If you have limited time to engage with your athletes and want to consider the structure of how you engage, the language you use and the body language you adopt, then this research could inspire you to reflect on your own coaching practice and consider how you can maximise your impact during breaks in combat or play.
The research is focused specifically on the communication between coaches and boxers, but the principles of the findings could be considered by coaches in combat sports and coaches working in sports with time outs and breaks between rounds or games.
The process for obtaining the research was as follows:
- Observation of Boxing England’s Amanda Coulson and other coaches at a boxing competition.
- Discussion of the different styles and approaches to communication that we saw coaches use with athletes between rounds.
- The recording of video and audio of multiple coaches at an England v Scotland match.
- The recording of an England v Wales match to further explore key themes and findings.
Download the booklet below to find out more about the research and for practical strategies to maximise the impact of your communication.
As part of the funding for this ongoing research, a workshop will be created for boxing coaches by England Boxing that should be delivered in early 2021. The hope is that the findings will be further explored in the real world. The second phase of the project will also be boxing-centric, but we will be exploring the possibilities of how this translates across all sports and levels of the pathway.