Coaches Corner

There was an interesting video posted recently where a coach makes the point that hard work is not the same as competitiveness, which is a really good point. Here is the video: I previously wrote a post discussing 'Hard Work'.  On THIS post I want to discuss 'Competitiveness'. Firstly, let's quickly note some misconceptions: You are not either Competitive or Not Competitive Competitiveness is a spectrum, unsurprisingly, because pretty much everything related to human beings is a spectrum. Different people have different levels of competitiveness. Some levels are occasionally useful in sport, but often negative in sport and life. You are not Necessarily the same level of competitive in different situations Competitiveness is situational, like ' Grit '. You can be competitive when there is nothing on the line, but not be competitive when there is. An obvious (and admittedly clumsy) example is that you can be competitive in sport but not care where you place

I recently saw a video of a coach discussing that working hard and competing are not the same. Which is a really interesting idea to me. The point was that anyone can work hard. And that a coach can make anyone work hard. Which I don't really agree with but I understand the point, I think. Then afterwards I realised there were a few things missing. But first I want to note, I really liked the clip. It really resonated with me and made me think. Maybe too much!   Ok, I'll assume you have watched the video now, or have seen it before. If not, stop and watch it. Don't be that person who forms an opinion on something just by reading the headline and the comments! Now........... (Arguably) the two biggest myths in sport are all athletes are competitive 1 and all athletes can work hard all the time if they want to Neither are true at all Having said that, both are really important ideas for getting the most out of athletes. So, a few of questions came to mind: Are they related o

I recently asked a friend of mine who is an expert in Skill Acquisition about reading and reacting. My exact question was: "What is the difference between reading and reacting? Is reacting even a thing?" As usual his reply was excellent, illuminating, and managed to avoid scientific terminology so it was easy to understand. The response in full is: In the literature it is called the perception-action coupling, and refers to how your brain (using mainly your eyes) takes in information and then uses that to make decisions. It is important to note that this process is continuous, and not as ‘isolated’ as we might conceptualize in sport. This read and react continues multiple times per second as we perform the task, continuing to use information to shape our movement. So in a soccer example, you have the ball and ‘read’ the options, you make your decision, but are continually perceiving information to make sure that it is the right decision, and continually using that inf