Earning Buy-in
by Matt Redmond
Matt Redmond is the Director of Strength & Conditioning at Walsh Jesuit High School in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. You can follow him at @StrengthWj.
Today’s athletes are asked to engage in more rigorous training than any generation of athletes that came before them. They are asked to execute difficult training on a regular basis, and providing consistent and effective motivation isn’t an easy task. It’s an important one, however, given that the training environment is where athletes are regularly faced with culture-related decisions.
Every-day decisions like showing up to lifts, completing reps, and using prescribed loads, are navigated internally by each member of the team. The choices made in these situations will determine the outcome of training and ultimately help shape the entire culture of a program. This is where “buy-in” comes into play.
If culture sets the expectation, “buy-in” is the willingness to endure hardships in order to meet that expectation. A team’s culture, without player buy-in, is simply wishful thinking. So how can we help young people make the right (and often the more difficult) choices in these situations? As strength and conditioning professionals, we can earn buy-in from our athletes in a number of ways.
Walk the Walk
Athletes respond positively when they know you’ve been in their shoes. It is from my own training experiences that I draw the majority of my coaching cues, and while textbooks and research are vital for sound programming, there is no substitute for experience under the bar. This doesn’t mean coaches must always be bigger or stronger than their athletes, but having personal experience with the training styles included in your program never hurts. To this end, I’ll never ask an athlete to do anything that I’ve never done. Think about it - would you take golf lessons from someone who’s never swung a club?
Demonstrating mastery of a skill is an instant builder of credibility, and while you shouldn’t necessarily lift alongside your athletes, they usually can tell if their coaches train or not. In addition to the training itself, strength coaches should exemplify the characteristics that the team’s culture emphasizes, like being punctual and adhering to behavioral guidelines set by the head coach. We spend a lot of time with our players, and we should use that platform to model the behaviors we expect from them.
Explain the Why
Most people are more inclined to go the extra mile if they understand the extra mile’s importance. Modern athletes want to know why they’re doing what they’re doing. Periodically explaining general concepts can improve a team’s quality of work, and further develop the trust necessary in player-coach relationships. A general understanding of training principles can also help athletes self-correct at times and allow them to train with more intent. Additionally, knowledgeable athletes will utilize these sound principles when they lift on their own, possibly mitigating unnecessary injuries.
It’s worthwhile to spend an extra minute before or after training to link the day’s work to an element of the athletes’ development. If you did power cleans, for example, explain how cleans can make them faster. Less internally-motivated individuals may put forth additional effort if they understand how the training can help them in their sport.
The Walsh Jesuit Weight Room.
Show Progress
The instant gratification promoted in modern society clashes with the slow burn of athletic development. Meaningful change requires consistent hard work over a relatively long period of time. We, as coaches, should seek to demonstrate improvement as often as possible in order to reinforce the importance of the day-to-day grind.
Data collection and analysis allow us to track and present tangible evidence of athletic development, benefiting everyone involved. Strength coaches can use software like Tully to analyze large data sets to inform future training phases as well as monitor progress across entire athletic departments. Athletes can see immediate feedback regarding their efforts, serving to constantly reinforce and grow their buy-in. Additionally, sport coaches can see consistent evidence that the training protocol is working, thus fostering increased trust within between staffs.
Certain training methods like APRE can provide continuous feedback to athletes in addition to their built-in training benefits. We want our athletes to know where they stand at all times, so consistent feedback across multiple metrics is key for us.
Show You Care
When was the last time you had a conversation with one of your athletes about something unrelated to their sport or training? Do you know how many siblings they have, or where they live, or what they did over winter break? These seemingly trivial interactions mean a lot to athletes because they show that you care about them as people just as much as you value their contribution to wins and losses.
The fast-paced, results-driven weight room environment doesn’t lend itself to small talk, so take advantage of opportunities outside of structured training sessions. Getting to know your athletes will help you develop working relationships with them where both parties know and respect each other as individuals.
Understanding your athletes will also help you coach them. People are motivated in different ways, and learning the different personalities in the room will help a strength coach provide optimal feedback to each member of the team.
Be a Constant
Consistency in temperament and attitude are important considerations for anyone in a position of authority. As such, we should strive to be the same person for our athletes every day. While it’s sometimes difficult, our interactions should not be influenced by our own stress, fatigue, or outside issues. Instead, we should hold athletes accountable to the same standard each day and punish infractions in a consistent manner regardless of who commits them. We should maintain an approachable and friendly demeanor, and actively seek to serve our athletes during training. This trait can take some time to develop, but once we can become a constant and predictable presence for our athletes, they will open up to us and become more willing to accept coaching.
