Learn Sports Coaching
Coaching is a career for the future. Coaches are neither consultants or counsellors - they are experts in helping others actually achieve.
A good coach will be able to understand their client, help them focus, plan and become motivated to achieve their goals.
We offer a range of coaching courses, from business coach to life coach, food coach and this one. Undertaking one coaching course will provide a foundation to work in coaching, but undertaking several will deepen, broaden and sharpen your focus and capacity to cach others.
Sports Coaches are not fitness leaders or sports managers; but they can make a difference to the individual athlete in many ways, and by studying this course you can explore how.
Course Structure
This course is broken down into eleven lessons.
- Introduction to Sports Coaching
- Professional Standards and Communication in Sports Coaching
- The Coach-Athlete Relationship
- Training Roles of the Coach and Athlete
- Motivation
- Coaching Individuals
- Coaching Teams
- The Athletic Identity
- Children and Parents in Sports
- Amateur Vs Elite Vs Professional Sports Coaching
- Maintaining Your Motivation as a Coach
Course Duration - 100 hours for the average student
The relationship between a coach and their athlete, and between the athlete and their coach, develops in much the same way, with particular emphasis on trust and respect between the parties. The coach-athlete relationship can be regarded as a reciprocal process where both the coach and the athlete influence one another (Jowett & Ntoumanis, 2001). The crux of the coach-athlete relationship is psychological wellbeing and performance enhancement.
Over the we examine this relationship and key roles of athletes and coaches.
The relationship between a sports coach and an athlete will develop according to the circumstances. For example, the coach may be a coach to a school-age team of players or they may be working on a one-to-one basis with an elite athlete. The way a coach relates to an athlete depends on how the athlete behaves. Some athletes are easier for a coach to deal with than others and this may be due to temperament or personality traits. Each type of relationship presents different challenges and may suggest a different style of coaching.
There are various models that can help us understand this, for example:
The 3 + 1Cs Model
Dr Sophia Jowett of Loughborough University has been conducting research into coach-athlete relationships for many years. Jowett and her colleagues conducted a series of investigations based on the premise that there is a unique interrelationship between coach and athlete where thoughts, feelings and behaviours are interconnected mutually and casually (Kelly et al., 1983).
From these studies Jowett et al. came up with an integrated model of the coach-athlete relationship based on social exchange theory. The 3 + 1Cs model (Jowett 2005; Jowett et al., 2005) emphasises:
Closeness - the emotional meanings that the athlete and coach give to their relationship e.g. respect, trust, satisfaction, enjoyment, liking.
Commitment - the intention of both athlete and coach to maintain the athletic relationship and make the most of its outcomes.
Complementarity - the athlete’s and coach’s corresponding behaviours of affiliation (e.g. if the athlete is friendly and responsive the coach is likely friendly and responsive in return), and reciprocal behaviours of dominance and submission (e.g. coach instructs and athlete undertakes).
Co-orientation - the interpersonal perceptions of both athlete and coach which indicate the extent to which they have shared interests in their relationship.
