Participation in sport at any level can be a richly rewarding experience for athletes. The variety of opportunities is continually expanding for both men and women through Little League programs, youth sports, interscholastic athletics, and community recreation programs. A well-qualified coach, who understands the many facets of his or her role, is the single most important aspect of a successful program. A properly trained coach can provide the setting in which all athletes receive maximum benefits from their participation.

For athletes to improve systematically, coaches need to follow practical programmes based on sound principles. Coaches should be encouraged to reflect critically on the process, methods and variables that they use, or could use, to devise training interventions and evaluate the effectiveness of their programmes.

There are four key ingredients for a successful sports coaching program: determining training needs, individualizing the programme, setting goals, making a plan.

Most coaches and sports scientists agree that there is a lack of sound theoretical framework that enables to optimally prescribe training and competition activities in terms of sequencing and proportion. There is much evidence available regarding the methods and protocols that are appropriate for the development or maintenance of individual performance factors.

When reflecting upon the effectiveness of a sports coaching intervention, the coach needs to consider the following four factors: what was planned; what was actually completed; what the outcomes were; and how these outcomes compared with the desired outcomes. These considerations probably seem like common sense and fairly simple to apply. Critical to the success of any such interpretation is that it is not just an afterthought but rather adequate consideration is given to the process at the programme design stage. Athletes respond to sports coaching interventions in different ways and there is no one right way for everyone.

Methods traditionally used by coaches to record sports coaching programme data have several limiting factors. Consequently, for many coaches the ability to assess the effectiveness of their sports coaching programme in order to make on going adjustments is massively time consuming, infrequent and somewhat of a subjective exercise. Over the last decade there has been an increase in the availability of electronic templates via web-based companies or software packages. The software is usually designed to enable the coach to personalize the structure, terminology and variables used, allowing activities to be described using both quantitative and qualitative parameters.