Your
athletes are located in regional areas, interstate or overseas and you do not
have direct access to them for the next 3 months. Consider how technology may
assist you to continue to coach them remotely during this period.
Context:
Due to work requirements, my athlete has been transferred to Albany for three
months.
After completing this unit I am now
confident that technology is able to assist
in providing assistance to my athlete in planning, monitoring,
evaluating and reflecting on her training during her time away.
Planning
Prior to leaving, I would meet with the
athlete to provide a three month program via visual coaching. As she can not
train with her coach and not working towards competition, the program would be
focusing on developing the fitness and gymnastic ability of the horse rather
than technicalities. Visual coaching is
able to provide a detailed program, which is easy to produce, share, adapt and
monitor.
We could also establish a preferred method
of communication, such as text, mobile, Facebook, email, skype or twitter.
Monitoring
Monitoring progress could be done in several
ways. One is for my athlete to keep a diary via visual coaching. We could agree
on which fields she would monitor and whether she would report on her or the
horse. For more detail, she could keep a blog of her training and any questions
that arise after each session.
I have developed goal setting and monitoring
sheets for another unit, these could be available on email or we could arrange
a time to conference via skype.
Another way in which technology could assist
is in providing feedback. The athlete can
videos her performance with either an iphone, ipad or video camera. A device is
now available which you can dock your iphone and it will follow the horse (if
she is on her own) in order to capture continuous footage.
Editing and selecting footage for feedback
is a beneficial strategy. My athlete can then email or text the file to me (via
wetransfer.com if it is large) and I can add my voice over to provide feedback.
Technology also allows the coach to conduct
video modeling. Such feedback via webased programs such as kinovea, or more
expensive programs such as dartfish and apps such as The Coach’s Eye and
Coachmyvideo allow informative feedback to be provided. I could then add this to her blog,
youtube, or email or text her the
feedback, (depending on the preferred communication method).
Live streaming has been considered, however
feedback is often delayed and the process can become frustrating to both the
athlete and the coach. This can be challenging across time zones.
As fitness will be a priority, using a
devise to formally monitor training loads is also a viable solution. The horse
could be fitted with Under Aromour which will provide valuable date on the
intensity of the workouts. These could
then be monitored and feedback provided.
Evaluation/Reflection
The athlete can evaluate and reflect her own
training strategies as well as the methods of feedback provided by the coach in
her journal/log book or blog.
Being away from the coach provides an
opportunity to develop skills in self-regulation and this can be discussed
before she leaves.
I have no doubt that technology now provides
more ways that ever for coaches to ensure that minimal disruption occurs to the
training program when geographical barriers prevent direct training.
