I have been offering workshops for climbing coaches across the UK throughout this year now. These workshops have been on behalf of Mountain Training Association (MTA) and the Association of Mountaineering Instructors (AMI). My previous workshops have been aimed at young athletes so being offered an opportunity to work with a different audience group was not only challenging but very exciting.
I feel that sport psychology workshops only work well if they are targeted for a particular audience. For example, I would offer different workshops for recreational climbers than if I were to offer them to recreational basketball players. Not only are the sport issues, fears and pressures different but different sport motivations and drives may be at play as well. You also have the ‘team’ component to basketball as well compared to the fairly individual nature of climbing. Additionally, workshops tend to be long and topics covered will need to be relevant to them. This will keep the individuals engaged and will motivate them to become involved in any activities/discussions set. The ability to maintain this level of focus and attention throughout the duration of the workshop is probably one of the most important aspects of any workshop. By tailoring workshops in this way, I avoid boredom, restlessness and information overload (which can only lead to confusion). This is not easy to plan when you have a workshop dealing with topics involving sport psychology. These workshops tend to be classroom based (involving little or no practical activities on the climbing wall). Therefore, the only factor I have to play with is the content of the workshop.
My workshop material and information for this audience were of course, fundamentally different to what I offer to young children. As climbing coaches tend to be older, they should be able to grasp the complex nature of sport psychology more. They are also established professional coaches so they will already have a wealth of information about coaching and climbing in their repertoire. Therefore, the benefits of targeting workshops towards this particular audience were that I could go more in-depth into psychological methods and also, work with existing coaching information that the coaches had already developed. I could also go into theoretical concepts and the physiological effects that certain psychological methods had on an individual. I could do all this while expecting not to lose the individual along the way.
So how exactly did I attack presenting half day workshops? My aim was threefold. First, I knew that I wanted to offer something more than just the basics of psychology. Most of us, more so athletes and coaches, have a basic concept of psychology in our sport. I wanted to go into depth by talking about underlying theories and discuss just exactly how each tool can work. Second, I wanted the coaches to come out of the workshop confident that they could apply methods into existing, or new, coaching schedules. And third, I wanted to facilitate discussions by drawing their expertise of previous coaching experiences combined with my psychological knowledge, to offer a satisfactory coaching plan that combined both physical and psychological elements.
To target the first aim, I wanted to keep to the most popular mental skills applied in sport today: self-talk, imagery and goal setting. I realised that most individuals, especially athletes and coaches, may already have a grasp of these skills already but may not be aware of how exactly these techniques work. I started from the beginning (quite literally, the origins of the technique) and worked towards the end (how the skill is used widely today by professional athletes) and introduced a number of theoretical concepts. A lot of coaches and athletes I have come across understand what each tool consists of but are in the dark with regards to how exactly it works and why it works. For example, most can explain what self talk is and when it should be used in performance but do not have any answers when asked about the underlying cause and effect of self-talk. Questions like: just how exactly does it affect us? What is happening in the background for us to be affected by certain words/phrases? How can we improve on the effectiveness of self-talk?
From my experience as both an athlete and a psychologist, if I understand the underlying reasons as to why something is happening or how exactly it is affecting my physiological response(s), then I would invest more of my time, effort and practice into learning this new technique/action. As well as covering each skill in-depth, I presented my own practical work as evidence. For example, with imagery, I discussed how this skill triggers certain physiological responses in our brain and therefore, could be just as effective as physically doing an action (if done correctly) and demonstrated this by showing imagery in action that I had used with a client.
To address the second and third aims, I introduced an activity which engaged the coaches throughout the workshop. This activity touched upon each tool but applied in different scenarios. The scenarios were broken down into several stages and techniques were implemented at different stages and were then reflected upon whether they were beneficial or debilitating. This exercise was great as it combined both physical and psychological approaches to attacking potential issues. It was evident that mental skills can be easily implemented into new, and existing, coaching programs and if introduced correctly, can lead to many benefits leading to performance gains and mental resilience (one of the factors to optimal performance). The exercise also demonstrated how each tool can be used to address common issues like confidence and fear of falling in climbing. To the coaches that attended the workshop looking for confidence at applying mental skills into coaching plans, it certainly provided the guidance that these coaches required.
The joys of presenting to this audience are twofold: first, I can really go in-depth into psychology and pull out all my research and journal books to offer them the most up-to-date material out there. It is not just about showing them sport psychology but teaching them sport psychology that I know will be used in their daily coaching sessions. Younger children are more interested in the actions of sport psychology whereas coaches are more interested in the underlying reasons behind such actions, or the working cogs behind certain actions/behaviours. And second, it is always great to gain an insight into an established coach’s work and opinions. The discussions, often lengthy, that these workshops facilitated were not only an eye opener for me but also to the other coaches attending the workshop. It was great to pull together the coaches physical coaching expertise and my psychological expertise to create an effective coaching plan. We all took something away from this workshop, whether it be physical, psychological or both.
Published 24 November 2015
I feel that sport psychology workshops only work well if they are targeted for a particular audience. For example, I would offer different workshops for recreational climbers than if I were to offer them to recreational basketball players. Not only are the sport issues, fears and pressures different but different sport motivations and drives may be at play as well. You also have the ‘team’ component to basketball as well compared to the fairly individual nature of climbing. Additionally, workshops tend to be long and topics covered will need to be relevant to them. This will keep the individuals engaged and will motivate them to become involved in any activities/discussions set. The ability to maintain this level of focus and attention throughout the duration of the workshop is probably one of the most important aspects of any workshop. By tailoring workshops in this way, I avoid boredom, restlessness and information overload (which can only lead to confusion). This is not easy to plan when you have a workshop dealing with topics involving sport psychology. These workshops tend to be classroom based (involving little or no practical activities on the climbing wall). Therefore, the only factor I have to play with is the content of the workshop.
My workshop material and information for this audience were of course, fundamentally different to what I offer to young children. As climbing coaches tend to be older, they should be able to grasp the complex nature of sport psychology more. They are also established professional coaches so they will already have a wealth of information about coaching and climbing in their repertoire. Therefore, the benefits of targeting workshops towards this particular audience were that I could go more in-depth into psychological methods and also, work with existing coaching information that the coaches had already developed. I could also go into theoretical concepts and the physiological effects that certain psychological methods had on an individual. I could do all this while expecting not to lose the individual along the way.
So how exactly did I attack presenting half day workshops? My aim was threefold. First, I knew that I wanted to offer something more than just the basics of psychology. Most of us, more so athletes and coaches, have a basic concept of psychology in our sport. I wanted to go into depth by talking about underlying theories and discuss just exactly how each tool can work. Second, I wanted the coaches to come out of the workshop confident that they could apply methods into existing, or new, coaching schedules. And third, I wanted to facilitate discussions by drawing their expertise of previous coaching experiences combined with my psychological knowledge, to offer a satisfactory coaching plan that combined both physical and psychological elements.
To target the first aim, I wanted to keep to the most popular mental skills applied in sport today: self-talk, imagery and goal setting. I realised that most individuals, especially athletes and coaches, may already have a grasp of these skills already but may not be aware of how exactly these techniques work. I started from the beginning (quite literally, the origins of the technique) and worked towards the end (how the skill is used widely today by professional athletes) and introduced a number of theoretical concepts. A lot of coaches and athletes I have come across understand what each tool consists of but are in the dark with regards to how exactly it works and why it works. For example, most can explain what self talk is and when it should be used in performance but do not have any answers when asked about the underlying cause and effect of self-talk. Questions like: just how exactly does it affect us? What is happening in the background for us to be affected by certain words/phrases? How can we improve on the effectiveness of self-talk?
From my experience as both an athlete and a psychologist, if I understand the underlying reasons as to why something is happening or how exactly it is affecting my physiological response(s), then I would invest more of my time, effort and practice into learning this new technique/action. As well as covering each skill in-depth, I presented my own practical work as evidence. For example, with imagery, I discussed how this skill triggers certain physiological responses in our brain and therefore, could be just as effective as physically doing an action (if done correctly) and demonstrated this by showing imagery in action that I had used with a client.
To address the second and third aims, I introduced an activity which engaged the coaches throughout the workshop. This activity touched upon each tool but applied in different scenarios. The scenarios were broken down into several stages and techniques were implemented at different stages and were then reflected upon whether they were beneficial or debilitating. This exercise was great as it combined both physical and psychological approaches to attacking potential issues. It was evident that mental skills can be easily implemented into new, and existing, coaching programs and if introduced correctly, can lead to many benefits leading to performance gains and mental resilience (one of the factors to optimal performance). The exercise also demonstrated how each tool can be used to address common issues like confidence and fear of falling in climbing. To the coaches that attended the workshop looking for confidence at applying mental skills into coaching plans, it certainly provided the guidance that these coaches required.
The joys of presenting to this audience are twofold: first, I can really go in-depth into psychology and pull out all my research and journal books to offer them the most up-to-date material out there. It is not just about showing them sport psychology but teaching them sport psychology that I know will be used in their daily coaching sessions. Younger children are more interested in the actions of sport psychology whereas coaches are more interested in the underlying reasons behind such actions, or the working cogs behind certain actions/behaviours. And second, it is always great to gain an insight into an established coach’s work and opinions. The discussions, often lengthy, that these workshops facilitated were not only an eye opener for me but also to the other coaches attending the workshop. It was great to pull together the coaches physical coaching expertise and my psychological expertise to create an effective coaching plan. We all took something away from this workshop, whether it be physical, psychological or both.
Published 24 November 2015