06 May 2012

Importance of coaching

Today I was reminded once again how important coaching is in sports. I stumbled upon a school level athletics meet at Dasharath Rangashala and was shocked at how poor the running mechanics of the athletes were. There were so many basic things the kids could do that would easily improve their time by a few seconds, but no one must have taught them and I presume even their coaches probably are not informed about proper running techniques.

My guess is that the top athletes in this meet will go on for years using incorrect technique and by the time they are ready to compete in a top class tournament they will be spending their time un-learning their bad techniques, instead of going forward and learning advanced training methods.

That's why I firmly believe the first thing any sports organization should do to raise the standard of their sport is to develop top class coaches who will teach kids from an early age proper techniques in their respective sports.