athletes why the session was delivered in that way. A debrief can be used to re cap the goals of the session and give feedback on what the athletes have achieved. In coaching, session goals are usually something technical and the other 3 areas are missed. These areas are; physiological , tactical and psychological. The session should include more than one so that the athletes are being challenged across the board not just on one aspect. There is theory to suggest that as coaches we should be doing a lot more around cognitive effort, this is testing the psychological side of the athlete performance. An example could be dealing with disturbance and pressure from the crowds, the coach could have somebody trying to put the athletes off when trying to execute a skill.

Finally, it is key that a contingency plan is included within a session plan because as a coach you need to expect the unexpected at times. For example one week you could have 30 athletes turn up and the next week only 10 turn up. The session needs to be adapted or tweaked so that the group can go forwarded with the session but also still have a quality session. In addition, there could be a weather issue, so for example if it rains and your session is outside can you adapt the session so that it can safely go ahead. Sometimes the session might need to be changed completely because the quality of the session could be effected and the activity may have to be changed to an activity more suitable for the conditions an example could be changing a javelin session and do some endurance work in the cover of the trees.

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Coaching Philosophy?

The purpose of this post is to educate new coaches or existing coaches about having a coaching philosophy.

What is a coaching philosophy?
A coaching philosophy is based on your experience, beliefs, values and opinions. This is a philosophy in itself but you can make it a lot more specific to the group you coach or what you want to get from a group of athletes/players. This raises the question; what kind of coach do you want to be? This can be done by looking back at coaches who have coached you in the past, was it good/successful coaching? And when I say 'successful coaching' I am not relating this to win percentage but development, did the coach develop you or the team well? All coaches have their own style and way of coaching and this is evident watching football managers, some are calm and tactical on the other hand some demonstrate a lot more energy and hands on approach.

My old athletics coach, Arthur Almond is arguably one of the best endurance coaches the sport has had in the UK by developing many athletes over a vast period of time. Taking athletes from just introducing them to the sport in the first instance to challenging the worlds best at world championships and commonwealth games. Unfortunately he past away in December 2012, I was lucky enough to be coached by this great man and I have tried to adopt his coaching style and philosophy. His style is very laid back and allowed the athletes to develop at their own speed. Nowadays you see coaches telling players/athletes what they need to do all the time whereas Arthur took a step back and didn't suffocate the athletes. He did a lot behind the scenes in terms of planning sessions and preparing the athletes for competitions, he also was available for one to one chats and when he felt it was necessary he would initiate the one to ones. Arthur provided the athletes with the tools to be successful and never forced anything upon the athlete, he gave the athlete the opportunity to make their own choices.This style helped the athlete develop and understand their training but also gave them a choice and this was dependant on how the athlete felt in terms of fatigue and motivation wise. Arthur was clever with his sessions as the choices were both relevant in preparing the athlete in relation to competition schedule. His philosophy was based on 'its all about the athlete' there is no point doing a session that will do more harm than good physiologically and psychologically. Through experience he knew what the athletes needed and also what they wanted which I feel is key to efficient and effective coaching.

My philosophy is very much based on the above but I work with much younger athletes ranging from 8-12 years of age and at this stage it is all about fun. I want to put on sessions that will keep the athletes interested in the sport and keep them turning up every week. With the older of athletes from 10 onwards I start to ask a lot of questions to test their understanding. These questions try to encourage reflection, I want the athletes to tell me why the javelin went so far or in some cases why did it not go as far? The reaction and process I want is the athlete looking back at their technique and working out what happened. There is an element of guided discovery within my sessions as I have accepted that the athletes will make mistakes as they learn new techniques and at times unnatural techniques they are not used to. My coaching is not competition orientated as I like to prepare the athlete with the tools to develop their performance further if they wish. I focus on the fundamentals and the ABC's, by developing these the athlete can play most other sports as they have a strong starting skill base. Nearly 4 years coaching at Blackburn Harriers I have never attended any of the athlete's competitions only if I am performing myself at the venue. Main reason is due to work commitments but also some of the attitudes and priorities of parents from other clubs infuriates me. There is too much emphasis on winning which should not be the main focus at that age, for some of the athletes it's their first experience of sport and competition and the pressure is ridiculous. I found out a few months ago that my boys team won the team competition in Lancashire sports hall series and the girls came 3rd. I was very pleased for my athletes, myself and the other coaches as it shows that the sessions are working in terms of allowing the athletes to challenge in competitions, but also numbers have rapidly increased in the last 4 years from 40 athletes to 80 athletes with a waiting list of 30.

Just to summarise, a coaching philosophy is an important aspect a coach should consider and this needs to be based on your experience, beliefs, values and opinions. Write it down and refer back to it, also it could change along the way as you develop as a coach. I recommend that you watch other coaches and talk to other coaches, as this is an opportunity to share ideas and thoughts. Any comments would be much appreciated.

Entering the Blogging World

After reading a fellow coaches' blog I have found that it can be a great tool in sharing ideas and thoughts. This is an opportunity to help other coaches out in relation to athletics or other coaching contexts furthermore, this can play a vital part in developing my own coaching performance by analysing all aspects from delivery to running a team.

I have a vast experience in playing in a range of different sports and I am your typical all rounder. I started off playing football from the age of 9 for my local team Akzo Nobel, I was successful in the first 2-3 years with the club with an invitation to train with Burnley Academy. However nothing materialised due to transport and commitment issues and my passion for football was on the decline. During this time I played a lot of cricket and badminton with school,clubs and parents. I enjoyed cricket and badminton as I could use other skills that have been developed by playing on the local field with parents and friends. In year 11 I approached my P.E teacher about having a go at the cross country again as I have participated in year 7 and 8, this is due to decent results on the bleep test and cooper run. After representing the school in year 11 and having had brilliant run I passed my best position of 60+ and finished 7th, after crossing the line I was handed 2 letters one inviting me to run in the Lancashire Schools Cross County Championships and the other one inviting me to join Blackburn Harriers. This is where my interest in athletics took off and lead me to becoming Lancashire Schools 3000m Champion in 2010. Not long after joining the club I started helping out with the under 11's sports hall group.

I have been coaching athletics for the last 3 years at Blackburn Harriers and the club has played a massive part in developing my skills and confidence as a coach. The club has helped me financially to get on the various courses and I wouldn't be where I am today if it wasn't for the fantastic support from the club. Through Blackburn Harriers I have obtained the following qualifications; Athletics Leader Award (level 1), Assistant Coach Award (level 2)and Athletics Coach Award (level 3). I have gradually taken on more responsibility as the years have gone by from being a helper to planning and leading the sessions.

I am currently finishing my BA Hons Sports Coaching degree with UCLan, Preston and I have learnt a vast amount over the 3 year course. The course covers a wide range from learning about the impacts of government policies to coaching styles and methods. I have thoroughly enjoyed the course and feel that I have been equipped with the correct tools to succeed in coaching. I first got into coaching as a football coach, at college I was presented with the opportunity to undertaken a free FA Level 1 and I wanted to get involved in coaching football. As time went by and my exposure with athletics increased I felt that athletics offered more to me as an all rounder. The sport has a lot of skills and techniques to offer athletes and appealed a lot to me.

My involvement in coaching has opened many doors to me and one of them is the opportunity to carry the Olympic torch in Batley on the 25th June 2012. It was a crazy experience that I will never forget and want inspire people to get into sport either participating or coaching. http://youtu.be/JBCmyMb1ldc. I was awarded this life changing opportunity for my commitment to youth sport and my efforts to sustaining youngsters in sport through my volunteer work with Blackburn Harriers.