To: Ask the Coach
Subject: Continuing Team Performance Improvement

We had our first meet last weekend and the girls did a lot better than last year. Still have things to work on and critique but the girls are happy with finally placing on the podium and getting team trophies. Both level 4’s and level 5’s had someone “fall” or mess up on each event because they were going all out. What other advice do you have for continuing our improved team performance?

Congratulations on the improvement.

What are Your Improvement Priorities

The first thing you need to do is to decide what are your priorities for team improvement. To do that, you have to decide what are your primary goals in competition, normally done in this order – winning event medals, winning AA medals or team placement? How you will coach and what your priorities to improve first will vary according to you your team goal priorities.

You Have to Do Your Team Statistical Homework

You sent some scores but not what either you or I need to help your girls improve the fastest.

• What is your best team event?
• What is your 2nd best team event?
• What is your 3rd best team event?
• What is your 4th best team event?
• What are your team event scores in relation to the top 3 winning team event scores?
• What is your biggest team event score disparity from team event scores? (In other words, which event can you make up the most ground on in team events by focusing more on it in practice?)
• What is your 2nd, 3rd, 4th biggest team event score disparity from team event scores?

Evaluate Each Girl and Their Best Potential for Quick Improvement

Basically, you need to evaluate, where each girl currently stands, in relation to winning an event medal, an All-Around medal and contributing to the team score. Depending on what your goals are, you will coach to improve where they have the best chance of winning the soonest or contributing to the team score. For each team girl, therefore, you and they should know:

• What is their best event, 2nd best, 3rd best, 4th best?
• What event are they closest to winning a medal in?
• What event can they make the most improvement in compared to the girls who are winning? In other words, which event can they make up the most ground on by focusing more on it in practice?)
• What skills did they get the biggest deductions on that they can fix and make the fastest improvement with (for each event)?
• Did lack of flexibility have a significant effect on their event performance?
• Did lack of strength have a significant effect on their event performance?

Did you or they track their competition performance using the Level 4 and 5 Meet Tracking Sheets so you and they know exactly what they skills have to fix for the next meet and how much each fix will improve their score? Those are in all of the Compulsory Level e-books.