Examining Experienced S&C Coaches’ Reflections on the Effectiveness of Psychosocial Behaviors in Coaching

Abstract

This study aimed to examine elite, experienced strength and conditioning (S&C) coaches’ reflections on the effectiveness of psychosocial behaviors in S&C coaching. In particular, this study aimed to explore which psychosocial behaviors are essential, the process of how these might influence coaching practice, and how the development of psychosocial behaviors should be encouraged. Eight elite, experienced S&C coaches were recruited and partook in a semistructured interview. Using a reflexive thematic analysis, six themes were identified: understanding athlete’s needs, communicating effectively, caring and connecting with the athlete, practicing what you preach, the importance of reflective practice, and the contribution of formal training. The findings of this study enhance the literature by highlighting that elite, experienced S&C coaches perceive psychosocial behaviors to be essential in effective S&C coaching practice. In particular, the findings describe the processes of how identified psychosocial behaviors might positively influence athlete development by enhancing motivation, buy-in, and autonomy. In addition, the authors’ results suggest that current S&C coach development programs are limited in facilitating the learning of psychosocial behaviors. Thus, their findings strengthen the call for S&C coach educators to utilize constructivist learning strategies including facilitated reflection to encourage the development of essential psychosocial behaviors that contribute to the holistic development of the athlete.

Examining the Roles and Consequent Decision-Making Processes of High-Level Strength and Conditioning Coaches

“…For example, professional golfers believe that their personal life strongly affects their tournament performance [33]. Building on this, HLCs in this study believed that trust, care, role modelling, and authenticity are essential psychosocial behaviours for developing effective relationships with athletes [22].…”

“…This lack of focus on various S and C training methods and their effectiveness places a limitation on the impact SCCs can ultimately achieve. Recently, Szedlak et al [22] used semistructured interviews to explore which psychosocial actions experienced SCCs believed to be essential and advocated a constructivist learning approach in order to develop these behaviours. Although this emergent psychosocial direction of research adds much-needed variance to the predominance of biophysical competency, more examination is needed regarding the cognitive development of SCCs.…”

Comparing and Contrasting the Perceptions of Strength and Conditioning Coaches towards Within-Role Decision-Making Processes

“…There is a growing body of research in the field of strength and conditioning (S & C) directed towards identifying the behavioural, knowledge-related and psycho-social characteristics of SCCs with different levels of experience. Much of this research has been achieved by focusing on perceptions of SCCs and athletes, using both semi-structured interviews (Szedlak et al, 2015;Szedlak et al, 2021) and surveys (LaPlaca & Schempp, 2020). Importantly, however, while this research is valuable in developing a better understanding of what, how and whom to coach in S&C environments, there remains a paucity of investigations concerning the decision-making characteristics and processes of SCCs.…”

“…Whilst there is existing research identifying the effective coaching behaviours of experienced SCCs (LaPlaca & Schempp, 2020;Gillham et al, 2016;Tod et al, 2012;Szedlak et al, 2015) less is known about the characteristics of less experienced SCCs (Carson et al, 2021;Laplaca & Schempp, 2020). Research within S & C has highlighted the importance of interpersonal skills (Szedlak et al, 2021;Szedlak et al, 2019) with increased skills reported to distinguish between expert and competent SCCs (LaPlaca & Schempp, 2020).…”

Exploring the Decision Making Processes of Early Career Strength and Conditioning Coaches

“…Undoubtedly, knowledge on what and how to deliver is important for SCCs, but the cognitive characteristics (underpinning the why/why not) of DM for SCCs must not be overlooked. Encouragingly, research focusing on accessing the psychosocial knowledge of SCCs is also beginning to emerge [3,4], although methodologies employed have so far seemed rudimentary.…”