In this episode I chat with Jack Rolfe who is the owner of the Coaching Lab – a business that aims to provide coaches at all levels with tools and resources to improve their coaching, especially within games.
One of the resources the Coaching Lab offers are match play cards – a set of cards with a variety of both team and individual challenges that you can apply to coaching in game settings. We discuss a few examples and how they may be utilised in the training environment.
Another cool resource is a set of reflection cards that contain open ended questions that engage the athletes and develop a deeper though process in the reflection period. Again, we will discuss specific examples of how to use these.
During this chat Jack provides some really helpful examples of you can develop a dynamic and exciting learning environment for your athletes whether it be at the grassroots level or at the elite level.
Some of the key messages for me in this talk is that Jack has developed the cards to provide both individual challenges and team challenges. As coaches we tend to focus more on team outcomes and coach the individual less during periods of tactical or game-based training. By incorporating individualised challenges this can provide more individualised coaching within a game-based setting.
Explaining why you may be using a games-based approach to all stakeholders, athletes, parents and the wider club community may be important to ensure all are on the same page. Often the science behind this approach is unknown outside of coaching circles so explaining that we can still tick off skill development, conditioning and so forth whilst also developing better decision makers is a useful way to get everyone heading in the same direction.
To quote Jack directly “The role of the coach is to create a space and inspire players to be creative” and “creativity in sport is often the ability to have more solutions to the same problem” by providing a space where athletes feel comfortable to develop these skills will often harness the best outcomes long term.
For more information on the coaching lab you can go to:
Website: https://www.thecoachinglab.org/
Instagram: @the_coachinglab
Twitter: @the_coachinglab
LinkedIn: Jack Rolfe