The Role of a Performance Coach in Today’s Travel Sports

Sports performance is often an “a la carte” option for parents and athletes. We play an important role in an athlete’s development but often are a lower priority compared to games, practice, school, family, and friends. With this in mind, we strive to get the most out of each and every interaction with our athletes. The climate of youth athletics has changed. Schedules are fuller for longer durations. Volleyball has turned into a year round sport if you play in a competitive club, and other sports are similar. A school season starts in August and finishes in November. Typically by January, club season is in full swing until June. Out of 12 months, most athletes are playing 9-10 months out of the year. This schedule gets even busier for multi-sport athletes who may be playing a spring sport for school and a travel or club team during that same season.

Time of year can impact what demands an athlete can be dealing with. Games, practices, and tournaments can be a weekly reality for many athletes. As performance coaches, it is important to understand that the stresses these athletes face also can include school, family, friends, and relationships. The totality of these stresses can greatly impact how a training session looks. Track athletes practicing 4 times a week should not spend the one hour they come in to OPS doing more sprints. 

Athletes HAVE to go to games. They HAVE to go to practices, tournaments, showcases, etc. They don’t HAVE to train. Our time with an individual is often a luxury. A travel season often includes weeks of 2-3 practices, travel on a Friday, and 2-3 games with more travel on a Sunday. Fitting in a training session is great, and encouraged, but by the time we see them their battery is drained. I’ve always liked the analogy of an individual’s battery like a traffic light. Green means go – the athlete feels good, the schedule might’ve lightened up, or there aren’t any scheduled competitions for a few days. These are days to attack and get after it. Yellow – not bad, not great. The athlete may be coming from a practice, may have an important tournament approaching. These days are typically treated as normal but intensity might be reduced. Red – the athlete is dealing with a heavy practice or game load, mental & physical fatigue could be present. The athlete needs to be “reset”. Our job on red days is to make sure the athlete feels better leaving than when they came in the building. 

We have to be the most adaptable coach or trainer the athlete works with. Once we take into account all the demands an individual is faced with, it’s up to us to fill the empty buckets. A high school football athlete is likely deadlifting and squatting during team lifts. They likely aren’t addressing mobility work. An in-season basketball athlete does not need to come to a training session and work on hopping and jumps, they are getting exposure to hundreds of reps during practices and games throughout their week. Recently, one of my hockey athletes spoke to me about doing a lateral squat. He said he was sore for 5 days and could feel it during games. We talked about how as a hockey player this is a motion he’s doing over and over during games and practice. He was overdoing it. Instead, we discussed how we need to start strengthening his adductors – a muscle that often gets stretched during a hockey stride.

AAU and travel sports are more demanding now than they were 5-10 years ago. This isn’t bad, it’s just a reality. Between school seasons and travel/club athletes are now playing more games, having more practices, and have less down time. When we are fortunate enough to be a part of their schedules, we should treat it as a luxury. Ultimately, our role as a Performance Coach is to make sure that our athlete is able to perform at the best of their ability when they need to. Sometimes this is as simple as getting them stronger, and sometimes it’s giving them a reset and recharging their battery.

Alex Williams