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How to observe a skill

This is an excerpt from Applied Sport Mechanics 5th Edition With HKPropel Access by Brendan Burkett.

Planning how you intend to observe a skill is a good idea. The preferred approach is to watch the ­whole skill several times and then home in on its phases and key ele­ments. From this ­process, you can decide what to look at, where to observe, and how to ­measure or quantify the skill. Watch from the left and right, from the front and rear. In this way you can cross-­reference and double-­check the information you gather. Characteristics of the ­performance that are hidden from one point of view ­will be revealed from another.

Ensure Safety When Observing

Before you begin to observe a skill, you must ensure safety for the coach and the athlete. Note that viewing from the front is not recommended for throwing events in track and field or for sports such as golf, in which the velocity of the ball is exceptional. ­Unless you have a specially designed protective screen, as is used in baseball, be satisfied with viewpoints from the side, the rear, or above the athlete.

Choosing a Setting for the Observation

When choosing a setting for the observation, try to avoid conditions that distract you and the athlete. Physical education classes, recreational settings, or training sessions within the sport can disturb your concentration and that of the athlete ­because too many other activities are ­going on. Any movement in the background can disrupt your attention from the details you want to analyze. If you are instructing a group, you cannot, and should not, pay attention to one athlete for long. Other athletes need your supervision and encouragement. The best setting is one in which no distractions at all are pre­sent. The athlete can concentrate on performing, and you can focus on observing and analyzing.

Positioning During the Observation

With many skills, you’ll pick up much worthwhile information when you observe from in front of the athlete. But be particularly careful in this situation. You may center your concentration on the athlete’s movements and not on what happens afterward.

With rotational skills such as discus, shot put, and hammer throw, you should be well back ­behind a safety cage officially approved for the event. This viewing position is especially recommended for the discus and hammer throw. In the hammer throw, the 7.2 kg (16 lb) ball travels at phenomenal velocity, and in the hands of a novice it may not fly in the required direction.

• If no safety cage is available, stand well back to the left rear (as you view the athlete from the rear) for hammer and discus throwers who rotate counterclockwise across the ring.
• In the shot-­put event (which normally does not use a cage), stand well back to the left rear of right-­handed throwers and to the right rear of left-­handed throwers. Be sure to stand well to the rear of the throwing ring if the athlete is learning the rotary shot-­put technique.

If you are marking distances while you assess the athlete’s ­performance, be aware that an implement in flight is extremely deceptive. Javelins viewed head-on have a habit of seeming to momentarily dis­appear from sight, and wind can dramatically alter flight paths. You must also allow for the distances over which implements skid and bounce. A discus skidding across wet grass is extremely dangerous!

In addition, skills that involve height and flight (e.g., gymnastics vaulting, ski jumping, and pole vaulting) can be more demanding to observe than skills that contain much less movement (e.g., archery or power lifting).

A gymnastics vault, for example, includes a long and fast approach, a takeoff, flight onto and off the vault-­horse, and fi­nally a landing. ­These phases of the skill occur at high speed and cover considerable distance and height. To observe all aspects of the action critically, observe from vari­ous positions:

• Stand at right ­angles to the board about 4.6 m (15 ft) from the flow of the skill.
• Variations can include positioning yourself to the rear of the approach.
• You can also stand beyond the landing pads so that the athlete runs ­toward you. In this way, you’ll get several viewpoints of the takeoff, flight, and hand positions on the ­horse, as shown in figure 12.1.
• This observational technique also works well for track events, as shown in figure 12.2, in which a track coach observes from vari­ous viewpoints while the athlete practices hurdle clearances.
• Get closer when skills cover less distance and height, and when you are focusing on par­tic­u­lar phases and key ele­ments of the skill.

FIGURE 12.1 Vari­ous viewpoints for assessing a vault in gymnastics.
Adapted from J.G. Hay and J.G. Reid, Anatomy, Mechanics, and Human Motion, 2nd ed. (Prentice-Hall, 1988), 258.

FIGURE 12.2 Vari­ous viewpoints for assessing a hurdle clearance.

Commonly available video cameras and smartphones offer ultrahigh picture quality, and the video images from TV broadcasts provide excellent slow-­motion coverage of athletes viewed from above. ­You’re prob­ably familiar with the dramatic replays of hand changes on the high bar, swings to a handstand on the rings, and the incredible rotary skills of gymnasts on the pommel ­horse. In swimming, cameras on tracks at the sides and bottom of the pool give superb coverage of swimming strokes. This additional visual information ­will help you tremendously in assessing the athlete’s ­performance.

Also note that if you are a novice working in the sport, you may find it difficult to observe a ­performance critically when you are also involved in spotting. Your attention tends to focus on where you should give support (and perhaps on protecting yourself from the flailing arms and legs!) rather than on ­whether certain movements are performed correctly. In gymnastics, dividing your attention can be a risky practice. Experienced coaches and sport scientists can carry out both jobs at once, but they must concentrate on their spotting when more complex skills are attempted. If you are starting out in a sport that has a high level of risk, play it safe and use competent spotters if you want to be ­free to observe. If spotters are not available, have an onlooker video the performer while you give the necessary assistance. Afterward, analyze and discuss the ­performance with the athlete and sport staff.

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Application to Sport

Providing Feedback in Sport

When and how best to provide feedback in sport depend on several ­factors, such as the developmental skill level of the athlete, their current ­performance levels, and the priority area for skill enhancement. Otte and colleagues (2020) recently developed a conceptual Skill Training Communication Model that “aims to support prac­ti­tion­ers’ understanding of the pedagogical constraints of feedback and instruction during practice” (1). The researchers underline the need for specialist coaches “to display ­great levels of psychological and pedagogical expertise on how and when to (purposely not) provide external feedback and instructions to individual athletes in training and competition environments” (11). The proposed model’s skill development and training stages work to (a) directly affect constraint manipulations in practice designs and (b) indirectly affect coaches’ choices of external (coach-­induced) information. The researchers also recommend several practical guidelines in regard to sports coaches’ feedback and instruction pro­cesses.

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Observe an Athlete’s ­Performance of the Skill

When you are ready to observe the athlete, have the athlete warm up and perform the complete skill several times so that you get a good overall impression. This also allows you to check if you are observing from the optimal position. ­Don’t concentrate on specific phases, even though a poor windup or poor force-­producing phase ­will obviously catch your eye. Try to get a feel for the athlete’s rhythm, flow, and general body positions from the start of the skill to the finish. Your main objective at this stage is to get an overall impression of the athlete’s ­performance.

When you observe a complete skill this first time, the athlete should perform the skill at normal speed. The reason for this recommendation is that skills performed at unnaturally slow speeds are dramatically dif­fer­ent from ­those that occur at normal speed.

• Timing, coordination, and the feel for the skill are dif­fer­ent. Slow-­speed ­performances serve ­little purpose when you are looking for errors to correct. They give you a false picture of what is occurring.
• Reducing speed, however, is helpful when you teach new movement patterns.
• When the fundamentals have been taught and learned, the speed of movement can be increased.

The number of times that the athlete performs the skill for observation depends on the physical demands of the skill. Skills that take considerable time, concentration, and effort for each repetition, such as diving and ski jumping, are by necessity viewed fewer times than a place kick, a volleyball serve, a pass in soccer, or the repetitive paddling actions of a kayaker. Nevertheless, you need to view the ­performance enough times that the athlete’s pattern of movements becomes apparent. More than one training session may be required to develop an accurate impression of the athlete’s abilities in skills such as diving and ski jumping. The skill level may also vary throughout the training week or before and ­after a competition.

As you observe, expect that a beginner’s performance ­will change dramatically from one repetition of the skill to the next and that a beginner ­will tire more quickly than an experienced athlete ­will. Novices may make gross errors in which they miss several key ele­ments in a phase, or even a ­whole phase of a skill (Buszard et al. 2016). During your general observation, you’ll notice that their foot positions are incorrect at one moment and correct the next. The beginner may not use the large muscles of the body or shift the body weight in the correct direction. You may even think, ­after completing the observation, that the best course of action is to rebuild the skill completely. With novices, you must accept this situation as part of working in the sport with beginners!

In comparison with beginners, high-­performance athletes make fewer apparent errors. You’ll see errors when you analyze slow-­motion video of the skill, or catch errors when you concentrate on specific ele­ments in the skill. Perhaps you’ll discover that the athlete’s line of vision is incorrect or that their head is in the wrong position, upsetting their balance. You may discover that an athlete’s overall ­performance is good except that the wrist action at the end of a pitch, throw, or hit is not as it should be. Unfortunately, you may also have to strug­gle through many training sessions to get a high-­performance athlete to eliminate seemingly minor errors. The reason for this difficulty is that a top athlete has prob­ably been performing the skill in the same way for years, thereby ingraining the incorrect action. Coaching a young novice is entirely dif­fer­ent. ­Every coaching session can be a ­giant leap forward! To your delight, you’ll find that the technique of most novice athletes is like clay that you can mold. Each training session can result in a massive change in the quality of their ­performance. For that reason, many professionals involved in sport find ­great ­pleasure in working with novice athletes.

• Also note that when you observe, you should not distract the athlete by continually offering instruction ­because this can create information overload and confusion on what is the priority. Watch without making any comments other than an occasional encouraging remark ­after the skill is completed.
• Try to keep the athlete relaxed and enjoying having you as an enthusiastic and knowledgeable spectator. The athlete should not strug­gle to impress you, become discouraged, or become so casual that they lose concentration. You want an accurate impression of their abilities, not a ­performance altered by tension or insufficient concentration.
• Above all, ­don’t start listing aloud all the actions that the athlete is ­doing wrong! This commentary serves no purpose and destroys morale. You ­don’t want the athlete to become tense or stressed in any way. Your job is to get a true impression of how they perform.
• Also, while you observe, make a ­mental note if you think that the athlete is lacking in strength, flexibility, or endurance. But remember that they cannot change ­these characteristics during one training session, just as an athlete cannot gain or lose weight on command. Take ­these ­factors into account by modifying your demands when you start correcting errors. In other training sessions, you can get the athlete to work on improving ­those areas.

Look for Other Clues in the Observation

Part of your observation technique ­will be to look beyond the athlete for clues about the ­performance. The flight path, rebound, and roll of balls result from the movements and actions that the athlete uses in the skill. Skate marks on ice, ski patterns on snow; and footprints on approaches, takeoffs, and landings are all clues to what’s ­going on in the skill.

• Use your senses—­your ears and eyes—­when you look for clues. The rhythm of footfalls during an approach or during the repetitive bounding of a ­triple jump is an indication of stride length and stride cadence. By simply closing your eyes and listening to the ­performance you may get a new insight into the flow, rhythm, or timing of the athlete.
• The overemphasized thud of an athlete’s feet during throwing events is a sure sign of poor balance and weight distribution. (It’s also a sure sign that the hop or the step in the ­triple jump is too large.)
• The noise of bat and club on ball helps distinguish a direct impact from a sliced impact.
• In volleyball, a slapping noise is a giveaway of a carried ball or some other incorrect contact.
• Almost ­every sport ­will give you visual and auditory signals that you’ll be able to associate with good or bad ­performance. Use ­every source of information. ­Don’t limit yourself in any way.

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At a Glance

OBSERVATION OF SPORT SKILLS

• Before you begin to observe a skill, you must ensure safety for the coach and the athlete.
• Make observations from several viewpoints to observe all aspects of the ­performance critically. Observe from positions that are at right ­angles to the flow of the skill and, if pos­si­ble, from the front, rear, above, and below.
• When you observe a complete skill the first time, the athlete should perform the skill at normal speed. Skills performed at unnaturally slow speeds are dramatically dif­fer­ent from ­those that occur at normal speed.

More Excerpts From Applied Sport Mechanics 5th Edition With HKPropel Access

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