Beyond any athlete or sporting team, there is a coaching and support network that trains and motivates them. Ideal for athletes, personal trainers, sports coaches, volunteers or parents who would like to assist with their child’s sporting endeavours, the Certificate of Sports Coaching will equip you with the communication skills to develop relationships with athletes and teams.

In this sports coaching course, you will explore the athletic identity and the professional standards of a sports coach, and learn about the differences between coaching individuals as opposed to teams.

You will also study how to develop trusting relationships with managers, trainers, psychologists, dieticians, doctors and administrators, and how to navigate children’s sport and interact with parents.

Learning Outcomes

Outcomes achieved by undertaking a sports coaching course include:

• Learning what sports coaching means
• Exploring the role of a sports coach
• Studying sports coaching skills and roles
• Gaining insights into professional standards and communication
• Understanding ethics in sports coaching
• Learning about coaches code of behaviour – Australian Sports Commission
• Exploring general principles – United States Olympic Committee (USOC)
• Studying risk management, First Aid and injury prevention
• Gaining insights into the coach/athlete relationship
• Understanding the 3 + 1Cs Model
• Learning how to build rapport
• Exploring how to set ground rules
• Studying coaching skills and safety
• Gaining insights into how relationships change over time
• Understanding the training roles of the coach and athlete
• Learning about the stages of athlete learning – cognitive, associative and autonomous
• Exploring the types of coaching roles
• Studying the types of coaching – autocratic, democratic, holistic, laissez-faire, blended
• Gaining insights into what style is good for you
• Examining motivation
• Understanding the needs hierarchy
• Learning about intrinsic and extrinsic motivation
• Exploring how to motivate sportspeople
• Studying how to coach individuals
• Gaining insights into team and individual sports
• Examining individual coaching skills
• Understanding social facilitation
• Gaining insights into case studies
• Understanding team building, enthusiasm and positive reinforcement
• Learning about team dynamics and how to create team leaders
• Exploring motivating teams, motivation loss and motivation gains

And more!

 

ASC Code of Conduct

As you’ll discover in our sports coaching course, Codes of Conduct are vital for all sporting organisations. They set out the standards and expectations of behaviour for everyone involved, from coaches, players and administrators to spectators and parents. The Australian Sports Commission Code of Conduct was first released in 2013, with the current version updated in 2019. Here is a summary of its important elements:

Health and Safety of Participants

• Place the welfare and safety of participants above all else.
• Be aware of and support return-to-play guidelines and sport’s injury management plans.

Coaching Excellence

• Help every person — from athletes to officials — reach their full potential. This involves respecting the talent, developmental stage and goals of each person and encouraging them with positive and constructive feedback.
• Support and encourage opportunities for people to learn appropriate skills and behaviours.
• Support participation opportunities in all aspects of the sport.
• Treat each participant as an individual.
• Obtain the appropriate qualifications.
• Keep up-to-date with the latest coaching practices and the principles of growth and development of participants.

Honour the Sport

• Act within the rules and spirit of the sport.
• Promote fair play over winning at any cost.
• Respect the decisions of coaches, officials and administrators.
• Show courtesy and respect to all involved in the sport.
• Display responsible behaviour in relation to alcohol and other drugs.

Integrity

• Act with objectivity and integrity and accept responsibility for your actions and decisions.
• Ensure your actions and decisions contribute to a harassment-free environment.
• Wherever practical, avoid unobserved and unaccompanied one-on-one activity (when in a supervisory capacity or where a power imbalance exists) with those under the age of 18.
• Ensure any physical contact with another person is appropriate to the situation and necessary for the person’s skill development.
• Be honest and do not allow your coaching experience or qualifications to be misrepresented.
• Never condone or advocate the use of illicit drugs or other banned performance-enhancing methods or substances.
• Never participate in or advocate for practices that involve match-fixing.

Respect

• Respect the worth and rights of every person, regardless of their age, gender, race, sexuality, religion, ability or cultural background.
• Do not tolerate bullying, abusive or threatening behaviour.

 

The 3 + 1Cs Model

In our sports coaching course, you will become familiar with what’s known as the “3+1Cs Model”. Traditionally, the coach-athlete relationship has been one of coach authority and athlete obedience.  However, research by sports psychologists like Dr Sophia Jowett from the UK’s Loughborough University focuses on a framework that helps improve the quality of this relationship and emphasises how mutual understanding can benefit both sides and lead to better athlete performance.

According to Jowett, this relationship is at the core of sport and not a by-product of or an “add-on” of the coaching process. It is also not based on an athlete’s age, gender or performance. Instead, it is what she calls the “foundation” of coaching. As she comments, “The coach and the athlete intentionally develop a relationship, which is characterised by a growing appreciation and respect for each other as individuals”.

Her 3+1 Cs model comprises Closeness, Commitment and Complementarity, with an additional angle, Co-orientation, now also added. According to her definitions:

Closeness

This describes the emotional tone of the relationship and reflects the depth of their emotional attachment or the degree to which the athlete and the coach are connected. Their expressions of trust, like, appreciate and respect indicate an affective and positive interpersonal relationship.

Commitment

This reflects athletes’ and coaches’ desire or intention to maintain their athletic partnership over time. It is viewed as a cognitive representation of connection between the athlete and the coach.

Complementarity

Complementarity defines the interaction between the athlete and the coach that is perceived as effective and cooperative. It also reflects the affiliation motivation of interpersonal behaviours and includes behavioural properties, such as being friendly, willing, responsive, and at ease.

Co-orientation

This is a method that determines the perceptions that the athlete and the coach have of each other. Three different dimensions of co-orientation are:

• Actual similarity – for example, “I trust my coach” and “I trust my athlete”.
• Assumed similarity – for example, “I trust my coach” and “I think my coach trusts me”.
• Empathic understanding – for example, “I think my coach trusts me” and “I trust my athlete”.

According to Jowett, the key to achieving the 3+1 Cs is daily communications about athlete variables such as moods/attitudes, training loads and injuries/soreness.  Overall, these factors contribute to a “readiness to train” score which offers an objective signal to the athlete and coach about potential setbacks to performance and training.

Athlete Management Systems

Tracking and reviewing data is an important component of improving athlete and performance outcomes. An Athlete Management System (AMS) such as that provided by the Australian Institute of Sport, allows the sporting network to combine resources to better provide data-driven outcomes for sport. It provides data tracking, analysis and reporting against sport-defined performance metrics and can:

• Improve an athlete or team’s health and performance outcomes.
• Reduce the risk of injury and illness.
• Improve an athlete’s adaption to travel and training.

 

An AMS captures data from a variety of sources including purpose-built custom applications, athlete-entered questionnaires, and the automated integration of wellbeing and monitoring tools. These data sources allow for further analysis that provides coaches, athletes and support staff with reports, alerts and visualisations to better facilitate communication and decision making.

 

Gain the foundational knowledge and skills to confidently coach individuals, teams and children with a sports coaching course such as our Certificate of Sports Coaching.