Changing Behaviour in Athletes

You start work with an athlete or team and you disagree with the warm up, the nutrition strategy, the fitness programme and maybe even the tactics.  It might be tempting to charge in and say “No, No, No, you don’t want to do it like that”. 

This will not help you win friends and influence people, nor will it help modify behaviour.  Nor will handing out a manual 50 pages thick to 16 year olds and saying “Do this”.

My background in Health Clubs gave me the opportunity to study Motivational Interviewing and the Transtheroretical Model of Change. This showed me that behavioural change is a difficult and lengthy process. Simple steps of little changes is less likely to cause conflict. Education (in athlete friendly terms) and appropriate role models are essential parts of the equation.

I have used the term “Onion Coaching” before: start with one thing and add a layer of change or difference as and when the athletes have come to terms with the previous one.  This approach takes more time, but it is more likely to have a lasting effect.

That’s not to say there isn’t a time and place for JFDI though.