Coaching children vs. Coaching adults: Does a coach need to change? (Part 1)
Will Vickery [00:00:08] Hello and welcome to our Coaching and Officiating podcast series. My name is Will Vickery and I'm one of the Senior Coaching Advisors at the Australian Sports Commission. Today I'm on the lands of the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation and along with some special guests I'm here to talk about some of the important topics that exist within community coaching.
Today we're going to try and answer the question does a coach need to change their approach between adults and children? I'm joined by Doctor Juanita Weissensteiner, who is the Principal Advisor of Talent Pathways for the New South Wales Office of Sport, leading the implementation of its Future Champions strategy. I'm also joined by Doctor Jonathan Leo Ng from RMIT University, who is a Lecturer for Health, PE and Sport and has previously worked with the Singapore National Youth Sport Institute.
Thank you both for joining me.
Jonathan Leo Ng [00:00:58] Glad to be here.
Juanita Weissensteiner [00:00:59] It's a pleasure Will.
Will Vickery [00:00:59] Right, now it might sound quite silly for me to ask, but I'm going to ask it anyway. But actually, is there a difference between coaching adults and coaching children?
Juanita Weissensteiner [00:01:10] Yes, absolutely. I think it's really important to distinguish, the difference. You know, the child, the child participant and the athletes, you know, [are a] work in progress. They’re not an adult yet, they don't as yet have the the physical, the physiological, the cognitive, the psychological, the technical, the emotional, the social, all those aspects of that profile. They don't have that capacity and capability just yet, but they might have those early sort of glimpses of those things. And and that's where a coach is really critically important to nurture those elements and bring it together. So I would say yes, definitely different. And, and it's really important for a coach to understand those differences and how it can inform, you know, their approach, the engagement of the participant, the athlete, and then their delivery.
Jonathan Leo Ng [00:02:09] I definitely agree with, Juanita as well and I think about the two groups of people, individuals, we’ve got out children who are at the stage where, you know, they’re motivated to engage in playful behaviour they engage in playful behaviour because they seek to explore to discover and through that they learn. Whereas the adult comes with them a lot of prior experiences right, so even if they are learning something new, if they are picking up things for the first time, they may have engaged in prior activities, that it will already allow this sort of foundational experiences, so they’re able to leverage them. Whereas for the child the motivation to engage in exploratory behaviours it is quite different, but the real focus on playfulness as well. So when we think about the motivations of these two groups of people they are different. But when when it comes to the, the coaching approaches as well, I think it is, it is more important to go beyond groups of people to think about where they are in their learning journey, right. If an an adult is completely new and, you know, in the really early stages of wanting to learn a new sport, then of course, we’ve got to be mindful of keeping training sessions fun, engaging, to keep them coming back and wanting for more. So and I know we'll explore these concepts later on in the podcast as well, but two groups of people that definitely have very different motivations, very different styles of learning as well. So the two groups are different.
Will Vickery [00:03:52] Yeah. What does that mean, though, when we think about how people, whether they be children or adults, learn?
Jonathan Leo Ng [00:03:57] Whether you're coaching, you know, at the community level, whether you're coaching at the more elite performance pathways, we know that learning or skill development, or skill acquisition it takes a non-linear trajectory. Essentially, what this means is if you are a coach coaching a group at the grassroots level, a bunch of young kids, and if you are expecting an improvement at every session, then you are already going in with a a lens that could be reframed, right? Because if you are expecting improvement every session, and if we already know that that learning is non-linear, you're going to be facing quite a antagonising session because you might expect change, but change doesn't happen. So what are the implications in practice? Well I think that's really, really important. If we focus back to our original question, is the difference between children and adults, then we know when children come to you for the training sessions, that's one of the only opportunities that they have where they gather as a team. Right. So we need to utilise their time as a team to ensure that they have maximum time on practice. So it really informs how the coaches would then plan their training sessions as well. And if we understand that kids and adults are different, and if we're playing like a large scale game, then as a coach you would expect that the dynamics of the games would be different. If you have an adults playing, the game might move faster just because of the mere physiological differences. For the kids, in a game of footy, for example, the game might move slower, so a lot of the game might happen in the centre sector, whereas the two ends, the two extreme ends. Goal scoring zones might have very little time.
Will Vickery [00:05:55] You raise a really good point there, Jonathan. In particular, I think anybody who's either got kids of their own, or has been exposed to coaching kids, particularly team sports. Yeah, I think everyone's got the image in their head that there's, one group of kids at that game and they just follow the ball, and that's all that's going on, right? I it's, it's it's quite an interesting image when you think about it, because that's absolutely what isn't going on in an adult game of the same sport. And I think a lot of I think you absolutely touched on this, right, that you need to, not control, but you need to be aware of that as the coach of those kids that you are not coaching the adult version of that game. You need to adapt the coaching to suit the stage of where those kids are at at that point. From my experience, you sometimes hear things like “spread out” or “make some space” being yelled out from the sidelines. The reality is that's just not going to happen at that young age, is it? They all want to be close to the ball. They all want to be the one to score things like that. Putting together a string of quality passes that set up the next attacking play isn't really in the mind of an under seven soccer team, is it? What might be the way for some people to come to grips with things like this, and make sure that we are imparting some of those adult concepts of match play onto children?
Jonathan Leo Ng [00:07:26] So if we think about spacing out and again, this stems from a very historical view that learning is cognition, is cognition first. Like you need to give the understanding before you can execute. Whereas we know now from research that a lot of the way in which humans behave is based upon how we perceive the environment, right? So if we're yelling “space out” all the time, what we could think about is, why isn't that happening? Is it because the, like you said Will, like the kids just want to get to the ball? And if we know if we have two teams of of 15 people playing and everyone is just going in for the ball, why have that large scale event? So if you break it down into 3 versus 3 or 4 versus 4, and you manipulate the play the play area that learners are using, would that not facilitate this? For example, if in footy, you know, we can bring in other elements like in netball we've got zones right, where people can go in and that helps. It provides visual reminders to the children without the coach or the parent having to explicitly say “space out” because they can take in the visual, you know, information, and then they react accordingly. And then we translate that into like, you know, increase the size of the game slowly, progressively to bring in the rest of their mates is one that, again, will change the dynamic. So it's really about, you know, reconfiguring, what training looks like sometimes. I also think that there's a like a social barrier. Right. Because we always hold coaches to high regard and they, you know, they're they're devoting their time. They are sometimes experts in the sports that we work in. We don't want, I mean, I've got three kids myself, and often times whilst I think like training sessions could be done better. Sometimes I hesitate to, to make those recommendations. So I think, if we think about community level as well, you know, if clubs could hold, you know, coach-parent engagement sessions that structurally that can facilitate this conversation to occur to create that safe environment, I mean, if it's all for the betterment of that individual, why not create these structures, right? Because if you think about it, the way it currently is, is a parent would drop the kids there, they would stay, watch the session from afar. They'll probably, you know, chat up with another parent to say, “What could we do, why is that person not doing this, and why is that person not doing that?” But then that conversations ends there. So structurally, if we have meet the coaching session like, you know, every three weeks or every month or so, that can facilitate these conversations as well.
Juanita Weissensteiner [00:10:18] Absolutely. I think, yeah, inclusion of the the parents and the education of the parents as to why, you know, that approach is taken and the benefit for parents to help parents understand and and also, yeah, as you say, opportunity to include parents. I know, I'm, I reflect back, you know, going to my, young son's, baseball as a parent and just being in awe of the coach. Phenomenal, what he did all the different, players, the different personalities and the different motivations, and they might get distracted, but it was just absolutely beautiful to watch. Absolutely loved watching, my boy play and have the coach managed that was just phenomenal. But what I really loved too, was being included as a parent and helping out, you know, with maybe the training, was setting out for competition day, helping out the players, you know, it was wonderful from a parental point of view to be part of that community and to do what I could and, support the coach and show my respect to the coach and model that to my son. Immense respect I had for the coach. And I think it was the coach, setting up, you know, the practice and the competition, but also, the coach, you know as the teacher, and the coach as the facilitator, the mediator, the mentor, the role model. You know, there's so many great aspects that a coach can impart, to young, young participants. And I certainly saw that, you know, with my experience in, in baseball, it was wonderful to see. And that has such an impact, you now, particularly on young boys, I could say young teenage boys or, yeah it's tricky, yeah. They're going through a tricky time, you know, cognitively, physically with puberty, peers. And it's just beautiful to watch, how the coach was, you know, cognisant of all that, but and, and recognised all that, but brought it all together in the beauty of them all playing together and, and, you know, acknowledging each other and, you know, the triumphs that they had, the disappointments. It was, it was absolutely wonderful, to watch.
Will Vickery [00:12:52] So Juani I'd love to actually pick up on that a little bit more, too, because, having sons that are more advanced, obviously means that you've got that they've had a bit of a career of sorts, in terms of their, their athletic career. So I'd be curious to know more if you'd be willing to share. Like, what sort of what sort of evolution you've seen in the coaching and from your boys moving from that really early age through to the more adult age, both like in terms of the coaching that was applied and how the coaches, modified things as they, they developed physically, emotionally, etc., as you say?
Juanita Weissensteiner [00:13:31] Yes. I think in terms of emotional regulation, the coaches I observed and community level, because I, you know, working with teenage boys, and we know limbic systems in overdrive and, you know, they can be quite reactive and, the emotional regulation isn't quite there. So the coach is very good, you know, in terms of assisting them if there's a disappointment or whatever. So really wonderful in that aspect. And what I observe to, I guess the training, the load was appropriate to where they were at in terms of their, their maturation level. And also, I guess, the sampling within a sport too. So I think of cricket, and, and also in baseball that the boys got to try and different roles, different positions. So there was great mix of sort of, sampling in there. So that's basically, yeah, that's what I viewed but I'm sure there was a lot of a lot happening, from the coach's perspective as well.
Jonathan Leo Ng [00:14:38] I think interacting with like different coaches, I, I've come to see that a lot of the, we're starting to get into the territory of like instructional coaches. Right. How do you actually design your training sessions and how do you approach your training sessions? So I think a lot of it stems from also that the belief system of the coaches as well, some coaches would be really, really driven by playful behaviour. So they would like to use a lot of gameplay, a lot of manipulation of the rules of the games assist and encourage like different exploration in terms of position, you know, setting things up in a playful way. Other coaches may be, may place more emphasis on replicating what they actually see in the high elite level. So the focus then becomes on, all right, how do I get this young athlete to be like this top-level athlete in the shortest possible time? And when that's the, the, the belief system, then what you tend to see in training sessions is, is becomes a bit more drill-like a bit more reproduction. You do this over and over again, because of wanting to reach this desired postural form. Right. So I think the belief system is, is really important for the coaches as well. And, and this is where, you know, podcasts such as this is really, really good because you're encouraging, people to think about the various ways in which you can approach training sessions as well. You know, drill and repetition works a lot better when people are older because, again, they're very self motivated to want to be there. But don't forget, at the lower levels, repetitive tasks, can lead to disengagement because after a while, you know, it can become quite mundane. And when it becomes quite mundane, then you see, the people waiting in line might start doing cartwheels, might start engaging in, you know, in chats. And then the coaches like, “What's the what's happening like there? I want you to focus on the job”. But the thing is, again, we think about perception. We're perceiving that my turn for practice only comes when I'm in the front of the line. When I'm at the back of the line, I'm just going to chill out. And so setting up, you know, this game like atmosphere, would, would, would, would certainly allow the learner to experience, a bit more game-like elements in a controlled, more or less, a controlled setting, right.
Juanita Weissensteiner [00:17:20] Absolutely, Jonathan. And that's what I witnessed, I guess, its the early skill, drills, you know, development of those skills and then bringing to a game which I, I absolutely agree, is that it's fun. You could say that's the fun part of the, the training and putting your skills to to practice because you're absolutely right. Just doing discrete skills separate to the context of what it's going to be like in, in, in play, in game you know, it's, yeah, you need to be mindful of that.
Jonathan Leo Ng [00:17:54] Yeah. And I think one similarity across the groups, whether it's children, youths or adults, if you ask those learners when they're engaging in training sessions, what's the what's the best part of the training session? Oftentimes they would say its when I was involved in the game.
Will Vickery [00:18:10] Yeah, that's a really good point. And it starts to make me think, where that sort of fits into the community sport environment. I think a lot of what both of you are describing are really, really great ideas. And I think anyone who's coached, has really wanted to try and implement this game-based approach in particular. And, and, and be able to, as you say, Juani choreograph it really, really well. I'm going to assume a lot of people who might be at that community level potentially get a little bit, I won't say scared off, but they're a little bit like, they're not as knowledgeable maybe they might think, and they don't have the skills to implement numerous games with a bunch of seven year olds. Whereas it is I mean, I mean, I don't think anyone would argue that it is a lot easier to implement those when you've got athletes who have got those foundational skills, are a lot more maturer both physically and mentally and even at professional level like it's it's like clockwork after a while, you can certainly just go about the business and have all of those separate things happening. However, at the community level, particularly with young kids, people may be a little bit worried and therefore maybe is that maybe a default, that's why we don't see those really highly choreographed sessions or things that incorporate various games at that level? Is it is it is there a reason for that potentially?
Jonathan Leo Ng [00:19:34] That's a that's a it's a good question, Will. I'm laughing it's I think it's, it's because of our, our notions of sport. And, you know, at the community level, a lot of our coaches are parent volunteers. And we feel that if you're coaching a sport that in practice, that the training has to look like the sport. I'll give you an example, right. So my daughter, she is, seven and she plays for her all-girls basketball team as well. And they're they're all really, really happy whenever they meet their mates. But when you go into the game, they don't really know what to do. It's like they're all just chasing the ball, so “spread out” means nothing to them. And, so when we go into the training sessions, then it focuses on, again, like skills of dribbling and everything. But as we think about it in the game, it's not that they can't dribble, but there was never an opportunity to dribble. So as a coach now, I would think about, why was there no opportunity for dribble? So in my training session, should I really be focusing on dribbling? Right. Perhaps not. Instead I might break it down. I might use a beach ball to slow down the speed of the ball. Right. But if, if if I'm inclined to represent the sport, then I will always want to use a basketball. So I think the first step is getting, over that training sessions don't necessarily have to be an exact replica of the sport.
Will Vickery [00:21:07] And I think to that point in particular, the version of sport people are often referencing, is the sport they see on TV, or it's that high performance level. So they're trying to essentially replicate that version of the sport at that community level, which is clearly not, it's not the same sport.
Jonathan Leo Ng [00:21:27] Yeah. So I mean, you see this like in soccer, for example, a lot of the complex rules that take place, you know, Barcelona. Jules, you can Google this online, you get a whole host of activities, and then at the younger levels, you shrink down the distance of the activities, but you're doing the exact same thing. But that's that's a misalignment, as well, we want to develop learners that are able to see the dynamics of the game and then react to it. So it becomes, you know, they become versatile and adaptable.
Juanita Weissensteiner [00:21:59] I think in terms of the coach guiding, I guess it's, thinking about some recent work I've been doing and really exploring a cognitive development of participants and athletes and, and understanding that, you know, very early on as a, as a child and early participant, they might not have, you know, the perceptual skills, the anticipation, the visual just yet. They might not just might not as she had had the, the decision making, the problem solving those executive functions because they, their brain, is still developing and we know, you know, there's, you know, decision making there's some skills that you need to for sport and anticipation, they don't mature until, you know, 20, 20 to 25 in terms of, brain development and the, the connection of, you know, the prefrontal cortex, which is your executive functioning of the brain. So what, why I say that it's just really important to understand that, you know, is your the child participant that you're coaching, do they understand what you're saying? Your your prescription. It's really important to check in because they might not yet understand. And maybe it's where you, you see, as a coach, “What does that mean to you when I've just told you, how would you explain it back to me?” I think it's really important to, you know, to understand that these participants, or these young children and adolescents are not quite there. They're a work in progress in terms of that perceptual, perceptual, cognitive and motor development. But they're not there quite yet. And that's really important to tailor, you know, how you communicate with them the the set up that these these drills. But you as a coach play a critical role in nurturing these aspects, these competencies, these capabilities, with your guidance, be a good role model, using brain based coaching approaches. It's again really important to to remember that.
Jonathan Leo Ng [00:24:17] Speaking on on what Juanita said as well, if we understand that for the younger children, do we not understand what it is you want? So it becomes really important for us as coaches to provide feedback, to facilitate, again, the call for attention, what exactly are they paying attention to? So if when I'm when I'm coaching, what I would usually do is I would try to avoid like making postural adjustments to to to my learners. But instead my feedback will be oriented towards, all right, where is your team-mates now? What are the different types of throws you can do, or passes you can do to send the object to them? Why would you choose this teammate that's on your right and not the one on your left? So you're getting them to pay attention to the cues. And again, why is it I'm not going to bother too much about how they might send the ball, whether it's the correct form or technique is because based on the perception, based on the motivation to move or send the ball forward, they will self-organize. Right. And at the community levels, refinement takes time. So at the community levels, I'm just going to not bother about that for now because that will evolve over time. And remember, if we keep them in that sport, if you keep them coming back for more, that refinement takes place. If we place too much emphasis on the postural aspects of of skill, then I'm not paying attention to what's happening in the game. You know, I'm I might be really, really good in isolated practice. I may not be able to function in the game, and if I'm not functioning in a game, I might have a self-perception that I'm not doing well, and that might impact whether I come back to the next season. It's so important, like what Juanita said. I was just looking through, like a really funny video last week. It was a set up where a dad was teaching his child how to strike a ball on a baseball tee. The boy, the boy was probably like 2 or 3, and he said, like, keep your eye on the ball. And he literally put his eye on the ball and struck the baseball. Yeah. So, you know, it just just reminds us that. Yeah. When when we give our feedback, how is it perceived by the learner as well? And if we want the learners to pay attention to the dynamics of the game, we need to highlight that to facilitate that learning episode.
Juanita Weissensteiner [00:26:50] And the other thing I think too, is, you know, the coach playing a role in the development of knowledge, for kids and why I say that I think of adolescent kids. And we know with their cognitive development that it impacts their, for instance, they sleep patterns, you know, the circadian rhythms, you see the teenagers that go to bed late, you know, and then they're struggling to get up early. So that's where a coach can keep an eye on and talk about, you know, also that good sleep hygiene. And it can work with the parents on that as well, but also nutrition, learning about good nutrition but putting into practice in community sports, you know, kids coming to training, you know, with, with a water bottle with, with some good snacks, and competition. So it's those aspects too, and recovery. I think recovery, is something we use a lot in high performance sport, but equally important in community sport, you know after training and competitions. So that's where the coach can work with the parents and the kids about, you know, some good recovery strategies as well. So, you know, the coach plays, are phenomenal. I'm always in awe and immense respect for coaches and what they do within a session and the prescription. But all these other things as well, you know, role modelling, you know, developing and knowledge and applying that knowledge. It's amazing, yeah.
Will Vickery [00:28:28] Let's jump back in and come back to something you said a little earlier about making sure that what happens during the weekends match is replicated in parts of training. Although we've mostly spoken about this in the context of children and how they practice, it's really important for the listeners to know as well that this should also be the case for adult sport. What would our coaches of adult players need to think about in this sort of context?
Jonathan Leo Ng [00:28:56] The reason why, representing what the, well we call it the performance environment, right? So if you think about coaching or learning anything, what are you actually preparing for? Right. We need to understand what that looks like in practice. If we understand if we're preparing for like a really competitive game where, you know, our opponents, uses lots of high kicks, for example in footy, then in the training session, perhaps that's what you should be thinking about using a larger playing area so that the play area will encourage the emergence of more spaced out athletes. Right. So it's it's how do we then think about how do we bring in elements of the game. Right. Not the full game but small bite size versions of the game. And sometimes in practice you would see you would see this happening. But it comes in the form of set game plays. So athletes or teams they go through a set drill. Right. We're going to play like, you know, a plan A or plan B, and then they go into these modified setups. But what if the opponents on the weekend don't react the way that you expect them to. Right. So I think it's whilst we have set game plays as well as a coach, when we're doing the set game plays, I think we have to be slightly cheeky as well. Like, you could tell the opponents that they're practising with “I don't want you to react in this predictable manner”. So you need to have some kind of unpredictability as well, because that's where the adaptability of your team, you know, comes in. And again, when this unpredictability and visual information changes and your team takes in this visual information to then, you know, self-organize for a different outcome. And for adults, because they're already more acquainted with what to attune to in terms of the visual information. This might work a little bit faster and a bit more guidance, of course, is needed at the lower level.
Juanita Weissensteiner [00:31:07] It's really interesting. I think back to my cricket PhD and where I actually looked at, the development of perceptual, so anticipatory skills of the batsman [batter]. So when does that kick in? So a batter, you know, it's such a time constrained activity. It's quite scary at the high-performance levels. Facing a bowler you know, bowling at 150 clicks. But when does that kick in? You know. And what is that batter looking for? And it was very obvious through the great work, of my colleagues like Sean Muller, you know, the wonderful work he did, where the batsmen [batter] with the incoming bowlers picking up the kinematics, you know, the body language of the bowler. And that that was really critically important for them to anticipate the type of delivery that was going to happen. At the point of, for our expert level batsmen [batter], you know, back foot contact, you know, before they delivered the ball. So they're not looking at the ball, but it's all the set-up kinematics. And we could see that, you know, that skill to be able to do that at a high level of accuracy didn't kick in until the age of 20. So there's certainly, you know, some perceptual, cognitive, developmental things happening there. And then when you think about that, how important that is to pick out those set up dynamics, you know, the, the bowler, for a batsman [batter], how important that is for your anticipation that then informs decision making, that then informs your technical execution. You think of cricket training a lot of cricket training still happens in the nets, happens in the nets in a confined area with the against the ball machine. And you see it a lot, you know, for youth cricketers. And you think about, well, what are they missing? They're missing those critical visual cues of the of the bowler, they’re getting a ball machine. So then learning to pick up, oh I can see the ball starting to come out of the machine. So that's why I think it's really important to consider. Yeah. Where are they at in terms of their perceptual cognitive skills and what can you facilitate it in terms of what you’re doing? So it mightn't be lots of time in front of the ball machine. It's probably as as Jonathan speaking to it's it's facing all different types of bowlers, spin you know, pace, left-handed and right-handed, swing. Vary it up and get that exposure and help the, the young batsmen [batter] to look at the cues. And that will then set them up for that wonderful perception-action coupling. So I think about that. You do see it in the research but you don't always it translated into the the fit of the the coaching practice. You can. You can absolutely do that.
Will Vickery [00:34:03] Yeah. I love it, yeah. It makes a lot of sense, right? And and it's really important for our coaches to understand that because, but back to what you were saying there about, when these sorts of, perceptual cues are picked up by a batter, for example, as you say Juanita it's actually quite at a late adult stage, well, a late adult it's it's quite later on then might, a lot of people might expect like it's not something that you pick up at the age of 12, right.
Juanita Weissensteiner [00:34:30] That's right.
Will Vickery [00:34:31] So providing those cues that are actually suitable for the person who is actually experiencing that, whether they are seven or 12 or 20 years old. The coach absolutely needs to adapt the feedback and the way they provide information to suit that learner, right? It's it's it's very different depending on that situation. Yeah.
Juanita Weissensteiner [00:34:53] The execution of the shot and the timing of the shot as well. So it's that's where it's really important, the right set of equipment. Because you say parents, you know, you want to get the, you know, the oh gosh, you know, the, Michael Clarke bat, you know, these huge, big bats, and you see these little guys trying to, you know, use this huge unwieldy bat that's actually, it's a it's impacting and affecting the ability to swing that bat and to manipulate it. So that's important to is the right fit, you know, of equipment for their physicality as well. Because obviously those little guys, we could see the phenomenal skills of some of the guys that I studied and some of them are playing in a Big Bash now, which is wonderful to see. And they had those skills, but, yeah, just really important, that they've got the right sort of equipment to enable them to self-organize and to accomplish accomplish that task effectively.
Will Vickery [00:36:03] On the point of equipment, and I guess an even wider spectrum, the, the NSOs themselves, there’s been a real push to make sure that manufacturers are aware of those differences. Right. So equipment has absolutely been modified, over recent years to make sure that it is suitable for younger age groups, older age groups, whatever happens to be. But also there's been a lot of modifications to the way that, particularly junior sport, exists and plays itself out. Right. A particular not even just within Australia, but in a lot of sports across the world, they have adapted to make sure that it's not just the adult version that's being played by someone who's at the age of seven. You see it lot in, in AFL, in cricket, in basketball, they have made huge adaptations, right.
Jonathan Leo Ng [00:36:53] All different sports, snowboarding, skiing. You don't want to use equipment that's too large even as an adult, because it's going to make everything tougher. If you think about soccer, you know, if it if a child is about 4 to 5 [years old] and they're not using a really small ball, and if they're using like a size four, size five ball, that ball essentially is about three quarters the length of their their lower limbs, you know. And can you imagine playing soccer as an adult using a ball that's almost like three quarters of the length of your shin? It's going to be very, very different in terms of dynamics as well. So it it really does complicate the matter. And I'm a huge advocate for, you know, just letting your kids develop with the right equipment so that they, they enjoy what they're doing.
Juanita Weissensteiner [00:37:43] And I mean, when you think of young kids and adolescents and they're still physically maturing, you know, we know that. Yeah. Bony structures, all of them, they don't ossify, you know, the, the, the endpoints of the bone until you know, in the mid 20s, you know, in the mid 20s. So, when you think of unruly sort of equipment, that's compromising their ability to execute a skill, you could be placing them at potential injury, you know, overuse injury as well. And that's certainly something there to be mindful of. And I think in terms of, the, the physicality and the ossification of the bones happening a bit later is the importance and awareness of the load and managing load, you know, training competitive load. I was certainly an adolescent athlete where in those days, in the 80s way back in the dark ages, I had wonderful coaches, but we trained and trained and trained on on hard floors. The load was very high and I ended up stress fractures in my back. You know, the stress reactions because my, my spine, you know, I didn't I had a dodgy technique in spiking, the load. But also, you know, the fact that my spine was was not mature it was still trying to ossify, I was only an adolescent. So I think that's really important to be mindful of that for coach too.
Jonathan Leo Ng [00:39:17] Yeah. I must say that, you know, a lot of the coaches that I've observed, they really onto this already. You know, they, they mostly using like appropriate size equipment as well. But I think that the point that we can pick up from here is we do know that smaller size equipment can make a task simpler to to perform. So even if you're, you know, working with, like, kids, even adults. Right. And you want to simplify the task as a coach, there's no shame, you know, in using a slightly modified equipment, you could use a smaller size ball. You could change the density of the balls. You know, deflated balls are often seen as, as a as a no-no but deflated balls, if you think about working with people with, who are quite new to the sport can be safer, right? It's softer to catch it's not going to injure them so much if I'm kicking it, it's going to move at a slower pace as well. So, you know, really manipulating the equipment that we use, I think there's really no shame in, you know, going back to the equipment that was meant for the age groups before, you definitely you. In fact, that's a that's a way in which we can encourage variable practice because your learners then get to catch different sizes of ball. It increases the sensitivity to the, you know, the different, speeds of the ball, the sizes that you all train them to be more adaptable athletes. Yeah.
Will Vickery [00:40:51] Now, I am very much aware of the time we've got and to be honest, I think we could continue on the, the three of us talking about this for quite some time. And, I'm only halfway through the questions that I've actually got that I wanted to answer with you guys. So, we might have to leave it there, but I would love to actually pick this back up with the two of you in the near future, just to kind of continue with this discussion because I think it's really valuable, there’s a lot of really good pertinent points that are coming out of this that a lot of people may not have thought of, when they're actually coaching, whether it be adults or kids. So, yeah, I mean, I unfortunately do have to call it quits there because we've we've got to move on to other things. But yeah, it's really been great to have you both. And hopefully we can pick this up in the near future.
Thanks for listening. To learn more about community coaching, head to the Australian Sports Commission's Community Coaching web page. I'm Will Vickery and I look forward to you joining me for the next podcast in the Coaching and Officiating series. If you like today's podcast, please follow us wherever you get your podcasts and share this podcast with your teammates, fellow coaches and officials, and friends.
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