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5 Qualities of a Bad Coach (And How to Avoid Them)

March 13, 2023/in For Coaches, Training Tips /by Matthew Mace

Know what qualities of a bad coach to look out for for the best experience.

Chances are, you’ve seen a bad coach or two. And if not, then you’ve definitely heard stories.

There’s the bad coach who yells at their athletes at the most minor of inconveniences; there’s the coach who encourages their athletes to run through pain; and others who do not listen to the athlete’s needs.

If you’re an athlete and you’re mentored by a bad coach, you may encounter a mix of issues ranging from injury to a lack of motivation to train.

And if you’re a coach, it’s a good idea to watch out for these bad coaching qualities to ensure your athletes can progress and grow in a supportive environment. After all, it’s the coach’s responsibility to get the most out of their athletes.

So what are the bad qualities of a coach?

5 qualities of a bad coach

If you’re a coach, these are the bad qualities you should pay extra attention to:

Bad coaches provide more criticism than positive feedback
A sole focus on winning
Chooses favourites
Pressures players to play when injured
Does not listen to athlete feedback

Continue reading to see how each bad quality may contribute to a bad coach.

1. Bad coaches provide more criticism than positive feedback

There are many types of feedback coaches can provide athletes. At the most basic level, there is positive and negative feedback.

Positive feedback is your standard: “Keep going; you’re doing great. Only 400 metres to go” approach. On the other hand, negative feedback could be the “you’re too slow, you’re never going to win a race” type of feedback.

The second is the type we want to avoid at all costs.

Bad coaches often provide more negative feedback or criticism than positive feedback. Unfortunately, this is often counterproductive and can cause athletes to not look forward to, or even dread training.

Instead, there is a better way to think about feedback.

The skill training communication model

If you’re a coach, you should consider personalising your feedback. This is something a lot of good coaches do.

The skill training communication model takes into account the skill level of the athlete to determine what type of feedback works best.

For example, beginner athletes are more likely to benefit from basic trial and error and positive model learning (demonstrated technique and execution). Alternatively, more experienced and elite athletes will benefit from more instructive and direct feedback.

In the elite population, this could include technique adjustment suggestions (“drive your knees high and push forward with your hips.”).

Although a simple change in how a coach provides feedback, it provides a mix of instructional methods to get the most out of your athletes based on their current skill and experience.

Related: What is the Most Effective Way to Provide Feedback to an Athlete?

2. A sole focus on winning

“If he dies, he dies.” Okay, well, not quite. But it’s that Rocky IV approach that you should avoid at all costs.

Coaches who focus solely on winning are typically not the best coaches.

And while results matter, athlete development and progress are more important.

In fact, focusing on athlete development, progression and teamwork (if a team sport) can mean the difference between winning and losing.

3. Chooses favourites

It’s obvious to spot, and it makes other athletes feel left out. If you’re a coach, avoid choosing favourites.

And while you may have that one “star” athlete, when training in a group, provide the same respect, attention, and time to all of your athletes.

There shouldn’t be the “chosen athletes” and then the “other athletes.” It should be one team.

4. Bad coaches often pressure players to play when injured

When an athlete has an injury, they need rest and recovery. It’s coaching 101.

But when a coach encourages an athlete to play or train through injury, this is a major red flag.

No athlete should play through pain and injury, even if it means the difference between winning and losing.

A coach who puts their needs first, not listening to their athletes and encourages players to play through pain and injury is one to avoid.

5. Does not listen to athlete feedback

Some coaches often do not listen to athlete feedback. Instead, it’s often the “what they say goes” approach.

There are numerous issues with this coaching method.

Firstly, having open communication between coaches and athletes is crucial. If an athlete feels like they cannot speak up, they won’t get the most out of themselves during training.

A great example of this is an athlete feeling a slight twinge, pain, or niggle during training or competition. A bad coach may create an environment where speaking up about their injury is not encouraged. Alternatively, if they do mention it, they may be told to run or play through pain.

Open communication between the coach/coaching staff and athletes can help protect their athletes from injury, not only causing pain, but potentially ruining their season or even career.

So if you’re a coach, how can you improve communication? It starts with being present and available for your athletes. Stay behind after practice, ask what they thought about the session, and be there for your athletes if they need you.

Bad coaching in youth sports

A bad coach is a bad coach. Period.

Unfortunately, many kids who play sports also encounter a bad coach.

Coaching at the youth level (for most kids) should be about teaching valuable life lessons, involving the whole team, and making training fun.

Just like any other coach, youth coaches should not play favourites, exclude players, and should not prioritise their own child (if they also coach them — which is common).

Parents should meet with youth coaches before practice and ask for reviews from other parents to find the best coach for their sport. You can also find coaches through schools.

What makes a bad coach?

In many ways, it’s easier to identify what makes a bad coach than a good one.

Typically, bad coaches are easy to spot — you’ll find them screaming at their athletes, athletes will complain about them, practice is something they dread, and you’ll see a bunch of athletes hobbling off the pitch or field with injuries. Although, this is not always the case — just an extreme observation.

To summarise

Many coaches are great at what they do. But some coaches have a few bad qualities, some of which we’ve highlighted in this blog post.

If you’re a coach, consider working on any bad qualities you may have. This will make you a better coach and mentor for your athletes.

But it doesn’t have to end there.

All coaches are looking for new ways to gain that competitive edge, to find a few extra seconds here and there, and to stand out against their competitors. It’s what sport is all about.

Rewire for teams provides a mental fitness platform for coaches, alongside a handful of useful tools for your athletes. As a coach, you can view insights into your athlete’s readiness scores, providing you with essential data to make smarter recovery decisions. This allows you to tailor your coaching to each individual athlete, enabling you to unlock their full potential.

“With Rewire, we have been able to help understand our athletes mental state which has allowed us to adjust our practices, weight lifting, time with the athletes, study halls, etc. where we are better able to manage them on an individual basis as well as collectively. This is a tool every coach should have in their toolbox.” — Will Hander (Head Coach Men’s Soccer, University of Providence)

Find out more about Rewire for coaches

FAQs

How do you tell if you have a bad coach?

There are many signs of a bad coach but some include winning over everything else, picking favourites, providing negative feedback, and having poor communication with their athletes.

How do bad coaches affect athletes?

Bad coaches can bring players down mentally and physically. They can drain their motivation for their sport, stagnate performance, and even cause mental health issues.

What Qualities Make a Great Sports Coach?

6 Ways to Inspire Your Sports Team as a Coach

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What is the Most Effective Way to Provide Feedback to an Athlete?

March 6, 2023/in For Coaches, Training Tips /by Matthew Mace

Do you know how to provide effective feedback to an athlete? Here’s how.

How hard can it be to give feedback to your athletes? While it may be straightforward to identify what they are doing well and what they need to improve, communicating this feedback is a whole other game.

So it likely comes as no surprise that many coaches ask themselves the following question: what is the most effective way to provide feedback to an athlete?

The most effective way to provide feedback, based on current research, is to provide athletes with personalised feedback based on their current skill level.

For example, you wouldn’t provide constructive and very technical feedback to a beginner, much like you wouldn’t provide very basic feedback to an elite athlete.

This blog post explains why feedback is important and provides you with all the info you need to give effective feedback to your athletes.

Key takeaways:

Provide your athletes with different types of feedback depending on their current skill level
Evaluate athlete performance
Balance objective and subjective feedback for the best results

Why is feedback important?

As a coach, your job is to teach and mentor your athletes to improve their performance. But providing feedback is not as simple as saying what an athlete is doing well, and what they can improve. It’s a little more complicated than that.

Feedback and coach-to-athlete communication play a pivotal role in the development of an athlete’s ability.

If you provide feedback correctly, you’re more likely to see rapid improvements in technical skill, coordination, and overall performance training. It’s less of “stop doing that,” and more of “why don’t you try this instead.”

One way to provide the most effective feedback to an athlete is to follow the skill training communication model—but more on this shortly.

“A coach is someone who can give correction without causing resentment.” — John Wooden, Basketball Coach.

How do you give feedback to an athlete?

When giving feedback, common instructions might include phrases such as, “arms high,” “focus on the ball,” or “drive your knees forward.”

But instead of providing basic instructive feedback to all athletes, you should provide a certain type of feedback to your athletes based on their skill level.

This type of feedback is much more personalised, and can be adapted easily to the skill of your athletes.

Use the skill training communication model

The skill communication model takes into account the athlete’s skill level to determine which type of feedback to provide [2].

Many coaches make the mistake of providing the same coaching and feedback to all athletes. And at first glance, it makes sense — it’s easy to do, and all athletes are looking to improve. So why wouldn’t you?

But instead of providing all athletes with the same or similar feedback, you should tailor your feedback approach to their skill level.

For instance, athletes who are beginners to the sport — in the coordination training phase — may be better suited to general trial and error, learning basic coordination and movement before more technically demanding skills.

Examples of feedback for beginner athletes include:

“Can you pass the ball to the next free player in front of you right after receiving it?”

“Try different ways of throwing the ball to pass it to your teammate behind the defender.”

“Attack the ball by diving into it like superman”

Rather, athletes who have more experience and are competing at a high level, perhaps dealing with intense pressure, may benefit more from direct, or instructional feedback from a coach.

Examples of direct feedback you can provide your athletes include:

“Try both legs to carry equal weight. Then move arms and hands together in one unit, while keeping the wrists solid.”

When the pitcher’s front foot plans, look at the arm position and the way the shoulder turns.”

The previous examples of effective athlete feedback were taken directly from the skill training communication model.

And athletes who fall into the “skill adaptability training” category — that is, athletes still developing skills but also involved in competition — are more likely to benefit from a wider range of feedback methods. You can view all recommended feedback methods here.

Furthermore, it’s thought that athletes in the “skill adaptability training” phase will benefit from competition at a higher level, but at the right times and in small doses. For instance, asking a younger (or less experienced) athlete to sit on the bench during a competitive game.

What is the best way to evaluate athlete performance?

Evaluating athlete performance is a necessary part of providing feedback. The better you understand what an athlete is doing right (and what can be improved), the easier it is to provide the right type of feedback.

So what is the best way to evaluate athlete performance? You can try:

Live athlete feedback (part of the skill training communication model)
Prioritise objective feedback

Continue reading to see how you can approach each athlete’s feedback evaluation method.

Live athlete feedback

Live athlete feedback is a collaborative effort between the coach and the athlete.

Instead of telling the athlete what they should do differently, you can sit down with them and show a recording to demonstrate your point better.

This type of evaluative feedback can be both positive and constructive.

The athlete messaging system on Rewire’s Teams Platform allows Coaches to provide direct feedback and send Mindset Recovery sessions to your athletes when they need it most.

Provide a healthy balance of subjective and objective feedback

Subjective feedback is how an athlete (and the coach) feels — how did the performance go? Objective feedback is based on data — how fast did you run, what was your heart rate, maximum watts, or finishing position?

While it’s easy to prioritise objective feedback (thanks to the abundance of data available), athletes and coaches should adopt a balanced approach of objective vs subjective feedback [1,3].

A great example of combining the two approaches is live athlete feedback, as previously stated. You can assess both objective (what you see on the screen) and subjective (how the athlete felt and how the coach responded) feedback.

Rewire for teams & coaches

Find out how Rewire can help improve your coaching approach by providing you with valuable feedback, including how well-rested and ready for training your athletes are — we call this “the readiness score.”

With this data, you can make smarter training and recovery decisions, tailoring your coaching to each athlete. Pair this with the best feedback types for the athlete’s skill level, and you’ve got a framework for success.

“The athletes using Rewire so far are loving it and its improved communication and awareness around readiness. The fact that cognitive toll is accounted for athletes with busy work lives means that we capture a broader holistic understanding of fatigue and where it’s coming from.”
— Bevan McKinnon (Head Coach Fitter Coaching (Triathlon)

Find out more about Rewire for teams

References:

Montull, L., Slapšinskaitė-Dackevičienė, A., Kiely, J., Hristovski, R. and Balagué, N., 2022. Integrative proposals of sports monitoring: Subjective outperforms objective monitoring. Sports medicine-open, 8(1), pp.1-10.
Otte, F.W., Davids, K., Millar, S.K. and Klatt, S., 2020. When and how to provide feedback and instructions to athletes?—How sport psychology and pedagogy insights can improve coaching interventions to enhance self-regulation in training. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, p.1444.
Saw, A.E., Main, L.C. and Gastin, P.B., 2016. Monitoring the athlete training response: subjective self-reported measures trump commonly used objective measures: a systematic review. British journal of sports medicine, 50(5), pp.281-291.

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How to Build Mental Toughness in Youth Athletes

February 27, 2023/in For Coaches, Guides, Training Tips /by Matthew Mace

Help youth athletes build a healthy relationship with hard work and mental toughness — here’s what you need to know.

Mental toughness is a term thrown around in abundance in the world of sports. Many people believe that those who display the highest levels of mental toughness will come out on top — they will succeed.

Although the term is almost as popular as Michael Jordan in his prime, very few people know what it actually means. After all, it is a very subjective term — people have their own definitions of what mental toughness is.

David Goggins will give you a different definition than Michael Jordan, and LeBron James will describe it differently to Tiger Words.

At Rewire, we prefer the definition of mental toughness as a personal capacity to produce consistently high levels of subjective or objective performance despite everyday challenges and stressors, as well as significant adversities [2].

Typically, mental toughness is only applied to adults and professional athletes. But what about youth athletes — should they build mental toughness to improve performance? Here’s everything that you need to know.

Mental toughness for youth athletes

If youth athletes can learn mental toughness from a young age, they can then apply this not only to sports, but to life.

Sport is a powerful vehicle for building positive habits, beliefs, and developing discipline.

But how should coaches and parents build mental toughness in the youth? Read on to find out.

Maximum effort

Great coaches should encourage maximum effort in youth athletes. However, where many coaches go wrong is by punishing or withdrawing support when the athlete does not perform to their expectations.

Instead, their maximum effort is a better gauge of performance — working hard each session will instil the importance of hard work.

Coaches should show encouragement and praise hard work to reinforce this behaviour. It’s not only a lesson that pays dividends in sports, but also in life.

“If you’re trying to achieve, there will be roadblocks. I’ve had them; everybody has had them. But obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.” — Michael Jordan

Encourage mistakes — they are a part of learning

We all make mistakes — it’s a part of human nature. But as a coach for young athletes, you should not discourage mistakes as they are a necessary part of learning and improving from our experiences.

If you’re a coach, allowing your athletes to make mistakes can prove difficult — you don’t want to hurt their confidence, but equally, you want them to improve and learn valuable lessons.

So, how can you encourage learning from mistakes? For optimal learning, you can increase training difficulty to the point where youth athletes make mistakes approximately 15% of the time [5].

If you increase the difficulty of training, whether learning a new skill or attempting to hit challenging splits too often at too hard a difficulty, then the cons will likely outweigh the pros, perhaps resulting in a frustrated athlete.

It’s all about finding a healthy balance between success and learning from mistakes to become a better athlete.

I really think a champion is defined not by their wins but by how they can recover when they fall.” — Serena Williams

Build a solid foundation by emphasising sports to be fun

As a coach, you want your athletes to succeed. But at a young age, it’s important for sports to be fun — this encourages a balance between physical fitness, psychological well-being, and lifelong lessons and learning [4].

Children and youth athletes participate in sports to have fun. If, at an early age, they do not enjoy sports, they might be less likely to continue participation in that sport (and others).

Coaches and parents should prioritise sports participation to be fun. All too commonly, parents and coaches skew the goal implicitly or explicitly in the hopes of a scholarship, that the child will become a professional athlete, or as a parent, to achieve unfulfilled childhood dreams [1].

For example, imagine a twelve-year-old showing up to training twice a week and being told to run as fast as they can twelve times around the track. That’s not a fun session — and while they may do it, if they are not having fun, they’re less likely to go back.

But if you can build a foundation for the athlete, prioritising fun with hard work sprinkled throughout, the athlete is more likely to stick with the sport, learn valuable lessons along the way, and perhaps even avoid burnout. That’s a big win in our book.

“Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually, it will subside, and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever.” — Lance Armstrong

Create a healthy training environment

To get the most out of a youth athlete, coaches and parents should foster a healthy training environment.

As previously stated, training should be fun. It doesn’t mean it can’t include difficult aspects, but first and foremost, it needs to be fun. The training environment needs to reflect that — incorporate games into training, be there after training and competition if your athletes want to talk to you, and create a place that kids and youth athletes look forward to coming to.

And if a child wants to do multiple sports, encourage them to.

There’s a whole debate surrounding multiple sport diversification vs. early sport specialisation in one sport. But ultimately, being told they can only do one sport may increase their risk of burnout, injury, and other risk factors [3].

Besides, trying other sports is also fun! And this is the ultimate goal for youth sports — it is also likely to encourage mental toughness.

“Pain unlocks a secret doorway in the mind, one that leads to both peak performance and beautiful silence.” — David Goggins

Key takeaways

Developing mental toughness from an early age can help youth athletes push through pain, learn from their mistakes, and ultimately become better athletes. But the benefits span far beyond sports — they also transfer to life, teaching self-discipline, hard work, and not giving up.

To build mental toughness in youth athletes, coaching and parental figures should:

Teach the importance of hard work and effort
Keep training fun and exciting
Create a healthy training environment
Do not discourage multi-sport participation

And if you’re looking to take it a step further, you can try the Rewire neuro buttons and neuro training app — create a fun cognitive game for youth athletes. This helps train mental toughness and is a great tool for youth athletes looking to compete at the highest level.

Want to know more about how Rewire can improve your athlete’s mental toughness? Book a free consultation call with our team today!

References

Brenner, J.S. and Council on Sports Medicine and Fitness, 2007. Overuse injuries, overtraining, and burnout in child and adolescent athletes. Pediatrics, 119(6), pp.1242-1245.
Gucciardi, D.F., Hanton, S., Gordon, S., Mallett, C.J. and Temby, P., 2015. The concept of mental toughness: Tests of dimensionality, nomological network, and traitness. Journal of personality, 83(1), pp.26-44.
Gustafsson, H., Kenttä, G. and Hassmén, P., 2011. Athlete burnout: An integrated model and future research directions. International Review of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 4(1), pp.3-24.
Merkel, D.L., 2013. Youth sport: positive and negative impact on young athletes. Open access journal of sports medicine, pp.151-160.
Wilson, R.C., Shenhav, A., Straccia, M. and Cohen, J.D., 2019. The eighty five percent rule for optimal learning. Nature communications, 10(1), p.4646.

6 Ways to Inspire Your Sports Team as a Coach

February 6, 2023/in For Coaches, Mental Fitness, Training Tips /by Matthew Mace

Here’s how to motivate and inspire your athletes for training and competition.

No two coaches or coaching styles are the same — but we’re sure all coaches can agree on one thing: the need to inspire and motivate their athletes.

Players who are excited about training, ready for competition, and willing to give it their all are all you can ask for as a coach.

But keeping your athletes interested, motivated, and inspired can prove challenging — it’s no easy feat.

With a gentle nudge in the right direction and a couple of changes to your coaching style, however, you can provide your athletes with the tools and inspiration they need to perform at their best.

In this article, we’ll highlight six powerful ways to inspire your sports team as a coach, from SMART goal-setting to team-building activities.

Set goals that your team believes in

All teams need something to work for, a reason to train, compete, and meet twice a week — or however often you train.

Whether your goal is to win the league, strive for a county championship, or qualify for an event, goals are important.

But whatever it is you’re aiming for, you need to get your athletes on board. It’s not enough for you, the coach, to be the only one on board with your goals — they need to be a collective effort.

Ask your athletes what they want to achieve and work on setting goals together.

You can use the SMART goal-setting principles to obtain better results.

Specific — what are you striving to achieve?
Measurable — how are you going to track your progress?
Achievable — be very realistic to prevent disappointment.
Relevant — is the goal relevant to the players or just the coach?
Timely — set a realistic time frame to remain accountable.

Create the best possible environment for your athletes

Creating the best environment for your athletes goes beyond plastering posters of Michael Jordan, Muhammad Ali, Roger Federer, and Babe Ruth on the locker room walls. Although, a little inspiration here and there can go a long way.

While dribs and drabs of inspiration are recommended, you should also prioritise fun in training. We’re not saying you can never compete and test your athletes, but the more exciting training is, the more invested your athletes will become.

For example, instead of diving head-first into an interval session in the pool, you could warm up with a game of water polo.

Keep things fun, fresh, and interesting, and your athletes will keep coming back and putting in the hard work. It’s all about finding a balance between hard work, fun, and rewards.

Even if they’re not looking forward to a gruelling set of intervals in the water, the occasional exciting warmup, the friends they make, and your coaching style will work wonders when they need it most.

Be available

It’s a simple piece of advice, but it’s one that can and will make all the difference.

After a training session or game, hang around for a while — be available if your athletes want to chat.

Even if it’s not about the sport, it could be about school, work, home life, relationships, or anything else — sometimes, it’s nice to have someone to talk to.

This will also help you build a great relationship — your athletes will be more likely to talk to you when things get tough, if they have a niggle or a pain, or if they have any doubts about their training.

The better your relationship with your athletes, typically, the better the performance of the team.

Post-training social activities can also be a good way for athletes to get to know each other better.

Treat all players equally

While it’s natural that some coaches will have one “star athlete,” problems begin to occur when the coach prioritises that athlete above all others, sometimes without even noticing it.

And while that makes sense — if you want to make all players feel welcome, inspired, motivated, and part of the team, then you should treat all players equally.

It doesn’t mean you can’t provide more focus on the next Michael Jordan, but it does mean you should be available to all your athletes.

Remember, you’re coaching a team of athletes, not one athlete.

Provide positive affirmations to your athletes

“Good job,” “keep it up,” and “you’re doing great” — these are all examples of positive affirmations you can give your athletes.

Feedback can go a long way, both given in training and competition.

Positive affirmations tell your athletes that they see you and recognise the hard work they are putting in. As an athlete, that provides accountability — you don’t want to let the coach down, especially now they’ve acknowledged you and the work you’re putting in.

You don’t need to overdo it, either. In fact, it’s best to provide positive affirmations and words of encouragement infrequently — once or twice a training session, for example. Ideally, when the athlete needs them most — on the last set of intervals, when they’re flailing around in the pool, or when they’re struggling to shoot a hoop.

Introduce team-building activities

If you want to see some real team-building, sit down and watch Top Gun Maverick. While you don’t need to introduce dogfight football to your team, you can introduce similar team-building activities to build trust, respect, communication, and friendships within your team.

If you coach a team sport, such as football, basketball, or ice hockey, for example, then these team-building activities are even more important.

But even if you coach an individual sport, team-building activities can help build morale in training.

Coaches can use Rewire to improve team performance

To be a great coach, you need to be many things. But if you can inspire your athletes, then you’ll see some great results.

Aside from inspiring your athletes, understanding their physical and cognitive domains can help improve performance.

Rewire for Teams provides coaches with a toolkit for better coaching recommendations, providing insights into athlete readiness scores and other holistic viewpoints for improved mindset, better stress management, and other tools to help prepare athletes for training and competition.

Book a free consultation today to learn more about how Rewire can help your team.

What Qualities Make A Great Sports Coach?

January 30, 2023/in For Coaches, Guides, Training Tips /by Matthew Mace

A great coach has several unique traits — here’s what they are.

Coaches play a fundamental role in mentoring the next generation of athletes. And the skills learnt don’t end on the pitch — they also include life skills such as self belief, and many other important qualities.

Naturally, some coaches are better than others. That’s why the very best coaches mentor the greatest athletes. Think: Michael Jordan, Roger Federer, Eliud Kipchoge… the list goes on. But how do coaches go from being good, to great? What makes some sports coaches that much better than others?

And how can you become a more successful coach?

That’s what this blog post is all about. We explain key traits and qualities of great sports coaches. If you’re a coach, there are definitely a few takeaways you can use to improve your coaching further. There’s something for everyone, whether you coach youth athletics, track and field, or professional sports.

Here’s why some sports coaches host better coaching sessions, and are generally more successful.

What are the qualities of a great coach?

So, what makes a good coach? What qualities do some coaches have that others do not?

An expert understanding of their sport
Effective communication
Good coaches have the willingness to share knowledge
Commitment, discipline, and passion

An expert understanding of their sport

Many of the great coaches were also athletes in the same sport.

For example, Phil Jackson won an NBA title with the New York Knicks as a player in 1973; Kenny Dalglish, a professional footballer player for Liverpool, Celtic, and Scotland, later went on to manage Liverpool, and Wayne Gretzky, arguably the greatest professional hockey player of all time, was also head coach at the Phoenix Coyotes.

While it’s not a requirement that the best coaches also be players, their first-hand athlete experience can certainly lend itself to a better understanding of the sport that they coach and how their athletes operate.

Athletes who turn into coaches can pass on their knowledge, from training techniques to mental preparation leading up to a big game. They can better relate to their athletes — they know what works, what it feels like to be a player, and what it takes to reach the highest level, especially if they achieved great success as an elite athlete.

Great coaching and effective communication go hand in hand

The importance of effective communication is coaching 101. But being able to state goals and expectations and deliver feedback clearly is a fundamental component of being a great coach.

But as you already know, communication is a two-way street. It takes two (or more) people to have a conversation. A great coach listens to their athletes — they know how they feel about training, if they’re experiencing any niggles or pains, and also share their goals so the coach can help them reach their full potential. It’s all about mutual respect.

Likewise, coaches should also look out for the well-being of their athletes. This includes an awareness of burnout — they should know the key signs to support their athletes and should be able to provide recovery advice if needed.

In recent years, burnout (and general injury awareness) has become one of the most important qualities in a successful coach.

Athlete feedback and communication are a part of the coaching process

There are countless stories of coaches not listening to their athletes, and this happens not only in grassroots sports, but also at the elite level.

Take Mary Cain, for example—she was the fastest girl in America until she joined the Nike Oregon Project under the supervision of Alberto Salazar. In a touching piece for the New York Times, Cain describes how her coach and coaching team did not listen to her needs, encouraged her to lose an unhealthy amount of weight, and even drove her to the point of having suicidal thoughts.

This is a perfect example of what not to do as a coach. A coach should do quite the opposite: they need to support their athletes, listen to their concerns, have open conversations with their athletes and actually listen to what they are saying.

The role of a coach is to support their athletes — this needs to be the number one priority. This is the big picture — everything else, in theory, should fit into place if you prioritise this correctly.

Successful coaches can identify unique strengths and weaknesses

Also in the domain of effective communication comes the sub topic of strengths and weaknesses. We all have them as athletes. Whether you’ve got better technique but poor form in the final 400m, or a solid aerobic engine but a lack of awareness on the field.

A good coach can identify these areas (especially weaknesses) and communicate these in the right way and with the right attitude.

If an open line of communication and respect is evident, athletes will be more open to feedback. And ultimately, that’s what makes for great athletes.

Good coaches should consistently strive to build effective communication with their athletes. It will also lead athletes to ask more questions, express feedback, and make for a better and more productive coach-to-athlete relationship in the future.

Good coaches have the willingness to share knowledge

A great coach not only tells their athletes what to do — what sessions to perform and when to take it easy — but they tell their athletes WHY they are doing it.

Sharing their knowledge provides athletes with a reason to do what they are doing. It adds context to those gruelling workouts — if an athlete knows that it’ll make them faster, they are more likely to commit to their training fully.

This is especially true with individual sports, such as track and field events. A lot of training is done solo — if there’s ever the need for a little added motivation, it’s when you’re tackling an interval session alone on the track.

Top coaches use this as a tool to build self belief in their athletes.

Commitment, discipline, and passion

A great coach has an infectious energy — they share their commitment and passion on the track, on the field, and in the locker room.

Athletes want coaches who can motivate and inspire them — this is an especially useful trait during challenging training sessions and intense competition.

A passionate coach can talk about their sport for hours. They often show great discipline and commitment to each of their athletes, going above and beyond to support them. Many coaches even coach in an unpaid or volunteer role — these are the coaches who really love what they do, supporting the youth and grassroots athletes, in particular.

Of course, you can be a paid coach with commitment, discipline, and an infectious passion for your sport. But having these three traits can make a world of difference for your athletes.

Coaches can use Rewire to improve athlete performance

If you’re a coach, whether you train older adolescents or adults, you can use Rewire to gain a better holistic understanding of your athletes. For example, you can measure their daily readiness, identify trends in performance, assess recovery and fatigue states, and even recognise physiological, cognitive, and emotional domains which may affect performance.

Rewire for Teams provides coaches with the tools to make informed coaching recommendations while supporting the health and wellness of their athletes.

Rewire is the best tool for coaches and practitioners — you can take your coaching a step further with new insights to support your athletes more holistically. Successful coaches use it and so can you.

Book a free consultation today to learn more about how Rewire can help your team.