In sports, maximum sports performance has always been a condition coveted by players and coaches of all levels. Whether the athletes are school-age soccer players or Olympic athletes vying for their gold medals, excellence in sport has always appealed to athletes and coaches alike. In our modern sports age, where sports science is at stratospheric levels and continues to rise, what are the factors that, when used correctly, can lead athletes to athletic excellence? Are there secrets to peak athletic performance? Can these factors be easily manipulated for the benefit of athletes? This article looks at the factors that can lead athletes and coaches to excel in sports.
There are many articles and books outlining principles, programs, success factors, and the like that can lead to excellence in sport. Many authors have written extensively on the subject, and in many ways the principles and factors are universal. The principles of progressive resistance, variety, training with purpose, recovery, etc. are indisputable reasons that allow athletes to perform at their best in sport. This article goes one step further by looking at these universal factors in a different light. I would like to convey to athletes and coaches how these principles can be applied in practice and which factors are most important for sports success and peak performance.
There are two groups of factors that we must examine. Technical and human factors. Let's first take a look at the first group of factors;
Technical Factors
Quality Preparation
Mastery of Individual Skills
High Level of Fitness
Understand the Team's Overall Game
Occupation of Key Team Positions
Minimize Bugs in Games
• Quality Preparation
The hard work of each sports season begins with very intense pre-season training. Nobody likes this season as work and training are usually very boring and painful. But that has to be so that the athletes are optimally prepared for the difficulties of the competition phase. Endurance, strength, speed, and dexterity volumes must be completed. Not only the volume of work but also the quality of the preparatory phase is crucial. When players cut corners and train without heart or soul to the letter, it shows up later in the competition in the form of fatigue, injury, or lack of sharpness in their performance. The best sports performances are not possible in such circumstances. The quality of the preseason is even more important in youth sports.
Very often, in schools, the seasons of many sports begin almost immediately with the beginning of the school year. When our children go on long vacations, our athletes often return to school to compete with very little training time. Team play, physical development, and mental preparation must be done in 2-3 weeks, which is almost impossible and impractical in the sports world. This type of preparation also harms the development of our children. Under these circumstances, coaches and teachers (and parents when possible) have a very important responsibility to ensure that our athletes are well prepared to compete. Training programs for sports must be prepared and implemented before the end of the year. Our athletes must understand that when they finished their exams, their season effectively began. Once a training program has started, coaches and teachers can also inform athletes about a vacation training program. Every athlete should have one to do something during their break from school to improve their game skills. It could include things like maintaining a certain level of fitness through endurance activities like biking, running, or swimming, catching and throwing in the backyard with your siblings, or even doing individual exercises to improve certain skills. The main objective is to maintain and improve what was achieved last season so that athletes do not go back to school and start from scratch. The simple planning and training in this way ensure quality preparation of sports teams to later achieve sports excellence.
• Mastery of Individual Skills
In all sports and games, certain skills and abilities are considered fundamental and necessary. Athletes must achieve this before they can later play at a higher level. In basketball, dribbling and executing a correct layup are crucial. Throwing, catching and fielding skills are essential in baseball and softball. Pushing the pass and receiving a pass are necessary skills in hockey and floorball. The list goes on. In pre-season training, or the early stages of a game, these essential skills should be introduced to our young players, and every effort and time should be devoted to mastering these essential skills. Without these skills, it will be very difficult for a coach to carry out more complex team plays to achieve sporting excellence. If forwards can't even control a long pass from a teammate, how can we expect that same player to hold the ball well downfield in front of opposing defenders and pass to oncoming teammates for support? ? It is advisable for coaches to develop these skills early on and for players to continue to improve on these skills even if they feel they are good enough.
These basic skills for your sport are also important for peak sports performance at the professional level. The repertoire of skills required and the intensity with which those skills are performed at the highest level are even more acute. At higher levels, where opponents are very evenly balanced in all areas, one mistake can often result in victory or loss. It is even more important that professionals master all the skills required for the game or sport. Maximum sports performance is only possible in such intense conditions.
• High Level of Fitness
At the high school level, many athletes would not have reached their maximum physical development, no matter how hard they train. From a physiological point of view, the development of this area in young people is very different. Some children reach a high level of fitness faster than others, others have a physique that only responds optimally to training when they are older. Therefore, it can be assumed that a team with the strongest group of players has the greatest advantage. No matter how skilled your opponents are, if you are fitter than him or her, you will be able to overcome their lack of fitness by reacting quickly to overcome their shortfalls. Let's say you're being dribbled by a more skilled soccer opponent. But if he's fitter than the opponent who just took him out, he can back up fast enough to cover his position again. This youthful fitness advantage is also very important in the later stages of the game, as players tend to tire faster at this age. A fitter team can prevail later in the game and score more points. Players of this age should be convinced of this physical need and encouraged to do whatever it takes to reach the highest level of fitness possible.
What about the professionals? Without a doubt, professional athletes are expected to be physically fit at the highest level. If they are not, their opponents will be and consequently, they will outperform them and achieve their peak athletic performance. In general, professional athletes know how to get in shape and keep it until the end of the season. Their physical bodies are also in the best condition to reach their full potential.
• Understand the Team's Overall Game
The next important factor in achieving excellence in sports is understanding the overall game of team players. Imagine a coach telling his charges to clear the balls in every invasion game. You will be surprised how many players understand why they are told this. In most cases, players will only do what the coaches ask or tell them to do. The understanding behind their actions is very often very low. What they may not know is that playing the ball down the flanks or on the wings forces the opponent's defense to spread out further, creating more space in the middle for the attacker to exploit later. Another statistical advantage is that downplaying crosses often results in the attacker winning the ball back if he gets hit wide. Because of this, you often hear players or coaches yell at their charges, “Throw him on the line. Young players love the direct route to goal and that often means
• Occupation of Key Team Positions
The fifth factor that can produce excellence in sports is first finding the right players to fill the most important positions on the team. In all sports teams, there are key positions that must be filled first. The base of a basketball team is the driver of the team. he controls all the games. A center in hockey is a linchpin in both defense and attack, so he must be the best player, the fittest, and the most capable. The catcher in baseball is the point man as he dictates and directs the fields and also oversees the overall situation on the field. These key positions must be filled first, even if it means using someone outside of the position. I used to have a very talented and strong striker who likes to score goals. Unfortunately, I also have a big gap in the goalkeeper and he happens to be the best handball player on the team. After much persuasion and sacrifice, he finally became a goalkeeper. Thanks to his selfless character, the team did very well, since they scored very few goals against us. It was not easy to take this step. But as a coach I felt that the goalkeeper is too important a player to allow any player from Tom, Dick, or Harry, so he has to be the best. This result was the lowest number of silly mistakes in our goalkeeping department and gave the team a much better chance of winning games. This brings us to the last technical factor that influences maximum sports performance: making as few mistakes as possible.
• Minimize Bugs in Games
In sports these days, mistakes often decide the outcome of the game. Errors will be more common at the level of young people and children. The fact that children play at a lower technical and tactical level makes mistakes inevitable. The team that makes the fewest mistakes in a game will generally perform the best. It is a mentality that must be instilled in the players to make the least number of mistakes, both individually and as a team. If you don't think so, watch your next match carefully for goals or points scored. In most cases, you will find that a goal was caused by an opponent's mistake somewhere. Either a point or a run is the result of some players turning the ball over. Making a lot of stupid mistakes will not lead a team to peak athletic performance. A well-functioning team makes fewer mistakes. So coaches, make sure you teach your players to understand this and do the right things in the game. Show them evidence through video or live games, and they will be sure that the team with the fewest mistakes wins the games and achieves their sporting excellence.
So far we have discussed the technical factors that drive your team to sporting excellence. Coaches and players need to make sure these factors are well thought out to ensure their teams perform at their best. Otherwise, no matter how talented the team and players are, it will be a waste of time and effort.
When it comes to excelling in sports, human factors are also very important. Understand and master these factors, and success and excellence in the sport are almost certain. But very often, these factors tend to be the most difficult to achieve. Here we draw on the qualities of people to excel in various fields so that they can excel in sports. These qualities very often form the basis of all athletic performance in sports. Mastering these factors will be the most difficult for players and coaches because we are dealing with intangible elements of human nature. It's easy to improve your throwing skills, but improving team spirit has a lot more to do with just practicing a skill.
Fortunately, here we only need to focus on two human factors to achieve peak sports performance.
• Human Factors
- Player commitment and participation 2. Teamwork and team spirit
The first factor is about having engaged players. This is largely an individual player factor, but it is also the responsibility of the coach to get the maximum commitment and dedication from each player. We all know that every player is different, so different strategies are required to motivate different players. For some players, simply setting goals, both team and individual, is enough because the players themselves may already be intrinsically motivated. For players with low motivation and a star attitude, some kind of carrot and stick approach may be needed to get the best out of them. Whatever the strategies, failing to achieve the highest level of player engagement and dedication will result in less than optimal training and play, leading to lower peak performance in the sport.
The second human factor that leads to peak performance in sports is teamwork and team spirit. If a team can work together at a level where the understanding of the players is that good, the team must reach its full potential. Not only will the tactical plays be good in every way, but the effort of playing as a team will be so great that the level of satisfaction and sacrifice will be so great that team play will improve. Players are ready to run further and cover each other, and there's almost a magic factor to team play. Team effectiveness will improve. The players do not play for selfish reasons, but the common goals of the team. The story provides wonderful elements for us to see teamwork in action. Very often, it is not the teams with the most skill that win competitions, but the teams with the most team spirit and teamwork, when players are willing to put aside personal differences to play for bigger team goals. . At Euro 2004, Greece was not the team with the most equity or skill, but they still won because the manager was able to mold a seemingly unrelated team into a cohesive entity ready to push each other.
Training and achieving peak performance in sports are often the dreams and aspirations of many coaches and players. At all levels of sport, from high school to professional, all athletes and their coaches want to perform at their best. It is an internal human desire to succeed and be the best. Being the best requires not only skill but also certain technical and human factors that can be manipulated to achieve excellence in the sport. These factors are important to any sports fan who strives for excellence in sports.
