Eric Cressey & Nick Winkleman Podcast- My Thoughts & Notes

So this post is just going to be a quick recap as to what I learnt from a podcast I listened to recently from Eric cressy with Nick Winkelman on. They spoke about cueing and how to communicate more effectively with athletes. I thought seeing as I was writing out some key points for me anyway, I may as well share here. If you want to check out the podcast itself it is number 47 of the “Elite Baseball Development Podcast” with Eric Cressey. So here’s what I got from it:

We can improve the car, but we also need to make the driver better

What is meant by this is that through training we can make the individuals body more capable of explosive movements or make them stronger etc. but if we don’t improve the psychological aspect of what the athlete does, or improve their motor patterns, the athlete won’t actually gain any real advantage.

When we are “improving the driver” we are making a more self-aware athlete who has a greater understanding of the load they place on their body and how this can be beneficial/harm them in the long run. It also refers to how we teach the individual to actually move. If the coach is always there right behind them picking up on every little mistake the athlete makes, they are never going to improve their ability to actually recognise errors or good sets on their own. This results in the athlete becoming reliant on the coach.

Athletes having an active role in training

To enhance the learning of the athlete, they need to become a part of the training process. Ask them questions, encourage them to become more self-aware, choosing some of what they do. As long as this still is specific enough to work on their goals, they are much more likely to be more engaged in the training process if they have input.

This works on two levels. Firstly, if you pay attention to both how they react/enjoy different exercises/drills, then you have a greater understanding of how to programme for that athlete to get the most out of them. You can also listen to how they talk about the exercise and pick up on any cues that may be useful. For example, if you tell an athlete to explode into a movement and then ask them what that means to them, the athlete may respond by saying that it means that they need to “drive through the floor”. Using this, next time you use this exercise and cue to them, you can use this context to instruct them to drive their feet through the floor. This will result in your cue having a more emotional response with the athlete and have a greater effect on their performance.

The second level that this works on is that by talking to the athlete about their program and the exercises in it, they are learning about their training, why certain things are being done and how it fits in the big picture. When this happens “buy in” can become a much bigger factor because the athlete understands the purpose of more of what they are doing. This overall can reap great benefits in the long run in working with that athlete.

When coaching movements; Describe, Demonstrate, Cue, Do, Debrief

Keeping your coaching to this order and each part more separate will allow the athletes to retain more of what you say and teach. We separate these to make a basic framework, however this can be adapted based on your style and the athletes you are coaching. The important part here is to not try and do everything at once.

Describing the exercise will just be explaining to the athlete what the task is, its importance and how to complete it successfully.

Demonstrating to the athlete should be done following this and give a strong visual demonstration as to how to complete the movement. Many athletes are visual learners and thus this section is important. If you need to point out a key point during the demonstration then that should also be done here.

When cueing we don’t want to overload the athlete with information, just concisely explain the key points to them. Cues here should be short and to the point. We want to start with external cues as these are preferred over internal cues.

Next we just let the athlete DO. Let them do the movement, make mistakes, correct them and express the movement the way they see it. We will fix any issues with the movement next.

Lastly is debriefing. Here we are going over how they went, how they felt and what we can fix. Here we want to emphasise asking the athlete how they believe they went and what could be done better. This again engages them in the learning process. When “fixing” issues with the expression of the movement, we should work to determine the cause of the issue and then try to either cue or introduce other regressions/breathing exercises which could help improve the expression of the movement. We should then give the athlete something actionable that they can do in the next set to improve and go from there. 

Slow down your cueing

Not cueing constantly give you more time to analyse movement, gives the athlete time to fix errors on their own and teaches athletes to perform when the coach isn’t there.

Most if not all cueing should occur outside of when the actual set is happening. This helps you as the coach to find the appropriate cue based on what you are seeing with the athlete.

So that just some of what I got from the podcast which I listened to. I highly recommend checking out the podcast as it is two knowledgeable guys sharing a lot of valuable information.

I think it’s interesting to learn from others and share these bits of what I learn, so I might make a few more similar posts like this in the future. Thanks for reading!