The quality of your life can be defined by the quality of your questions” -Tony Robbins
How can we as coaches/trainers get more out of athletes? Is it by devising the best training program out there? Or is it by creating systems to monitor every single facet of their performance? Both may have some truth. However, in this blog, I want to cover ways that you can get a better understanding of your athletes and how to take a deep dive into what they think and how they feel. Think about it some of the best conversations you’ve ever had, who did most of the talking. I bet 9/10 it was you. That’s because master conversationalists know that we as human beings yearn to talk about ourselves and they also know how to ask the right questions to get you going. Let’s reel this back into pitching and development. When you ask the right questions you get to know that person a little bit better right? And when you know that person better, you understand what makes them tick and what psychological thoughts are holding them back. So, what kind of questions can we ask as coaches to get the most out of our athletes and form a plan to get them to where they want to be.
My favorite question to ask any athlete is “what is your biggest fear when it comes to your career.” It’s a simple and short answer the respond with but it opens up every possible avenue we can take in understanding their body and as a person. I’m going to take a few answers from my athletes’ questionnaires and use them as examples.
Answer #1, “Getting overlooked and not playing professional baseball.” This tells me the athlete is completely results-driven and they have no aching or underlying pains that I should instantly worry or be concerned with. From there, we can take a deep dive into what’s holding them back. For this athlete, he had fantastic numbers along with solid secondary pitches. However, he was a righty sitting 89-92 and we knew that he needed to be touching a 5 to get to where he wanted to be. After a lengthy conversation, we devised a plan and got after it.
Answer #2, “Having a career-ending injury.” Before even diving into a physical or mechanical analysis I knew that we had some strides to make with this athlete. His answer here told me everything that I needed to know. Even though he said he didn’t really have much arm pain I knew he wasn’t being transparent with me. After his mechanical analysis we addressed multiple issues with his arm action that pointed to his medial elbow being at risk. After presenting the analysis to him he responded, “that makes sense why my elbow is always hurting.”
These types of questions can be applied in any type of performance. My second favorite question to ask is, “what failed you?” This can be after a bad outing, an injury, or just a year of spinning their wheels trying to get better. Instead of asking the athlete, “what did you do wrong?” we shift their mindset into a victim mindset. See, people love to play the victim and they rarely take ownership. Even when they do, their perception is oftentimes morphed. Therefore, by shifting their mindset we can get a clear picture of their pain points and ways to address their performance and training moving forward.
My suggestion to you as coaches, parents, and athletes. Learn how to ask great questions. For starters, check out this short video here. When you ask great questions, you get great answers. This means you can move forward faster. Until then, keep getting after it.