LaxCoachNS: March 2014

Volume: 3, Edition (3)

Posted: Tuesday, March 25^th, 2014

All Newsletters available at www.laxcoachns.blogspot.ca

Twitter: @Lawrenc70370068

“Help them become the people they want to be

through exceptional life experiences like lacrosse”

News: “Don’t Lose the Earlybird EDGE”

The Earlybird deadline, March 31^st, for the Edge Atlantic Coaches Conference is less than a week away (Earlybird $150, Full Fee $195). This is an opportunity to meet coaches from a wide variety of sports and compare notes on the cornerstones of performance (Technical, tactical, physical, nutritional and mental elements) and hear from leaders within their field.

Between April 25^th-26^th the Westin Nova Scotian will host the Edge conference, which you can register for through your The Locker account. If you don’t have an NCCP number you can set one up on the site, www.coach.ca by linking on “My Locker” or “The Locker” and then register for the conference.

Don’t forget, Certified Competitive Introduction coaches will receive valuable Professional Development points and there is some financial assistance available, but time is running out to take advantage so get in touch with LNSS’s Technical Director.

News: “Goalies: Past, Present and Supersized”

Whether you teach box goalies and/or have been one, this is a great article available on ILIndoor.com by Marty ONeil: http://www.ilindoor.com/2014/03/21/lost-art-of-goaltending-is-being-threatened-by-a-new-generation-of-bulk-taking-up-space/ . “Lost art of goaltending is being threatened by a new generation of bulk taking up space” is a thought provoking article worth the read. Google the title or try the link.

News: “Coaching Clinics Ready”

The first round of NCCP coaching clinics are ready to go in the Province. For new coaches, they need to complete the Box Community Development clinic (Comm Dev), whereas coaches who have taken the Comm Dev clinic and workbook, they can attend the Box Competitive Introduction clinic (Comp Intro).

Box Comp Intro, April 4^th – 5^th

Friday 7pm-9pm

Saturday 9am-3pm

East Dartmouth Community Centre

50 Caledonia Road, Dartmouth

LF – Kent Hayley

Box Comm Dev, April 12^th – 13^th

Saturday 5pm-10pm

Sunday 8am-1pm

Spryfield Community Gym (Behind the arena)

25 Drysdale Road, Halifax

LF – David Kehoe

Box Comm Dev, April 11^th-12^th

Digby, NS

Contact LF Bruce McCullogh (bruce@mccullogh.ca)

New coaches will need to set up a CLA coaching account and an NCCP number, which they can coordinate by contacting LNSS’s Technical Director. Every coach attending a coaching clinic will need to complete the CLA online pre-clinic work and then register for the clinic online. Again, if you have problems, get in touch with LNSS’s Technical Director.

News: “Try Lacrosse”

Congratulations to St. Margaret’s Storm, SW Hurricane and NW Rebel coaches and executives for running very successful Try Lacrosse sessions this month. There were a lot of happy faces and sweating brows from a new generation of lacrosse players. Great to see senior to peewee club players come out and assist and lead their programs and is why these sessions are so beneficial to the growth of lacrosse. New players love rubbing elbows with the Pros and players they look up to.

News: “The Dome Looms”

Despite the winter storm we’re about to be run over by within the next 24 hours, the days are notably longer, the sun’s strength is stronger and in just over a week, players and coaches will hit the Rocky Lake Dome floor and start another season of MMLL box lacrosse. As part of this year’s activity, LNSS’s Technical Director will be handing out Coach registration forms that can be filled out on the spot or left in a drop-box at the arena.

The Coach Registration form, which is a modified 100B form (for those who remember) will ensure that coaches and their coaching staffs (Door openers and trainers) are covered by LNSS’s insurance policy while leading practices, games and any other LNSS sanctioned events. The plan is to have all coaching staffs registered by the end of April.

Technical Director’s “My 2 Cents”

I would highly recommend that in addition to the Edge Coaching Conference that coaches look into the NCCP multisport Competitive Development clinics. Over the past three months I’ve attended Developing Athletic Abilities, Prevention and Recovery, Managing Conflict and Leading Drug-free Sport. These clinics do cost $50 per clinic, but they are well worth the value.

There are four general categories that make up an athlete’s repertoire of athletic abilities: Physical, motor, tactical and mental. This repertoire gives an athlete the capacity to carry out the efforts, movements and tasks that support sport performance. At the core of this module are the seven physical and three athletic abilities in conjunction with the body’s energy systems. Coaches are then challenged to develop training strategies for their sport using these key elements through a wide variety of testing and training principles. Again, an intense course, but well worth the time.

A great follow-up to Athletic Abilities is the Prevention and Recovery module. Here coaches identify common injuries within their sport and the causes (poor training, overuse or physical forces) and create a Prevention Action Plan to minimize the risk of those injuries. This clinic isn’t just about improving your warm-ups and cool downs: High performance depends on how well you train and how thorough you plan and the same goes for injury prevention. In the end coaches have a much better appreciation for training fundaments, identifying fatigue and overtraining, recovery techniques and the incorporation of hydration, nutrition and sleep. This is definitely a very functional module.

In regards to Managing Conflict and Leading Drug-free Sport, these modules delve into ethical, social and legal aspects of coaching. In managing conflict coaches learn the potential sources and multipliers that can increase the difficulty of resolving issues then complete a short survey to see what strategies they use in conflict resolution. This last task can be an eye opener and can help develop your toolbox of skills.

As for drug-free sports, this module is essentially an extension of the ethical decision making process. After establishing the facts of a situation, coaches determine whether they are dealing with an ethical, legal or doping issue. Depending on the drug in question, like marijuana, the conclusion can be that they are dealing with a doping and legal issue. A good amount of debate resulted from the marijuana “The Season Up in Smoke” example.

Column: “Tips from the Crease”

“Periodization”

I had no idea who Istvan Bayli was a few weeks ago, or that he was the author of the LTAD model for Sport Canada, but I’m sure glad I do now. Istvan introduced Periodization, an extremely valuable tool that can provide “the framework for arranging the complex array of training processes (skill development, strength training and regeneration) into a logical schedule to bring about optimal improvements in performance”. Key take-home topics where, sleep, recovery and puberty.

Istvan could not stress enough the need for good sleeping habits. General guidelines being at least 6-8 hours per night, no electronics 2 hours before sleep and 20 minute naps between 2pm-4pm at competitions, particularly those where more than one game is played a day.

In regards to recovery, this is where periodization plays a strategic roll and Istvan stepped through a 10-step process on how to create your own plan. To maintain an athlete’s athletic abilities they need three training sessions or blocks per week, but to progress, they will require 6-8 weeks of training with 6, 9, 12, or at the elite/Olympic level, 15 sessions or training blocks a week. Therefore, adequate recovery needs to be planned into weekly, monthly and before championship competition, which should also include variation in training intensity and duration. Athletes won’t receive the benefits of training for 10-12 days after the last session and a great way to monitor a player’s level of fatigue is using the “bunny-hop” test.

A simply way to find out if your players are recovering well or starting to suffer from fatigue is to run them through the standing long jump test. Hopping on two feet like a bunny, the athletes make five consecutive standing long jumps in a row and the total distance is measured and recorded. The test is simple, fast, not energy “expensive” and can accommodate a large team. To monitor recovery and training demands, run the test at the beginning and end of the practice.

Lastly, do you know where your athletes stand in regards to their growth spurt? Istvan stepped through “Pubertal Periodization”, a method to modify your training plan to accommodate pre-pubescent athletes and those going through puberty. The key being, players between the ages of 10-12 do not have the hormonal machinery to benefit from adult exercise regimes. For those between the ages of 10-16, growth can be so rapid as to dramatically affect performance as their centre of gravity shifts and neural pathways struggle to coordinate rapidly growing limbs.

As parents struggle to combat growing limbs and the cost of re-clothing them, they can predict the age of Peak Height Velocity (point at which the body is growing at its fastest rate) by going to http://taurus.usask.ca/growthutility/phv_ui.cfm?type=1 or google “peak height velocity, University of Saskatchewan”. This information is then valuable to coaches in matching practice strategies to the needs of their players, particularly at the LTAD Learning-to-Train and Training-to-train stages, or in box lacrosse terms, roughly peewee to midget.

Note:

Talking with BC counter parts, they use “Blob Tag” (Chicken Tag, Vol3, Ed1) and Masters Rules with their Junior teams. Blob tag being just plain old fun and Masters’ box rules to keep the ball moving (4-5 second holding rule) and defensive positioning. There is no body or stick contact in Masters lacrosse, which means that defensive positioning is the only way to impede the progress of a ball carrier. And if I haven’t said it before, the best line I’ve ripped off recently is,

“Positioning improves Vision

Vision improves Anticipation

Anticipation improves Decision Making”

News: “Next Month”

Keep track of up-coming events on LNSS’s website newslider and calendar.

Atlantic Coaching Conference Earlybird Deadline, March 31^st, See above
Box Officiating Clinics, March, See LNSS Website
Box Coaching Clinics, April, See above

“Anyone who says ‘I’m just a volunteer coach’ should not be coaching. Just because you’re a volunteer doesn’t give you the right to be unorganized and unprepared and unprofessional.”

Mike Babcock: Head Coach, Team Canada,
2014 Olympic Gold Medalists

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LaxCoachNS

Wednesday, 26 March 2014

April 1st Deadline!

Tuesday, 25 March 2014

NS Coach Newsletter Vol 3(3) March, 2014