Swedish Tennis Coaches' Everyday Practices for Creating Athlete Development Environments.

Göran Gerdin,Per Göran Fahlström,Susanne Linnér,Mats Glemne

doi:10.3390/ijerph17124580

Göran Gerdin, Per Göran Fahlström + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17124580

Copy DOI

Abstract

Finding and describing the optimal path to elite athletic performance has, for a long time, been a challenge for researchers. This study examined Swedish tennis coaches’ everyday practices for creating athlete development environments and the environmental factors that promote or hinder athlete development. The study was conducted in 2018–2019 and included in-depth focus groups with 13 Swedish full-time tennis coaches. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis and by drawing on models for studying athlete development environments. The results highlight how the coaches’ everyday work involves a range of administrative tasks, which ultimately means that there is little to no time left for focusing on athlete development. These results also draw attention to concerns about these professional coaches’ health, with increasing demands in their roles to manage administrative tasks in addition to the coaching and time spent on the court with their athletes. The results further reveal how the tennis clubs’ boards are increasingly interested in sound economy and high participation levels rather than focusing on performance outcomes and developing elite athletes. Finally, the results from this study emphasize the importance of increased collaboration and communication between clubs, coaches, regions, and the national association to create common and clearer guidelines for long-term athlete development. Future studies could engage in longitudinal and ethnographic work with tennis clubs of varying size and geographical locations, involving different stakeholders (e.g., coaches, management, parents, players) in order to further explore the environmental factors that promote or hinder athlete development.

Highlights

Finding and describing the optimal path to elite athletic performance has, for a long time, been a challenge for researchers
The writing of this article was guided by the “Consolidated criteria for reporting qualitative research” (COREQ) [49]. In this part of the article, the results of the conducted focus group interviews with the 13 participating coaches are presented in the form of the following five themes: (1) Club and work environment; (2) Competition versus economy; (3) Everyday practices for athlete development; (4) Goals for athlete development; (5) Collaboration and communication
This study has investigated Swedish tennis coaches’ everyday practices for creating athlete development environments and how different environmental factors promote or hinder athlete development

Summary

Introduction

Finding and describing the optimal path to elite athletic performance has, for a long time, been a challenge for researchers. Various researchers have studied this area, as detailed in [1,2,3,4], typically by using the two concepts of “talent identification” and “talent development” These studies on talent identification and development have, through their influence on both coaches and athletes, come to have a great impact on how different sporting organizations and environments design their training programs [5]. A study that highlighted the talent development programs of the Swedish sport federations [7] shows that these sporting organizations attach great importance and effort to identifying talents early This often happens despite them believing that the innate characteristics of talent are not decisive in determining long-term elite performances. They emphasize the difficulty of identifying talent early when there are no recognized criteria to start with [7]

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion