The only way to start a practice

In one of my previous posts I discussed the importance of my own long-term planning and goal setting for my teams, whether that be for my U10's or my elite senior teams. As always in these posts, I draw from my own experiences as a coach of young people, and attempt to provide a snapshot reviews to others who might be looking to improve the effectiveness of their coaching.

Long term planning and goal setting is an absolute must for all youth sports coaches. The coaches role throughout the season is then to use the time they have so that these long term objectives are met. In coaching terms, every individual training session must contribute to the longer term objectives.

I'm going to discuss a simple and effective way to get the most out of a training session.. I'm going to make this snappy. Timer set to 3 minutes.

By the end of practice, we will... These are quite possibly the most important words spoken at the start of my practice, and i recommend all youth coaches to do the same if you want to get the most out of training. Here's why.

I try as much as possible to start every single training with the words 'by the end of training, we will..' - which is normally followed by something like; ...have improved our passing' ..have a clearer understanding of defence' ..have a better cooperation with the pivot player' By starting a training session with a clear, precise learning objective and expectations, you have immediately switched the training from coach led, to player led learning. On average I will deliver over 12 practices per week. Though every session will fall within different age-categories and developmental contexts the most successful practices have one thing in common; that I successfully set the learning objectives and following training environment where players became so engaged and motivated to achieve the end goal that they worked tirelessly and at their own effort to make it happen.

Heres how I set the learning objectives so that players are always responsible for their learning. I start by assigning every single training session with a minimum of one process goal and one performance goal; Process goals- Quite simply, process goals are solely about development of a participants skills or abilities, on or off the Handball court. I assign process objectives to individual and grouped training sessions, when my objective is to develop the groups technical skills such as shooting technique, tackling, or individual defence. These process objectives help players to stay focussed during the training environment, and take responsible for their own development within the specified time frame and defined area learning. Performance goals – These are goals that are directly associated with the participants’ own performance. During every training session there will usually be a period of technical and tactical development (where process goals are implemented), followed by an opportunity to demonstrate learning through a games based approach (normally a match at the end of training). These performance goals are fully controllable by every individual, and usually focus on all sorts of skills which develop a 'growth mindset' in players - to work hard, give maximum effort, to provide constant support and encouragement to team mates. Common performance goals I use in my training are: "..to give a minimum of XX pieces of positive feedback to team mates" ".. to run as fast as possible to the counter attack" "..to return back to defence as fast as possible after the attack" "..to celebrate every small successes in defence (each successful tackle, block, or save from the keeper)" By understanding and implementing the different process and performance goals for training, coaches can develop players not only motivated by results, but also by personal development. If you as the coach are aware of how to communicate with your players about individual goals for training and training exercises, then they will, over time begin to become more aware of their own goal setting processes and start to set their own goals. Structuring the training session Here is an example of how i structure my training sessions to include these process and performance objectives: Start of training - explanation of process objective

• By the end of this training we will be better at creating 2v1 situations in attack

Warmup & Training segment Use the following period to focus specifically on achieving the process objective. In this example I will typically use a Small-Sided-Games approach and organise exercises which promote and improve decision making qualities in the attack. Exercises will be organised to players to find the effective solutions in numerical superiority 2v1 - This can be done through exercises and games which require players to attack space, engage the defender, and pass the ball to the next attacker. This training segment includes constant feedback, questioning, review of the objectives Match based training segment - review and further work on process objective Now, during the match based training period, our objective is to take what we have done in the previous training segment, and implement it into the match. The coach can do this by offering bonuses if they are able to successfully demonstrate learning from the process objective ^. I would, in this example award two goals instead of one if the team successfully create a 2v1 situation with an effective solution. Match based training segment - Performance objective 1 In addition to attempting to achieve the process objective during this training match, your performance objective is to celebrate every small successes in defence - each successful tackle, block, or save from the keeper. Two goals - one is technical/tactical related, and the other in mindset related. By doing is this way, you can both recognise players for their efforts whilst also challenging them to be (even) better and develop their Handball. Concluding training

To finish the training session I will simply sit my players in the middle of the court and ask three simple questions:

1. What was the objective for the session?

2. Did we get there? 3. Discuss..

Happy coaching. Scott Harrington