More on Transferability: The How of Coaching

In a previous post, I explained the concept of transferability and why it’s important in sport. In today’s post, I want to continue that conversation, and explore how this applies to the how of coaching.

First, a little background. Historically, coaching has been set in one of two realms, Exercise Science/Kinesiology, or Physical Education. Due to the education models of these programs, and the type of people they attract, coaches who have an exercise science/kinesiology background are typically very analytically thinking, and often spend their time focusing on WHAT to coach. On the flip side, coaches who come from the physical education model are very adept at teaching their athletes, because that’s what they learned how to do in school. These coaches tend to be very good at HOW they coach. A coach can be good, frankly, very good, by being extremely proficient in one of these two areas, however, a great coach must excel in both. In that previous post, I focused on and challenged coaches to analyze what they are programming for their athletes, and how it translates to the field. In this post, I’d like to shift that focus, and analyze how coaches can teach in a way that also translates to the field.

As a quick reminder, transferability is how well skills transfer across different aspects of life. In sport, this means how well training transfers to the game. What a coach programs is extremely important to whether or not training will transfer to the game, but how that coach delivers the session is just as important as what they are doing. As coaches, we can’t play for our players. It blows me away when I see coaches trying to play from the sidelines, as if their constant yelling positively impacts their players. I’m a big fan of stealing from people who are smarter than me, and pretty much every coach I’ve ever been around who I want to steal from, takes a back seat on gameday and lets their players play. Instead, these coaches teach and coach in a way that develops effective decision makers, so that when gameday comes, the players are not reliant on the coach and can make those decisions for themselves.

The art to effective coaching is teaching in a way that allows for players to come to solutions on their own; to take ownership in the learning process and make decisions for themselves. As such, if coaches want their teaching to translate, they must be creative enough and disciplined enough to allow their players to discover the solutions on their own. Their job becomes creating problems that athletes will see in a game, and then allowing them to solve it on their own, so that the concept "clicks” for the athlete. How that happens may be different for each athlete, and part of that art is figuring that out, but I guarantee that coaches will not have much success on gameday if they are constantly telling their players exactly what they want and exactly what to do. Sure, in the short term, in that moment, the players will get it and practice may look better, but in the long term, they will not retain that information and it will not transfer to the game because they are relying on the coach to tell them exactly what to do.

So what should we do? We should teach in a way that transfers to the game. We should guide athletes rather than telling them what to do by creating problems that athletes will see in a game, and allowing them to solve it themselves so that they take ownership over their learning process. We should put constraints on games so that the only way for athletes to have success is to do what we want them to do, nudging them in that direction by what the game is demanding. And lastly, we should allow them to PLAY. Play at practice. Play in the games. Allow athletes the freedom to make mistakes so that they can discover the appropriate solutions for themselves, and support them while they do. All this means that practices may look ugly and chaotic. This is OK because it means we are creating an environment that replicates the ugly and chaotic game. If we create super neat and clean practices, where we tell athletes exactly what we want them to do, and don’t allow them to make mistakes, then we will have a team full of players who have no idea how to solve the problems for themselves when chaos breaks loose on gameday.

Transferability, or how training transfers to the game, should be a core component of coach’s philosophy, and a skill they should be masters of. When I spend time around smarter coaches, I see the power of it first-hand, to the point where I think it’s one of maybe three or four things that actually matter in coaching.

If you have any questions about transferability, or want to learn more, please contact me.

Until next time,

-Jer