EDITOR’S NOTE:
This post was first shared on our sister site Prepared Athlete Training and Health, which is primarily aimed at performers and those around them. However, the central themes of unseen and unknown elements are highly pertinent to coaches and practitioners. In most circumstances we are dealing with incomplete information and there is always some degree of uncertainty and ambiguity involved in human performance. These are not bugs in the system that must be fixed, but rather features that we need to learn to navigate. As an aside, from a professional standpoint we should perhaps be more grateful for this. It is in our power to attain a superior ability to deal with complexity, make decisions under uncertainty, and learn to read and respond better in our interactions with humans. These are among the few things that will prevent our job from being replaced by algorithms and robots in the not too distant future!
To explain the title, one of the most common cognitive biases in how we see the world is encapsulated as ‘what you see is all there is’. In other words, we have a tendency to overlook what is not immediately visible or obvious. We tend to assume that what we see in full view constitutes the only aspects at play. We are slow to consider that there might be additional unseen factors at work that might lead us to an alternative explanation for what we are seeing.
THE UNSEEN PARTS OF THE LIFE OF A PERFORMER..
The example in relation to sport that immediately comes to mind is that when we watch top performers competing on the screen we do not fully consider what goes on behind the scenes when the cameras are off. In reality the moments that athletes spend competing under the lights are a tiny fraction of the thousands of hours they invest in the endeavour. The analogy of an ice berg is often used to illustrate the unseen aspects of athlete life.
This realisation is crucial for young aspiring athletes. The reality is the vast majority of the time is spent practising and preparing. If a young athlete wishes to pursue the elite sport path they must understand this reality.
In the digital era performers’ social media accounts arguably provide a glimpse into this life, albeit one that is somewhat distorted. Speaking of social media, the continual references to #thegrind are entirely unhelpful from this viewpoint. Rather, aspiring high performers should learn to embrace and enjoy the process, given that training represents by far the biggest time allocation of an elite performer.
THE UNOBSERVED PARTS OF ATHLETE PREPARATION…
Considering the parts that we don’t see is crucial. And in reality much of what an athlete does is beyond the purview of coaches or practitioners. Even when I was working full-time with a team or with an individual athlete, the extensive time the athletes spent in my company was still only a fraction of their day.
Beyond supervised training sessions, some proportion of any athlete’s preparation and self-management is undertaken unsupervised. The recent period is perhaps the best example. Circumstances required individuals to find a way and to train in a self-directed fashion for an extended period. In some ways it has been the ultimate test of the individual performer and their willingness to invest in the pursuit without direct coaching supervision and removed from their normal training environment.
Beyond training, the day to day choices that an individual makes and how they conduct their life beyond the training facility have a massive bearing on the outcome. Two of the most important elements are sleep and nutrition; both of which are largely down to the athlete given this all mostly occurs on the athlete’s time when they are away from the gaze of the coaches. And this is as it should be; after all, this is their show.
The unknowns and miscellaneous elements that are beyond the direct control of the coach do however pose challenges when it comes to planning and programming. Our ability to forecast the future in general and predict how another human will respond in particular are pretty poor. The inherent uncertainty means that the plan must adapt as things evolve and we must be responsive in terms of what we deliver, according to the athlete’s state on any given day.
NAVIGATING THE UNOBSERVABLE IN COACHING…
As coaches of humans (inclusive of parents, teachers and others) we are always working with incomplete information. There are inevitably unknown or unobserved aspects at play in any given scenario with any given individual. Certainly the intricacies of an individual’s life beyond the practice or competition environment will never be fully knowable.
Returning to our original theme, just because it is not visible to us does not mean it is of lesser importance. An extension of the ‘what you see is all there is’ fallacy is that what is easily quantifiable tends to be given more credence. The less tangible aspects that are hard to capture or measure are in turn often relegated to a position of lesser importance or disregarded entirely. Ironically, it is these intangibles and hard to quantify aspects that are often what make the difference in reality.
As a wise friend and fellow coach shared, the best monitoring system is a coach who pays attention. It is here that the human element of coaching comes to the fore. Being attentive to both verbal and nonverbal cues generally provides the best indication during instances when external events or unrelated stressors are taking a toll on a performer. Becoming attuned to daily shifts in the state of mind of the individual allows us to better read the situation and respond more appropriately.
Finally, and most importantly, enlisting the athlete as an integral part of our information-gathering is crucial. By definition, the individual concerned is the richest source of information when it comes to the state of their mind and body; after all, only they are in a position to register how their body is feeling and only they have access to what is going on in their own mind! Sharing this information requires a level of trust that must be developed over time, and ultimately the choice of what and how much to share remains with the individual. It is also an ongoing process to help the athlete to become better attuned to their own body (what practitioners term ‘body awareness’) so that they are able to discern and report what is going on with a greater degree of accuracy. The more aware and better equipped the performer, the better able they will be to manage and regulate themselves when the coach is not around.
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