Sport Science | Garrett Lucash

Part II

Understanding Athlete Motivation as a Continuum

After serving as the PSA Sport Science Committee Chair for over a decade, the time has arrived to “pass the torch”. Effective July 1, I serve as the past chair of the PSA Sport Science Committee. I have enjoyed this role immensely, and I have learned so much from researching out authors and topics for sport science education. Garrett Lucash has been approved by the PSA Executive Committee and appointed by PSA President, Alex Chang, as the incoming chair. Garrett is thorough, analytical, and inquisitive, and I wholeheartedly endorse him in the role. Please join me in welcoming Garrett to “Team PSA”! ~HEIDI THIBERT

This featured article is a continuation of the first segment, Understanding Athlete Motivation as published in the July/August issue.

We left off talking about the important role the coach plays in fulfilling athletes’ basic psychological needs as well as the quality of athletes’ motivation. To recap, the three basic a Continuum: Part I psychological needs of all human beings are a need for relatedness, autonomy, and competence. Athletes need to feel a sense of connectedness with others in the sport, perceive themselves as capable or having the ability to participate in their sport, and perceive a sense of choice in their participation. Members of an athlete’s social context directly impact whether athletes’ needs are satisfied or thwarted. These members include parents, teammates/friends, and coaches. With these three needs in mind, you have the power to directly facilitate or restrict athletes’ needs through your coaching behaviors. In fact, researchers have identified specific coaching behaviors that are need-supportive or need-thwarting to aid in the training of future coaches. According to the Self-Determination Theory (SDT), coaches can facilitate need-satisfaction and promote self-determined motivation with autonomy-supportive behaviors. Mageau and Vallerand outlined seven such behaviors:

• Provide choice within specific limits

• Provide rationales for rules and instructions

• Distinguish and acknowledging athlete’s feelings

• Allow for independent work

• Provide informational and non-controlling feedback

• Avoid overt control through criticisms and tangible rewards

• Prevent ego-involvement (facilitate self-improvement focus rather than athlete-to-athlete comparison)

Need-thwarting and more controlled forms of motivation are a product of coaches’ controlling behaviors. Researchers have also identified five controlling behaviors that negatively affect athletes’ overall well-being.

• Emphasis on tangible rewards

• Controlling competency feedback

• Excessive personal control

• Intimidation behaviors: verbal abuse and physical punishment

• Use of conditional regard to shape desired athlete behavior (withholding attention or feedback)

• Promotion of ego-involvement (favoritism, comparison of athlete abilities against one another)

As you become more aware of how you coach, you may be able to pick out which of these behaviors you more frequently engage in. You may realize that you engage in a combination of autonomy-supportive and controlling behaviors throughout a coaching session. You also may notice that you shift your coaching behaviors to accommodate different athletes. For example, some athletes require more explanations for completing specific exercises while others thrive under a more directive approach and offer little input in how training sessions are completed. By being more flexible in your coaching style to match the needs of your skater, you are well on your way to becoming a more autonomy-supportive coach!

Coach Reflection

Take some time to reflect upon how you are currently engaging in autonomy-supportive and/or controlling behaviors in your coaching practice. Next, evaluate whether you are using mostly autonomy-supportive behaviors or more controlling behaviors. Of the autonomy-supportive behaviors that you do not engage in, consider how you could incorporate these strategies with specific athletes. Then, plan how you will incorporate at least one behavior into your coaching practice this week. Finally, reflect on how your athletes responded to the incorporation of this new strategy after each session. At the end of the week, write out how you implemented this change throughout your sessions and its effect on athlete motivation.

Listed below are coaching behaviors that have the potential to support athlete motivation (autonomy-supportive) or thwart athlete motivation (controlling). Use these lists to evaluate your own coaching strategies and seek to incorporate more autonomy-supportive behaviors and less controlling behaviors within your coaching.

Coaching Behaviors to Foster Motivation

Autonomy-supportive Behaviors (Incorporate / increase)

• Creating opportunities for skaters to have choice throughout practice; E.g. choice of program music, order of elements practiced

• Listening and considering skaters questions and concerns

• Encouraging skaters to try new strategies; E.g. “See If this method works for you”

• Displaying equal communication and attention to all skaters (avoiding favoritism)

• Providing positive and encouraging feedback individually

• Emphasizing process-oriented improvement of individuals; E.g. reducing underrotated jumps, improving the number of revolutions in a spin

• Disciplining skaters in a fair and consistent way with natural consequences

• Considering the needs of skaters that day; E.g. inquiring how skaters are doing in school, noticing when skaters are tired or discouraged

• Encouraging skaters to set individual goals that are process oriented (daily and weekly)

• Providing clear expectations for exercises and practice as it relates to individual goals

• Providing feedback in a “sandwich approach” by surrounding negative criticism with positive feedback related to skill execution

Controlling Behaviors (Avoid / reduce)

• Maintaining a strict practice structure that does not allow for deviation or opportunities for skaters to offer input or take initiative

• Ignoring skaters’ questions and concerns; Interpreting questioning as a threat to your authority

• Demanding skaters to perform a skill/activity your way; E.g. “You need to do it this way”

• Withholding attention or communication when the skater is not performing at the desired level (ignoring)

• Actively comparing skaters’ skills and abilities with others; E.g. “Why don’t you practice as hard as Alex?”

• Promoting winning at all costs or relying on winning competitions as a motivator

• Using exercise as punishment; punishing skaters without a clear reason (skating laps, off-ice exercises)

• Yelling, intimidating and berating skaters; E.g. “You call that a jump?! You aren’t even trying to get off the ice!”

• Creating individual goals for your skaters without discussing or including skaters’ perspectives

• Instructing skaters to complete exercises and activities without providing explanation; E.g. “Because I said so”

• Drawing attention to skater’s inadequacies or mistakes either individually or publicly; belittling

Additional coaching tips

1. Consider skaters’ individual needs and motives

2. Provide opportunities for skaters to have choice

3. Maintain structured practices

4. Include rationales for rules and instruction

5. Distinguish and acknowledge athletes’ feelings

6. Allow for independent work, ask open questions

7. Provide informational & non-controlling feedback

8. Avoid overt control through criticisms and tangible rewards

9. Prevent athlete to athlete comparisons, rivalries between skaters, & conditional regard

References

1. Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2002). (Eds.) Handbook of self-determination research. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press.

2. Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2017). Self-determination theory: Basic psychological needs in motivation, development, and wellness. Guilford Publications.

3. Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2000). The “what” and “why” of goal pursuits: Human needs and the self-determination of behavior. Psychological Inquiry, 11(4), 227–268. doi:10.1207/s15327965pli1104_01

4. Mageau, G. A., & Vallerand, R. J. (2003). The coach–athlete relationship: a motivational model. Journal of Sports Sciences, 21(11), 883–904. doi:10.1080/0264041031000140374

5. Bartholomew, K. J., Ntoumanis, N., & Thøgersen-Ntoumani, C. (2009). A review of controlling motivational strategies from a self-determination theory perspective: Implications for sports coaches. International Review of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 2(2), 215–233. doi:10.1080/17509840903235330

Diane Benish, M.S. Recently graduated from Georgia Southern University with a MS in Sport and Exercise Psychology. She is also a former figure skater from Pittsburgh, PA, and has earned her Gold Medal in Moves in the Field. Diane is passionate about working with figure skaters to help them achieve peak performance as a mental performance consultant. To contact Diane, email her at db24046@georgiasouthern.edu

Garrett is a United States pairs champion, ISU Four Continents bronze medalist, and three-time World Team member. He is a National Development Team coach and winner of the 2020 Pieter Kollen Sport Science in Coaching Award. He is the Chair of the PSA Sport Science Committee and serves on the U.S. Figure Skating Sport Science and Medicine Committee. Garrett co-founded Athlete Centered Skating, a holistic training program that supports the individual needs of its athletes and develops learning skills along with skating skills within its curriculum. His competition analysis was presented at the 2020 Joint Mathematics Meeting. Garrett has written coaches’ continuing education courses for the PSA, articles for SKATING Magazine and PS Magazine, and a case study in Dynamics of Skill Acquisition: Vol 2 published by Human Kinetics.