It amazes me that this far into the 21st century, coaches still believe that doing physical punishment is a valuable use of their limited training time. I addressed this over a decade ago in “Coaching the Human Animal,” but as an administrator in the 25,000 plus strong closed group of Volleyball Coaches and Trainers group, it keeps coming back in various forms – most recently in an anonymous coach post asking in essence, how many suicide runs in a practice would be considered excessive. This falls into the parent trap of “being too soft on the players.” So parents this is for you too, if you care to process and are working also to be the best parent you can be.
The very fact that these forms of running are called suicides is the first sign that we have failed to change our sport to a more effective and efficient ways of learning and training. The second is that someone has to even ask the question. The majority of coaches noted in their response that they used this physical punishment for things like “not paying attention” or not being focused, or even for “tired/pressure serving.” In IMPACT training, I would note the importance of creating and naming drills properly, for if a player got injured and sued – would you want to be on the witness stand telling the prosecution that the athlete got hurt in your “Suicide” or “Puke” drill, let alone the lack of awareness to the huge problem of real youth suicide.
Make coaching adjustments
For those who say, I punish them for not paying attention or for interrupting my coaching, have you looked at your coaching skills to see why that might be happening? Have you listened to what they are concerned about in “your” timeout? Have you considered letting them better learn leadership skills by leading the time out, leading a game or drill, or leading the warm up? Are you standing in a place that other more interesting things, like the other team practicing, not being talked to on the other court, where moving objects are flying around, might distract the players you are talking with? Maybe kneel down while they stand up in a circle and look down at the floor/your clipboard/your wisdom? Have you rewarded their rapt attention in your time out, or do you just punish them if they are making yet another mistake?
Our athletes of any age are countless times smarter than any animal. Look at how trainers get animals to perform amazing physical skills without talking (the amazing Mr. Ed aside) or…
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