MG1 Partner Athlete Program - An Update
Despite working in Cognitive Skills Coaching in other sports for a number of years (predominantly Field Hockey and Rugby Union), the world of developing Ice Hockey goaltenders was relatively new to me up until 2020. For me, like many others, Lockdown meant more time at home than ever before and more ways needed to entertain my own kids between on-line lessons and 30 minute dog walks.
That spring, as the world went into lockdown, I started spending more time with Ollie in the garden, not trying to develop anything Ice Hockey specific (I can’t skate and have very little knowledge of the intricacies of the sport), but more a generic approach to developing his hand/eye co-ordination, reaction speed, processing ability, visual attachment etc.
We shared some of the stuff we were doing on Social Media which gained the attention of some of the best goalie coaches in the UK - Euan King and Dave Clancy. The rest as they say is history - post lockdown, along with working in other sports, I was welcomed in by a number of Ice Hockey governing bodies and private coaching organisations to develop the mental, visual and cognitive skills of their goaltenders. MG1 Elite Performance as a stand alone business was formed (moving away from Major Oak Coaching Limited which is where the work had been done before with Rugby and Hockey). MG1 was set up to solely take care of the Cognitive, Visual and Mental skills coaching for athletes on-going.
Like anything new and scientific, there is always an element of scepticism. Does it work? Is it transferable to on-ice performance? How long until we see a real benefit? All valid questions. How do you answer those questions - The easiest way is to do a session and see for yourself, or listen to some of the best athletes in the sport who are pro-actively training these skills and can tell you first hand the benefits they are seeing in their game.
So that’s how the MG1 Athlete Partnership Program was born. I wanted to work with a select number of athletes regularly over a sustained period of time so that THEY could tell you the impact they had felt from this level of coaching. There’s no magic agreement here, no promises of positive reviews, just 8 athletes who have been asked to share their own experiences of the impact visual, mental and cognitive coaching can have on their performance.
It was really important to get the right balance of athletes involved. I wanted athletes that were close to the MG1 Brain Gym in Nottingham, so that they could visit regularly to be exposed to everything that I can offer them, including some of the most advanced technology in the sector. But I also wanted athletes who were based further away, so we could also explore the impact that can be had with these athletes via zoom and less face to face interactions. Finally, they needed to be playing for teams that would allow us to hijack a training session now and again to track eye-movement, a key part in understanding what visual stimuli an athlete processes to inform decisions.
And so the Great 8 were selected:
- Hayden Lavigne - Manchester Storm
- Jordan Hedley - MK Lightning & Coventry Blaze
- Will Kerlin - Bristol Pitbulls & Cardiff Devils
- Sam Gospel - Leeds Knights
- Charlie Henry - Sheffield Steeldogs
- Kayla Poole - Swindon & GB U18’s
- Scarlett Richardson - Sheffield & GB U16’s
- Ollie Booth - Nottingham
We’re now over 2 weeks into the program and all athletes are working with me at least twice a week (either face to face, via zoom, or a mixture of both). It’s been super demanding on time (probably more than I anticipated) to make sure each athlete is getting a fully tailored program. Each athlete completed a remote baseline assessment, and from that a program for them was developed. This will be reviewed over the Christmas period to amend and adapt where necessary as we move in to 2023.
My aim is to sit down with each of the athletes nearer to Christmas and get their feedback on the first couple of months of training, hopefully this will give a good insight for anyone out there considering adding Cognitive training to their existing program and answer any questions you may have about what I do, how it works, what are the benefits etc - not from me, but from real athletes with real lives who are currently trying to be the best versions of themselves.
Can’t wait to see how this pans out. If you have any questions, or would like to know more about how visual, mental and cognitive training could help you, don’t hesitate to drop me an Email - colin@mg1elite.com - always happy to chat!
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