Are you a coach who wants to understand the most effective ways to develop rapport within the athlete-coach relationship and keep them motivated? Brad Hall is Managing Director of both Veris Racing and the Exercise Institute. A big believer in the utilisation of sports science and psychology, Brad is focused on applying scientific methods to real world practise.
Brad will be joining us for our next webinar in the Coaching Series, where he will discuss how vital rapport is to effective coaching and the elements that are key to driving motivation.
I’ve spoken in the past about just how important I believe rapport is in modern coaching. That practical side of things – the science and physical actions of cycling, or your chosen sport – is crucial, but for a coach to get the best out of their athlete, there needs to be understanding, trust and a personal relationship.
Knowing what makes an athlete tick and how to motivate them is a really useful tool – but I believe an understanding of performance and in particular, accuracy, can be a key driver in that relationship building. Self-Determination theory can be applied to the coach-athlete relationship and is a useful way of ensuring the relationship is optimal.
According to Self-Determination Theory, there are three psychological needs – autonomy, relatedness and competence. All three needs are very important to the athlete and interact to create a more intrinsic, or self determined, motivation
Let’s look at competence. Individuals need to feel as if they are competent in order to have intrinsic motivation, that driving force to go above and beyond and self-improve. An athlete who has high intrinsic motivation will often be associated with higher performance outcomes and retention in sport.
So how can an athlete feel competent? One of the best ways is through data. Those performance numbers that we see can show effort, areas for improvement but also, importantly, areas where progress and improvement is already well under way.
The data is an essential tool for a coach and an athlete – so it’s vital for both parties that they can have trust in the numbers and know that they are accurate. We also know there are huge issues with many power meters on the market around reliability (accuracy over sessions, across days, over months at a time). Many power meters simply do not read constantly over time.
That’s why I love working with Verve Cycling. The InfoCrank doesn’t give me ‘good enough’ numbers – it tells me exactly, precisely what I need to know.
Other power meters cannot replicate this. Their accuracy can drift by up to 10% each session, meaning a coach and an athlete could be working from unreliable information. That doesn’t create trust and build rapport. It doesn’t deliver success.
Please join me for my upcoming webinar where I’ll talk about this in more detail. I’ve seen the link between accuracy and rapport and I’ve seen the results that athletes deliver as a consequence. The work between both parties off the bike is just as important as the work done in the saddle and the power meter plays a huge role in this.
The webinar will be hosted by Verve Cycling’s Bryan Taylor with Brad Hall as guest presenter, taking place on Thursday 5 August. If you’re unable to attend the webinar on this date, enter your details on the registration page and we’ll email a recording to non-attendees after the session.
Click here to view the available sessions and sign-up.
