Coaching older adults (aged 55+)

Despite the benefits community sport can bring to older adults (aged 55+), such as social support, mental, and physical health and fun, national sporting policies tend to focus on young age groups in terms of participation and elite performance, so community sports are often required to align their strategic focus with these policies. Therefore, there are scant (yet emerging) sporting policies, formal sport coaching, and coach education opportunities specific to older adults in countries such as Australia, New Zealand, England, and Canada. This reality poses problems for coaching older adults in community sports. However, there is recent research, particularly in Canada, that reveals the everyday realities of coaching older adults, such as the importance of meeting athlete needs for competition, health and/or fun, developing personal relationships, accounting for age-related changes, and applying adult learning principles to the coaching context. In this chapter, we discuss these factors and offer some strategies to assist those embarking on community sport coaching work with older adults