In the first installment of this mini-series surrounding the Self Determination theory, we discussed using relatedness to better motivate your staff, athletes you coach and structuring a system so you can teach your staff how to better motivate athletes. It’s highly recommended to go over Part 1 first, so take a few minutes to review that if you haven’t already.
The second part of this mini-series focuses on competency and using it in the same way to drive motivation. So let’s dive in!
Competence: Coach to Staff
Motivating your staff to continually improve can be challenging at times. They may seek out education on a regular basis, but the question is: How do they actually take what they learned and apply it?
Our solution for a few years now has been a weekly “Trainer Talk”
It occurs every Thursday and all coaches are expected to attend or have a damn good reason why they can’t be there. At the beginning of every quarter, each coach chooses one week in which they will present on a topic of their choice.
Having a set date early in the quarter allows the coach the ability to discuss:
- Key topics in our training systems or the industry
- Key takeaways from clinics/workshops recently attended
- Specific topics of interest that can evolve our training programs
Once they get comfortable, it allows them an opportunity to teach everyone on staff, head coach included. As a result, when a coach who has largely been in the student role is given the teacher role, motivation skyrockets!
Additionally, it gives our coaches the ability to seek out training philosophies that excite them and then collectively think tank on how we could implement pieces into what we already do.
Action Step: Implement a version of “Trainer Talk” with your staff at least 1x/month that involves your entire coaching staff.
Initially, it might be difficult to get volunteers to step into the teaching role so I suggest starting with a mini TED talk day where you and a few other coaches present short education pieces.
Goal: Bring to light the vast competencies on your staff to foster growth and development of professional knowledge.
Competence: Coach to Athlete
What would your answer be if someone asked you what your biggest strength is athletically? Harder yet, your biggest weakness?
Tough questions, right?
Self-awareness is such an important part of any athlete’s ability to achieve the best they are capable of.
Asking difficult questions like this during the initial conversation with an athlete provides 3 advantages:
- Create a framework of process vs. outcome based goal setting
- Recognize who they are as an athlete and develop a continuous improvement mentality in ALL facets of athleticism and sport skill
- Help them understand what they excel at, while recognizing other teammates likely excel at something different, catalyzing high level teamwork
As a coach, understanding their answers can provide a foundation to build an individual’s motivation while training.
During training, we can coach an athlete up on how a particular program or movement will help them overcome their weaknesses. Make sure when you reference this, it’s about them getting better, not matching those that already excel.
More importantly, when they are performing something they excel at, empower them to be a leader. They have the competence, so acknowledge it and encourage them to help teammates and lead by example.
Action Step: Implement a question or series of questions early on in the process with a young athlete. The big key here is to keep revisiting it. Part of self-awareness for a young athlete is the coach reinforcing competencies.
Goal: Improve self-awareness for your athletes
**If you coach in a team setting, asking these questions will provide you the knowledge to position athletes in a role they will be comfortable with. Then you have set them up to thrive individually and collectively!
Competence: Staff to Athlete
Martial arts has this down to a science: if you achieve a set series of skills and can demonstrate them repeatedly, you will earn the next belt.
Why is this such a motivator?
- It’s cool as heck to progress to the next level, developing a sense of PRIDE
- Athletes want to keep growing and learning by continuing their progress to the coveted Black belt!
At FIT, we use colored rubber bands in a similar fashion.
Our athletes need to demonstrate competency and proficiency of the core lifts: bench, squat, press, deadlift and clean, to earn the next band.
Testing week is exciting and motivating because if they have put the work in, there is a good to great chance they will level up in the band they have.
Consistency builds competence, building performance enhancement!
HOWEVER, not all athletes are motivated by this. Many are, but almost every group will have one outlier, maybe more.
That’s the human element we as coaches have to ALWAYS take into account.
So engage and ask those athletes how they are motivated. And then follow through on that during testing periods. (Just don’t let them tell you they are motivated by money, I only fell for that once!)
Ultimately, it’s about the athlete visualizing a path to “level up” and working to achieve that. Athletes will buy into a good training program over time, but it’s helpful early on to give them opportunities to achieve success, via bands or belts or whatever. We have found this significantly helps motivation when they plateau slightly or even lose some strength during a sport season.
Action Step: Enlist the help of your staff to identify what structure already exists and figure out where there is the potential for levels or progressions to be created. It’s highly likely you already do something where you have pre-requisite steps that must be completed to get access to doing a movement. For example, to power clean, an athlete must demonstrate the ability to deadlift well and show the ability to get into a good front squat rack position and do a balanced front squat.
Then display it prominently to your athletes and give them SOMETHING as recognition of leveling up. It can be really simple until you get great buy in from them and your coaches.
Goal: Improve ADHERENCE to the training and therefore the speed of skill development by formally recognizing an athlete’s ongoing mastery.
Jared Markiewicz is the founder and CEO of Functional Integrated Training, in Madison, WI. Jared has worked with a wide array of athletes including middle schoolers, collegiate and professional athletes, as well as adults – all looking to find the best version of themselves. He sits on the IYCA Advisory Board, has gone through many IYCA certifications, and is a regular contributor and speaker for the IYCA.
Jared holds a Bachelor of Science in Kinesiology with an emphasis in Exercise and Movement Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He’s also a Certified Personal Trainer through the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM-CPT), an Advanced Sport Performance Coach through USA Weightlifting, a Level 2 Functional Movement Screen Specialist, a Precision Nutrition Level 1 Coach (PN1) and a golf fitness instructor through Titleist Performance Institute.
If you want to be better at coaching young athletes, the IYCA Youth Fitness Specialist certification is the industry gold-standard for youth fitness and sports performance. Click on the image below to learn more about the YFS1 certification program.
