Coaching and Care of Athletes

COACHING AND CARE OF ATHLETES colleges, but who are yet anxious to make their contribution to the national effort for physical fitness and greater sporting efficiency by acting as amateur instructors to the clubs and institutions in which they are interested. The method adopted for the presentation of my text has been first to describe each particular sport in brief detail. I have then given comparative performances likely to secure for an athlete a place in various grades ofchampionship meetings held in England, in international matches in which Great Britain takes part, and at the Olympic Games.- I have then thought it wise to discuss suit– ability of types for events before indicating the styles that should be permitted for each event. The coaching sequences come next, and are followed by some advice on the detection and correction of common faults. Problems likely to confront coach and athlete are dealt with also. Finally, I am of the opinion that the whole training of the athlete should be subdivided into four seasonal periods. Purely as an example of the type of training suggested, I have set out a schedule of work for one week in each of the four periods . This system has been followed in relation to all the events. The questions which I have kept constantly before me in the writing of this book have been the points I try to remember .when actually coaching. They are: Am I telling the reader all I know about this particular event? Am I giving the information so clearly and simply that there can be no possible chance of my meaning being misinterpreted? Am I putting everythl.ng in a way that will inspire in others my own abounding enthusiasm for Track and Field Athletics? How far I have succeeded-or failed~in my appointed task must be left for the reader, and the critic, to decide. In conclusion may I mention the great pleasure I have felt in dedicating this book to Dr Herbert Schofield, M.B.E., who, firstly by allowing the Amateur Athletic Association Course in Athletics to be held in conjunction with Loughborough College SummeJ; School, and secondly by instituting the Loughborough College School of Athletics, Games, and Physical Education, with every possible facility for research, has done more, perhaps, than any man in Great Britain to foster and further the advance of science in relation to sport in general and athletics in particul,ar. F. A. M. WEBSTER June 1938 IO