Tag Archives: best coaching in tennis

The Science Behind Success

Posted on November 2, 2024 by in Maximizing Tennis Potential

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The following post is an excerpt from The Art of Exceeding

The Morning Mastery Plan: The Science Behind Success

Highly successful people are rarely satisfied with their competence. They possess a growth mindset and believe there is always room for improvement—these high achievers continuously look for growth opportunities.

Your old choices and habits were likely the leading cause of your outcomes. In the realm of achievement, patterns emerge that reveal a connection between actions and results. Let’s peek into the realm of science, where we unravel your new morning mastery plan and its impact on your path to even greater success.

1 Exchanging Habits

As you practice your morning reset, you’re not just resetting your morning but forging habits that will weave into your new identity. Each morning, you reinforce the neural pathways leading to greater focus, clarity, and intentionality.

2 The Birth of Better Habits

At the heart of rituals lies the concept of new habit formation. As psychologists and neuroscientists have discovered, habits are like well-worn trails in the forest of your mind. They develop over time through a loop of cue, routine, and reward, carving neural pathways that make the new behavior increasingly automatic.

3 The Ritualistic Nature of the Human Brain

Whether conscious or subconscious, rituals hold a fascinating grip on your behavior. The human brain is wired to repeat patterns and routines. These new morning routines are the repeated behaviors that will help you maximize your potential.

4 The Neurochemistry of The Morning Reset

When you engage in morning activities that align with your values and goals, your brain releases dopamine—a neurotransmitter associated with pleasure and reward. This routine creates a positive feedback loop that strengthens your inner belief in your abilities.

5 Stacking Motivation

Over time, the morning reset becomes more than just a better start to your day. It becomes a source of intrinsic motivation. As you experience the benefits, a powerful positive reinforcement cycle fuels your confidence and commitment.

5.6 Overcoming Resistance

Resistance often emerges when you break old patterns and establish new ones. Your brain naturally tends to resist change, seeking comfort in familiar routines. Understanding this resistance is vital to navigating it and acknowledging that resistance is a normal part of anyone’s growth process.

You’re not just resetting your morning but shaping your new reality. Your new belief system is born, leading to your desired success. Morning rituals create a new lens through which you perceive your development. Embrace your morning mastery routines and watch your interactions, solutions, and daily training skyrocket.

YOUR TAKEAWAY CHALLENGE

Your new morning routine creates a positive feedback loop that will strengthen your confidence. Every athlete wants to be more confident in competition. Confidence does not miraculously appear; it is developed. Plan to increase your morning routines from 15 to 30 minutes, then to 45 minutes and then to 60 minutes. By doing so, you’re shaping your new reality.

Leaders vs. Managers

Posted on September 27, 2024 by in Maximizing Tennis Potential

Frank’s New Release- The Art of Exceeding: Building High Performance Athletes
E-Book Special New Release Price of Only $2.99
Click Here to Order your E-book Copy

The following post is an excerpt from The Art of Exceeding

Leaders vs. Managers

In high-performance “anything,” leadership shapes the trajectory of your career. It’s important to distinguish between leaders and managers, as these roles play distinct yet complementary parts in your journey from being a champion athlete to an actual leader years from now.

1 Defining Leadership

Leadership is not just your role; it’s a state of being—influencing others through inspiration and guidance. To understand leadership, let’s first explore how it differs from management.

Leadership versus Management:

Inspiration: Leaders inspire and motivate those around them. They foster a sense of purpose and passion for the game.

Visionary: Leaders apply exposure, not avoidance, to any deficiencies in their game. They set long-term goals and work collaboratively to achieve them.

Empowerment: Leaders empower their parents and coaches to make decisions and take ownership of their roles. They trust in their team’s abilities.

Management Control: Managers are nurtured to oversee their day-to-day training schedule and ensure their tasks are completed efficiently.

Task-Oriented: Managers focus on the specifics of getting things done. They take a proactive rather than reactive approach to the week’s training block.

Accountability:  Managers are responsible for organizing their equipment, nutrition, and hydration each day.

2. Sports IQ: A Leadership Trait

One common aspect is the “Sports IQ” concept- a player’s deep understanding of the competitive game, including their mental and emotional requirements. Leaders possess a high Sports IQ, which enables them to manage present-time awareness:

  • Strategize: They plan for competition. Their decisions are based on understanding how meticulously they prepare for battle.
  • Adapt: They can adapt their game plan on the fly, responding to their opponent’s strengths and weaknesses.
  • Anticipate: They anticipate their opponent’s moves, reading cues and patterns that give them a competitive edge.

3 Emotional Aptitude: Navigating the Human Element

Leaders excel not only in understanding the biomechanics and strategies of the game but also in managing their emotions. This emotional aptitude enables them to:

Remain Composed: They maintain their composure in high-pressure situations. They know if they don’t choke or panic, the opponent likely will.

Motivate: They gauge the emotional state of their parents at events. Their present-moment awareness helps to keep their folks from speculating about future outcome desires.

Resilience: They understand that losses come almost every weekend. They bounce back from setbacks, showing strength and resilience.

4 Sports: Leadership in Action

To illustrate the concept of leadership in your sport, we can look at Jake and Katie, who embodied these traits. They consistently demonstrated a combination of a high tennis IQ and emotional intelligence.

If you feel that being a leader is within you, we’ll continue our exploration. Prepare to dive deeper into emotional intelligence, open-mindedness, and the power of optimism.

YOUR TAKEAWAY CHALLENGE

As you know, leadership and management are different skill sets. A leader influences others’ attitudes, and a manager organizes. Both leadership and management require exceptional emotional aptitude, which is your ability to navigate the human elements—plan on being both.

Tennis: Prioritizing Development

Posted on September 25, 2024 by in Maximizing Tennis Potential

Frank’s New Release- The Art of Exceeding: Building High Performance Athletes
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Click Here to Order your E-book Copy

The following post is an excerpt from The Art of Exceeding

Prioritizing Development

The path to success in the journey from a junior champion to a leader isn’t solely about playing time and rankings. It’s about recognizing the importance of ongoing development as a player and a leader of your entourage. This chapter delves into prioritizing your improvements and crafting a personalized growth plan.

The Importance of a Developmental Plan

A developmental plan is the blueprint for your evolution. It’s a dynamic strategy that outlines goals, areas for improvement, and a timeline for achieving them. Leaders understand the significance of a well-structured developmental plan as it:

Fosters Progress: A plan provides a clear path for improvement, allowing you to track your progress and make adjustments along the way.

Maintains Focus: It helps players focus on performance, improvement, and long-term goals and prevents distractions or complacency.

Promotes Accountability: With a plan in place, you’ll hold yourself accountable for your development.

2 Customization: Tailoring the Plan

A developmental plan should be highly customized, reflecting your unique strengths, weaknesses, and aspirations. It encompasses various aspects, including technical skills, physical fitness, mental fortitude, and emotional resilience.

3 Networking for Better Practice/Sparing Partners

One key element of a developmental plan is finding suitable sparring partners. Jake would actively network at events to identify possible partners. He had a goal to get two new phone numbers per tournament. His approach enhanced his competitive software skills by exposing him to different ball speeds, spins, playing styles, and strategies.

4 Strategic Tournament Scheduling

Tournament scheduling is another critical aspect of a developmental plan. Katie consulted with her parents and coaches, strategically choosing tournaments aligned with her developmental needs.

5 Balancing Competition and Rest

A well-crafted developmental plan also includes times for rest and recovery. High-performance “anything” is physically, mentally, and emotionally demanding. You and your team should recognize the importance of allowing time to recuperate. Balancing competition and rest is essential for long-term success and injury prevention.

6 Embracing Change

Katie wasn’t afraid to embrace change. She understood the need to evolve her game to improve and stay at the forefront. I remember working with her to develop her kick serve, the tactics to beat retrievers, and adding a weight training program after her initial success.

7 The Vision of a Leader

Jake’s focused mindset extended beyond his high ranking. He envisions a future where he boldly plays better within his tennis identity in those clutch moments. This vision propelled him to prioritize development and continuous improvement over his boy’s 14 ranking.

Katie and Jake recognized that their success wasn’t only about what they achieved today but also about the game they envisioned as college All-Americans. This mature mindset helped them realize that the athletic journey is usually two steps forward and one step back.

YOUR TAKEAWAY CHALLENGE

Take the leadership role in organizing your customized developmental blueprint. Outline goals, areas for improvement, and timelines to achieve those skills. Balancing your schedule of improvement, competition, and rest is essential for long-term success.

Building Coachable Athletes

Posted on December 7, 2023 by in The Soft Science of Tennis

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Building Coachable Athletes

During a seminar, I conducted at The Wingate Sports Institute in Tel Aviv, Israel an attending woman’s volleyball coach raised her hand and asked me a great question: How does one discover their true potential? I responded, whether you’re coaching, parenting or playing your chosen sport, realize that you’re only one decision away from going up a level. The choice to avoid risk is what holds most of us back. Even before we attempt an endeavor, fear of the unknown forces most of us to retreat our efforts.

In psychology, it’s called the Spotlight Effect. The brain hesitates when it perceives there’s going to be a problem. We are hardwired to avoid pain and hardship whether it be physical, mental or emotional.  It’s easy to slide back and continue the same old comfortable routines, but “easy” only produces average results. Tennis coaches and players habitually choose to groove another basket of balls versus shifting their focus to the actual needs of the player (cause of losses). Why? It’s far less painful.

What’s holding us back is changing our decisions to taking risks versus routinely avoiding risks. Unpredictability and uncertainty should be seen as positive gatekeepers. I recommend moving towards those feelings versus running away from them. We all have an affinity for our habits. All too often we stay too long with those habits not because they’re productive but because we’re loyal to them.

A new relationship to anything may appear risky, but truth be told, it’s often riskier to remain in an ineffective environment. The real danger lies in stagnation. We instinctively know that around the world, opponents are training smarter, faster and more efficiently. Remaining in our comfort zone will only leave us behind the competition. To our detriment, our brains will try to sabotage any and all attempts at doing anything uncomfortable. I recommend shifting focus from the negative attitude of “what could go wrong” to the positive attitude of “what could go right.”

Whose responsibility is it to teach coach-ability? The typical response from a parent is, “I assume my child’s coaches are teaching life skills…right?” Ask a coach and the response is, “Teaching life skills are the responsibility of the parents. They’re paying me to teach their child strokes.” Ideally, these core values are the result of everyone involved in the athlete’s development, with the parents playing the decisive role. Providing children with the opportunity to take responsibility and instill accountability at an early age is not only an essential skill set for coach-ability but a vital life skill. Communication and independent problem-solving skills are the foundations of coach-ability.

“Two core software skills champions need most are millisecond decision making and problem-solving skills. Both of which, are not commonly found in standardized drilling.”

Is Your Athlete Un-Coachable?

A gifted but un-coachable athlete is every coach’s nightmare. The un-coachable athlete displays the following symptoms: showing up late for practice and lacking personal commitment, passion and real effort. These athletes routinely play the blame game, roll their eyes at constructive feedback and are close-minded to improvement. Un-coachable athletes spend the majority of their training sessions defending their poor choices and creating drama.

“Some athletes cling desperately to bad form because they have spent years developing it.”

Being committed to one’s emotional development isn’t a genetic predisposition, it is a learned behavior nurtured by intelligent parents and coaches. Changing a talented yet un-coachable athlete into a coachable athlete takes great emotional aptitude from both the parents and coach.

Improving an athlete’s software (coach-ability) is often a prerequisite for real learning, quicker growth, and maximizing potential. I believe great coaches and parents have to facilitate coach-ability. They have to convince the athlete that change is good, which is key because learning begins with change and change begins with learning.

Emotional modification begins with the athlete being open and honest enough to develop a humble and respectful attitude, competitive drive, and willingness to learn. It includes gratefulness that a coach cares enough and is willing to tackle the un-pleasantries of the task. Teaching discipline, accountability, and responsibility is a very different job description than teaching a topspin backhand.

Let’s Look at the Characteristics of the Coachable Athlete:

  • Willingness to Accept the Coach’s Philosophy
  • Acceptance of the Necessity for Improvement
  • Desire to be Accountable
  • Optimism and Growth Minded
  • Respectfulness
  • Acceptance of Responsibility
  • Letting Go of Excuses
  • Non-Combative Attitude
  • Open-Minded too Constructive Criticism
  • Eager to Receive Feedback
  • Respectful of the Coach’s Knowledge
  • Selflessness
  • Integrity
  • Courageous

It’s astounding how many young athletes self-sabotage their potential by choosing to ignore the above positive characteristics. Coachable athletes are taught life skills development and religiously held accountable for their morals and ethical conduct by their parents and coaches. Parents and athletes, please look for the above positive characteristics of the coachable athlete in your entourage of coaches as well. You can be sure that quality coaches will be looking for the same positive characteristics in their students and their parents.

In the 1st Edition of The Tennis Parents Bible (published in 2010), I wrote about the importance of positive coaching and parenting. A vital take away was the use of the 5-1 compliment to critique rule (verbal and non-verbal). If athletes are to fire their optimistic responses we have to provide the ammunition. I recommend exposing these qualities in timely condensed sessions. Coaches, the above 14 coachable software skills should be discussed in a creative, interactive information exchange that feels like a chat versus a moral lesson.