Technique is Everything

"Technique is everything". Well, it may not be everything or the only thing needed to succeed, but it is certainly one of the most important things. Good Football trainers or coaches need to use several techniques to train their players. These techniques include:
- Educating
- Demonstrating
- Coaching
- Spotting
- Monitoring

Good instruction and training begins with education. Most people perform any activity better when they are educated on the purpose and desired outcome for performing the activity. Explain to the trainee the goal of the exercise, the muscles that are targeted, the involved joint motions and other factor such as:
- alignment
- positioning
- stabilization
- motion
- tempo
- breathing
- and any precautions for the exercise

Though being a football coach is the overall role you will play as a trainer, coaching is a technique in itself. Providing motivational instruction and immediate feedback while your trainee is actually involved in the exercise is key in teaching proper form. There are a variety of coaching styles; however motivational talk does not need to be loud and should not be faked. Be passionate, positive, and professional try to be a coach and not a cheerleader.

Good trainer can use spotting as a valuable technique and not simply as a safety measure. By slightly assisting or resisting the movement of the trainee, you can affect several variables such as intensity, tempos, motion, and overall volume in order to better challenge specific energy systems and muscle fiber types, you are also spotting to reduce risk, so you must be attentive at all times and should always be in the best position to terminate the exercise if needed.

As the trainer, you should continuously be visually monitoring the trainee's alignment, positioning, stability, range of motion, tempo and breathing throughout the exercise. However, minor shits in positioning can not always be seen, but they can be felt by the proper hand placement of the trainer. Learning how to physically monitor the movement of parts of the skeletal system, such as the shoulder, scapula, neck, spine and pelvis is an important technique for increasing the efficiency and reducing the risk of any exercise.

Most cuing is done verbally by giving the proper technical commands and suggestions. Be sure the cues you give are consistent with the goals of the exercise. Avoid giving cues regarding the movement on the weight, bar, or machine. Instead, give cues regarding the desired movement or no movement of the body. Cuing can also be done physically. Simply touching the muscles you wish the trainee to focus on helps the person concentrate on, control, feel and contract the targeted muscles. This also gives you some immediate feedback on degree of tension in the muscle. As you will also be able to feel when the muscle is approaching failure, which, in turn, increases your ability to spot and bring the trainee to the desired volume surely and more efficiently.

To perform all these techniques, a good football trainer or coach will adjust his or her position when needed in order to perform each duty best. However, as a trainer, you must always be in a position where you will have the ability to terminate the exercise at any point that you feel it is needed or desired.