Sun Sachs

Elite Sports Coaches and Mental Fatigue: What You Need to Know

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We all know that athletes and other working professionals encounter mental fatigue. It’s in part why breathing exercises and guided meditation have become so popular over recent years. And in the elite athlete population, there’s never been so much emphasis on mental skills training and other psychological practices to improve mental performance.

Yet, there’s very little known about the effect of mental fatigue on elite sports coaches. Sure, they coach the best athletes in their individual sports, but this doesn’t mean they are immune to mental fatigue, burnout, and other stressors.

So, this blog post will highlight the findings of a relatively new study on mental fatigue in elite sports coaches, and then we’ll provide some tips on how coaches can reduce mental fatigue and improve their readiness to perform (and overall wellbeing).

Key takeaways:

  • Elite sports coaches also experience mental fatigue 
  • Very few sports teams optimize mental fatigue in coaches
  • More attention needs to be paid to coaches, their wellbeing, and mental fatigue

What does the science say?

A recent study in the Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance investigated mental fatigue in elite sports coaches over a 16-week preseason period. Physical fatigue, readiness to perform, and mental fatigue were analyzed, alongside other psychobiological markers of stress.

The results found significant individual variability, but also a notable inverse relationship between mental fatigue and readiness to perform. If sports organizations and teams optimized mental performance and fatigue the same way they do athletes, teams could generate a potential competitive advantage at the elite level. 

How can coaches better manage their mental fatigue?

A substantial amount of research in recent years has focused on improving the mental wellbeing of athletes. For example, more sports teams than ever have psychologists, and athletes are taught mental skills such as visualization, self-talk and guided imagery. However, as the aforementioned research indicates, very little has been done in regard to mental fatigue for coaches.

Elite sports coaches are pivotal in the development and success of elite athletes and sports teams. And with the research suggesting high levels of stress, coaches are perhaps more at risk than initially thought. 

So, how can coaches reduce mental fatigue? 

Because there is such an overlap between elite athletes and coaches, it would make sense to apply similar mental and physical fatigue management techniques. Therefore, we recommend the following:

  • Regular monitoring 
  • Know the signs of overtraining & burnout 
  • Stress management 
  • Finding an effective support network

We’ll break down each of these methods in more detail below.

Regular Monitoring 

It’s well known that elite athletes continually monitor their physical and mental performance, including their level of stress, fatigue, and other cognitive demands. Numerous tests and questionnaires can be used to detect early signs of fatigue and stress. However, at Rewire, our athletes use a daily readiness assessment to track their physical and cognitive readiness.

The daily readiness assessment tracks several data points — including cognitive, physical, and emotional measures — to provide a holistic overview of your readiness to perform. Data points include heart rate, sleep, training metrics, reaction time tests, and questions to assess your current levels of stress and rest.

But with the overlap, it may prove beneficial for coaches to also use Rewire to better understand their daily readiness and mental fatigue. 

Know the Signs of Overtraining & Burnout 

While we often discuss the topic of burnout in relation to athletes, workplace burnout is also common and can affect elite sports coaches. Knowing the signs of burnout can help you avoid burnout while alleviating stress.

According to one study, “Burnout is a psychological syndrome emerging as a prolonged response to chronic interpersonal stressors on the job.”

The following symptoms — taken from the same study — are signs and side effects of burnout:

  • Overwhelming exhaustion 
  • Feelings of cynicism and detachment from the job
  • Ineffectiveness and a lack of accomplishment 

If you think you could be suffering from burnout, stress management techniques could prove useful — more on this below.  

Stress Management 

Elite athletes are known for their ability to successfully manage stress in highly competitive situations while still achieving peak performance. Coaches can take a page out of their own playbook on how to manage stress, adopting some of the strategies they — or the team’s psychologists — recommend for their athletes, such as:

  • Guided breathing exercises
  • Mediation 
  • Positive visualization 

In particular, box breathing and 5-10 breathing exercises can be especially helpful. 

The Rewire app includes numerous guided mindset and recovery sessions, including mindfulness and recovery, evening wind-down routines, and guided stress and anxiety relief sessions. 

Furthermore, the standard advice also applies: get plenty of exercise, eat a well-balanced diet full of nutritious foods, and take good care of your body and mind.

Finding an Effective Support Network

If you’re an elite sports coach, you likely already have access to a network of other coaches, sports psychologists, and professionals you can speak to. Finding an effective support network can help relieve stress, anxiety, and mental fatigue. 

Reduce mental fatigue & improve coaching performance

Elite sports coaches are not immune to mental fatigue, stress, and burnout. However, not enough is being done to support elite coaches. If sports teams were to better optimize the health, mental fatigue, and daily readiness of their coaches, they could potentially improve overall team performance.

If you’re a sports coach, you can use the Rewire platform to perform a daily readiness assessment, guided sessions to reduce stress and anxiety, and overall, gain better clarity on mental fatigue (and how to avoid it)

Book a consultation and find out how to best use Rewire for teams

Sun Sachs

How to be a Good Coach in Sports

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“A coach is someone who can give correction without causing resentment.” – John Wooden.

It doesn’t matter who you coach — whether a youth sports team, the starting line-up for an international event, or a track and field team at your local University, you want to do a good job — you want your athletes to succeed. 

The better at coaching you are, the better your performance from the individual athletes.

But how do you become a good coach? And what separates good from great?

This blog post will outline seven proactive ways to become a good coach, helping you get the most out of your athletes.

Key takeaways:

  • What works for one athlete may not work for another (adopt an individual approach)
  • Learn how to communicate effectively (and deliver feedback w/o resentment)
  • Adopt two-way communication with your athletes

Stay up to date with the latest research

A good coach most likely already knows a lot about their sport. But even the most knowledgeable coach should keep up to date with the latest research, coaching, and training techniques.

For example, you could attend workshops that discuss other training components, such as nutrition and psychology. 

Improving your skill set and remaining up to date with the research ensures you get the most out of your team. You can find marginal gains here and there, implementing new techniques when necessary. 

You don’t need to incorporate all of your learnings, either. But you can try, test, and learn to see what works best for you and your athletes.

Know how to motivate your athletes

“Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.” – Bobby Knight, former American basketball coach.

No athlete is motivated for every single training session — that’s just the way that it is. However, a good coach knows how to tap into each athlete’s unique motivators and goals, helping increase motivation and drive. For example, one athlete may respond well to a challenge or competition, while another may benefit from positive reinforcement or constructive feedback.

Find what works best for each athlete, and do that.

It’s your job as the coach to motivate your athletes and drive them toward success.

Listen to your athletes

A lot of coaches do an excellent job of instructing and guiding their athletes but often fall short when it comes to maintaining effective communication. Your athletes need to feel heard and understood, and you need to take on board what they have to say. 

To achieve this, strive to create an environment where athletes feel comfortable expressing how they feel. One way to do this is to be available. For example, you can stay late after training if they want to speak to you, and you can also incorporate an open-door policy.

Adopting open communication can help improve athlete performance, coaching philosophies, and more. Let’s use the example of an athlete who is experiencing sharp knee pain but is supposed to run laps…

If the athlete does not feel confident to confide in their coach, they’ll run through the pain and make it worse. They might even cause themselves an injury. Conversely, if the athlete feels like they can talk to their coach, they can express their pain and frustrations and adapt the training as needed.

Communication is a two-way street — you have to want to listen to your athletes and not just close the book on what they have to say, but take the feedback onboard.

Adapt your training to each athlete

While you may have a team of athletes, no two athletes respond to training the same. One athlete may need more recovery, and another might respond differently to a certain type of training (e.g., one athlete who runs 50 miles a week may improve at a rapid rate, while another thrives on a lower 30 miles a week training volume).

Instead of prescribing the exact same training to each athlete, adapt the training to suit their abilities. If you’re just starting out in a coaching role, finding what works best can take some time. But a good place to start is simply by speaking to your athletes — ask what type of training they prefer, how their recovery is after certain sessions, and so on… a lot can be learned from a quick conversation!  

Develop excellent communication skills 

Knowing how to talk to your athletes is a must-have skill. If you don’t know how to communicate effectively, then you’ll struggle to motivate your athletes. Furthermore, clear and concise communication is key during a game or competition — you give instructions to improve team performance.

Work on your communication and you’ll see a big return in how your team listens and implements your instructions.

Foster a positive team culture 

Building a positive team culture will help your team thrive. You could have the best players in the world, but with poor culture and zero team dynamics, they’ll struggle to perform consistently at a high level.

As a coach, aim to build a culture that you would want as an athlete. It’s your responsibility to create an environment where your athletes feel valued, motivated, respected, and a part of the team.

Below are a few ways you can start building team culture:

  • Encourage open communication
  • Set short and long-term goals as a team
  • Perform team bonding activities
  • Celebrate small victories

Prioritize rest & recovery

We touched upon this briefly already. However, no two athletes are the same, especially when it comes to rest and recovery. Despite this, measuring rest and readiness can be difficult — how do you know when to step on the gas and when to sit back and take it easy?

Rewire for Teams provides your athletes with a daily readiness assessment. We factor in a mix of cognitive, emotional, and physical readiness scores to determine how ready they are for training. As a coach, you can use these scores to decide what training sessions to do, for what athletes, and who might need a rest day.

“Rewire’s Readiness Assessment gives me really valuable insights into all aspects of my Readiness and allows me to make better training and recovery decisions.” – Laura Kline, Elite ultra runner & endurance athlete.

Find out more about Rewire for Teams.

Matthew Mace

How to Motivate a Team After a Bad Loss

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The whistle blows, and it’s game over. The other team won, they’re running around the pitch celebrating, and the only thing on your mind is worrying about how you’ll talk to your team in the locker room.

They don’t want to be there, everyone is disappointed, and the last thing you want to do is pick apart the game to understand what happened and why you lost. However, your role as a coach is to motivate your team and lift morale — so how do you do it?

This blog post will provide actionable advice to help you come back from a bad loss, including tips on improving motivation and others to improve performance in certain areas of your game. 

Key takeaways:

  • Focus on the positives 
  • Set new short-term goals
  • Lead by example

Focus on what the team did well

After a loss, it’s easy to focus on what went bad — maybe the team wasn’t working with each other, perhaps your possession was poor, or possibly the other team just played better than you. 

But instead of focusing on the bad, do your best to focus on the good. There are always positives that can be found, even in the worst of defeats. This is not something you need to do by yourself, either.

Make a team activity of it. After a loss, ask each player one thing they think went well, either as a team or an individual performance — it doesn’t have to be something they did well, it can also be a teammate.  

If you have eleven players, that’s eleven positives to motivate, inspire, and get you back on the pitch for your next game!

Analyze the performance and learn from the mistakes

While focusing on what went well, even after a loss, can be extremely beneficial, you still need to analyze overall performance and put together a strategy to learn from any mistakes.

For example, while your short passing may have been great — a positive to note down — perhaps your long passing could have been better. Make a list of things that didn’t go so well, and focus on adding these elements to practice sessions before your next game.

For the sake of example, let’s say you play football — your list of things to improve may look like this:

  • Short passing
  • Spatial awareness
  • Crossing from a corner
  • Applying pressure 

Focus on improving the weaker areas of the team within training, helping to improve performance for your next game. It’s a simple task, but a much-needed one.

Set new goals and get your team focused 

Once you have your two lists: one of the things the team did well, and another of areas that can be improved, it’s time to set new goals. And while you may already have long-term goals, short-term goals, i.e., for the next game(s), can help increase motivation and focus.

For example, you may set a goal for the team to control majority possession in their next game. If you know this is a weak area, then focusing on this will challenge your team to improve under pressure.

Even when things are going bad, and you can’t seem to catch a break, you can stack these smaller wins — you held majority possession, you improved your short passing, your crossing from a corner got better, and so on…

Over the next few games and weeks, you can turn weak areas of your game into not necessarily strengths, but stronger aspects of your game.

Don’t blame one player

At the end of the day, a team sport is exactly that: a team sport. 

You celebrate the victories together just as much as you celebrate the defeats.

As a coach, it’s all too easy to blame one player. But usually, this is not only not true, but if you were to blame one player, you’d knock their confidence and motivation. 

Instead, talk to all players…

Ask them what they think went well (and what didn’t go so well), and then you provide feedback on the same points. 

Try to give constructive feedback, such as: “Your short passing was great, but if we improve your long passing, we’ll control the field even better.” 

When giving feedback, do not blame one player. Instead, provide positive and constructive feedback to all athletes. Tell them what they can work on and what, if they continue to do, will result in great performances.

Foster a supportive team environment

Remind your team that you are not alone when facing setbacks — you win and lose together. You work on weaknesses together, and soon, you will win together.

Encourage open and honest communication. Allow players to express their concerns, frustrations, and ideas. Create bonding activities and experiences that allow players to get to know each other better, helping to grow as a team.

Inspire and lead by example

And finally, it’s important to lead by example. If you expect your players to stay late after training, you also stay late. If you want them to work on their weaknesses, you help them work on those areas.

If you expect (and ask) your players to be on time for training, you better be on time.

It’s easy to do, but you must stick with it. Plus, leading by example often helps foster a supportive team environment.

Leadership is a matter of having people look at you and gain confidence…If you’re in control, they’re in control.

Tom Landy, professional American football player and coach

To summarize 

A bad loss can kill the vibe of any team, bringing you down from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows. 

You can feel it in the locker room, on the pitch, and in your next training session. But the sooner you can put the loss behind you, the better. You — and your team — must focus on moving forwards.

Set new goals, evaluate what went well (and what could be improved), and create a game plan to help your team come back stronger than ever.

Matthew Mace

How to Build Mental Resilience in Sports

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When the going gets tough, the best athletes use their resilience to persevere. In the fast-paced and highly competitive world of sports, athletes are constantly faced head-on with numerous setbacks and flickers of self-doubt.

There’s dealing with injury — and whether you can come back from it — coming back from a loss, switching teams, and more day-to-day challenges, such as training, competing, and staying motivated after a loss, or several defeats.

Resilience is defined as the ability to adapt, recover, and grow stronger from adversity. It’s how the best athletes stay focused on their goals, despite how it may look to others. Many people think that some athletes are born with resilience, and that others are not. And while that may somewhat be true — in that, some people are naturally more resilient than others — resilience can definitely be trained.

So, this blog post will explain why mental resilience is important and ways for you to develop resilience in sports.

What is the importance of resilience in sports?

Resilience is a defining factor that separates good athletes from exceptional ones. In sports, where success is often determined by split-second decisions and the ability to perform under immense pressure, mental resilience plays a vital role. It’s fuel to the fire that allows athletes to navigate setbacks, injuries, failures, and self-doubt without losing sight of their goals.

Add resilience to your toolkit, and you’ll bounce back stronger from defeats. It allows you to cultivate a positive and growth mindset, and helps athletes embrace challenges to grow, rather than decline and move backward. Something you should definitely avoid in the realm of sports!

How to develop resilience

For most, resilience is not an innate trait; it’s a skill that can be developed over your sports career. But the skill of resilience must be nurtured and watered over time — it’s not a one-and-done kind of trait. It requires a lot of work and discipline to maintain.

Continue reading to discover ways to build mental resilience in sports, based on research with Elite athletes.

Understand your motivation 

What gets you out of bed in the morning? Why do you do what you do?

To build and develop mental resilience, you need to understand your motivation. What are you trying to achieve? It could be something as simple as becoming a better athlete, winning a local meet, or landing a spot on a big team.

Whatever it is, channel it. And remind yourself of your motivators — what values would someone who is striving to achieve your goals have? Practice those!

Evaluate setbacks and implement lessons 

We all encounter setbacks — things don’t always go exactly as planned; you get injured and can’t play for 12 weeks, you don’t qualify for the next stage of a race, or you don’t perform as well as you thought you would.

And while it’s easier to wallow in self-pity, the only real way to get better — and to build mental resilience in the process — is to evaluate setbacks and implement lessons from these.

Use failure as a stepping stone toward success. If you missed a free throw in the final minute of a game, maybe you need to work on your shots under pressure. If you lost a race in the final 100m, you might need to work on your sprint performance.

Add fuel to the fire, evaluate your setbacks, and learn from your mistakes. Every time you come back from defeat, you beat on the hammer in the fire and become more and more resilient.

Use mental skills to prepare for success

Mental skills such as visualization, self-talk, goal setting, and mindfulness are all powerful techniques that can help prepare you for success. They can also help you build resilience, allowing you to maintain a positive mindset as you navigate through setbacks and adversity.

For example, self-talk can help you increase confidence and focus before a big game, goal setting helps you stay focused on what matters most, and mindfulness allows you to clear distractions to prepare for success.

Related: How to Create a Mental Training Program for Athletes.

Focus on achieving balance 

Achieving life balance can help you build resilience and improve your performance. Often, athletes think that the more they do, the better they’ll get. And while that’s true to some extent, this can also lead to physical and mental burnout and sports injury.

Life balance, i.e. switching focus between sports, social life, relationships, and work, ensures you tick all the other boxes to help you improve. For example, if your social life is lacking, then you might be less resilient as one of your basic needs is not met.

So instead of going all in on your sport, not seeing friends or family, and isolating yourself from the outside world, it’s a lot healthier and easier to build resilience if you focus on balance. Achieving balance is also a lot easier than giving it 100% all of the time!

Learn more about Rewire’s Neuro-Performance System

Use Rewire to build resilience and increase performance 

Athletes can use Rewire to build mental resilience and increase their performance. Discover our integrated mental resilience training system, based on neuro-training protocols, that can be used with a variety of different sports and activities.

Monitor and track your readiness to measure physical, cognitive, and emotional stressors and achieve life balance to propel you forward. We can help you become more resilient, helping you achieve your goals.

“Rewire’s latest platform makes mental strength training more accessible to athletes everywhere with easy-to-use tools to help them reach their goals.” – NBA All-Star, Kyle Korver

Find out how Rewire can help you

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References:

  1. Kegelaers, J. and Wylleman, P., 2019. Exploring the coach’s role in fostering resilience in elite athletes. Sport, Exercise, and Performance Psychology, 8(3), p.239.
Matthew Mace

How to Overcome Failure in Sports

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“It’s always tough when you lose – you’ve worked so hard for that moment, and it hasn’t gone the way you wanted. But you have to realize there’s always a bright side; you have to pick yourself up and get ready for the next game.” – Maria Sharapova.

Nobody likes to fail, but failure is an essential ingredient for success. For every winner, there are countless losers. And that’s just the way that sport works. But with each loss is an opportunity to get better, to improve, and to try again.

Instead of seeing failure as the be-all and end-all, reframe it as an opportunity to improve. The best athletes all have failures, from the great Michael Jordan to Babe Ruth and Stan Smith.

This blog post will provide advice on overcoming failure in sports — how to reframe losing into a powerful tool to help you improve.

How do you deal with failure in sports?

Dealing with failure in sports is all about embracing setbacks, analyzing your performance, and finding opportunities to learn from losing, whether you lost as an individual or a team.

Below are five ways to overcome failure as an athlete.

1. Set other goals aside from winning 

It’s no secret that every athlete wants to win — they want to become the best. However, obsessing over winning is often not the best approach. You should also set your own goals as an athlete. This will help you progress even when losing and ensures you’ve always got something to work towards.

For example, while your team’s main goal could be to win the season, you could have smaller goals to win a set number of tackles, improve your sprint performance, dribbling technique, and so on.

There are always smaller goals to achieve that help move the needle in the right direction (i.e., a successful performance).

It’s all about finding a balance between winning and making progress. Because ultimately, progress (and becoming a better athlete) is more important!

2. Embrace setbacks and learn from your mistakes

We all fail at some point or another. Maybe you kicked too early in a race, shot from a freekick instead of passing to your teammate, or perhaps your team was relegated. Instead of wallowing in defeat, embrace setbacks and learn from your mistakes.

If you know something went wrong, analyze what it was and learn from it. Then, do your best to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

This applies to both the athlete and the coach — you can both identify things you could do better (as an individual and a team) and work on these to improve.

“I have failed many times, but I have never gone into a game expecting myself to fail.” – Michael Jordan.

3. Analyze your performance

Once the whistle has blown, the game is over. Right? Wrong! If you fail, you should analyze your performance. Understand what went well, but more importantly, what didn’t go so well. 

And while it’s easier to say the other team was “better” or “stronger,” there’s always something you could have done better.

Be brutally honest and find areas of your game that you can improve. You only stand to lose potential if you can’t look at your performance through a candid lens. You can also work with your coach to find key areas to focus on.

And if you have access to a recording of your performance, then you can rewatch it, take notes, and see what you could have done differently. Again, the key here is not to feel sorry for yourself — but to find ways to improve.

4. Don’t be afraid to fail

We grow up in a society where failure is perceived as “bad.” You fail a math test or a driving test, or you don’t make it onto the team, and by society’s standards, you fail. But we are rarely told that it’s okay to fail and that we shouldn’t be afraid of failure.

Failure is how we improve; it’s how we get better.

But don’t just hear it from us; here’s what Billie Jean King, the former number 1 American professional tennis player, said about failure:

“Champions keep playing until they get it right.” 

As long as you use failure as an opportunity to get better — and actually do so — then you will improve. And then you try and try again. 

5. Control what you can and worry less about what you can’t

While the attitude “it is what it is” will only get you so far, to some extent, it’s true. Once you’ve done everything you can to change an outcome, worry less about what’s next.

Control what you can, and don’t worry about what you can’t control. For example, you can control your preparation for an event — such as your training and mindset preparation — but you can’t control what your teammates or the other teams do. 

Focus on what you can, and worry less about what you can’t.

How to overcome failure: to summarize 

To overcome failure in sports, you must accept and own it. See failure as an opportunity to improve — even if your team lost, and it was no fault of your own, there are no doubt areas of your game you can improve.

Focus on what you can control, and worry less about what you can’t.

Key takeaways:

  • Reframe failure as an opportunity to improve
  • Set individual goals other than winning to improve
  • Analyze what went wrong and where you can improve

FAQs

Why is failure important in sports?

Failure builds character and teaches athletes how to deal with adversity. And when used correctly, it showcases areas of their game that can be improved.

How does failure lead to success in sports?

Losing in sports provides an opportunity to improve. When you fail, you unveil a skill you can improve. Focus on these weaknesses, and you’re more likely to succeed next time.

What is the importance of failure in sports?

Failure in sports is an essential part of the game. It teaches you how to deal with adversity and can reveal weaknesses in your game. Use failure as an opportunity to improve, and you will inevitably become better.

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