Listening to players

I think it is very important in Athletic Development that we listen and reflect on our sesions, our week and our monthly programs. I am very set in my ideas and most of the time through testing I know that my program is working but I think it is imperative that we dont become a Dictator and forget that we are dealing with humans and not robots. I have reguler chts with our teams leadership group to ensure the work I am doing is understood and effective. Recently I had programed a very difficult 3 week block and as you can imagine by the 3rd week my popularity had decreased - I knew this would happen and was not going to deviae from the bigger picture but still I listened and gave further explanation to where we were going with this. Respecting players is one of the most important aspects of athletic development and knowing when to be hard and when to lighten up is a skill that you will always get better at. Another great way to listen to players is through a weekly player monitoring survey just to ascertain the physiological and pychological state of your players.