Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #123: Gill1918 Presents Dr. Dillon Martinez “Effective Feedback"

Transcript

#123: Gill1918 Presents Dr. Dillon Martinez “Effective Feedback" · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

0:00
Welcome to the Gill 1918 Project, a podcast series by
0:03
coaches, for coaches, powered by Gill Athletics.
0:06
Think of this as the Ted Talks of track and field coaching.
0:09
Short, insightful, and packed with valuable strategies to help
0:12
you grow as a coach. We're bringing the once a year
0:15
track clinic straight to your ears daily.
0:17
Interested in creating your own episode?
0:19
Everyone's welcome to participate.
0:21
Check out the show notes below For more information.
0:23
Now let's get into today's topic.
0:27
Hello everybody. My name is Doctor Dylan Martinez
0:29
and today I'm going to be talking to you about effective
0:32
feedback. Coaching is effectively and for
0:34
all intents and purposes, just really good teaching.
0:38
And too many times we as coaches relegate ourselves to being
0:41
motivators, when in fact we need to be excellent teachers and
0:45
take the processes that good pedagogy teaches us and then
0:50
implement them with our athletes.
0:51
So today I'm going to be explicitly talking about
0:54
feedback. I have a new book coming out
0:57
tomorrow, March 3rd, called Breaking the Speed Barrier.
1:01
How Elite coaches Teach Speed. And I wrote this book based on
1:05
my doctoral dissertation, which ended up being the largest study
1:08
of its kind, on how successful coaches teach the specialized
1:12
skill of speed development. And one of the main things that
1:15
we found during that study is how important feedback is.
1:19
So I dedicated an entire chapter to the book on feedback, how to
1:23
give good feedback, specifically as it pertains to Sprint
1:26
development. But really, if you are a coach
1:28
in any endeavor, this is going to be beneficial for you.
1:32
So my plan is to just kind of go over the contents of the chapter
1:36
and then give you some key ideas that you can implement
1:38
immediately with your athletes. So the main thing that we're
1:41
going to be talking about here is effective feedback is
1:43
immediate, specific and focused. Athletes cannot process 5
1:48
corrections simultaneously, so the key sub points to that is
1:53
limit queues to one or two per Rep.
1:55
Athletes cannot process 5 corrections while executing
1:58
maximum velocity sprints. If you're yelling at them
2:00
constantly during the Rep to change something, they're not
2:03
going to be able to effectively change it.
2:05
Key point #2 is good job, teaches nothing, be specific
2:10
with your feedback. And finally, key point #3 is
2:13
teach athletes how to give them self feedback, usually during or
2:18
using video analysis. Video feedback creates
2:21
self-sufficient athletes who can see their own mechanics in real
2:25
time. So let's talk about feedback a
2:30
little bit more in depth. First, we're going to talk about
2:32
why your wow, why your words matter more than you think.
2:38
Teaching doesn't just happen through drills alone.
2:42
It doesn't happen just because you set up a good practice
2:44
structure. Teaching happens through
2:47
communication, through feedback, through the words that we use to
2:51
help our athletes understand what they're doing right and
2:53
what they need to change. Research Research shows that
2:57
feedback emerged as a critical element in coaching practices.
3:01
Coaches primarily employ feedback as a tool for enhancing
3:05
learning and motivation. It serves 3 functions that every
3:08
speed coach needs to understand. First, feedback provides
3:12
information. Without it, athletes practice
3:14
blind. They repeat movements without
3:16
knowing if those movements are matching the teaching.
3:21
Second, feedback influences motivation and effort during
3:25
tournament or during the last tee in the process that you'll
3:28
learn in this book. When athletes are competing and
3:31
having fun, the feedback that we give them engages and encourages
3:37
them to continue using adequate technique throughout the course
3:41
of their reps Positive feedback increases confidence and
3:46
willingness to push harder. Constructive feedback, when
3:48
delivered properly, maintains motivation while correcting
3:52
errors. How you deliver feedback effects
3:55
athletes trust more than almost anything else we do.
3:59
Thoughtful, specific feedback demonstrates you're paying
4:02
attention and care about their improvement.
4:04
Careless, vague or harsh feedback signals you don't
4:07
really care or you don't know what you're talking about.
4:12
So just there, there's some ideas and I was reading straight
4:14
from the book there some ideas that you can immediately push
4:18
into your practice. All right, let's talk more
4:21
specifically about four types of feedback and how they actually
4:24
work. The first one we're going to
4:26
talk about is positive reinforcement.
4:30
Here, I try to employ something I call the 12:50 rule.
4:34
One coach in my research said this perfectly.
4:37
For every negative comment I give, we need to give 10
4:41
positives. The learning power that comes
4:43
with positive feedback should not be underestimated.
4:46
Now, in my courses that I teach to my undergrads or to coaches
4:49
taking my speed coaching certification, I talk about the
4:52
12:50 rule as a good thing to aim for.
4:54
But in practicality, we're probably going to end somewhere
4:57
around 5:00 to 1:00. But if we're shooting for 12:50,
5:01
we're probably going to get close to that at least.
5:04
Think about this. If every interaction you have is
5:07
corrective, what happens? Athletes are going to become
5:10
tentative. They stop trying new things.
5:12
They play it safe. They run at 90% instead of 100
5:15
because running at 100 might expose more flaws than us as
5:18
coaches are going to jump on them.
5:20
But positive reinforcement only works when it's specific.
5:23
We cannot just say good job, we need to say things like
5:26
excellent knee drive on that last Rep, your thighs were
5:29
getting parallel and your toes stayed up in that proper
5:32
position through the entire cycle of your Sprint.
5:34
Good work. If we just give encouragement,
5:38
we're not coaching, we're just being a facilitator of a event
5:42
or of movement. We're not practically teaching
5:45
them anything. And that's what we are
5:46
ultimately supposed to be doing. Second, let's talk about
5:51
corrective feedback. So after we get done praising
5:54
them, what are some things and how can we best implement
5:57
corrective feedback? Well, we can do so by doing one
6:00
thing at a time. First, we need to identify the
6:03
error specifically. So in this example, let's talk
6:05
about their hips. So let's say their hips were
6:07
sitting back during the first three steps of your push phase
6:10
or your drive phase. I can see anterior pelvic tilt
6:13
right here and I would show them the video.
6:15
Second, explain why it matters when your hips stay back.
6:18
You can't project your center of mass forward.
6:20
That kills your acceleration and you're wasting energy pushing
6:23
vertically instead of horizontally.
6:25
Third, provide the solution. On this next Rep, I want you to
6:28
focus on keeping your hips up neutral.
6:30
Pelvis feel like you're projecting forward from your
6:33
hips, not sitting back. Everything else stays the same
6:35
for now. This then is critical.
6:40
Let them try the correction immediately.
6:42
The best time to practice a correction is right after the
6:45
feedback while the feeling of the error is still fresh.
6:48
Don't give feedback and then move on to the next drill.
6:51
Give feedback and let them fix it right away.
6:54
So the first was giving positive feedback.
6:56
The second we just talked about corrective feedback and giving
6:59
it one thing at a time and then let them do it immediately.
7:03
Next, we're going to talk about questioning, building athletes
7:08
who can coach themselves. The ultimate goal shouldn't be
7:12
athletes who depend on you for every needed correction.
7:14
Your goal should be athletes who can identify and fix their own
7:17
technical errors. That's what.
7:19
That's where questioning comes in.
7:21
Instead of always telling athletes what happened, ask them
7:23
to analyze their own performance.
7:26
Athletes finish a sprinting. Or let's say an athlete finishes
7:29
a Sprint. You saw that their knees dropped
7:31
during the second-half and instead of immediately
7:34
correcting them, you should ask what did you feel during that
7:36
Rep? They might say something like it
7:40
felt good at first, but then I felt like I was kind of getting
7:42
choppy. Exactly.
7:43
You were. You were.
7:45
Where did you break down? Technically?
7:47
I think maybe it was my knees. They might say yes, that's
7:50
perfect. They stayed up great for the 1st
7:52
30 meters, then dropped when you got tired.
7:55
What should you focus on on this next Rep?
7:57
Keeping my knees up even when I'm tired.
7:58
Perfect. Go get it.
8:01
The athlete diagnosed the problem themselves, they
8:03
identified the solution themselves, and now they're
8:06
building self-awareness. Over time, you'll catch these
8:08
issues before you even say anything.
8:10
Or rather, they will catch the issues before we even have to
8:12
say anything as coaches. That's when you know your
8:15
coaching is working at the highest level.
8:17
Research shows that instruction through questioning techniques
8:20
emerged as a key strategy employed by coaches to enhance
8:23
understanding and promote active engagement in the learning
8:26
process. Questions engage athletes
8:29
cognitively, they develop independence and become self
8:34
coaches who can self correct. And then the last is pretty
8:41
obvious, and I think we're all doing this is video analysis.
8:44
Video analysis can be paired really successfully with
8:46
questioning, which was the last tool that we just talked about.
8:49
Showing them a video and asking them to identify areas that they
8:52
need to improve is incredibly successful.
8:55
OK, the next point I want to talk about is this.
8:59
When you say it matters as much as what you say, timing is
9:04
everything in feedback. Say the right thing at the wrong
9:06
time and it becomes useless or even counterproductive.
9:09
Let me show you how this might work in practice.
9:12
So before the Rep, give one focus point.
9:15
So let's say athletes are lining up to run a 10m fly.
9:19
Give them one thing to focus on. So say something like this Rep,
9:22
I want you to focus on your knee drive and making sure that your
9:24
femur is getting parallel to the ground.
9:26
Or maybe something like on this next one, I want to see your
9:29
toes up through the entire cycle of the Sprint.
9:33
Or maybe something like I want you to keep your chest up as you
9:35
transition to Max velocity. Notice what you're not doing.
9:38
You're not introducing new concepts right before a Max
9:41
effort Sprint. The only this only works when
9:44
athletes already know what the cues you're talking about mean.
9:48
If they don't know what keeping their toes and up, their knees
9:51
up, or their chest up even means, it's a wasted cue and a
9:54
wasted feedback point. Next we're going to talk about
10:01
during the Rep and knowing when to stay quiet.
10:03
I see coaches yelling correction during the flying sprints all
10:06
the time. Get your knees up.
10:08
Arms arms arms. Better posture.
10:10
The athlete in reality hears none of it.
10:12
Or worse, they hear and try to make adjustments mid Sprint
10:15
which disrupts their rhythm and actually makes them slower
10:19
during our timed workouts. Save your words for after the
10:23
Rep. Let them run, watch what
10:25
happens, then provide feedback when they can obsolete when they
10:28
can actually absorb it. Then after the Rep strike when
10:32
the iron is hot. This is when most of our
10:35
feedback should happen. Immediately after the Rep, while
10:38
the movement is fresh in the athletes minds.
10:42
The next point I want to talk about is public praise and
10:44
private correction. I learned this lesson the hard
10:47
way in my coaching career. Early on.
10:50
Specifically, I had an athlete who was struggling with keeping
10:52
their chest up during Max velocity.
10:54
Every Sprint, his posture would break down in the second-half.
10:57
So in front of the whole group, I said, yo, your chest is
10:59
dropping every Rep. We've been working on this for
11:01
two weeks and you're still not getting it.
11:03
You need to focus. Marcus shut down.
11:07
Didn't say anything, but I could see it in his face.
11:10
His effort dropped the rest of practice.
11:12
The next day he came to practice, but his energy was
11:15
different. The trust was damaged.
11:17
I pulled him aside after practice and I apologized.
11:19
If he had been misbehaving, this would have been fine, but he was
11:23
actually putting really good effort in and my public
11:26
criticism of him was not appropriate.
11:29
I told him I should have talked to him privately instead of
11:31
calling him out in front of everyone.
11:33
He appreciated that, but the damage was done.
11:35
It took weeks to rebuild that relationship.
11:38
Research shows that coaches who do this successfully publicly
11:42
praise individual physical progress while addressing needed
11:45
improvements in a private conversation.
11:48
The strategic use of feedback demonstrates coaches awareness
11:50
of the impact of their words on both individual and group
11:54
dynamics. So the rule is praise publicly
11:58
and correct privately. That is when it's going to be
12:01
most useful. So we just talked about some
12:02
good things as it pertains to feedback.
12:04
Let's talk about some bad things.
12:06
So here are 6 feedback mistakes that kill progress and I got the
12:10
book in front of me. Like I said, and I'm trying to
12:12
paraphrase as we're going through this.
12:14
So the first one is information overload.
12:17
We talked about this a second ago.
12:19
An athlete finishes a Rep or during a drill and you're just
12:22
firing information at them and they're retaining absolutely
12:25
none of it. Second or mistake number 2 is
12:28
vague corrections. Things like run faster or we
12:31
need more effort out of you. What does that mean?
12:34
We need to we need to quantify and qualify explicitly what we
12:38
are looking for. Mistake 3 is delayed feedback,
12:42
where an athlete participates in a Rep and then they don't get
12:45
meaningful feedback until 10 or 15 minutes later.
12:48
That's not good #4 is all negative and no positive.
12:53
So we're just harping on them over and over again and we're
12:55
never actually edifying them or building them up.
12:59
Mistake 5 is public, public embarrassment like we just
13:01
talked about. And then mistake number six is
13:04
inconsistent standards. We always want to know what we
13:08
expect of our athletes. If we are wishy washy from one
13:12
day to the next, that is setting our athletes up for failure.
13:15
We need to be consistent with our expectations as it pertains
13:19
to behavior for sure, but also of effort, but also for the
13:22
norms that are established within our team.
13:26
So lastly, we'll end here. As coaches, we want to make
13:30
feedback our superpower. The power of effective feedback.
13:35
It's not just being nice. It's not just edifying and
13:38
building up. It's about being specific,
13:40
timely, and strategic with your words.
13:42
It's about connecting your feedback to the technical
13:44
framework that you're teaching. It's about building athletes up
13:48
while you are correcting them. It's about creating an
13:50
environment where athletes feel safe pushing themselves to
13:53
maximum effort. This is what effective feedback
13:56
is. It is specific.
13:58
It identifies exact technical elements that they need to
14:01
improve on. It is timely.
14:03
It's delivered immediately after performance while the while the
14:07
movement is fresh in their minds, it is balanced trying to
14:11
shoot for that 12:50 ratio of 10 positives for everyone.
14:13
Correction. It is focused.
14:15
It is one correction at a time. It is not information overload.
14:19
It is actionable. It provides clear steps athletes
14:22
can implement immediately and it is appropriate.
14:25
Public for praise, private for correction.
14:29
When you master feedback, you're you master coaching.
14:32
Every word you say either accelerates or inhibits athletes
14:35
development. I'm just really excited about
14:38
the the prospect of what coaches getting exceptionally good at
14:42
feedback could mean for athletes regardless of the sport or
14:45
regardless of the thing that is being taught.
14:47
But again, in Breaking the speed Barrier, we're talking about it
14:50
explicitly as it pertains to speed development.
14:53
And I hope that I just shared some things that could be
14:57
actionable and helpful for you here.
14:59
So I appreciate that and I hope you got some out of it.
15:02
Look for Breaking the speed barrier, how elite coaches teach
15:05
speed, written by me, Doctor Dylan Martinez, my father,
15:08
Doctor Ray Martinez, and then our colleague Eddie Hodges as
15:12
well. So that will be hitting the
15:13
shelves March 3rd. I appreciate you listening.
15:17
God bless. Hey gang, Mike Cunningham here.
15:19
Hey, I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Guild 1918
15:23
Project series. It's really my mission, my
15:26
passion to bring you massive amounts of value and I hope this
15:30
one hit the mark. The Guilt 1918 Project is really
15:34
dependent on you if for you to build your own episode, to hear
15:38
your voice, to have your voice heard you have something to say
15:42
and teach other coaches out there.
15:44
So please get a hold of me, E-mail, text message, Twitter,
15:49
smoke signals, get a hold of me and let's help create your
15:52
episode of the Guild 1918 Project.
15:54
Hope you enjoy the day, they will see you tomorrow.