The value of sufficient rest hit home for me (again) to me not long ago. I coached a match and found I just wasn’t as tuned in and energetic as usual. I’m not saying I normally bounce around yelling and screaming and talking a mile-a-minute in the huddle. My court-side demeanor tends toward calm, though I do move around on the sideline a fair bit. I figured out a number of years back that coaching on my feet rather than sitting allowed me to work off nervous energy (or whatever) and lower my blood pressure. 🙂
During this match, though, my brain ran in slow motion. The players may not have noticed it that much. I still focused them on the sort of things I normally did. It’s something I felt myself, though. I definitely didn’t like the lack of sharpness and motivation.
In hindsight I can ascribe my mental fogginess most likely to lack of rest. The combination of late nights and early mornings with a cold clearly took it out of me. It just goes to show that as much as we tell our players to make sure they take care of themselves in terms of rest, hydration, and eating right we have to do the same thing as coaches to be at the top of our game.
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