Dealing With Different Types Of Coaches

In general, there are two types of coaches—those who lead based on responsibility, and those who lead based on obedience—and understanding the category your particular coach fi ts into will help you best deal with him or her.

Responsibility coaches, as their name suggests, put more responsibility on student athletes, and they give them more say in the way the team is run. For instance, if a team member is chronically late, a responsibility coach might ask other team members how to handle the situation. A responsibility coach might also ask athletes for suggestions on new stretches to add to the warm-up routine. In general, a responsibility coach runs his or her team in a more relaxed, laid-back way, and it will probably be easier to maintain open communication with this type of coach, particularly in the face of an injury.

Obedience coaches, on the other hand, run their teams with themselves in charge. They make the rules, and they expect their athletes to follow them. To develop a productive, working relationship with an obedience coach, you will have to show him or her a great deal of respect and demonstrate that you have confi dence in his or her skills and authority. If you get injured, an obedience coach will still want to do things his or her way, whether that means respecting your doctor’s orders or urging you to play through pain.

You should approach both types of coaches—responsibility coaches and obedience coaches—with a similar level of respect and openness. Both styles of coaches will respond best if you work hard, listen to their advice, and approach them with problems—injuries included— as soon as they arise.

Keep in mind that no matter what kind of coach you have, you may—regularly or occasionally—bump heads with him or her. The nature of the coach/athlete relationship sometimes leads to disagreements over the amount of playtime or favoritism toward or bias against certain players. Some coaches focus on winning at the
expense of striving to improve, which makes athletes feel pressured to win and underappreciated when they show personal improvements despite losing on the fi eld or court.

If at any point during the course of your injury you don’t agree with your coach’s treatment or guidance, talk to him or her about it right away. Request that you and your coach set a time to sit down and talk. (Trying to talk to a coach when he or she is in the middle of a game or rushing before practice won’t yield the best results.) Once you have the coach alone, clearly ask about the reasons behind the plans for you. Keep in mind that your coach may not have realized the severity of your injury or condition or your doctor’s insistence that

you take a break. If this is the case, reiterate this information clearly and be ready to present any documentation from your doctor.

If after talking with your coach you feel that you are still not being heard, or if you are hesitant to talk with him or her about an injury or physical limitation (or any other problem you are having, for that matter), consider talking to your team captain fi rst. One of the team captain’s jobs is to act as a middleman between athletes and the coach.

If all else fails and your coach continues to drive you to the point that you fear you will worsen an existing injury, reinjure a past injury, or put yourself in danger of any sort, tell your parents what is going on; they will be able to set up a meeting with the coach’s supervisor— your school’s principal or athletic director. Or discuss these concerns with your physician—he or she can get involved if necessary.

Once you’ve healed, look to your coach for advice on how to avoid a subsequent injury. Most coaches have been trained in how to prevent injuries, and they can guide you on how to stay healthy and injury-free by way of proper warm-up, and supportive measures such as bandages, tape, and wraps.
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Dealing With Sport Injury Diagnosing - Student Guide

CCasey, 15, has been practicing gymnastics since she learned to walk. Her best friend Ashley, also 15 and also a gymnast, has been at her side the entire time—they started together as toddlers, and they are both at the same competitive level on their high school team. As kids, they both dreamed of being on the Olympic
gymnastics team someday. Unfortunately, Ashley’s dreams were recently shattered after she suffered a devastating fall off the balance beam. The injury to her ankle will take her out for the rest of the season and perhaps out of gymnastics for the rest of her life. Ashley is sad, depressed, and frustrated, and Casey—who is doing better than ever in the sport—is not sure how to handle the situation.

Even if you’ve never suffered from a sports injury yourself, if a friend or family member is currently dealing with one, like Casey, you will be affected. If this friend or loved one approaches you for advice on how to deal with an injury and how to stay sane while resting, surely you will want to be prepared with the most helpful and appropriate things to do. This chapter will help you to know what to expect and how to help.

DEALING WITH A SPORTS INJURY DIAGNOSIS
An injury can be hard for anyone to face, but it can be particularly difficult for teenagers who play sports. As a supportive friend or family member of a teenager newly diagnosed with an injury, you can provide help and comfort.

First, if your friend or loved one has suffered a sports injury that is not healing on its own and he or she is resistant to seek treatment or rest, encourage the person to go to the doctor. After all, the only way to get proper treatment is by knowing for sure.

Next, understand that your friend or family member will likely go through a range of emotions following a sports injury diagnosis. Those feelings may be particularly strong for teens who suffer an injury that could take them out of their sports for the season, or worse, indefi nitely. Understanding the specifi c emotions that go along with a sports injury diagnosis can help you to recognize where your friend or loved one is in the coping process.

Anger. When your friend or loved one is fi rst sidelined by an injury, he or she is likely to feel angry at the unfairness of the situation. This anger may be especially strong if the person feels blameless for the injury (if it results from a particularly hard tackle on the football fi eld or an illegal hold in wrestling, for example).

A sense of lost identity. If your friend or loved one eats, sleeps, and breathes the sport, he or she may feel very lost about taking a break from it. You can help the athlete by focusing on other things he or she excels in and encouraging the athlete to focus on those activities as well.

Fear and anxiety. Fear and anxiety are common reactions to sports injuries in teens, both in the athletes who suffer them and the teammates who serve as witnesses. The athlete will be fearful about the pain of the injury, how long it will keep her or him out of the sport, and how fellow teammates will treat the athlete while recovering. Teammates may see the injury as a reminder of their own vulnerability, and they may fear a similar fate.

Lost confidence. As fear and anxiety set in, the injured athlete may feel a sense of lost confidence, both in the ability to play the sport and to do other things. That’s why it’s important to bolster self-esteem by complimenting the athlete on other activities and giving encouragement to focus energy on those things for the time being.

Depression. Once the athlete accepts an injury as reality, he or she is likely to become depressed at the notion of having to take a break from the sport. Symptoms of depression include loss of interest in activities once loved, weight loss or gain, restlessness, or mental or physical fatigue. If you have noticed these symptoms in your friend or loved one, urge the athlete to talk to a health-care professional about feelings and talk to a parent or counselor right away; if left untreated, depression can lead to suicide.
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Testing Tips - Student Guide

Testing Tips:

1. Get smart, play dumb. Don’t read anything into the question. Don’t make an assumption that the test writer is looking for something other than what is asked. Stick to the question as written and don’t read extra things into it.
2. Read the question and all the choices twice before answering the question. You may miss something by not carefully reading and re-reading both the question and the answers. If you really don’t have a clue as to the right answer, leave it blank on the first time through. Go on to the other questions, as they may provide a clue as to how to answer the skipped questions. If, later on, you still can’t answer the skipped ones . . . Guess. The only penalty for guessing is that you might get it wrong. Only one thing is certain; if you don’t put anything down, you will get it wrong!
3. Turn the question into a statement. Look at the way the questions are worded. The syntax of the question usually provides a clue. Does it seem more familiar as a statement rather than as a question? Does it sound strange? By turning a question into a statement, you may be able to spot if an answer sounds right, and it may also trigger memories of material you have read.
4. Look for hidden clues. It’s actually very difficult to compose multiple-foil (choice) questions without giving away part of the answer in the options presented. In most multiple-choice questions you can often readily eliminate one or two of the potential answers. This leaves you with only two real possibilities; automatically, your odds go to Fifty-Fifty for very little work.
5. Trust your instincts. For every fact that you have read, you subconsciously retain something of that knowledge. On questions that you aren’t really certain about, go with your basic instincts. Your first impression on how to answer a question is usually correct.
6. Mark your answers directly on the test booklet. Don’t bother trying to fill in the optical scan sheet on the first pass through the test. Just be very careful not to mismark your answers when you eventually transcribe them to the scan sheet.
7. Watch the clock! You have a set amount of time to answer the questions. Don’t get bogged down trying to answer a single question at the expense of ten questions you can more readily answer.

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Great Study and Testing Tips!

What to study in order to prepare for the subject assessments is the focus of this study guide, but equally important is how you study. You can increase your chances of truly mastering the information by taking some simple but effective steps.
Study Tips:
1. Some foods aid the learning process. Foods such as milk, nuts, seeds, rice, and oats help your study efforts by releasing natural memory enhancers called CCKs (cholecystokinin) composed of tryptophan, choline, and phenylalanine. All of these chemicals enhance the neurotransmitters associated with memory.
Before studying, try a light, protein-rich meal of eggs, turkey, and fish. All of these foods release the memory enhancing chemicals. The better the connections, the more you comprehend.
Likewise, before you take a test, stick to a light snack of energy-boosting and relaxing foods. A glass of milk, a piece of fruit, or some peanuts will release various memory-boosting chemicals and help you to relax and focus on the subject at hand.

2. Learn to take great notes. A by-product of our modern culture is that we have grown accustomed to getting our information in short doses (e.g., TV news sound bites or newspaper articles styled after USA Today).
Consequently, we’ve subconsciously trained ourselves to assimilate information in neat little packages. If your notes are scrawled all over the paper, it fragments the flow of the information. Strive for clarity. Newspapers use a standard format to achieve clarity. Your notes can be much clearer through the use of proper formatting. A very effective format is called the “Cornell Method.”
Take a sheet of loose-leaf lined notebook paper and draw a line all the way down the paper about 1-2” from the left-hand edge.
Draw another line across the width of the paper about 1-2” up from the bottom.
Repeat this process on the reverse side of the page.
Look at the highly effective result. You have ample room for notes, a left hand margin for special emphasis items or inserting supplementary data from the textbook, a large area at the bottom for a brief summary, and a little rectangular space for just about anything you want.


3. Get the concept, then the details. Too often we focus on the details and don’t gather an understanding of the concept. However, if you simply memorize only dates, places, or names, you may well miss the whole point of the subject.
A key way to understand things is to put them in your own words. If you are working from a textbook, automatically summarize each paragraph in your mind.
If you are outlining text, don’t simply copy the author’s words.
Rephrase them in your own words. You remember your own thoughts and words much better than someone else’s, and subconsciously tend to associate the important details with the core concepts.

4. Ask Why? Pull apart written material paragraph by paragraph and don’t forget the captions under the illustrations.
Example: If the heading is “Stream Erosion,” flip it around to read “Why do streams erode?” Then answer the questions.
If you train your mind to think in a series of questions and answers, not only will you learn more, but it will also help to lessen test anxiety because you are used to answering questions.

5. Read for reinforcement and future needs. Even if you only have 10 minutes, put your notes or a book in your hand. Your mind is similar to a computer; you have to input data in order to have it processed. By reading, you are creating the neural connections for future retrieval. The more times you read something, the
more you reinforce the learning of ideas.
Even if you don’t fully understand something on the first pass, your mind stores much of the material for later recall.

6. Relax to learn; go into exile. Our bodies respond to an inner clock called biorhythms. Burning the midnight oil works well for some people, but not everyone.
If possible, set aside a particular place to study that is free of distractions. Shut off the television, cell phone, and pager, and exile your friends and family during your study period.
If you really are bothered by silence, try background music. Light classical music at a low volume has been shown to be particularly effective in aiding concentration. Music that evokes pleasant emotions without lyrics is highly recommended. Try just about anything by Mozart. It relaxes you.


3. Get the concept, then the details. Too often we focus on the details and don’t gather an understanding of the concept. However, if you simply memorize only dates, places, or names, you may well miss the whole point of the subject.
A key way to understand things is to put them in your own words. If you are working from a textbook, automatically summarize each paragraph in your mind.
If you are outlining text, don’t simply copy the author’s words.
Rephrase them in your own words. You remember your own thoughts and words much better than someone else’s, and subconsciously tend to associate the important details with the core concepts.

4. Ask Why? Pull apart written material paragraph by paragraph and don’t forget the captions under the illustrations.
Example: If the heading is “Stream Erosion,” flip it around to read “Why do streams erode?” Then answer the questions.
If you train your mind to think in a series of questions and answers, not only will you learn more, but it will also help to lessen test anxiety because you are used to answering questions.

5. Read for reinforcement and future needs. Even if you only have 10 minutes, put your notes or a book in your hand. Your mind is similar to a computer; you have to input data in order to have it processed. By reading, you are creating the neural connections for future retrieval. The more times you read something, the
more you reinforce the learning of ideas.
Even if you don’t fully understand something on the first pass, your mind stores much of the material for later recall.

6. Relax to learn; go into exile. Our bodies respond to an inner clock called biorhythms. Burning the midnight oil works well for some people, but not everyone.
If possible, set aside a particular place to study that is free of distractions. Shut off the television, cell phone, and pager, and exile your friends and family during your study period.
If you really are bothered by silence, try background music. Light classical music at a low volume has been shown to be particularly effective in aiding concentration. Music that evokes pleasant emotions without lyrics is highly recommended. Try just about anything by Mozart. It relaxes you.
Read More : Great Study and Testing Tips!