Premature professionalism in youth sport is a growing problem. Environments created to replicate professional sport, ‘elite’ pathways at 8-years-old and coaches removing autonomy from the environment by exerting total control. In this article, PDP Editor, Dave Wright challenges the status quo and asks how we can break the machine that coaching is at risk of becoming. The world of sport is constantly evolving and new technology creeps into all sporting codes. Youth players wear tracking devices and GPS, while data can even now be captured…
elite performance
Christine S. Nash, John Sproule, and Peter Horton The Big Idea Albert Einstein was said to have said this about the nature of research: “If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn’t be called ‘research,’ would it?” And so, it goes. Researchers try to figure out creative ways to answer the questions they ask themselves, knowing all along they have no idea what they are doing. Not knowing in advance provides the go-juice to power the research process. Sometimes it is best…
Joseph P. Mills and Jim Denison The Big Idea While this research topic is specific to endurance running coaches’ practices, these authors believe their findings have implications for all sports. The more obvious sports would include those with family resemblances to endurance running, such as triathlon, rowing, swimming, cycling, cross-country skiing. But their findings could easily apply to the wider range of sports where human performance limits are not the primary impact on success. The topic these authors pursue is the relationship between how conventional…
P.R. Ford and A.M. Williams The Big Idea The American golfer Arnold Palmer (1929-2016) once said “It’s a funny thing, the more I practice the luckier I get.” Risking over-simplification, Palmer’s witty observation is a fair one-sentence summary of this discussion on what research tells the coach about developing elite soccer players. Risking over-complication, the deeper question isn’t how much one practices, but how much one practices the right kind of practice. The authors of this paper urge coaches and players who strive to be in…
Joseph Baker and Sean Horton The Big Idea Whether human development is a product of nature or nurture is one of the longest and most colourful debates in the history of ideas. More common today however is the growing belief that we evolve by way of the intertwining of both our biological and environmental influences. This review paper explores the impact of these interactions on human performance, and in particular, on acquiring and demonstrating sport expertise. The inherent complexity of interacting influences in the pursuit of sport expertise is…