NCCP Design a Sports Program

Source: My personal notes from course taught by Dustin Titus - water ski, snowboarding, wake board, skier

NCCP program

Core competencies: “VCLIP” memory
- Valuing: LTAD values all levels of athletes
- Critical Thinking: compare program elements with keeping people in sport
- Leading: keep it fun
- Interacting: how to design programs
- Problem-solving

Learning Process

Introductions
Group discussions
Pair and small-group tasks
Individual tasks
Debriefs
Personal reflection
Mini-lectures

Who are your participants

Number of people
Age/maturity/stage
- Active Start
  - Parent + child activities, use of fun elements for those less than 6 age like song, dance, and games
  - Play!
  - Focus on activities rather than skills
- FUNdamentals
- Learn to Train
- Train to Train
- Train to Compete
- Train to Win
- Active for Life
What they can do now - skills and abilities
Any gaps in ability level among participants
Injuries
Why they are in sport
Other considerations from culture, allergies, personality, time in sport, disabilities, religion
- Coach learning - coaching indigenous athletes, coaching athletes with a disability
Social/emotional needs, gender differences

Females and males, age appropriate activities

Puberty last 4 years
PHV = physical, psychological height

Gymnastics - Beginner Recreational

Typical class:

2 male
6 female
developmental stage: FUNdamentals
differences in height, weight, XP, maturity, developmental stage
inclusion: temporary injuries and missed practices are frequent
other physical activities: most participants are doing other sports/activities that compete with their time and attention which they share during practices
based on above, impact to practice planning? Performance tracking is individualized. Practice plans must be flexible due to frequent missed classes and occasional injuries. Towards the end of a season, I start to focus on certain skills athletes need to their progression level and prioritize them for coaching
what if athletes are involved in other sports? Ask what activities they are doing. What they like about them and ask if there are elements in the sport that help them in other activities

Martin - Ski racing

Huge skill level and participant differences
Athletes may not have risk management skills in the sport that a coach needs to look at

Skills and Abilities

Physical

Strength, strength speed
Flexibility
Stamina (endurance)

Motor

Balance
Coordination
Quickness
Agility

Technical

Proprioception is your body’s ability to sense movement, action, and location
Movement patterns: running, throw, catch, swimming
Sport specific

Tactical

Read and react - see situation and respond
Inventory of responses (playbooks)

Mental Skills

Attention control
Emotional control
Goal setting

For artistic sports and sport like ski racing, most are highly required. Exceptions for low to moderate would be:

Tactical skills
Absolute strength aka hypertrophy
Aerobic capacity
Stamina
Multi-dimensional speed

Skill and abilities in your sport

My athlete goals are marked as bold

General - new experiences, specialization or general abilities, identify/test potential comp athletes

Physical conditioning - physical tests which support skill learning

Skill development - improve basic technical skills, learn new skills, apply skills to choreography/routines

Performance - competitions, competitive/goal based sport experience, perform a routine

Energy systems as reservoir systems

Aerobic system - endurance
Alactic - very short
Lactic - short

Course: nutrition - what do you eat for these systems

Energy system depends on:

Work intensity
Duration of effort
Number of effort (e.g. team based games)
Recovery: intensity, duration and type of recovery and work intervals

Common patterns of effort

What is there for your sport?

Single, maximum efforts of various duration
Sustained efforts

Single, maximum efforts of various duration

Training Objectives

Example seasonal objectives

Survey environment, assess sport equipment
Improve flexibility - e.g. splits
Improve athlete physical conditioning (example teach athletes an exercise like push up and train the exercise and later test for it)
Increase communication - prior to a skill, during a game - athletes talk to each other

Example Practice objectives and Approaches

Learn a skill / Teach a conditioning exercise
Skill or ability focus that feeds seasonal goal
Depending on time period you have with the athletes - weekly skill, 3 hour skill, length of season
Play games to develop skills in a fun way. If you just make athletes practice a skill, they may get bored
Seasonal goal was communication, practice goal is teach words to use, positional goal of players
Communication between partners in skill teaching

Example of coach goals

My Group

Same goals

Skill learning and testing
All coaches want to improve and same for athletes, higher level of play
Return to sport say after an injury - work together on a path but can be differ
Teaching each other - getting to know each
Socialize

Different goals

Repetitive drills and conditioning
Athletes focus on their rank, coach is looking their skill performance
Class management: listening, teach rules
Getting to know parents or guardians to learn about athlete
Get through the season with minimal injuries - coach is always looking risks for their athletes
Coach focuses on keeping motivation high throughout season

Others

Same

Fun
Safety
Accommodate different athletes

Different

Establish group normal and communicating with athletes and parents (especially younger athletes)

Ranking athletic abilities and skills

Start / middle / end of program

Ability	Start	Middle	End
Physical	x	xx esp. strength, flexibility	x stamina
Motor	x	xx (all balance, coordination, quickness, agility)	xxx
Technical	x	xx (skill learning)	xxx
Tactical	xxx (environmental awareness, games)	xx	x
Mental	xxx (attention, emotion, goals)	xx	xx

Planning Objectives

Skill/sport specific:

Acquire - movement patterns
Consolidate (corrections in different conditions)
Refine (minor improvements)
Create variations

Physical and motor abilities:

Develop (improve)
Maintain

Programs

Beginning of program: see preparation period below
Middle: conditioning, skill/tactic consolidation, team maintenance
End: skill refinement, conditioning, tactical refinement

Developing the Plan

Periodization: Break plans into periods to accomplish goals
- Period: Divisions of a seasonal plan
  - Preparation: 3-8 weeks
    - Skill development
    - Conditioning
    - Team development
    - Introduction to tactics
  - Competitive: 4-12 weeks
    - Skill consolidation
    - Team maintenance
  - Transition: 2 weeks or break until next season
    - Long break
    - Multi sport transition, are thee complementary sports to yours?
    - Break between seasons
- Micro-cycle: week
Purpose:
- Clear reason why you do something
- Focus and participation
- Goals
- Rules, policies
Adaptation: constantly make changes, training must be varied to avoid training plateau, training in multiple conditions
Specificity: adaptions and training load are like real event as much as possible
Progression: introduction in a progressive fashion
- Easy to difficult
- Simple to complex
- Partial to whole
Overload: muscle strength - fatigue, compensation, overload
Monitoring: testing, race modeling, competition results
Frequency: training occurs frequently, over period of time with breaks
Duration: total time spent at overload levels must be enough to produce improvement, watch for over training
Individualization: athlete specific training
Reversibility: when training stops or loading is too far apart, participate is go back to their original biological status and performance will decline
Recovery: body has to recover from fatigue
Maintenance: not overload, just prevent skill reduction
Overtraining: when work is too hard, too frequent or not enough recovery
Time dimension: program has start and end, can vary length

Seasonal Planning Tool

See DSP training plan-Filling.xlsm Excel template

Enter your info on Planner > Press generate STP > Fill in STP per your plans
Create practice plans as needed

Link plan to practices

Practice sequencing

Early in the main part of the practice

Participants aren’t tired, so try to plan for:

Activities to acquire new techniques, skills or motor patterns
Activities that develop or require coordination or balance
Activities that develop or require speed
Activities that develop or require strength

Then consider…

Activities that develop or require speed endurance
Activities that develop or require strength endurance
Activities to consolidate skills already acquired

Later in the main part of the practice

Participants may be tired, so try to plan for:

Activities to consolidate skills already required
Activities that develop or require aerobic capacity
Activities to develop flexibility

Warm up

Teach goals, strategies for season
Longer warm up during start of season

Main Part

Increase a specific skill improvement
Involve game that promotes skill with some competition
Rotation for breaks and safety
Watch for injuries

Cooldown

Play a game as part of equipment area
“Resting” static holds
Bringing intensity level down to 60%, check athletes can do skill at lower physical and mental level
Think about how athletes can improve
Cooldown could be longer depending on season and practice/competition
Stretching and talking
Debrief, what’s coming next, check fatigue levels

Conclusion

Conclusion can merge with cooldown
Summarize skill consolidation
Ask athletes questions and homework (e.g. watch videos)
Share opportunities for training

Reflection of Course

Start: use periods and phases in my seasonal plans to match seasonal events
Continue: risk management, attention to safety of athletes
Stop: removing cooldown in practices due to practice format constraints