Think about your drills

Think about your drills
From Coach Boat View – Canadian Coaching Newsletter, Fall 2001.
By Carolyn Trono, Coach and Athlete Development Consultant pp 18
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THINK ABOUT YOUR DRILLS
Drills play an important role in helping sport participants learn motor skills. Whether the participant is a beginner or an elite athlete, coaches
and instructors are notorious for inventing creative drills to help athletes perfect a motor skill. Normally, coaches and instructors have a good reason for asking rowers to do a drill. Sometimes a drill can help the rower isolate and work on a certain movement pattern. Sometimes, a drill is used to teach skills to a novice rower. And sometimes, the drill is used to help an athlete correct incorrect movement patterns.

Here are a few considerations about drilling that coaches and instructors should be aware of prior to giving athletes drills to do.

1.UNDERSTAND WHY YOU ARE ASKING PARTICIPANTS TO DO A DRILL.
You should be able to communicate this to the participants. This is important so that the rower can focus their attention on the correct part of the stroke and the movement pattern that is being refined.

2. RECOGNIZE THE DIFFERENT STAGES OF LEARNING AND THESE STAGES REQUIRE DIFFERENT ENVIRONMENTS FOR LEARNING.
When someone is learning a new skill or changing a motor pattern, they are considered to be in the “early” stage (cognitive stage). At this stage, the participant is concentrating so hard on mastering the skill that any type of distractions (wind, noise, rough water) can interfere with this process. If the boat is rocking and unstable, the rower will have difficulty focusing on the skill that is being taught. Another important consideration at this stage is that the dominant sensory modality is visual. The participant needs to be able to get a visual sense of what is required for the skill. Therefore, demonstrations are helpful and the participant should be encouraged to watch his/her oar when doing drills. As a participant gets more experience, he/she will appreciate more auditory and kinesthetic cues.

3.ADAPT THE DRILLS TO THE SKILL/EXPERIENCE LEVEL OF PARTICIPANTS.
The Canadian National Rowing Team may do a drill that is suitable for them and helps these athletes to refine skills. However, this doesn’t mean that all athletes at all levels should do it. For inexperienced rowers, it is important to minimize the variables that the rower has to contend with when doing a drill. Here is an example. The pause drill is used very frequently. I have seen National team rowers do this drill with a double pause every second stroke. For an inexperienced crew, I would suggest having half of the crew, not row and concentrate on holding the boat balanced. The rest of the group would row and do the drill, with one pause every stroke. In this way, the rowers do not have to worry about balance. They only have to pause once and don’t have to worry about counting every second stroke.

4.TRY TO IDENTIFY THE PREFERRED SENSORY MODALITY OF THE PARTICIPANTS.
Researchers suggest that everyone has a preferred sensory modality - auditory, visual or kinesthetic. By using a variety of modalities in the coaching repertoire, the coach is likely to provide cues for all three modalities. For example, a visual learner learns best by seeing demonstrations, looking at videos and watching his/her oar. A kinesthetic learner learns best by doing. Sometimes this means that the coach must adjust positions to help the rower get the “feeling” of the correct movement pattern. An auditory learner does quite well with verbal cues and feedback. Sometimes listening for the correct sound helps such as the “plop” sound when the blade drops into the water properly.