Any project that wants to be consistent includes basic rules for its success. Playing competitive sport is a project, with objectives and a sum of actions aimed at achieving them. Performing is not a coincidence! In addition to pure technique and other skills, programming a season is one of the essential actions that is not often taken into account by parents as being crucial.
Many problems that mark the life of a young athlete can be avoided by simply editing the schedule of the season : saturation, fatigue, conflicts of diaries or people, budget, etc.
The practice of a sport in competition requires a significant investment time, and when this practice is done among young people, there are also many obligations, needs, and other tasks to be completed which are also time consuming: schooling, family, friends, other activities ... It is not uncommon to see tired sportsmen (mentally and physically) and lose their motivation because of lack of rest. Establishing a schedule also aims to measure the physical and mental loads to which the child is subjected, and to arrange the resting periods in relation.
Establishing an agenda is often considered tedious and incongruous as long as a certain level of sport does not justify it. This is one of the most frequent mistakes I have had in my career, and I would still see it unfortunately. The younger a child is, the more he / she "obeys" the program imposed by parents and coaches, when he / she grows up, and when his / her sport level rises, he / she benefits from a more adapted layout because his project is often realized by coaches who take the measure of all the elements of a season's planning. He knows himself better and can tell what his priorities and needs are.
When it comes to a young person who is still in school, planning a season does not mean only making a schedule of competitions and training, it is a listing of all the tasks and obligations of the young person in a season: studies, exams, family obligations , other activities practiced, free time, etc.
To make a planning for a sport child is:
- Have a visibility of all the "charges" of the young person over the whole year.
School, training, competitions, other activities, friends, free time, family obligations, etc. This allows you to insert and respect recovery ranges.
- Anticipate conflicts of agendas: competitions on the same date, revisions and school exams, family obligations, other activities, etc.
- Visualize the coherence of the sports objectives and the competitions aimed at.
- Make the budget of the season : check that the financing is assured, or what actions to put in place to collect the budget? This often avoids the problems associated with money, and the frustrations that flow from it ...
- Organize the logistics. It's often a real headache. Transport, accommodation ... laying down days of holidays for parents, organizing the weekend break, set up carpools between parents, etc. The higher the player's level, the greater the number of trips, requiring a more complex and engaging organization in the family agenda.
- Educate the young to organize and become autonomous , and to make choices.
- Preparing at best the "peaks" of performance: An aside on these major objectives: to preserve the shape of the young athlete, parents or some coaches tend to put the player at rest 15 days or 3 weeks before these major dates to "He or she" is well rested on D-day. This calculation is not often the best, but a long period of withdrawal may result in the player being "disabled".
Some recommendations for optimizing a seasonal schedule for a young person:
- Display the agenda in the youth's room (1);
- Enter the objectives of the season on the schedule;
- Put colors according to the different spots;
- Respect the alternation between "challenge" competitions and "easier" competitions;
- No more sequencing of 2 to 3 tournaments (then recovery 1 or 2 weeks depending);
- Multi-column calendar to register the various options on the same dates.
By talking with parents, the young people, or coaches, this speech seems to them always coherent, but they admit not having "integrated" this deal. In the beginning, they find that balancing a schedule is not an easy task, which is the case, there is no single model. We are in the very base of coaching an athlete. Seasonal planning is directly linked to the goals, the environment, the constraints, the rhythms, the motivation and the needs of each young person.
In the end, it is a question of correctly identifying contents (tasks) which must go into a container (time) while respecting "release" times which are also content.
Imagine a suitcase too small for a lot of business that you want to take on a trip, it's too much and you can not close it. To optimize your storage, you will bend your business properly. But if after that it overflows again, and you insist forcing the closure you risk damaging your business and the bag itself. Too many tasks to perform is to neglect the quality and tiring the one who must accomplish them. I can hear people thinking about buying a bigger suitcase, but time is not stretchy! So that your child's season is going well, prepare him his road book, with his coach, for a very fluid trip!
(1) The agenda is not only for parents, it must be remembered that it is the activity and the project of the child. Viewing his schedule allows him to visualize it, to "project". In addition, it also allows the entourage to communicate, sometimes looking at the schedule together, and assess the level of motivation of the young person.
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