#113 - How to Coach Athletes Through Quarter Finals

Legion Strength & Conditioning Podcast

We're a week away from Quarter Finals, and the qualified athletes have already had three workouts to sharpen the competing sword with the open. But as the workouts become more high stakes going into the next round, how do we support athletes?

Some athletes need encouragement and a good luck message, and they are good! Others will require a warm-up, a detailed plan and potentially some video review.

Although we might set boundaries on communication, and we tried to set our athletes up to be reasonably autonomous during competition, they will need help when they need help. And it's crucial that, as a coach, you're there to support them as best as you can.

Check out the latest Legion Strength and Conditioning podcast episode and hear how we manage competition time with our athletes. What types of things are we sending them when workouts get released, and how are good strategies overrated but poor plans can end disastrously?

If you're not already subscribed to our newsletter, head over to www.legionsc.com to get a weekly selection of training tips and our favorite articles.

We run online workshops for coaches as well. Find out when our next workshop is here: https://legionsc.com/program-design-workshops

These podcasts are posted in video format on YouTube as well.

Show Notes:

• [1:00] Managing a coaching relationship during online qualifiers, the open and quarter-finals
• [2:30] Setting boundaries and coaching your athletes on how to communicate with you
• [3:30] What do you need to send your athletes when workouts are released
• [5:30] Chunking and batching tasks together
• [7:35] How are quarter-finals different
• [9:10] Being proactive and reaching out to athletes during competitions
• [10:30] What to do when athletes want an individualised strategy for the workout?
• [11:45] Setting your athletes up to push themselves
• [13:15] Managing anxiety with clearly structured warm-ups
• [15:30] Athletes having misguided expectations of strategies
• [19:20] How to coach athletes to make better plans for workouts
• [22:10] Getting logistics in order - assigning videographer and judge
• [24:00] Getting others to help you in quarter-finals
• [26:30] Having strategies can be overrated
• {27:45] Repeating workouts is less commonplace