danielmakin-blog1

[danielmakin-blog1]

Another potential job role with EIS working with British Gymnastics athletes.

[danielmakin-blog1]

Appendix

Career Progression Plan.

Potential job role with Southampton first team as strength and conditioning coach.

[danielmakin-blog1]

Assignment 2 - Part Two

Personal Development Report (Wigan Warriors Scholarship)

The work placement for this module was undertaken at Wigan Warriors Rugby League Club, a professional rugby league team with a rich history of success. The logistical approach for taking up this placement at such a successful club is that I aim to work within a professional sport setting, primarily rugby league, from all ages from academy up to first team. Working with the U16s Scholarship team, I believe is an ideal starting point for any undergraduate wanting to get into coaching professional sport, as coaching young athletes is a great way to watch them grow not only into great athletes but also coaching and developing great people.

With a full-time strength and conditioning coach already in place, overseeing the academy squad and scholarship team, this was a perfect opportunity for me to ask questions, show my ability to coach, and to see what goes on behind the scenes in a professional sporting environment. However, there was still going to be challenges along the way, as there is already a full-time strength and conditioning coach in place, it may be hard to put across my ideas to the coaches as they may see me as just an undergraduate who is still learning, which is true, however I still believe that I can put in place my own ideas for them to consider.

Management and Communication Skills

During this placement, I didn’t really have chance to show my management skills as I didn’t really lead any full sessions as that was the role of the head coach, however I did take responsibility for some sections of the sessions such as, 10-minute conditioning blocks, warm-ups, and even writing extras on the board for injured players and players who had finished their main session. It was stated before the work placement began that I wanted to improve my communication skills with other coaches and with athletes in order to build coach-athlete relationships. To do so, I would need to adopt different styles of communication and implement them accordingly depending on the situation. Also, to improve my management and leadership skill qualities, I would need to adopt different leadership skills based on the situation I was placed in. Going into the work placement I had already researched what leadership skills I was going to incorporate prior to starting. One leadership quality I was going to use was transformational leadership. According to Leithwood (1992), transformational leadership provides the proper focus by helping other coaching staff to develop and maintain a collaborative, professional sporting culture; fostering coach development; and helping coaches to solve problems more effectively. I feel that this way of leadership, for me personally, is a great way to develop not only as a coach but also as a leader, as in my future career role, I would want the opportunity to be a head strength and conditioning coach with a professional sports team and I believe this type of leadership will help me to becoming a better coach. I think this style of leadership also goes hand-in-hand with my communication as a coach (Hackman and Johnson, 2013).

After a couple of sessions at the club, I quickly realised that this style of leadership was not yet suited to me as a coach, as I was only an intern trying to gain experience and felt that I didn’t have the authority to lead other coaches who were higher up than me and also more experienced and more authoritative than me. I decided to adjust my leadership style more towards the athletes, meaning that I would try to become more of a leader to the athletes I was coaching rather than trying to lead the other more, experienced coaches. This way I could really develop my leadership and communication skills. With the coaching leadership style, I feel like this style suits me better at this point in my career as this is more focused on improving the skills of the followers, in this case the athletes I was coaching. The coaching leader does this by motivating, inspiring and encouraging others. Not only will I use this approach early on in my career, but I will also use this approach throughout my career, as this is going to be, ultimately, what my future job role is focused around.

There was a time on my work placement where I noticed one of the athletes consistently coming last during all the conditioning drills and always stayed quiet compared to the rest of the group. I had noticed this for a number of weeks and thought it could just be due to his conditioning levels not being the same standard as the other athletes. However, on this one occasion I also noticed that not far in front of him was the same athlete who was consistently finishing second to last place. During the next conditioning block, I focused my attention more on the two ‘slower’ athletes and quickly thought back to the research I had read on the coaching leadership. While the athletes where doing their sets of 30-seconds of work on the conditioning block, I decided to make it a competition between the two slowest athletes and stated that whoever finishes last will have to do another set. This really fired-up both athletes and encouraged them to push themselves, despite this being the last working set. The athlete who had been consistently finishing in last place the last couple of weeks managed to find something deep inside themselves and ended up beating the other athlete. Interestingly I was not surprised by this, as opposed to the other athletes who had already finished and were watching the ‘race’ unfold, because I knew that by watching this athlete closely for a number of weeks, they just needed a bit of extra motivation in the likes of a race, and a bit more encouragement with me shouting positive feedback to them.

This exemplifies the coaching leadership skill by improving the athletes’ performance by motivating, encouraging, and inspiring them (Popper and Lipshitz, 1992; Chelladurai, 1990).

Challenges During Work Placement

During this work placement, it was inevitable that I would come across a number of different challenges. Which I did. In my opinion, strength and conditioning is fair too undervalued as a profession and not respected enough by other professions and coaches. This was a challenge in itself going into this work placement as I didn’t want the other coaches to think that I was there just because of the name of the club or for the free training kit that they provided me with. Especially being an S&C intern, I feel that it is difficult to put across my knowledge and my views on things that the coaches are talking about in the office and I feel that it is not my place to speak of things that happen on the field and only to speak when it is asked of me. What goes on, on the field is the head and assistant coach’s job. However, in the gym the strength and conditioning coach also feels the same way sometimes, as his views on a more efficient way to run the session are brushed to one side and not taken into account.

There have been times during this work placement where we have all been given a session plan prior to the session. Then, as the session starts, the head coach changes the plan without telling us and what us other coaches have planned, can now not go ahead because of the change of plan. Numerous times when the plan has been changed, the gym time that the athletes get always gets cut short but at least 10-15-minutes because the head coach sees it as ‘not necessary’ and they should be spending more time on the field practicing their technical and tactical skills rather than ‘lifting weights’. Both myself and the head strength and conditioning coach have attempted to compromise with the head coach by saying that three 40-minute splits works better as each group gets enough time in the gym and on the field with a ratio of 2:1 in favour of field-based work whereas what has been happening the majority of the time is a ratio of 3/4:1 in favour of field-based work.

With the head coach often times unable to compromise, me and the head strength and conditioning coach have to work with what we have and what we can. In the words of Theodore Roosevelt “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” I believe that this saying speaks for many strength and conditioning coaches, as I mentioned earlier, S&C is not really respected in many other professions, so therefore in order to become better coaches, and people, and to avoid conflict, we need to do what we can, meaning that the athletes must follow their programme effectively and efficiently, with what we have (i.e. limited gym time), and where we are (i.e. in the gym where we also have limited space sometimes because of the U19s that also train in there at the same time as the U16s).

Having limited space in the gym was also a challenge within itself. Therefore, I had to make sure that the athletes were getting through their workout as 6-7 athletes would all surround around 1 squat rack while another athlete performed their squats. As this situation had happened previously and nothing was done about it at the time, I combined my knowledge of Schon and DeSanctis’ (1986), theory and method of reflection in action and reflection on action, meaning that I had already reflected on what had happened previously and what I would do about the situation if it occurred again. In this scenario I reflected in action meaning that I recalled what happened last time and quickly realised that I needed to make the session run more effectively and efficiently. I did this by getting the players who were stood around just talking to either coach each other’s lifting technique or to do another exercise that was on their programme. The players responded brilliantly to this and it gave me a sense of satisfaction watching the athletes coach each other on external cues I had used with them in the past, such as; for absorbing force form a jump, I get the athletes to imagine that they’re landing on glass and some of the players remembered this and used it with the team mates (Stober and Parry, 2005).

Reflection Model

Gibbs’ Model for Reflection (Gibbs, 1988) was my chosen method for reflected on session. It is vital that coaches reflected on their coaching ability after sessions so that they can scrutinise themselves on negative aspects or praise themselves on what went well through positive actions. The rationale for choosing Gibbs’ reflective model was because I find it to be the easiest for myself to reflect upon as I like the way it is structured. I also like the way it finishes with an action plan on what to do next time if the situation occurs again.

Potential Career Opportunities and Job Prospects

In my opinion that strength and conditioning is a growing field, and can often times be undervalued by certain other professions. The National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA) currently has around 30,000 members meaning that these coaches who hold this accreditation are more likely to obtain jobs over other coaches who do not (Nsca.com, 2019). On the other hand, the UK Strength and Conditioning Association (UKSCA) only has somewhat of 2600 members, showing that this accreditation is a lot harder to gain (Uksca.org.uk, 2019). The role of internships, whether they are paid or unpaid, has been on the rise within certain sports and organisations. A very recent and interesting study conducted by Read et al. (2016), highlighted that 66% of work placements usually last around 6-12 months, 93% of those work placements were unpaid, and 63% of work placement within strength and conditioning are taken up at professional clubs. They also showed that 56% of the participants of this study held a bachelor’s degree and 18% held a master’s degree. I believe that this shows that professional sports clubs would rather hirer someone who is willing to work for very little, if any, pay, as opposed to hiring an experienced strength and conditioning coach and pay them more. To me, I get the idea that professional clubs would sooner save money by not paying these interns, whereas those job roles that have been taken up by interns could be full-time strength and conditioning roles for new and up and coming coaches.

I believe that what I have learnt on this module will help me to become a better coach as in the past I had never really taken reflection seriously, whereas now I will reflect after each session by using the different models I have been taught.

(See appendix for personal career plan).

(See appendix for latest strength and conditioning job role offers).

Bibliography

Chelladurai, P. (1990). Leadership in sports: A review. International Journal of Sport Psychology, 21(4).

Hackman, M. and Johnson, C. (2013). Leadership: A Communication Perspective. 6th ed. Colorado: Waveland Press.

Leithwood, K. (1992). The Move toward Transformational Leadership. Educational Leadership, 49(5).

Nsca.com. (2019). National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA). [online] Available at: https://www.nsca.com/ [Accessed 12 Apr. 2019].

Popper, M. and Lipshitz, R. (1992). Coaching on Leadership. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 13(7).

Read, P., Hughes, J., Blagrove, R., Jeffreys, I., Edwards, M. and Turner, A. (2016). Characteristics and experiences of interns in strength and conditioning. Journal of Sports Sciences, 35(3), pp.269-276.

Schon, D. and DeSanctis, V. (1986). The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action. The Journal of Continuing Higher Education, 34(3), pp.29-30.

Stober, D. and Parry, C. (2005). Current challenges and future directions in coaching research. 1st ed. Bowen Hills, QLD, Australia: Australian Academic Press.

Uksca.org.uk. (2019). The UK's Professional Body for Strength and Conditioning | UKSCA. [online] Available at: https://www.uksca.org.uk/ [Accessed 12 Apr. 2019].

[danielmakin-blog1]

26/11/2018 ��� Week 8, (Wigan Warriors Scholarship Internship)

During this session I was asked by the main S&C coach to lead the full warm-up for 30 athletes. This warm-up included progressive dynamic movements which was followed by a neural primer and then finished off with some mobility movements. The players then split into 2 groups in which 1 group was outside first and the other group was in the gym. After 40 minutes they changed over and then for the final 40 minutes they were all outside. To reflect on this session, I will use Gibbs’ reflective model. During the warm-up I was thinking of what movements I had already planned for during the warm-up. During this experience I feel that I could have made my point clearer by using a fewer amount of words to explain what I wanted them to do. The good thing about the warm-up was that all the players bought-in, for example during the mobility section of the warm-up there were movements that some of the players had never performed before, so it was interesting to see how they either struggled or how they could easily get into the position I was asking. Also, during the final part of the warm-up, it was finished off with a ‘rock, paper, scissors, run’ game and all the players really enjoyed that and were all engaged as they wanted to beat their opponent. I feel like I could have walked around a little more than I did to make sure all the athletes were engaged rather than staying in one position and observing. If the situation arose again I would more than likely do a similar plan but just engage with the athletes more by walking around and asking questions to the athletes.

[danielmakin-blog1]

29/10/2018 – Week 7, Taking the Session (Wigan Warriors Scholarship Internship)

During this session I was asked to take the whole session as a lead strength and conditioning coach. The players were on the field first doing skills and conditioning. My conditioning block consisted of main movements that they will perform in a game including sprints, crawls, tackles and multi-directional movements. The player completed 2 rounds of 4 minutes of this conditioning block before moving onto the next block of skills. In the gym I was able to write up a workout for the players to follow. Reflecting back on this session I feel that the things I could work on for next time could be to push the players more than I did as some of the players weren’t putting in the effort during the conditioning block. The positives of the session were that I really emphasised how important all the movements were to make them better players. According to the UCLan Career Edge, I scored fairly high on one of the personality tests which was agreeableness, meaning that that I enjoy team working and that I will challenge others and voice my opinion on people’s views. This coincides well to the session I completed on my own as players were coming up to me with injuries they thought they had or movement issues they felt weren’t quite right so I got the group to stop what they were doing and take a look at the athlete’s movement quality as a team and then get feedback from the players by using the guided discovery method of getting the athletes to learn from one another. This shows team working and voice my opinion on other people’s views.

[danielmakin-blog1]

The video above shows a small section of the conditioning drill that the players had to perform.

[danielmakin-blog1]

15/10/2018 – Week 6, (Wigan Warriors Scholarship Internship)

The players had a conditioning block for the first 40 minutes of the session and were split into 3 groups. The conditioning block consisted of lateral mirroring within a 5-metre space for 30 seconds. This was then followed by some 1v1 wrestling on their knees for 20 seconds. Each group repeated this for 12 minutes. During this drill I was making sure I was walking around to each pair of players to make sure they were putting in the effort as the players only had 12 minutes which is very minimal so we as coaches had to make the drill as effective as possible.

[danielmakin-blog1]

The image above shows the athlete performing a regression of the single leg squat, which I put in place by using reflection in action as the athlete could not do the baseline movement for the single leg squat.

[danielmakin-blog1]

12/10/2018 – Week 2, England Golf Training Session (DNA Sports Performance)

During this week’s session I was able to take full charge of the gym session. The coach was constantly challenging me to put forward progressions and regressions for the athletes. One example of this was when an athlete was struggling to perform a single leg squat. Reflecting back on this scenario, I think I did the correct thing of assessing the athlete, looking at which part of the movement they were struggling with and putting the right regression in place. This shows an aspect of reflecting in action, which is an essential part of being a good coach. The ability to reflect in action requires great knowledge of the field and it also puts trust in the athlete-coach relationship.

[danielmakin-blog1]

08/10/2018 – Week 5, Putting Forward New Ideas (Wigan Warriors Scholarship Internship)

During the warm-up I felt confident enough to propose a new idea in which the S&C coach had never heard of before. My idea was ‘rock, paper, scissors, run.’ The idea being that all the athletes line up facing a partner, someone of similar ability to them. They then perform a regular game of rock, paper, scissors but then the loser has to chase the winner. This gets the athletes to thinking about who has won and who needs to chase who, it also adds a turn and sprint element to the warm-up, and the game is fun. I could tell that the athletes enjoyed the game as they were all laughing and smiling, and they were all determined not to lose as they are all competitive athletes. The S&C coach came over to me afterwards and asked could he use it in the future because he liked the idea of this fun warm-up game. This gave me great confidence as this experienced coach had never heard or seen of this warm-up game before and I now feel as though I can pose new ideas to the coach.

[danielmakin-blog1]

05/10/2018 – Week 1, England Golf Training Session (DNA Sports Performance)

My first session with DNA Sports Performance including taking some athletes, who have been selected for England Golf, through a training session. The main S&C coach wrote the session on the board as he wanted these athletes to work on specific areas, my job was to take two athletes through the session. One of the athletes had been training with DNA Sports Performance for almost a year, whereas the other athlete, this was their first session. As the new athlete had never been in a gym before, I got the more experienced athlete to demonstrate the exercise whilst I spoke about a couple of techniques I wanted them to focus on. Again, this is another form of guided discovery as I am getting the athlete to show me what they already know and then this leads to the athletes getting to learn off each other. In this session I feel as though I could have managed my time better as it was coming towards to the end of the session and I still had some exercises to get through. Next time I will manage my time better by getting the athletes to perform the exercises at the same time rather than alternating between them, however I only did this so that I could focus more on the less experienced athlete and make sure they were lifting with the correct technique.

[danielmakin-blog1]

As you can see from the imagine above, there are a large number of athletes in which I was leading the warm-up for. The athletes are quite far away from where I am stood so I had to make sure all the athletes could hear me and could clearly understand what I was saying. I also had to make sure all the athletes were engaged because as you can some of the athletes were talking and waiting around whilst the other athletes made their way back from the drill. 

[danielmakin-blog1]

01/10/2018 – Week 4, Leading the Main Warm-up (Wigan Warriors Scholarship Internship)

This week the main S&C coach for the scholarship team allowed me to lead the warm-up for the main session. In this session there were 40 players. Before the warm-up began I was feeling nervous as I didn’t wasn’t to make any mistakes or stutter my words, I wanted to be as brief but as clear as possible so that the athletes understood me and could hear me from both sides of the pitch. At first, I was a little too quiet and some athletes could not hear me, this where I used reflection in action, which is described by Greenwood (1993) as thinking about what one is doing, whilst doing it. This allowed me to regather my thoughts, think about what I was going to say, and then make it clearer and louder so that all the players could hear me. After the warm-up was complete, I immediately stared to reflect on my actions, was I too quiet? Was I clear enough? Did the athletes benefit from the warm-up? And did the athletes understand why they were performing this warm-up for the session ahead?

[danielmakin-blog1]

In this imagine the athletes are performing some mobility drills, in which I am using ‘guided discovery’ in order for me, as the coach, to facilitate from the athletes’ understanding of exercise and the importance of mobility drills and warm-ups; also their understanding of the sport of rugby, as this gets the athletes to think about positions they may need to get into on the field and by getting them to think about how these mobility drills will help that.

[danielmakin-blog1]

24/09/2018 - Week 3, Addressing Mobility (Wigan Warriors Scholarship Internship)

In this week’s session I lead the mobility part of the warm-up. Small groups of players came over to section where I was coaching so I got them all in a circle, so I could address any mobility issues they had. If I noticed that a player had any issues I would stop the group, get all the players to look at what the athlete was doing incorrect and then get the athletes to correct their technique. This is a technique called ‘guided discovery’, in which the coach gets the athletes to be more independent so that the coach can facilitate from the athletes’ understating of the sport. If the athlete was doing something that I thought was correct, again I would stop the group and then get all the athletes to focus their attention on the athlete performing the drill correctly. I would then ask the other athletes “what is this athlete doing well?” This gets the athletes to think about and visualise the correct technique I am looking for. This technique of guided discovery can be used in the gym, on the field, and like I am doing, with mobility drills.

[danielmakin-blog1]

17/09/2018 - Week 2 (Wigan Warriors Scholarship Internship)

The players are now on week 2 of their training program. All of the older and more experienced athletes are progressing really well. However, some of the younger athletes are still adapting to the demands of the movements. I am still making my way around the gym addressing any athletes who I believe have some issues getting into certain positions. One athlete came over to me during the session and complained about their hips being tight. I knew exactly what to do with them. I used critical thinking to address the athlete, I posed questions about how they had sustained their tight hips, after the questioning I decided that they did not need to be referred to the physio as I could deal with the situation on my own and I knew which mobility exercise and which stretches were necessary for this athlete to perform. I felt confident in my ability as a coach that I could deal with the situation myself and by doing so I could tell that this athlete gained my trust and if they had any issues in the future, they could feel free to ask me any questions they have.

[danielmakin-blog1]

Here I am explaining to the younger athletes how to perform a push-up. Rather than me explaining the technique to each individual athlete, I got all the athletes to gather round in a group so I could explain to the whole group how I wanted the exercise to be performed.