High Performance Coaching
There are many uncovered facets associated with the practicality of coaching elite athletes in a high-performance setting.
A basic outlook suggests there are four primary areas to be considered in daily coaching; including psychological state, implicit learning, explicit learning (instruction), and explicit learning (feedback).
Psychological state
Psychological state, in a high-performance setting, refers to the overall mental status of athletes and coaches. The psychological state of both athletes and coaches can be manipulated through multiple variables. More specifically, as practitioners, we are often the staff-members who are exposed to the most amount of contact time with the athletes. Therefore, we have a large influence on operant conditioning as well as physical development.
Emotional intelligence
Emotional intelligence is a ‘soft skill’ that allows one to understand feelings and regulate emotions to enhance quality of life. Overall, emotional intelligence refers to the ability to connect with others and understand their emotions. Even though there may not be a solidified definition, it seems that all effective leaders have a high degree of emotional intelligence. Without a high degree of emotional intelligence, a coach will be limited in their abilities to apply their methodology. More specifically, a coach can have high-level training with superior knowledge (compared to others) but may not have the ability to lead their clientele. Emotional intelligence consists of four key components; self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management [1].
1. Self-awareness. Self-awareness refers to the ability to understand one’s own emotions and how their moods affect others. Effective leaders have a good grasp of their own emotions and can recognise how to positively affect those who surround them.
2. Self-management. Self-management refers to one’s ability to manage their own emotions throughout unwanted and wanted scenarios. For example, a good leader will not let bad moods ruin their day, thus not negatively affecting others.
3. Social awareness. Social awareness refers to one’s recognition of their surroundings and potential issues. Effective leaders will understand how their actions will affect those around them given the current environment.
4. Relationship management. Relationship management refers to the interpersonal skills that form personal bonds between individuals. Soft skills such as clear communication, conflict resolution, kindness, etc are some of the fundamentals to relationship management. Good leaders will have a large network of individuals due to their high levels of relationship management skills.
Social intelligence
Often paired together, emotional and social intelligence form what is general intelligence. More specifically, social intelligence is rather the application and functioning of emotional intelligence. High degrees of social intelligence allows individuals to immediately process and apply decisions based on emotional and social content [2]. For example, a strength and conditioning practitioner can immediately assess their surroundings to make a practical decision, whilst considering how their athletes may react emotionally. Thus, in turn, strengthening the coach-athlete relationship. The behaviours of a strength and conditioning practitioner play a direct role into how effective their programming and application is. For example, if a practitioner is sarcastic and making jokes most of the time, it can be difficult for them to transition into a serious manner. In saying that, I believe that strength and conditioning coaches should behave as themselves and it is important that athletes see their coaches expressing different emotions. If a coach is very passionate and serious about his desire to win, but only expresses serious behaviours around his athletes, those athletes may find that coach unapproachable in certain scenarios. However, if another coach has often shown that he can be personable during a variety of scenarios, that coach can develop a greater relationship with the players. It is common to have coaches with different personality traits on a coaching panel, making certain coaches more approachable to some athletes. Therefore, if a strength and conditioning practitioner is working alone in a department, it is vital that they show signs of transformational and situational leadership skills in order to build trust and relationships with their athletes.
Implicit learning
Implicit, or non-conscious, learning refers to the ecological changing aspects associated with the learning process. This type of learning occurs when an individual can complete tasks based on their experience as well as surroundings, whilst limiting the amount of information given. Implicit learning pathway is comprised of various constraints or manipulations. A constraint-led approach limits individuals to challenge their neuromuscular system to adapt in accordance to a variety of constraints.
Environmental constraint/manipulation
Although certain aspects of one’s environment are incredibly difficult to manipulate, such as weather, light, and temperature, some of the spatial elements are more feasible to alter. In a practical setting, by altering a drill’s area play, one can overload certain locomotive behaviours. For example, in soccer, by closing the space in a 5-a-side drill, the action of play is more likely to transition from offensive to defensive. Therefore, one may be exposed to a lot more change of direction qualities when the area has been made smaller, as opposed to a full-pitch game. Furthermore, in a 1-on-1 setting, environmental constraints may be a lot easier to manipulate. To facilitate motor learning in a controlled setting, a practitioner could instruct someone (or themselves) to act as an opponent applying pressure on the athlete. This creates a time constraint knowing that the athlete can have the ball taken away from them, and a spatial constraint given the lack of turning options with an opponent behind them.
Task constraint/manipulation
If a practitioner has used a variety of instructional cues (explicit) and still hasn’t obtained the desired movement pattern, a task constraint is generally applied. A task constraint refers to the manipulation of the prescribed task with the intention of directing the individual’s attention elsewhere, to create an alternative response. For example, if a strength coach is prescribing bodyweight squats and the athlete continues to display knee valgus, the strength coach may initially try to correct the movement pattern through some verbal cues. However, if the coach’s correction isn’t effective, they may be able to manipulate the task by adding a mini-band directly above the athlete’s knees with the cue to push (or keep tension) against the bands. Thus, removing attention away from their knees and adding a new stimulus with a different objective.
Explicit learning
Explicit, or conscious, learning refers to the process at which individuals can acquire new knowledge through the instruction and feedback provided. Although the application of explicit strategies has been argued, it seems as though both novice and experts can benefit from appropriate instruction when attempting to accomplish a task. However, in relation to strength and conditioning practitioners, instructions that require high levels of attention to a small aspect of the movement, at the expense of the whole movement, should be avoided. In addition, providing too many instructions may come with a variety of consequences as well. Instructions can be given in either an internal or external manner. Whereas, feedback can be provided as knowledge of results (KR) or knowledge of performance (KP), in conjunction with a variety of timing strategies.
Internal cueing
Instructions that direct an individual’s focus to their movement process of the body is considered internal cueing. For example, when adjusting someone’s squat pattern, one may correct the athlete by telling them to “bend the knees”.
External cueing
As opposed to internal cueing, instructions that direct an individual’s attention to an outcome or effect on the environment are considered external cues. For example, when trying to develop more force in a squat, one may instruct the athlete to “push the floor away”.
Although the majority of research supports external cueing as the most appropriate method when coaching novices, it is important to note that experts also benefit from this method as well. There is a time and place for both cueing techniques, if the overall goal is to support the implicit memory and motor learning.
Augmented feedback
Opposed from instructions (cueing), feedback is provided after the completion of a motor skill. Feedback is essential information that is required to aid in an individual’s ability to reflect and apply new strategies to improve their motor skill. The most common forms of feedback are knowledge of performance (KP) and knowledge of results (KR).
Knowledge of performance
Perhaps the most common type of feedback is providing qualitative information to athletes for them to progress in their motor skill, also known as knowledge of performance. In this type of feedback, coaches will provide either prescriptive or descriptive information to their athlete to correct an observed error.
Knowledge of results
With the feedback being in a quantitative form (knowledge of results), athletes can focus their attention on a specific number or set objective. This type of feedback can help the athlete compare previous results to their current, informing them of improvements or decrements.
Coach Alex
References
[1] Goleman D. Emotional intelligence. Bantam, 2006.
[2] Bar‐On R, Tranel D, Denburg NL, and Bechara A. Exploring the neurological substrate of emotional and social intelligence. Brain 126: 1790-1800, 2003.