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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