Be an empowering and supportive coach

Sports coaches play a key role in participants’ sports experiences and can positively influence their social, mental, and physical health. Nevertheless, sports coaches are often volunteers and may benefit from knowledge and support regarding the fostering of their sports participants’ health and well-being, beyond the technical and tactical aspects of sport.

The Health Promoting Sports Coach implementation guide provides practical advice to coaches on how to integrate health promotion into their coaching.

The first section of this guide covers the theoretical background, including definitions of health promotion and a Health Promoting Sports Coach, the role of coaches in promoting health, and the stages of progression in Health Promoting Sports Coach practices.

The second section provides a practical checklist of concrete actions for coaches to undertake before, during, and after training, to promote health in their coaching.

The third section presents long-term strategies to implement health promotion within coaching, based on the Health Promoting Sports Club model.

This practical guide will help coaches to approach and implement health promotion comprehensively, through their actions, relationships with sports participants and other stakeholders, and role modeling, and within the overall club setting.