RDT organises coach training workshops for its ASA Academy coaches

Pro Sport Development (PSD) during the first year of its partnership with Rural Development Trust (RDT) had undertaken an assessment of all the coaches part of RDT’s Anantapur Sports Academy (ASA) and recommended training programmes to aid in their continuing professional development.

Following up on the coaches’ evaluation report submitted by PSD, it renewed its partnership with RDT to plan, design and deliver a series of coach training workshops for all RDT coaches, both at the academy and grassroots level. The first of these workshops was delivered to 12 academy coaches and trainers from various sporting disciplines at the Anantapur Sports Village (ASV) from the 26-28 of April, 2016. Later the workshops will also be delivered to ASA’s grassroots and development centre coaches.

Based on PSD’s assessment last year, the areas it determined to work on with the coaches were warm up and cool down, planning and organisation, effective communication and first aid.

For the ASV coaches workshop recently concluded, day one entailed aspects of warm up and cool down. The focus was to help coaches understand the importance of mental preparation during a warm up, along with the physical preparation, as well as the difference between dynamic and static stretching, and the best time to use each. The coaches also undertook practicals to put their theory into practice.



Planning and organisation sessions during a very interactive day two taught the coaches about written session plans, organisation during sessions as well as long-term planning for their respective programmes. They were introduced to the concepts of yearly macro cycles being split into quarterly meso cycles, which they used to come up with their own year plan for the upcoming year which they eventually presented to the rest of the coaches.

Day three broadened the coaches’ knowledge of the basics of first aid, its importance and who is responsible. It informed the coaches about the various types of injuries and their subsequent treatment, maintenance of first aid kits and records of athlete injuries.

“The ASV coaches knew most of what they learnt during these workshops but lacked the practical approach to apply this knowledge effectively in their coaching styles. These coaches were very open to learning, they will benefit greatly from these workshops and simultaneously benefit the programme as they begin to put into practice their learnings” said Peter Swinford, one of the PSD trainers delivering the workshops.


[This article has been edited by the Operating Team]