Canoe Wales is the national governing body for paddle sport in Wales. We:

  • Manage the National White Water Centre which is located on the river Tryweryn in Bala, North Wales
  • Represent the interests of our club and individual members
  • Advocate on behalf of the interests of the sport in Wales
  • Provide coaching and development programmes from local to international level
  • Stage national and international competitions.

Performance Planning for Paddlesport Coaches

Level:

Level 2 or 3 coaches wishing to develop their ability to improve a performers development be it for club development or Professional Development Plan (PDP) purposes.

Time:

3 hours.

Background:

This module intends to all coaches to understand how to articulate a three phase breakdown of the performers needs. These three phases involve the accurate breakdown of the type of paddling in focus, a performance profile of a paddler and thirdly the construction of a development plan to move the paddler accurately forward in the desired context. This ambition might be based purely a desire to be a ‘better’ paddler physically, skilfully or mentally or it may have competitive intentions. For instance it could be based on a future holiday trip for which fitness is an issue, a first attempt at a slalom event or the Exe decent or it may be that the jump to the next class of water needs a stronger mental attitude. The detail will be closely aligned to chapters 2 and 18 of the coaching handbook.

Aims / objectives:

The ability of a coach to accurately profile a paddler and then, using a judgment based on priority and ambition, create a development plan underpinned by training and sports science principles is invaluable to the coaching world. This module is intended to be the initial attempt of a coach to assess and plan for development of a paddler. The emphasis in this short module is to describe the type of activity involved in accurately; assess the profile of the performer matched against the activity and develop a coherent development plan or schedule to allow for improvement.

Learning Outcomes:

At the conclusion of this module coaches should understand:
  • The accurate science based description of the activity in focus i.e. DW long distance, 24 hour aerobic and endurance event
  • Terminology in the context of physiological profiling
  • Terminology in the context of skill based profiling
  • Terminology in the context of psychological or mental profiling
  • Periodisation and its application in improving performance
  • Some of the age and gender issues when improving performers
  • The key issue of prioritisation or targeting weaknesses