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Exploring sport coaching and psychology
Exploring sport coaching and psychology

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4 How much can we trust what journalists say?

You certainly cannot believe everything you read and fact and fiction often become blurred in sporting practice. For example, the media and public perception of coaching is often a long way from the reality of what scientists and coaches actually do.

Next, you will be asked to choose one claim from WIRED magazine, who describe themselves as ‘bringing you the people, the trends and the big ideas that will change our lives’ (WIRED, 2016), and look at the veracity of their journalistic claims.

Activity 4 Read about two innovations you will investigate further

Timing: Allow about 15 minutes

Read part of the following WIRED article 15 innovations pushing human performance to the limit [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] . The purpose of this activity is to read about two of the innovations (innovation 7, ‘The filter that spots trainability’, and innovation 14, ‘Tools designed to warm up the mind’). Identify which of the two claims you may already know something about from this course.

Discussion

These comments will help you make connections with earlier parts of the course.

  • Innovation 7 – ‘The filter that spots trainability’. You have already seen some similar ideas to this in Activity 5 in Session 1, about canoeists preparing for Tokyo 2020. This has a focus on identifying talent and links to your previous exploration of the components that contribute to sporting success.
  • Innovation 14 – ‘Tools designed to warm up the mind’. The ideas in this may be entirely new to you and are experimental, as they claim to manipulate the brain in order to improve learning and possibly performance.