Hi Everybody, my name is Dr. Tim Baghurst and I'm the Director of Sports and
Coaching Science at Oklahoma State University. I also have a small sports
performance practice called GOAT Sports Performance.
I've been asked by SASA, the Stillwater Area Sports Association, to provide a few educational
videos for coaches and also parents who are interested in this topic.
Today, what I want to present to you is how do you actually run a practice?
Because sometimes what I see, when practices are run, are kind of
discombobulated, as you will, disorganized, random practices that have no real purpose.
And there's a real opportunity here for coaches to really
prepare for practice and run an efficient practice. As a consequence, you
end up with a much better team and probably happier athletes as well.
So let's get right into it. First, I want to point out this quote down at
the bottom right from John Wooden, famous basketball coach, who says "Never mistake activity for achievement."
What he's saying here is that we tend to do a lot of
busy things, but it doesn't really mean we're getting better.
And that's sometimes what happens in practice, especially with youth sports.
So we're going to look at the beginning, middle, and end of practice.
So let's get going. Before you start, you have to
consider who you're working with: male, female, co-ed, what sport, and what age.
All of these things are important to determine how long you can run practices for,
how long they can run a specific station for, and how fast they can throw, kick, etc.
That has to be catered to when you set up practices. The second thing is you have
to look at is your philosophy and values and ask "What's most important?"
I've done a video on this already in terms of your philosophy and values, but really your
practice should be a reflection of what you value as important. If it's fun, then
how is your practice set up so that it models that? If it's skill development,
same thing. If it's both, how do you incorporate both of those together?
Also, look at how long their attention can be held. And this is difficult. A general
rule is about two times their age is how long you can effectively run
a station, for example, or specific practice. You need to be
cognizant of that and understand that I can't expect my
young athletes to throw balls for 35 minutes and be engaged, working hard all
the time, and focused etc. It's just not going to happen. Also consider
your housekeeping items. How do you deal with who's bringing what for next
practice, when our next game is, how are we gonna handle all these things?
Do you do it at the beginning of practice or do you do it at the end? Start time is an
important one too. It's easy to get a little bit lazy here. I love this quote:
"If you're early you're on time. If you're on time you're late."
Really, it's on you to start on time. You don't have much time when you have practices.
You don't see these athletes very often, so when you do see them, you need to use
all of the minutes effectively. I mentioned John Wooden already. He was
famous for writing out the entire season's worth of practices to the minute
because he wanted to make sure he used all the time he had with his athletes.
So what can you do to help or create a culture where athletes are on time?
Well, it starts with you being an example, and being there well ahead of time, getting
things set out, getting your stations set up so that you're not trying to do all
this busy work while they are there waiting to start. Establish those
expectations not just with the athletes but also with the parents.
Make it a priority. Unfortunately, you're going to have some athletes who are late or
who don't show up regularly. What are you going to do about it? I'm not saying
there's any hard or fast rules here, but it's something you have to consider.
Are you just going to, "Hey, Johnny. Just get in here and just catch up with everybody."
Well, what about all their warm-up that they missed? Now they're going in cold.
Again, it's something you have to consider. I'm not going to provide you
with the absolute solutions, because every situation is different, but this will happen.
Also, look at warmups. The reason I mentioned this is
because it's something I rarely see. Your typical warmup is everybody shows
up and maybe runs a lap or two around the field. Well, that's just not fun for
most people including myself. What's the purpose? To prepare the body for
exercise, increased heartrate, blood flow, get the body temperature up, improve your
flexibility, and be ready to start practice. Well, you don't have to do that by just
making somebody run around the field or throwing balls to each other. You need to
make sure it's long enough, but it also has to be engaging, relevant, and
interesting. How can you make warm-ups fun? How can you make warm-ups
interesting so that your athletes are actually engaged in the warm-up process?
Can you create a game out of it? Can you have them moving around the field,
throwing and catching, or or some kind of competitive environment? Sure why not!
It doesn't have to be this dull, kind of boring standard,
"Let's go. Let's just get through this so that we can get on with practice."
In middle you need to think about this skill development aspect. What are
you trying to teach them? If fun is part of your core values, and I hope it is if
you're coaching children, how are you going to make it fun? Are you going
to create stations where they move from one place to the other to keep it a little
bit engaged as opposed to doing something over and over and over again for 45 mins?
The MVPA (moderate vigorous physical activity) is something that a lot of kids
don't get very much of. And what I see, sometimes in practices especially,
is a lot of kids standing around doing very little.
They're not very engaged; they're not very active, so they're not really
getting that physical activity. An educational component is
something you could incorporate, especially if it's in your core values.
How can you teach nutrition? How can you talk about sleep or or what they should
be doing before they come to practice or for a game? All of these things can be taught,
life skills per se, into your practices. But how do you do it or when do you do it?
This last one is periodization.
What you're looking at behind the middle circle there is actually the
periodization training schedule of an Olympian. It's very complex; it's very
complicated. It goes through a whole season. What I'm trying to show you
there isn't that you should set out something similar for a group
of eight-year-olds. But how can you periodize or design your practices to
get them to the best situation at the end of the year. What needs to be taught first, for example?
What skills need to be practiced? Does their fitness need to be
a focus at the beginning, in the middle, or at the end of the season? All of these
things need to be considered rather than just going out, "Today I think we should practice this."
That's what I see a lot of and it's very ineffective coaching.
Then closing, look at the cool down and stretch. That's something again
I don't really see much of. What I see is, "Everybody take a knee. Let's deal with
some housekeeping stuff. Okay, get out of here, we're late." Well, your body's been
moving around. It does need to cool down. It can be stretched; stretch being
lengthening the muscles (and tendons) so that they're more flexible and able to perform more effectively.
It also avoids injuries. As you go from being physically active to doing
nothing at all, everything tightens up. Then clean up; if you've got balls
all over the field, for example, how does that get picked up? Are you using your
athletes, assistant coaches, or are you going to find yourself cleaning everything
up after everybody's left? Recovery is important as well, especially after very hard practices.
And that's teaching or providing that education for your young athletes
on how they can recover. Teaching the parents as well is great!
I don't see very much homework given in terms of what they can do at home to
practice or improve, whether it be watching a YouTube video, or reading an article,
or studying a certain player, or even getting out and doing some physical activity.
Why not? I mean, just because they're not at practice doesn't mean
they can't be practicing. But if you don't give them some direction,
chances are it's either going to be done incorrectly when they do practice,
or they're not going to practice at all. The last thing I like to
do is talk about what's coming next. We've talked about what we've done
during the practice, but then prepare them for the next session so they know
what's coming, and they can start thinking about it rather than,
"Okay, see you at our next practice." If you've planned out your schedule,
you know what you're practicing next and you can tell them.
Well, I hope this has been useful in some way
in terms of how you set out and operate a practice.
Every sport, every age is different, and every coach is different. But there are
some general guidelines. Of course, if you want more information about myself,
it's there at my website. Also, Stillwater Areas Sports Association, their website is
there to see what sports they offer, what ages, and how you can be involved in coaching.
Until next time, though, thanks so much for watching.
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