Discover the 3 blunders sports coaches make

In this article I will talk about three mistakes in sports team management.

Most common mistakes made by coaches

Collective sport at training age has a fundamental importance in the physical and psychosocial development of the person. Competitive practice can either be a stimulus for the child to grow up with values such as effort, friendship or personal improvement, or it can be a limiting element if the training methods are not adequate.

Both in youth sports and in the maturity stage, the style and techniques used by the coach affect both the sporting performance itself and personal areas such as self-esteem, belonging to the group or self-perception of competencies. self-perception of competencies. Consequently, one of the main objectives of sport psychology is to detect which practices are positive or negative for athletes in order to modulate them and obtain a better performance.

In this article I will detail a total of three errors in the management of sports teams that are usually observed in competitive sports practice. These errors are usually based on strategies and methodologies that do not understand the psychological reality of athletes in certain game circumstances. Thanks to the continued study in this field of sports psychology, sports professionals already have the guidelines to reorient training strategies in search of the best results, both sporting and in group cohesion.

1. Hot Hand / Cold Hand

Widely studied in collective sports such as basketball, the Hot Hand Effect (hot hand) is the sporting aspect of the Gambler's Fallacy in gambling and card games.

What is the Hot Hand Effect? When a player has a streak of three consecutive scored shots, the coach tends to instruct the other players that it is the streaky player who is in contention for the next shot. This is a common mistake because, although it is counter-intuitive, the probabilities of success in the present shot are not increased by past events.

Beyond a positive scoring streak, the challenge for the coach is to keep a cool head and understand to what extent the player on a hot streak can maintain that level of success, either because of his ability to grow under pressure or, conversely, he may be affected by excessive pressure and euphoria, forcing shots with the added handicap of defenders who are more attentive to his movements.

In short, the Hot Hand Effect is nothing more than a cognitive fallacy. cognitive fallacy. The decision to continue betting on the streaky player should not be based on the endorsement that, misleadingly, past events provide.

Positive reinforcement

Many of the athletes reading this second point will identify with the following phrase: "Guys, if we win the next three games I'll buy you dinner". This offer, uttered by the coach, can have a negligible positive effect on extrinsic motivation. extrinsic motivation of the players. However, it ends up diminishing intrinsic motivation, due to two reasons:

a) The prize for which victories are reinforced does not enhance the value of the process of sport and group growth, but rather the simple achievement of certain goals.. This is interpreted by the athlete as follows: "It doesn't matter to learn how to play, it doesn't matter the ethics, it doesn't matter the respect for my teammates and rivals. All that matters is winning". Consequently, the final score (also dependent on external circumstances such as the quality of the opponents) is prioritized over the process of technical, tactical and psychological improvement and the cohesion of the group.

b) The prize is shown as something foreign to sport; sport is interpreted not as an end but as a means. This circumstance also has the effect of reducing intrinsic motivation. intrinsic motivation of the players.

Positive reinforcement, as we see, should be applied as an extra, and taking the sport itself as motivation. For example, we can try to increase the extrinsic motivation of the group by inviting them to watch a match of a top team in the same sport (a prize not external to the sport) if they manage to train with good intensity and perform a learning task during the matches (the process is rewarded, not the result).

3. Authoritarian coach

There is a coach profile that hardly gives feedback to his players; if at all, only to the star player. He is only able to offer negative reinforcement when players fail or do not understand a tactical concept, but it is difficult to see them correcting with precise and calm instructions.

These practices cause the team from tactical confusion (such as not knowing why a particular move is used in a given circumstance of the match), to problems of lack of confidence, which ultimately generate that the potential of the players is significantly diminished.

How can the coach anticipate these problems? By establishing a climate of trust and communication with the players; trying to use corrections in a positive tone if someone makes a mistake, without pointing fingers and in general maintaining an egalitarian and constructive group dynamic.