How To Provide Coaching Value To An Athlete That Has More Experience Or Skill Than You!

How to provide coaching value to an athlete that has more experience or skill than you!
Kirsten Ahrendt

A great coach provides value to every member in their class. That value may be technical cueing, tactical teaching, personal connection, or validation. But being able to guide our members to technical proficiency underpins what we do as practitioners of physical movement, thus being able to provide value in that realm to each individual is important. So, what happens when a member in your class has more skill, strength or experience than you do as coach? Maybe this member actually knows more than you do in a certain movement – they’ve been olympic lifting for years, they were a competitive powerlifter, they were a collegiate gymnast or rower. Our coaching style and tactics shift depending on who we are coaching. When working with an advanced athlete, I get humble, get curious, and work collaboratively. Here’s some additional tools I incorporate to provide technical coaching value to an advanced mover:

1 – Ask an open ended question
Yes, there are times to GIVE an answer to an athlete, but as you’ll read below, it’s important that with an advanced mover, you don’t give a BULLSH*T one. If you’re not sure where to start with your coaching guidance, an aptly used question (i.e. – What are you focused on in this lift? What are you trying to improve during today’s session?)  will aid you in giving direct and impactful feedback.

For example:
If you’re coaching an experienced olympic lifter, they move well and the lift is over quickly. Blink and you’ll miss it! Ask them an open-ended question to identify what their focus is and draw your eye to that specific portion of the lift, then move onto tip #2.

2 – Be a mirror for them
Advanced athletes probably have a solid idea of what they’re doing well and what they could focus on to improve. Don’t be intimidated by this; In all likelihood your role is not to discover an unbeknownst fault but rather to communicate what you observe occurring, so that they can contrast it to what they feel occuring. Your role is more “mirror” than “teacher” for this athlete. In the case of the experienced olympic lifter, I may use language like:

• “What I see is X, what do you think is contributing to that?”
•  “It looks like you still have an opportunity to do Y more/less, does that track with what you feel?”
• “I noticed Z, what do you need to focus on to address that?”

3 – Don’t make sh!t up
You may not see egregious faults with advanced or experienced athletes. The worst thing you can do is make up a fault or say a generic coaching cue for them, as it could lead their focus astray or worse, they’ll recognize you’re bullshitting and will become distrustful of your coaching. If you THINK you saw something but the lift was over quickly – ask to see another rep and hone your eye in on it or even bette – film it! You can both review the film together and talk through what you see. Collaboration creates wonderful environments for growth – both yours as coach and theirs as athlete.

4 – Fundamentals still matter
There’s a high likelihood that the fault we see with an advanced lifter is caused by poor execution of a fundamental position, timing or execution – it just so happens to occur under impressively heavy load, at high speed or in an extremely technical skill. The foundations still apply to the advanced mover as much as they do to the novice. They may need a simple reminder and chances are they have the ability to actually execute it.

5 – Dig in to nuance
This is my favorite thing to do with advanced athletes! With this athlete it’s less about identifying the technical fault and more about helping them find a tactic or method that addresses it. For example – an advanced lifter says they are focusing on really hitting full leg extension on their clean. Dig into HOW they will elicit that response! Is it the type of cue they use? Or is there a plyometric drill you can give them to prime the action?

Encourage the athlete to explore variety and see what creates the best response! (Push! Legs! Drive! Up! Ceiling!) Different words elicit different effects on people – a verb, a noun, an internal VS external cue. Studies show that different types of cueing will result in greater muscle activation and PRs than others – help your clients explore this.

In Summary:
The more competent the mover, the more confident we must be in our knowledge or ability to help them. This does not mean we must have ALL THE ANSWERS (it would be foolish to think we ever arrive at such a place as a coach). Yet we must have tools and flexibility to adapt our coaching style and method to support this athlete in their development. Whether you are a novice or experienced coach, we can all create impact and guide any capable athlete to the next level by incorporating these subtle shifts into our coaching approach.

Are YOU ready to up your coaching game? Click HERE to check out Invictus University.