Technology has made major changes in virtually every part of our lives. In the world of sports, technology has affected just about every aspect of viewing, playing, coaching, refereeing, and working within sports.
For coaches, their jobs have been greatly impacted from virtually every angle as a result. At a very simply level, younger coaches started out can now access online sources or apps for planning anything from a simply drill, to a full practice to planning out the yearly planning schedule. It's as simply as going on goggling and entering " drills for boys U14 practices" and you get numerous sources. Doesn't make the individual more knowledgeable about the game or help them really understand the teaching points of any specific drill but at least it can provide ideas. Fortunately, the impact has been positive, creating a more comprehensive view for training a better understanding of safety, complete communication, broad video coverage, and inclusive data analysis. There are a few notable areas where technology has definitely impacted how we as coaches work through our planning phase. 1. Sports Science Training Date Wearable technology has made training athletes much more comprehensive. Athletes and coaches are able to see how hard the athlete is working, where they are in terms of their physical goals, and which workouts are most beneficial for them. By tracking and measuring performance, coaches have better insight into their players. Like a machine, athletes are now able to look at a dashboard that shows how their engine is running, and coaches are like their mechanics. Technology is taking a lot of guesswork out of training for both coaches and athletes. I myself experienced this in the fall of 2016 as we started using Polar GPS trackers. We were able to compile significant date in terms of heart rate and heart rate activity over time, average & max speed, distance covered, number of sprints and most interestingly, get a heat map showing the ground covered by our athletes during games. Often times the date validated what we observed visually but it allowed us as coaches to have another source of objective date to serve as feedback to our athletes. 2. Coaching Communication With added technology comes added communication. This includes social media communication with teams or players with their fans, safety communication between players and doctors via wearable technology, and players and coaches via earpiece technology. Coaches are better able to communicate with everyone in their team at a moment’s notice which can aid in a variety of different ways from training to practices to meetings to games. With better communication comes more accurate expectations, faster results, safer decision making, and winning outcomes. 3. Video Technology I would say that this is probably an area where technology has the biggest impact in terms of providing visual feedback for coaches, players and in the area of opponent scouting. Every practice, training, and game now has the ability to be recorded. Many recordings are televised for fans of the franchise, some are for safety, and some are for coaches and players to dissect their performance and their opponent’s performances. Coaches can watch each player’s form, decision making, mistakes, and big wins to see what needs work and what works well. Technology has offered a mirrored look back that makes coaches able to show players a reference for what they need from them that has revolutionized training. Coaching players is more than just teaching technique and making strategic decisions – it’s making all of the best decisions for the team as a whole and video technology has made a real change in how coaches are able to accomplish that. 4. Sports Science and Date analysis echnology in sports has made data collection and statistics into an extremely important and inclusive aspect that is important to fans, players, and coaches alike. Sports statistics may seem overwhelming and dense to many, but with technology it’s extremely cohesive. With data analytics coaches know all about each of their players as well as their opponents. Coaches know how each player will most likely play, their average weaknesses with each team, and how they are most likely to perform in certain weather. This enables conversations about sustaining performance, how to get better, and why there may be data similarities in certain situations. Coaching is stressful no matter which level you’re coaching, which sport you’re coaching, or how long you’ve been coaching. In order to combat the difficulties of coaching, technology is there to make the job easier, safer, and broader. Coaches can train players better, keep players safer, communicate more effectively, trust video technology, and utilize data analytics to understand their team fully. Technology has affected coaching in many different small ways and all of those small changes have come together to create a completely different coaching culture benefiting coaches and their players.
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AuthorAfter many years of coaching at various levels and with different teams, I thought I would share some of my experiences and thoughts about coaching. Archives
January 2023
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