Team Sport Coaching

Feedback & Leadership – video interview with Ray Mclean

Mark Upton — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 05:41:42 +0000

A little while back we posted on a 4 step process for developing a strong team culture. This was based on my experiences with Ray Mclean of Leading Teams. As a supplement to this you can see a short interview with him below where he mainly talks about feedback to better performance.

Performance Analysis & the Coaching Process – Part III

Mark Upton — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 13:30:25 +0000

This video presentation is the 3rd and final installment in a series on performance analysis and the coaching process. If you missed either of the first two posts then I would strongly encourage you to watch these by following the links below and then come back to this post.

Performance Analysis & the Coaching Process – Part I
Performance Analysis & the Coaching Process – Part II

Brief background – this video presentation uses material I presented at the Level 3 AFL High Performance coaching course at the Australian Institute of Sport late last year. Whilst it is based on Australian Football, I hope that all team sports coaches can find some useful snippets in here that they may be able to apply to coaching their sport.

Performance Analysis and the Coaching Process – Part II

Mark Upton — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 12:56:42 +0000

How does that saying go? – “better late than never” I think. Apologies for the delay in producing this 2nd installment of this 3-part series on performance analysis and the coaching process. If you missed the 1st part (highly likely given it was a while ago) then follow the link to watch that video and then come back and take in this latest offering.

Performance Analysis & the Coaching Process – Part I

The 4 steps to develop a strong team culture

Mark Upton — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 06:58:04 +0000

Above: The Sydney Swans AFL team is well known for its strong team culture & achievements

“Your culture is what you do and say every day”

It is fair to say that in team sports establishing a good team culture and environment is high on the priority list of all coaches. At the elite level we have seen many examples where talent-laden teams have failed to achieve success due to poor culture and “group dynamics”, and just as many examples of the opposite. In fact a good team culture can greatly assist in one of the key measures of how well a coach does his job – that being team performance as a whole seemingly exceeding the expected performance of the sum of the individual parts (players), and doing so on a consistent basis.

Presentations on Training Design & Coach Assessment

Mark Upton — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 12:20:38 +0000

I think the power of the internet for sharing information and garnering knowledge is huge! However the potential of this in relation to quality coaching content is unfulfilled at this stage. One thing that seems missing to me is the lack of online presentation recordings from the numerous coaching conferences/courses/seminars/workshops that would be held around the world each month.

So it was with great excitement that I came across a link to the World Congress for Science and Football “YouTube Channel” with recordings of many presentations given at this recent conference. Many expert researchers, scientists and coaches gathered to present here. The number of people these presentations can now reach and influence is enormous – simply through the capacity of the internet to share content and in turn knowledge.

Using “KPI’s” in your coaching

Mark Upton — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 06:20:05 +0000

First of all let me say that I am not a big fan of the term “KPI” – or “key performance indicator” – as I feel many times a particular statistic is in fact not an indicator of successful or unsuccessful performance. However often an assumption is made that it is a key indicator and so some coaches run with it. That is for another discussion but try to be better than that in your coaching.

That aside, the topics presented in this video cover off on:

Using KPI’s and breaking them into “product” and “process” indicators (and what these terms mean)
Visually representing your KPI’s on a 1-page match analysis report
Linking in the KPI’s with video analysis software (ie Sportscode) so that you can investigate performance more closely via video and make decisions on future training activities to improve performance.

Coaching software – how could it help you?

Mark Upton — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 12:37:32 +0000

As those of you familiar with this site may know, we have often made references to various software and technologies that can assist and enhance the coaching process in a number of ways.

The ubiquitous nature of the internet and access via smart phones and tablets has made this area even more promising in recent times. Our PlayerTube application is one example of this.

We are looking to determine if there are some common problems or hurdles that coaches face that could be solved by software and/or an “app”.

If you have any thoughts on this area please share them in the comments form below or email admin (at) teamsportcoaching (dot) com

If there emerges a common theme we are serious about looking at developing a solution to help the coaching community.

Thanks in anticipation of your input.

Mark Upton

Using video technology to improve players decision making

Mark Upton — Tue, 24 May 2011 15:20:09 +0000

Inspired by some recent research on the use of video to enhance umpires decision making capacity in Australian Football, I thought I would expand a bit more on my practical experiences and demonstrate some examples of how this could work. As some may be aware I am a real advocate for using technology to enhance player learning, on and off the field, so these examples fit in nicely with that theme.

More thoughts on developing “thinking players”

Mark Upton — Mon, 02 May 2011 06:48:30 +0000

I recently produced a post on this topic and have since found some more good stuff to follow up with.

First came a play in the recent AFL game between Collingwood and Richmond. This play shows experienced Richmond player Chris Newman (no. 17 in the black and yellow) looking away from the ball as he anticipates his team winning possession. He does this to assess what options and spaces are available on the other side of the ground, or “open side” as it is sometimes called, so that he can make a good decision when he receives the ball. See the series of pictures below that visually show this play:

Performance Analysis – how it fits in the Coaching Process (part 1)

Mark Upton — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 13:26:38 +0000

This post is the first of a 3-part series relating to my presentation at last years Level 3 AFL coaching course at the AIS in Canberra. The presentation was all about how performance analysis fits in the coaching process from a coaches point of view (and specifically Australian Football coaches at the elite and semi-elite level).