Needs ASsessment

For general analysis and creation of goals I find performance profiling (Butler) to be very useful. I'll post more setails on the procedure when I have the time...

Needs assessment or analysis can be broken down into two areas- evaluation of hte sport and assessment of the individual.

The evaluation of the sport identifies key characteristics which an athlete needs to be excellent at such as power or strength etc. From this information you can design an appropriate training programme that will encompass all these characteristics. As a coach / trainer, you will have some idea of what characteristics of fitness are require and how much of each. A good book that allows you to determine the correct aspects of fitness to work on a the correct time is Tudor Bompa's 'Periodization for all Sports.' This book periodizes a year to allow the coach/trainer to effectively train the athlete to peak at competition. What Bompa does is train the correct energy systems so that the athlete will be able to perform at their best when in competition.

Evaluation of sport should include movement analysis, physiological analysis interms of the fitness characteristics and injury analysis. Injury analysis should include the evaluation of the most common injuries within the sport and reduction measures to reduce chance of injury.

Next is the assessment ofthe athlete. This will include the goals setting as mentioned by the previous reply. You also need to assess training status (current program), training age (how long bee ntrainingfor sport), techniqual experience/skill, testing and evalluation of the fitness characteristics to determine baseline fitness level. These physical tests should include strength, power, flexibility, muscular enduarance, test for specific energy systems involved, agility and speed to name a few. These tests will help determine the athletes strong areas of fitness and ones that need to be worked on. You can compare the athletes assessment to the sport/position evaluation made earlier and see what differences there are. Make the necessary changes to developp the athlete.

Also find out how much time the athlete can dedicate to training. If the athlete is working for income as well as training, you need to know the frequency/duration/type/which part of season training in so that you can desing a training programme specific to the needs.

Keep the programme simple so to keep the goals in mid. Add differing training as programme progresses. Look into periodiozation so to peak at the correct time.