Coaches Corner

There is a common expression: "too much of a good thing" (thanks Shakespeare ), implying that excess of something that is beneficial, may actually end up having a negative effect.  I'm sure you've coached someone who doubled the dosage or weight or number of reps, and when asked why, replied that if 10 will make me stronger, then surely 20 will make me twice as strong! There are many many examples in sports.  Strength Training is great - but too much can reduce your ability to compete in your sport.  Jump training can help you jump higher, but too much can damage your joints.  Full contact tackling in practice can help teach technique, but too much can increase the chances of injury.  Preventative exercises before training can reduce injury risk, but if you only have 2 hours of training and spend 1 hour preventing injury, you don't have much time to get better. Measuring things is important and useful.  I was recently at a presentation by a multiple gold me

Scouting is important, but sometimes we forget what the outcome is supposed to be.  The outcome of scouting is to win (just like most of the things we do in coaching).  Its not enough just to 'know' what the other team is going to do.  There are two 'What's which need to be considered: What - the other team did When - the other team did it Why - the other team did what they did What - the other team will do in a given situation Quite often when we scout we only annotate what the other team did.  But the context of 'when' they did it provides a lot more information.  Time coded information can help a lot with this.  These things combined will, hopefully, resonate and you will be able to work out 'why' they did it.  This might be because of an individual tendency, because of a technical 'hitch', a mental/emotional issue, or, if you are good (and/or lucky) it will help you understand the philosophy of what they are doing. Even t