Debating the scientific and theoretical notions underpinning sports coaching
An important and generally under-discussed area in sport is that of warm ups. This post will break into two stages; first, a rationale/theoretical discussion is given behind principles of warm up design. 4 key principles that inform how I would design warm ups for goalkeepers in football, which can be transferred into multiple invasion games. […]
Read More Scruffy rambles on Goalkeepers warm upsGoing Beyond the Opposed v Unopposed Dualism Unopposed v Opposed, Technique v Skill – these arguments are forever plaguing twitter, facebook and coaching platforms. Some arguments come from theory, others from years of coaching experience, but all seem to be missing a really obvious point… everything pertains to context. I’ve seen lots of videos of […]
Read More The importance of context underpinning the purpose of learning and trainingLJMU QE Conferencev2
Read More QE presentation slides from LJMU ICCE Student ConferenceAbstract The ability to generate powerful and rapid actions is a vital component needed by athletes in order to access elite sport, particularly football. From the position of the Goalkeeper it is even more important for the athlete to be able to bound into dives, jumps and collapses in order to prevent goals. The aim […]
Read More Increasing a Goalkeepers Power Output – An integrated interventionAfter years of struggle, the culture of football has shifted, and even more so with the FA’s DNA – English football has changed. This summer has demonstrated perfectly with the success of the England Youth Teams and emphasis of creativity, empowerment and game based learning. Underpinning this seems to be the role out of the […]
Read More The Forgotten Position: Will Goalkeeping ever get a make over?The below piece i wrote for a final year paper, its a bit long and probably a year out of date in regards to ecological dynamics and the language used around it. The whole thing is from the ‘ivory tower’ and is almost intentionally removed from the practical world of coaching. But hopefully prompts some […]
Read More Sports Teams, Practice Design, Mathematical Models, Predictive Coding and Collective Behaviours in Sport. An unnecessary rambleAffordances, again, but simpler… I attempted some form of analysis on the meaning of affordances in part 1, but whilst being stuck in my academic ivory tower it offered little clarity in the use of them, ultimately widening the gap between coaching and theory. In an attempt to write something more useful, I’ll quote sections […]
Read More Affordances Explained – Some brief notes… part 2Affordances Explained Affordance is the new ‘in vogue’ term, and appears to be replacing the Constraints-Led Approach (CLA) as the modern evolving coaching methodology. Similarly to the nature of a CLA, affordances exist, they are properties of the environment that are ‘real’, emerging and decaying naturally. By definition, an affordance is the key origin of […]
Read More Affordances Explained – some brief notes…Brookes Grad College 17 The link above is a downloadable copy of a current study i’m engaged with, attempting to understand the gaze behaviours of elite Goalkeepers and the lengths of which it can be used to inform the representativeness of practice designs. The conference poster is a concise introduction to the proposed methodology (albeit […]
Read More Conference Submission – Shh we’re talking about the QEOn the opening weekend, Hulls seemingly shocking victory over Leicester seemed almost impossible before kick off, yet provides the ideal platform for this post. Leicester, renowned for their attacking pace and direct approach (which essentially won them the league last year) were expected to follow suit, balls into the channels for Vardy and Musa to […]
Read More Clubs in the bag: Attaining an optimal grip on the opportunities in the game.
Coaching Corner 