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Video Tape your Training Log #13:
It goes unsaid that seeing your own skills from a third person perspective will help athletes learn faster, as they can see their mistakes. Coaching requires instant feedback to your athlete to help them improve their technique or form, but there is something to be said for getting visual feedback from a camera as well. With a coach, you have experience and perspectives, which naturally will be projected onto the athlete. Research has shown that visual, not just auditory feedback, removes coaching biases and can help athletes internalize their own perspectives about what they saw. In my training, there was always camera filming us, so that we could see immediately afterwards what each skilled looked like. It was also a useful tool for the coaches, so that you could practice on your own while they were working with another athlete. However, if your gym isn't set up for this, or you are training at home on your garden trampoline or at a trampoline park, you can still film yourself on your phone and get the same results.
You can purchase an inexpensive tripod that will prop a basic phone up and film anything you do during training and be able to watch those videos on the way home and analyze your skills. The best athletes are the ones who get consumed by their training, even when not in the gym. Having videos on your phone can also help motivate athletes for the training they are about to do. I would sit in the car when I was younger and re-watch my old training videos so by the time I arrived at the gym, I would then be already focused, ready to go and it would cut my warm up in half because I was already mentally warm.
Another aspect about filming that does not get much attention is the fact that when you consciously take the time to film yourself for a skill, typically you will not want to film for hours, so you will actually pressure yourself to do the skills correctly when the camera is on. This actually creates a small baby step to athletes who may feel extra pressure when in competition.
Start off by having the athletes warm up their routines and then tell them you will be recording them after 15 minutes of warm up so you can make it like a mock meet. I actually randomly discovered this when an athlete said they were nervous to do a skill on camera because they did not know if they would make it.
Try adding in video taping into your programs. Do not just get a TVO and have athletes sit around watching old videos. Get them to also set times to film certain skills in a fun mock meet fashion as a starting stage for competing when the cameras are on at the World Champs!
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Benefits Of Videotaping Training: