Well developed coaches have coached more than one sport.
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a variety of experiences can increase the breadth of skills to draw on.
For Coaches
Look for opportunities to diversify your athlete experience, to broaden your communication styles.
For Athletes
Working with different coaches is important to work out how you learn best and how to get the best from you. Be open minded to different coaching styles to learn what works best for you.
I appreciate that the headline sounds a little sensationalist, but I can think of only one expert I know personally that has been at the highest level at one team for over 20 years. Their unique and unprecedented success is, in my opinion, due to a deliberate personal development plan to constantly evolve and seek new knowledge making them incredibly valuable to the organisation.
From an S&C perspective, there is no doubt that success requires excellent technical skills. However, we are dealing with people and our growth and development as a coach requires experience. I have benefit from being involved in a number of sports over my career, and I believe that learning how to work with athletes and coaches transfer between sports just as the application of exercise. Each sport has its unique culture and language.
Team sport athletes are different to individual sport athletes. Rowers have a different culture to track and field. Extreme sport athletes are different again. It takes time to develop relationships with people that can only be achieved with time and awareness of relationship building skills. Being able to work with 30 or more different athletes (that’s 30 or more different personalities, backgrounds, etc) effectively in a single session involves the ability to subtly switch communication styles (language, tone), experience and background in an instant. You have to be able to read different people quickly and adjust your coaching style on the spot. That comes with reflection and diverse experiences.
That’s perhaps a reason why we value experience. More experienced coaches have a broader range of backgrounds to draw on to handle situations. Whilst it may be safe to stay with a group that you are familiar with, true growth and development comes from expanding your experiences, expanding your comfort zone. I always encourage developing coaches to work with a diverse range of athletes – female and male, young and old, team sport and individual, able body or para. All groups require different communication styles that, in my opinion, enhances coaching ability. Consider how you might gain experience across sports to broaden your skill set.
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