Lifestyle factors

What players do outside of their training environment is critically important within the context of performance and development. Coaches should therefore pay close attention to how players spend their personal time. This holistic approach may reveal some important insights that impact on the way a player adapts to all the training and practice that is completed. For example, it might emerge that a player is experiencing non-training-related stress, which could ultimately impact performance in a negative way. In such cases and if possible, early intervention is key. This is because there are certain measures that can be taken to help minimise this negative impact. More broadly, these measures can be adopted by any player who is interested in pursuing a healthier lifestyle. In this section, three key lifestyle factors and how they are related to performance are highlighted:

• sleep
• social media
• nutrition.

Figure 12. Lifestyle factors