{"id":878,"date":"2020-03-26T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-03-26T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/reports\/leaders-virtual-roundtables-preparing-for-major-competition\/"},"modified":"2025-12-15T05:12:21","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T05:12:21","slug":"leaders-virtual-roundtables-preparing-for-major-competition","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/leaders-virtual-roundtables-preparing-for-major-competition\/","title":{"rendered":"Leaders Virtual Roundtables: Preparing for Major Competition"},"content":{"rendered":"<!-- blocks\/hero-editorial -->\n<!-- inc\/hero-editorial -->\n<div class=\"hero es-hero__editorial hero--var-1\" role=\"banner\">\n\t<div class=\"hero__image\" style=\"background-image: url(https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/app\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/08\/GettyImages-1210762678.jpg);\">\n\n\t\t<div class=\"hero__overlay grad-overlay content-bottom\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"container\">\n\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"hero__content\">\n                    \n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"hero__content__inner\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t                            <p class=\"es-label es-label--md\">\n                                Mar 26, 2020                            <\/p>\n                        \t\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\" class=\"theme-dark hero__back-link back-link es-label es-label--sm\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"icon icon--md icon--arrow-left\"><\/span>Articles<\/a>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<h1 class=\"hero__title\">Leaders Virtual Roundtables: Preparing for Major Competition<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n        \n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n    <section class=\"es-section theme-light hero__sidebar-wrapper container\">\n        <div class=\"hero__sidebar\">\n                            <div class=\"category-list\">\n                  <div class=\"es-label es-label--sm\">Category<\/div>\n                  <a href=\"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/category\/coaching-development-performance\/\" rel=\"tag\">Coaching &amp; Development<\/a>                <\/div>\n                            <div class=\"share-list\">\n                  <div class=\"es-label es-label--sm\">Share<\/div>\n                  <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer\/sharer.php?u=https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/leaders-virtual-roundtables-preparing-for-major-competition\/\">Facebook<\/a>\n                  <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?url=https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/leaders-virtual-roundtables-preparing-for-major-competition\/&#038;text=Leaders Virtual Roundtables: Preparing for Major Competition\">Twitter<\/a>\n                  <a href=\"mailto:?subject=Here's a Leaders In Sport article for you &amp;body=Check out this article: Leaders Virtual Roundtables: Preparing for Major Competition. https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/leaders-virtual-roundtables-preparing-for-major-competition\/\">Email<\/a>\n                  <a href=\"#copyLink\" id=\"copyButton\" class=\"copy-link-clipboard\">Copy Link<\/a>\n                  <div id=\"textToCopy\" class=\"font-hidden\">https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/leaders-virtual-roundtables-preparing-for-major-competition\/<\/div>\n                <\/div>\n                    <\/div>\n    <\/section>\n<!-- blocks\/section -->\n<section\n  class=\"es-section flexible-section  text-only theme-light\"\n    >\n                <div class=\"container\">\n                                    <div class=\"bg-striped-pattern__inner section-padding-top section-padding-bottom\">\n                <div class=\"es-section__inner col-parent col-parent--stack-sm\">\n                                            <div class=\"es-section__sidebar es-section__sidebar--sticky col col--12 \">\n                                                            <p class=\"es-section__label es-label es-label--md\">An online meeting of Leaders Performance Institute members on 19th March.<\/p>\n                            \n                            \n                            \n                                                            <div class=\"es-section__text content-area\">\n                                    <p><p><strong><b>The group discussed:<\/b><\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Finding the balance in preparation for so-called \u2018big games\u2019 and \u2018normal\u2019 ones.<\/li>\n<li>The importance of clarity and consistency of preparation.<\/li>\n<li>Challenges the current climate is presenting High Performance teams.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong><b>Recommended Reading &amp; Listening: Leaders Performance Institute<\/b><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance\/covid-19-how-sport-is-helping-its-athletes-and-coaches\/\"><u>COVID-19: How Sport is Helping its Athletes and Coaches<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance\/covid-19-finding-the-new-optimal-training-environment-amidst-the-disruption\/\"><u>COVID-19: Finding the \u2018New\u2019 Optimal Training Environment Amidst the Disruption<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong><b>Future Thinking \/ Performance Questions:<\/b><\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Debrief your performance and team strengths. What did we do well that allowed us to win? What are our strengths as a team? How can we maximise these rather than spending too much time focusing on the weaknesses of the opposition?<\/li>\n<li>Detail \u2013 how much detail matters?<\/li>\n<li>When planning ahead for a \u2018big\u2019 fixture or major competition, consider ahead of time the mental impact winning or losing a game can have on players and coaches. Can you begin to subtly include some practice in your preparation weeks to support the potential for mental exhaustion.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>1. What are our current thinking and challenges around preparing for major competition?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Ask yourself the question: when reflecting on a win and a good performance, what went well? Clarity played a bit part for both the coaches and the athletes.<\/li>\n<li>You have to focus on this clarity further out than just the week of the game to ensure there is no clutter going through people\u2019s minds.<\/li>\n<li>Big games produce the emotional response to focus the mind, so removing clutter provides complete clarity on the job at hand.<\/li>\n<li>In another circumstance, we used the same process, however in the same week we underestimated the need to prime the players emotionally and there was a belief that they had a satisfaction narrative at the end of the season where they thought they had done pretty well.<\/li>\n<li>Detail matters, but how much detail matters?<\/li>\n<li>If you sense that the motivation and mood in the camp has dropped or that there is a satisfaction narrative, it\u2019s up to the coach to identify that and engineer a different environment that week: maybe add some chaos in or push the players harder to heighten the motivation.<\/li>\n<li>As a coach, use your team leaders to get some insight into the pulse of the team from their perspective. Figure out how the players are viewing the matchup.<\/li>\n<li>For coaches in the lead up to a big game, they need to be self-aware and also understand that the game-plan has to be complex enough to attempt to beat the opposition, but simple enough for it to be clear. Start your preparation and bring clarity from the offset.<\/li>\n<li>There needs to be consistency in your practice leading up to any type of game. Subconsciously,if you change your preparation,\u00a0it can set off anxiety in the player. So stability is very important.<\/li>\n<li>Consider the importance of player-led leadership. Allow them to share what they are going through and their thoughts around the team\u2019s preparation rather than the coaches always being at the front dictating the pace.<\/li>\n<li>Focus on what you are really good at and not hyper-focus on the strengths of the opposition. Know who you are and what makes you successful and hone in on that skillset.<\/li>\n<li>Maintaining emotional regulation after a victory or a defeat should also be something we consider during major competition. Mental exhaustion can follow both cases, so we should consider the impact of this at the beginning \u2013 how can we prepare and attempt to maintain momentum?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong><b>2. The challenges of the current climate &#8211; how are you trying to approach it and navigate the challenge?<\/b><\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Our current tactics right now; we have daily communications amongst all our staff and players about what we know to be factual, even if that\u2019s changing every five minutes as we all know.<\/li>\n<li>In a baseball organisation, we divided those up between our staff and having daily communication; we set a rubric from a shared document that we can all edit, questions that we can be asking players, because they\u2019re spread out across the country and the world.<\/li>\n<li>We\u2019re focus on each player\u2019s individual scenarios. Some players have a gym that they built inside of their house and some players have literally no equipment whatsoever; some players have baseballs at their house and some players don\u2019t. We\u2019re trying to have a consistent set of questions from which we can aggregate that data and any of our staff can see it; we have a really holistic dataset going: a nutritionist asking questions or a mental skills expert asking questions, our field staff, our manager etc. Now we\u2019re trying to build individualised programmes around each player\u2019s situation and that\u2019s obviously a huge task with each of them having unique scenarios in different states and different countries.<\/li>\n<li>One of the ideas we had was keeping our players seeing each other face to face and the community-shared inspiration was a video platform through which players can share creative ideas and videos of them finding ways to work out at home.<\/li>\n<li>Our S&amp;C staff are sending videos of workouts that don\u2019t require a lot of machines or plates or advanced equipment and trying engage them with that.<\/li>\n<li>We\u2019re making sure that we\u2019re talking to our players everyday, communicating what their plans are, making sure that they have a plan, that they are set up and safe; we\u2019re engaging our community with webinars and really trying to create an opportunity of education through this and now that people have more time spending more time talking about different areas of tennis and sports science.<\/li>\n<li>It\u2019s a very tragic situation but our players are [feeling less] so what I\u2019m trying to do as a mental coach is to make sure that they create some momentum, have goals that they\u2019re trying to achieve at this time, to make sure they have a schedule and routines they are keeping that are not too different to what they do; and to make sure they are communicating and not feeling alone.<\/li>\n<li>The one thing that stands out is to maintain a purpose; until something is cancelled, the players and staff must continue to work on the basis that it will happen. I\u2019ve found here that when the players do feel uncertain or they\u2019re not actually doing what they\u2019re working towards then things can drop off; less purpose, less intensity.<\/li>\n<li>Routines are really important, not just around the physical side of things but also the mental structure that they have to their day.<\/li>\n<li>On the social side, this is big for me, we\u2019ve taken the hashtag #stayconnected when we\u2019re not connected; taking the performance side of things, in team sports, in rugby it\u2019s a massive part, staying together and supporting each other.<\/li>\n<li>We\u2019ve set up a separate WhatsApp group; it\u2019s all the same people that would be in our normal WhatsApp group but it\u2019s led by one of our medical performance guys whose brilliant culturally; he\u2019s called it \u2018quaran-team\u2019.<\/li>\n<li>In that, we\u2019re going to have all sorts of challenges, none of them rugby-related. So they\u2019re all going to be building LEGO, having weekly bingo; these will be individual things that the guys will think up.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>What does the modern coach need to know?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>We tackle this question in our latest Performance Special Report. Download <em>Coachmaker: What the Modern Coach Needs to Know<\/em>, which features sports organisations as diverse as <strong>Ulster Rugby<\/strong>, the <strong>Geelong Cats<\/strong>, <strong>Minnesota Timberwolves<\/strong> and <strong>US Special Operations<\/strong> discussing personal development, creating performance environments, recruitment and using data in smarter ways.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/info.leadersinsport.com\/l\/285402\/2020-01-27\/8j31tq\"><button>Download Report<\/button><\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n                                <\/div>\n                            \n                            \n                            \n                                                    <\/div>\n                                        <div class=\"col visibly-hidden col--flex-align-right\">\n                                            <\/div>\n                <\/div>\n            <\/div>\n        <\/div>\n        <\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An online meeting of Leaders Performance Institute members on 19th March.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":879,"menu_order":0,"template":"","categories":[22],"pathway":[],"topic":[],"sport":[],"class_list":["post-878","article","type-article","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-coaching-development-performance"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.6 - 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