The Purpose of Warm Ups
Warms ups should be an essential part of any session. As a coach, do you see this as purely a physical warm up or also as psychological preparation for the game/training session ahead?
Best practice identifies that coaches should ensure that players and horses are physically prepared for action. For the player, exercise variety should be encouraged to improvement movement variability and support physical competence. There needs to be a balance of time given to effective warm ups and utilising coaching time effectively. Could we encourage our players to turn up well before the start time to warm up both physically and mentally so when they get onto the horse, they can maximise their training/game time?
Psychological preparation is critical. The coach can ask the players key questions to support their mental readiness whilst warming up, Examples could include:
- “What specific skills and / or techniques are you aiming to improve?”
- “From your last session, what do you need to improve on?”
You may also ask some scenario based or reflective questions:
- “Thinking about the game last weekend, how could we of improved tactically?“
These questions can help determine the readiness of the player for the session. It also gives an opportunity for the coach to give some guidance to the player(s).
In conclusion, it is recommended that coaches should plan their warms ups to be developmental, as well as preparatory.
Coaching Week 2020
This week is Coaching Week – a national awareness campaign, empowering everyone to celebrate great coaching. You can get involved in the campaign by:
Making a #GreatCoachingPledge
Following the campaign #UKCoachingWeek2020
Sharing your #GreatCoaching stories
Nominating your Coaching Hero.
For further information, please click here (https://www.ukcoaching.org/coaching-week)