Not only do most coaches lack understanding of athletic performance, they also lack self-awareness.
“Coaches who punish kids with ‘conditioning’ during/at the end of practice, obviously don’t understand athletic performance, but deeper than that..
They fail to acknowledge that it could be their poor communication of concepts and expectations that are to blame and not the kids.”
-Ray Zingler on Twitter
Good ‘ol intra/post practice punishment conditioning!
Build that mEnTaL tUfFnEss, know what I’m sayin’!?
Goodness, I pray you don’t know what I’m saying because punishment conditioning is the absolute worst way to develop anything remotely positive in athletes.
You see it all the time, though.
A kid pisses a coach off, whether it be performance related, misunderstanding or underperforming a concept or you see a coach using the tactic in an effort to “mentally condition the mind to overcome adversity” (according to a hardo twitter commenter of mine).
Both of which are absolutely horrible reasons to implement conditioning during or at the end of practice.
Not only are the kids receiving a conditioning stimulus every single day at practice and during games, by implementing this extra conditioning, coaches are actually making their kids worse.
Most sports require fast, powerful, and explosive bouts of effort, so where in your right mind do you see the benefit in making tired kids run at suboptimal speeds?
News Flash: There is no benefit.
You’re simultaneously decreasing performance, increasing injury risk, and pissing your kids off, affirming their belief of you being an asshole.
(And then you wonder why your culture is screwed up?)
But the issues with punishment conditioning go much deeper than the physical idiocy on the surface.
Many coaches, whether they want to admit it or not are egocentric and have a tendency to go on power trips.
This is because they are “so busy” they often lack self-awareness and believe that because they are doing a lot and trying hard, everything they are doing is “good”.
This is untrue. This is also why coaches regularly get fired.
Did it ever occur to you coach that maybe the reason they “don’t get it” or are “underperforming” is your fault?
Maybe, just maybe you’re not communicating the concepts/expectations well enough?
Maybe the reason you don’t have the “discipline” you want out of your kids is because you don’t lead by example? Maybe you’re the reason the culture is screwed up?
Coaches often have inflated perceptions of themselves.
The average coach loves to point the finger outward, but guess what..
It’s probably your fault, bro.
You just don’t have the maturity or self-awareness to understand it.
