ON THE ROAD TO LONDON

I
am referring to the training methodology which will prevent
injuries, provide the athlete’s functional recovery after a serious
injury or surgery, training subjects who have chronic joint
problems. I am also talking about knowledge of the fundamental principles
of nutrition and the appropriate use of an integrated diet, sport’s
psychology and – outside the world of professional sport – training
suitable for people who are not so young, regulars at the gym, often
suffering from conditions such as overweight, diabetes, hypertension,
osteoporosis and other diseases.
To respond to these requirements the modern coach, whether working
with professional or amateur athletes, must have a very wide theoretical
and practical knowledge so they can access all the tools they
need to provide complete management of either a healthy person, or
someone affected by a pathology. Thus they will be dealing with the
requirements encountered by either the athlete or the trainer, in addition
to a necessity faced in all amateur sports clubs – that the budget
will not extend to paying for any other professionals.
In countries that invest more in sports’ organization and culture that
we in Italy do, all clubs have professionally trained technical/health personnel
to deal with the various, complex problems that occur in the management
and organization of a team. In Italy, however, there is just one
coach who will be in charge of training all the athletes, each of whom
will have their own problems and requirements for personalized training
programs. Therefore a coach’s capabilities must not be limited to training,
but be extended to new disciplines: from biomechanics to physical
and rehabilitation medicine, from sport’s traumatology to posturology and
functional evaluation, from injury prevention training to sport’s psychology.
We must not forget that athletic training also involves management
of the athlete themselves, to reduce the likelihood of injury in the
final and most sensitive phase of their recovery, when the medical and
rehabilitation phase is over and the athlete starts to train to retrieve a
physical condition as close to the one they had before, and to be able
to return to competition in as short a time as possible and as safely as
32 ISSF NEWS
COACHING
THE COACH
AN EMERGING FIGURE
IN CLAY PIGEON SHOOTING
1
ANALYzE
THE TRAINEE’S PROFILE
4
EVALUATE
THE MONITORING TESTS
today’S coach MuSt BE MorE thaN juSt SoMEoNE WhoSE joB iS to aid aN athlEtE to achiEvE PEak FitNESS.
coachES NoW NEEd BE to highly traiNEd ProFESSioNalS With a Broad kNoWlEdgE oF a variEty oF diSciPliNES
aNd SPEciFic ExPErtiSE iN MEdical or PhySiothEraPy MattErS.
possible. The coach must therefore be able to understand the nature of
the injury and the function of the damaged structure, to know the rehabilitation
course and the healing process phase. Finally, errors must
also be avoided, as the athlete should not have to return to the doctor or
the physiotherapist’s couch. Even though it might be a rare occurrence,
this does happen, due to a lack of proper balance between the workload
and the time required to adapt and remodel the injured structure.
THE ATHLETIC COACH,
AN EDUCATOR OR MANAGER?
Sports training must be oriented towards reaching peak sporting performance.
The training session must be organized effectively and as
rationally as possible to enable the athlete to progressively achieve conditioning
and optimize the result to reach this objective. This management
of training must not only be based on the application of formulas
to choose the workload, but also encompass compilation of process
mechanism grids or percentage calculations. Modern Training Methodology
requires a coach to be similar to a manager who, using their
scientific knowledge, devises, adapts and plans the best strategy for
attaining the maximum sporting performance. To achieve this it is important
to have a firm grasp of other professional competences such as:
• COMMUNICATION
• ObSERVATION
• MOTIVATION
2
DECIDE
THE GOALS
3
ACHIEVE
THE PLANNED ObJECTIVES
Frequently, sporting activities where training is not fully and clearly
planned over time will end in the loss of control of a system which
is extremely complex, resulting in the repetition of very similar work
sessions. The result will be an athletic form which is not suited to
achieving the best results