If you are a coach, you will want to make sure to use all of the signs that you can in order to make game time more effective and fun for your team players.

Communication as a coach is more than just telling the players what to do. It involves responding to the players at an individual level. It is taking the time to get to know your players as people.

One of the major ways that you as a coach can communicate with your players is by sending out verbal and non-verbal messages. For example, if you see that a player has done something right, but you cannot run onto the courts and tell them good job, then you can always let them know with your body language.

You can clap, give them a thumbs up, nod in acknowledgement, and smile. Give them some type of sign so when the player looks to the bench for acknowledgement, they are getting it. Affirmations with players, especially at the elementary level are vitally important.

You can use this same process in order to communicate plays, how well individual members are playing, and to help motivate them when you cannot be right by their side.

While you are communicating with your players, you will want to make sure that you keep everything in perspective.

It is always best to combine the idea of character to win the game, with other aspects of coaching. Teach your players that how they act and think counts just as much as how they play the game on the court. Combine this with affirmation towards the efforts that the players are making while they are performing. Sometimes showing affirmation and compassion towards their efforts will be the best motivation to keep the players in the game.

More than coaching players on the next move that they need to make is being a coach that is open to the possibilities of knowing what the team needs. By expressing this through your character, you will have the ability to make sure that all of the players are able to respond by playing a better game. And they will respond by playing a great game because they will feel your confidence in them and the right message sent from you, the coach.

So, if you are playing or coaching basketball, or any sport for that matter, you need a stretching program.

What Is Stretching?

Stretching is simply the act of extending to full length the body and its muscles. This activity involves straightening or stretching the body structure or the limbs.

How Does One Do the Stretching?

Stretching is fairly easy. As mentioned in the introduction, it is involved in the normal activities. It can be done by any people, regardless of age.

However the extent of stretching and flexing differs. Like the muscles tighten as a person ages, when you are playing a sport like basketball the muscles shorten their span making them tight. The range of joint movements can be minimized when the elasticity in the muscles begins to run out. Bending or flexing becomes more limited. The muscles take longer to stretch out and soon you are on your way to sitting on the bench due to an injury for the game or even the season. This is why stretching regularly, as part of a routine is very important.

Simple stretches can be done everyday. It can be incorporated in the lifestyle and the daily activities. It does not require much of your time.

Stretching exercises can also be done while training. Actually, stretching is an essential part of any training or sport. It must be done first before anything else. Stretching the body and the limbs is a good preparation for a more rigorous activity.

Most athletes would do the sit and reach, wherein they position on the floor, extend their legs and reach the tip of their foot with the tip of their hand. Actually, most trainers actually require their athletes to really do the stretching before playing.

There is actually an ideal length of time in stretching. It is best to do it in 10 minutes. This will give the body enough opportunity to move and flex the muscles, thus preparing it for more complicated and strenuous movements.

Experts however would frown upon going way beyond 10 minutes. Stretching the exercise to 30 minutes or more will already wear out the body before you even get started playing. This would not be favorable if one is preparing for a game.

What Are the Benefits of Stretching?

1. Increase the Range of Movement
As one constantly does the stretching exercises, the length of the muscles and the tendons are also increased. This will help in increasing the range of your movement. Thus, the limbs and joints will be able to move, way before an injury can take place.

2. Increased Ability to Perform Skills
When you have a wide range of movement, the more you will be able to do more things. For example, you can jump high without feeling any pain when you land back on the floor. Plyometrics is based on this fact. Learning to stretch in this aspect early on will allow you to have a more active lifestyle longer.

3. Injury Prevention
You can prevent injury to joints, tendons and muscles with stretching. When the muscles and tendons are well-flexed, they are considered in good working order. This will help in a faster recovery and decreased soreness. The muscles of the body will be able to take more exhausting and rigorous movements with less probability of being injured.

4. Reduce Muscle Tension
If the muscles are given their regular exercises and stretching, it is less likely that they will contract. This will definitely relieve you of any muscle pain or problems.

5. Enhance Energy
Being able to move more will also give you more energy. Stretching will also help enhance your awareness, like knowing that you have a body that is capable of doing many things. As such, you are going to be more driven to move rather than sulk in the corner.

6. Reduces Cholesterol
Research also shows that doing prolonged stretching exercises, like yoga, will help reduce the cholesterol in the body. This of course must be done with a healthy diet at hand. This could prevent and even reverse the hardening of the arteries, allowing you to avoid coronary diseases.

If you incorporate stretching in your everyday practice before doing basketball, the benefits, as the commercial says, will be priceless. It does not require much. After all, your fitness is everything so do what it takes to keep the body healthy.

Of course, it is Dan Brown’s best selling novel, “The Da Vinci Code”, Written in 2002 and the popularity has been growing ever since.

But what about the REAL man behind the code? Leonardo Da Vinci the man.

Leonardo was born into a family of country notaries and was himself appointed as the notary to the Signoria of Florence before he began his quest of painting. He was born illegitimate to his mother Catrina while with Ser Piero .Afterwards she married Acccabriga di Piero del Vaccha of Vinci, thus his last name. His father married four times and had eleven children by his third and fourth wives. It is sometimes suggested that Leonardo may have had these numbers in mind when he was painting in his famous “Last Supper” the figures of eleven Apostles and one outcast?

While Leonardo was studying under the tutelage of Andrea del Verrocchio, a great Florentine sculptor and artist, he met other craftsman, and youthful painters, among them was Michelangelo Botticeli. At that time Michelangelo was a jovial habitué of the Poetical Supper Club, and who had not yet given any premonitions of becoming the poet, mystic, and visionary of later times.

Leonardo’s talent outscored all of the other students under Verrocchio, that while his mentor was painting the “Baptism of Christ”, he allowed Leonardo to paint in one of the attendant angels holding some vestments. When it was finished, it was clearly revealed the angel whom Leonardo painted was so much better than the portion executed by his master.

The stories behind the paintings of “Mona Lisa” and the incredible path of the “Last Supper” painting took just to bring it to the public are seldom heard but very intriguing.

There is so much more about Leonardo’s personal life detailed from his discovered notebooks; his speculations, his interests, his thoughts on morals, and his sense of humor. Yes, clearly his sense of humor is expressed in his fables and jests.

Even what he had written in his will: “… requesting sixty poor men to carry sixty tapers at his funeral” and more.

Truly the name of Leonard Da Vinci stood for much more than a mere painter, he was an inventor, a sculptor, a genius.