Training Objectives are Crucial

Last night before our weekly training session, I was watching a Junior Coach lead a training session with his team, and was gobsmacked at what I saw. In simple terms the kids were doing nothing more than busy work, and the training itself seemed to have know objective to it what so ever. This group had a 1 hour training session, and I reckon that in total they would have actually trained a grand total of 20 minutes in that hour.

Now while the Coach is not solely responsible for the intensity of training, they are responsible for setting the objective and direction of the training session, they are responsible to making sure that training is engaging and has a focus to it. What was very clear about this particular training last night is that the Coach has failed to plan, so the training is set-up to fail before its even got out of the gate, and has such he is letting the players in the team he is coaching down. These players in this particular team cant be enjoying coming to training each week, because the training session just ain't engaging.

So what should a coach be doing before each training session-

1. The Coach should know the objective/s for training what they want the players to get out of the session.

2. The Coach should have planned out the session from start to finish, and also planned back-up activities in case the one's they have planned are not working.

Like I said before its not solely the responsibility of the Coach to bring the intensity to training, but it is the sole responsibility of the coach to bring the training objective/s and focus, and a coach that fails to plan will ultimately fail themselves, and the players they are coaching.