Fairfax County (VA) football coaches attend Push-Pull Coaching workshop

Fairfax County (VA) football coaches attended a coaching skills workshop facilitated by e.t.c coaching consultants on May 6 and 7. 2016. Organized by Dick Adams a USA Football Regional Master Trainer on behalf of Fairfax County Public Schools, over 30 youth and high school football coaches engaged in a workshop designed to challenge them to think about how they do what they do.

Specific learning outcomes for the Push-Pull Coaching workshop enabled coaches to:

• Analyze how coaches guide and support learning

• Explore the concepts of push and pull coaching

• Consider how these can be used to support player development

• Reflect on how effectively coaches integrate a blend of push and pull in their own coaching

As part of the workshop coaches were required to teach peers a novel task which was used to explore coach-centred (push) and player-centred (pull) teaching and learning strategies. A mix of novel tasks were taught including changing a diaper, flying a drone and daisy-chaining an electrical chord. These provided outstanding opportunities to consider how best to coach for performance improvement.