Coaching technique

‚Technique coaching, I’ve never done with Andy before – zero … because I believe that it simply does not bring anything belendltween 27 and 29. On the other hand, because I’m lousy in technical training.‘

Nicely put to the point by Ivan Lendl, the coach of the world number one Andy Murray. Whether he argues in the sense of our coaching philosophy of INNER COACHING, perhaps a daring presumption. Nevertheless, the quotation says a lot and supports our methodological approach: game-oriented and action-oriented instead of technology-oriented.

„Techniktraining? Habe ich mit Andy noch nie gemacht – null….Zum einen, weil ich daran glaube, dass es zwischen 27 uns 29 schlichtweg nichts mehr bringt. Zum anderen, weil ich mies im Techniktraining bin.“

Schön auf den Punkt gebracht von Ivan Lendl, dem Coach des Weltranglistenersten Andy Murray. Ob er damit im Sinne unserer Trainingsphilosophie des INNER COACHING argumentiert, wäre vielleicht eine gewagte Vermutung. Dennoch sagt das Zitat etwas aus und unterstützt unsere methodische Vorgehensweise: spiel- und handlungsorientiert statt technikorientiert.

Willingness fatigues

If you have to force yourself to act, then self control suffers (self exhaustion or „Ego-Depletion“), if after that is another challenge. It could be shown, that an emotional effort at the beginning of the experiment reduces the ability in the second phase to endure the physical effort involved in strength training. It is enough if we are challenged before the effort to have to choose between „virtuous foods“ (E.g. radish and celery) and chocolate or sweet biscuits. Who resists the temptation and remains „virtuous“ is faster with the following cognitive or physical task! But in addition to such serious decisions before the race there are still more strenuous situations that restrict our creativity, our conflict resolution skills, our logical thinking and may damage our athletic performance:

  • when you try not to think about pink elephants
  • when you try to crowd out emotional stirring thoughts
  • unsolved conflicts you carry around
  • if you want to impress others
  • if you try to stay keen, when I’m feeling badly treated by someone

That overwhelms our nervous system. The value of blood sugar drops, if our self-control is demanded. In corresponding experiments could be demonstrated, that e.g. with glucose-sweetened lemonade can restore the ability to self regulate despite (pre-)load.

Source: Daniel Kahneman. Fast and slow thinking. Munich 2011

Data-driven approach vs „old-approach“

„When the data-driven approach to high-stakes decision-making did not lead to immediate success—and, occasionally, even when it did—it was open to attack in a way that the old approach to decision-making was not.“ (Michael Lewis)

This article is about Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky and their research about decision making that has a great influence in sports.

How Two Trailblazing Psychologists Turned the World of Decision Science Upside Down

More about Kahnemann

Willensanstrengung ist ermüdend

Part-to-whole training

„Regrettably, concluding and/or seeking to demonstrate that “part-to-whole training progressions” are a preferred instructional paradigm simply because such progressions appear to “make sense”, … This ignores nearly a century of scientific evidence and volumes of published research that have conclusively demonstrated that part progressions have minimal transfer to the whole skill and in a number of scientific studies part training methods have actually demonstrated negative transfer.“