Coaching Masters Athletes

Advancing Research and Practice in Adult Sport

Bettina Callary, Bradley Young, Scott Rathwell, Bettina Callary, Bradley Young, Scott Rathwell

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9780367442385
• eBook ISBN: 9781000372571
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Alternative & Complementary Medicine
• Index: Biological Sciences

This book is a foundational resource for all coaches and student coaches who are, or who plan to be, working with Masters athletes. This athletic cohort typically includes adults over the age of 35 years who are registered for sport programs/events, and who invest in training to improve themselves for competitions that range from recreational to championship caliber.

As the boom in Masters sport continues worldwide, coaches are increasingly tasked with the development and support of adults' quality sport experiences, and the implementation of strategies to foster skill acquisition and to facilitate their pursuit of competitive goals. This book presents what is different about coaching Masters athletes and prompts coaches to expand their scope of practice beyond traditional knowledge associated with youth or younger adult cohorts. It is essential for coaches to understand the psychological and social considerations that are unique to coaching adult sports-persons and Masters athletes, and that can be adapted to adults whose training and preparation for competition is quite varied.

Coaching Masters Athletes: Advancing Research and Practice in Adult Sport explores the research and practice specific to planning to coach Masters athletes and divulges what is known about distinctive considerations for delivering coaching interventions to this cohort, expanding on coaches' abilities to influence adults' personal development, as well as their own coach education through Masters Sport. Readers and students of Coaching, Physical Activity, Health Psychology, Sport Leadership and Exercises Science will gain valuable applied perspectives grounded in best practice research on how to coach one of the fastest-growing sporting cohorts, to promote quality adult sport, and to keep adult sports-persons engaged and active as they age.

1 The Emergence of Masters Sport and the Rising Importance of Coaches

Bradley W. Young, Scott Rathwell and Bettina Callary

Introduction

Kelly loves coaching. A lifelong swim coach, he first cut his teeth as a youth coach at the local YMCA before being recruited to his city’s competitive club. There he inherited the junior development program and was eventually appointed head coach. He spent 12 years successfully guiding 20 swimmers to national junior teams, many more to collegiate careers, and one athlete onto the Olympic team. After many years in this high performance pipeline, he felt rewarded and identified with his vocation. Then, life circumstances changed – his wife received a promotion, prompting a cross-country move. Kelly no longer had his coveted role in a competitive swim club and was stirring for a new opportunity. A coach in his network surprised him with an unusual invitation – why not coach an established local Masters swim club? They had 65 dedicated swimmers, but were short on coaches, particularly experienced ones. His friend said they could use his expertise. Masters? Kelly only knew them as the older swimmers who passed him on the pool deck as he left practices. He was unsure how attractive this new role would be, or what others would think, but he went for it. He showed up to his first Masters practice and was given a leading role immediately by the club president. He was amazed at the verve of these swimmers, how they demanded information and asked questions never before broached by his younger athletes. They challenged him for tips, cornered him for strategies. Some were straightforward, some aloof, all different body shapes, different speeds, a mix of personalities. He was surprised by the complexity of this cohort, yet there was something uniformly remarkable about them. He was intrigued. He could not quite figure it, but had an epiphany – after years coaching youth, thinking he had coaching pretty much figured out, there were new coaching problems to solve and this new role turned him on to coaching in a new way. He was motivated to take the reins and develop this opportunity into the richest experience possible, for his swimmers and for himself. He dove right in! Kelly’s tale is unique, yet also epitomizes the awakening of many coaches to new roles in the frontier of adult sport and in the growth of Masters sports of all sorts.

This book is for coaches like Kelly who embrace these new opportunities and wish to challenge their craft and competencies, appraise and refine their coaching qualities and enrich their approaches with Masters athletes. This book is also for coaches who know little about Masters athletes, but seek to know more about new perspectives on coaching adults that may differ from what works in the traditional high-performance pipeline. Ideally, we hope this book sensitizes coaches to the nature of Masters Sport, and offers unique conceptual and practical advice for coaches working with older athletes.

Masters Athletes and the Growth of Masters Sport

Who is a Masters athlete? This is an important question, for which a coherent response helps to identify the characteristics of participants or clients who may be targets of activity programming or recipients of coaching interventions. First, a Masters athlete (MA) is defined by their participation in competitions/organizations advertised for adults beyond a certain age. Typically, MAs participate in organized events that begin at 35 years of age, with many adults competing into their seventies and eighties. Although MAs is the most common term, senior athletes (who claim all the same characteristics as MAs) typically compromise sportspersons who are 55 and older. MAs were known as “veteran athletes” in some European countries, and for years, sports such as athletics referred to a transitional age grouping (e.g., 30–34-year-olds) as “sub-masters.” These verbal distinctions are disappearing as the title of MA becomes standardized.

Although much literature refers to 35 years of age as the commencement of Masters Sport, some sport federations have chosen an earlier debut than 35. For example, Masters swimming commonly begins at age 25, and Masters gymnastics and synchronized skating begin at age 19. Despite some variability, the age of commencement in Masters Sport is usually older than the age of peak performance in the high-performance trajectory for younger athletes. This does not mean MAs are not high-performers, only that they do not identify with the younger high-performance context. Instead, they identify with their own age-delimited category for adults.

The second criterion is that MAs take part in rule-governed activities that have an inherent degree of competition, which necessarily distinguishes these pursuits from exercise or fitness. Degrees of competitiveness vary widely among adult sportspersons from serious-minded to decidedly recreational. However, Masters Sport is predicated on organized competition, unlike other popular activities like bike touring and Nordic walking. Most Masters sports organize their competitions into age brackets, commonly in five-year groupings of competitors (i.e., aged 40–44 years, 45–49 years, 50–54 years, etc.), but this depends on the sport and the number of participants. The objective of these age brackets is to create competitive fairness by controlling for the slowing/impeding factor of age-related decline, thereby motivating continuous competition across the lifespan.

MAs should also not be confused with “weekend warriors” or “beer league” participants. Several features are important in making this distinction (Young, 2011). MAs are formally registered for a sport to an identifiable venue or event, including a league, club, community race or bonspiel. This formal registration could also be to larger-scale inclusive festivals, often called “games” (e.g., Australian Masters Games) that welcome all comers of a certain age. Alternatively, MAs can register for exclusive “championships” (e.g., United States Masters Swim Championships) that require meeting performance criteria to enroll. Moreover, MAs acknowledge “preparing” to compete (Young, 2011), meaning that competitions will engender some form of practice routines. This criterion is where we begin to see the importance of MAs having coaches. Coaches are an integral part of many MAs’ preparations to improve, whether their motives are for competitive performances or self-improvement. Highly devoted MAs identify as “athletes” and refer to their preparatory routine as “training,” whereas recreational participants are reluctant to identify as athletes and to use the term training; however, a preparatory routine is common to all. In fact, researchers commonly screen for practice routines as a key characteristic in validating a sample of MAs (e.g., Hoffmann, Young, Rathwell, & Callary, 2019).

There is great variability in MAs’ practice regimens and sport involvement. Though exceptions do exist, practice amounts generally correspond to skill group, with international-level participants being heavily engaged compared to national, state/provincial, and local-level participants (Young & Medic, 2011). For example, international runners and swimmers in their mid-fifties average about 10.5 hours weekly, national-level runners average 7–9 hours per week, and regional (or local) level swimmers less than 6 hours weekly (Young & Medic, 2011). More serious-minded MAs also train more continuously with fewer breaks or off-season periods. In general, serious-minded athletes are the most skilled and often affiliate with international or national caliber championships. Serious-minded and skilled MAs may have quite different coaching needs compared to more recreational and local-level MAs, but both groups have motives that need to be considered and appropriately supported by coaches.

The rising number of adults investing time, energies, and monies in Masters Sport has been an emerging leisure trend since the 1970s. Grassroots organizations catering to older sportspersons’ interests first found traction in the 1970s, as alternatives to mainstream sport (i.e., younger and/or elite athletes). Swimming, athletics, and tennis were the earliest movements. AUSSI Masters Swimming (now Masters Swimming Australia), a non-profit organization for adult swimmers, was established in 1975 and by 2020 had over 6,500 members in more than 190 clubs. In Canada, the first World Masters Track and Field Championships were held in Toronto in 1975. Over 1,400 competitors from 34 countries took part in that weeklong festival, setting a precedent for a recurring event that continues to grow to this day. In 2019, the Canadian Masters Athletics Association reported 2,203 club-affiliated members, its highest number ever, of which 34 percent were female. Tennis “Vets” Australia (now Tennis Seniors Australia) was established in 1970; in 2019, it boasted 3,522 players, with numbers bolstered by a dedicated Adult Participation Strategy rolled out by Tennis Australia in over 100 clubs throughout the country.

The family of Masters sports has also expanded. The 2021 summer World Masters Games (WMG) in Kansai, Japan, advertises 59 sport disciplines with an anticipated 50,000 participants. The International Masters Games Association, the representative body of sporting Masters worldwide, boasts 27 active sport disciplines and placeholders for an additional 24 sport disciplines that depend on available facilities and popularity with the host country of the WMG. Table 1.1 shows the inventory of Masters sports formally offered in contemporary WMG events. At a national level, the number of sport disciplines is astounding. The 2020 New Zealand Masters Games, for example, had over 60 sports and more than 300 separate event disciplines.

The initial growth of grassroots Masters organizations has given way to event-based growth. Over the past 20 years, large-scale multi-day events have been instrumental in promoting Masters Sport and energizing participation in countries around the world (Hastings, Cable, & Zahran, 2005; Young, Bennett, & Séguin, 2015). The “big three events” – the WMG, World Masters Athletics, and FINA (Fédération Internationale de Natation) World Masters Championships in five aquatics disciplines – have grown significantly in numbers of participants and in prestige (see Figure 1.1). Their growth parallels the aging demographics of many Westernized nations, and has tapped into the enlarged middle-class Baby Boomer cohort who have disposable monies for recreation. Simultaneously, consumer forces have resulted in the increasing commodification of Masters Sport, and large-scale events have become markets for adults’ expenditures on sport as serious leisure and forms of sport tourism (Hastings et al., 2005). These events draw significant masses from around the world, make an impact on host cities, particularly because they promote “sport for life” and an “active healthy aging” agenda (Young et al., 2015).

Table 1.1 Sport disciplines at the Turino (2013), Auckland (2017), and Kansai (2021) summer World Masters Games and the Innsbruck (2020) winter edition

...

Alpine skiing	Floorball	Skateboard
Archery	Football (soccer)	Skating
Artistic swimming	Futsal	Ski jumping
Athletics	Gateball	Softball
Badminton	Golf	Squash
Baseball	Ice hockey	Swimming
Basketball	Judo	Table tennis
Biathlon	Karate	Taekwondo
Bowling	Lawn bowls	Tennis
Canoe/Kayak	Lifesaving (surf)	Touch (rugby)
Cross-country skiing	Netball	Triathlon
Curling	Orienteering	Tug of war
Cycling	Paddling	Ultimate frisbee
Dance sport	Rowing	Volleyball
Diving	Rugby	Water polo
Dragon boat	Sailing	Weightlifting

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of Illustrations
• List of Contributors
• List of Coaches from Chapter Boxes
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1. The Emergence of Masters Sport and the Rising Importance of Coaches
• 2. Adult Learning in Sport: Implications for Psycho-Social Coaching Competencies
• 3. Notions of Age-Related Decline and Performance among Masters Athletes: Implications for Coaching
• 4. Age-Related Physiological Changes in Masters Athletes: Coaching Implications
• 5. An Overview of Risk Factors for Disease in Masters Athletes: Implications for Coaches
• 6. Sport Psychology and Masters Athletes: Implications for Coaches
• 7. Roles of Masters Athletes
• 8. Understanding the Social and Relational Dimensions of Coaching Adults
• 9. Coaching for Psychosocial Assets and Life Skills in Masters Sport
• 10. Roles of Masters Coaches at and around Competitions and Events
• 11. Coach Development and Education for the Masters Coach
• 12. Policy Development for Coached Masters Sport: Possibilities and Problematization
• 13. The Way Ahead for Coaching Masters Athletes
• Index