Good coaching tips. 101 Essential Coaching Tips: Mastering the Art of Athletic Development

How can coaches effectively plan and communicate with athletes. What are the key principles for continuous learning and improvement in coaching. How to create a positive training environment and develop coach-independent athletes. What business skills are crucial for successful coaching careers.

The Foundation of Successful Coaching: Planning and Communication

Effective coaching begins with a solid foundation of planning and communication. These two elements are crucial for creating a structured and supportive environment for athletes to thrive. Let’s explore some key tips in this area:

• Develop a detailed plan for your coaching program
• Continuously improve your communication skills
• Keep a comprehensive diary of athlete training and progress
• Utilize technology, including the internet and social media, for effective communication

Why is planning so important in coaching? A well-thought-out plan provides direction and purpose to your coaching efforts. It helps you set clear goals, track progress, and make necessary adjustments along the way. By maintaining a detailed diary of your athletes’ work, you can better analyze their development and tailor your approach to their individual needs.

How can coaches enhance their communication skills? Effective communication is the cornerstone of successful coaching. It involves not only speaking clearly and concisely but also listening actively to your athletes. Strive to communicate calmly, constructively, and consistently. Remember, good communication is a two-way street – encourage your athletes to share their thoughts and concerns with you as well.

Embracing Continuous Learning and Improvement

The world of sports and coaching is ever-evolving, making continuous learning a necessity for coaches who want to stay at the top of their game. Here are some strategies to foster a growth mindset:

• Never stop learning – education is a lifelong journey
• Be open-minded and willing to try new approaches
• Seek out information actively rather than waiting for it to come to you
• Embrace constructive criticism as an opportunity for growth

How can coaches stay up-to-date with the latest developments in their field? Attending workshops, reading sports journals, and networking with other coaches are excellent ways to expand your knowledge. Don’t limit yourself to your specific sport – look for inspiration and ideas from other disciplines that you can adapt to your coaching practice.

Why is it important to be open to constructive criticism? Feedback, even when it’s critical, provides valuable insights into areas where you can improve. By viewing criticism as a positive tool for growth, you set an example for your athletes and create a culture of continuous improvement within your team.

Creating a Positive and Effective Training Environment

The atmosphere you create during training sessions can significantly impact your athletes’ performance and motivation. Consider these tips for fostering a positive training environment:

• Be a role model for your athletes
• Believe in your athletes – they believe in you
• Create a safe, stimulating, and interesting training environment
• Balance enthusiasm with effective instruction

How does a positive training environment contribute to athletic success? When athletes enjoy coming to train, they’re more likely to be engaged, motivated, and receptive to coaching. A positive atmosphere also promotes better team dynamics and can help athletes push through challenging moments in their training.

What role does a coach’s attitude play in shaping the training environment? As a coach, your energy and enthusiasm are contagious. By maintaining a positive attitude and demonstrating passion for your work, you inspire your athletes to approach their training with similar vigor. Remember, what you believe will happen often does happen – so cultivate a mindset of success and achievement.

Balancing Encouragement and Instruction

While enthusiasm is crucial, it’s equally important to provide effective instruction. Strive to give “an ounce of information and a ton of practice.” This approach allows athletes to learn through doing, rather than becoming overwhelmed with excessive verbal instruction.

Developing Coach-Independent Athletes

One of the ultimate goals of coaching is to help athletes become self-sufficient and capable of making good decisions on their own. Here are some strategies to foster independence in your athletes:

• Strive to make yourself redundant by developing coach-independent athletes
• Delegate responsibilities to athletes, assistants, and other team members
• Encourage athletes to take ownership of their training program
• Focus on long-term development, even when working towards short-term goals

Why is it important to develop coach-independent athletes? By teaching athletes to think critically and make decisions on their own, you’re preparing them for success both on and off the field. This approach helps athletes become more resilient, adaptable, and confident in their abilities.

How can coaches strike a balance between providing guidance and fostering independence? Start by gradually increasing the level of responsibility you give to your athletes. Involve them in the planning process, ask for their input on training methods, and encourage them to reflect on their own performance. This collaborative approach helps athletes develop a deeper understanding of their sport and their own capabilities.

Leveraging Sports Science and Technology

In today’s coaching landscape, sports science and technology play increasingly important roles. Here’s how to effectively incorporate these elements into your coaching practice:

• Use sports science wisely – let the art of coaching drive the science of performance
• Embrace technology as an ally, not an enemy
• Stay informed about advancements in sports science and technology
• Use data and analytics to inform your coaching decisions

How can coaches effectively integrate sports science into their practice? While sports science provides valuable insights, it’s important to remember that coaching is both an art and a science. Use scientific principles to inform your decisions, but don’t lose sight of the human element of coaching. Your experience, intuition, and understanding of your athletes are equally important.

What role should technology play in modern coaching? Technology can be a powerful tool for analyzing performance, tracking progress, and communicating with athletes. However, it’s important to use technology judiciously. Focus on tools that provide meaningful insights and enhance your coaching, rather than becoming overly reliant on gadgets and apps.

Data-Driven Coaching

Utilize data analytics to gain deeper insights into your athletes’ performance. This can help you identify trends, track progress, and make more informed decisions about training and competition strategies. Remember to balance data-driven insights with your own observations and understanding of your athletes as individuals.

Developing Essential Business Skills for Coaching Success

While passion for sport is often what draws people to coaching, developing basic business skills is crucial for long-term success in the field. Consider the following areas:

• Learn basic business skills
• Understand insurance and legal liability
• Familiarize yourself with taxation basics
• Treat coaching as a business

Why are business skills important for coaches? Understanding the business side of coaching can help you manage your career more effectively, protect yourself legally, and potentially increase your earning potential. It also allows you to focus more on coaching by reducing stress related to financial and administrative matters.

What specific business skills should coaches prioritize? Start with basic financial management, including budgeting and record-keeping. Understanding contracts and legal liability is also crucial, as is familiarity with insurance options for coaches. Additionally, learning about marketing and self-promotion can help you attract and retain clients or secure better coaching positions.

Professional Development and Networking

Treat your coaching career as a business by investing in your own professional development. Attend coaching conferences, seek out mentorship opportunities, and build a network of peers in the coaching community. These connections can provide valuable support, opportunities for collaboration, and potential career advancements.

Cultivating Mental Toughness and Resilience

Mental toughness is a critical component of athletic success, and coaches play a crucial role in developing this quality in their athletes. Here are some strategies to foster mental resilience:

• Help athletes deal with tough times and setbacks
• Constantly challenge your athletes (and yourself)
• Encourage a growth mindset
• Teach strategies for managing stress and pressure

How can coaches help athletes develop mental toughness? Start by creating a challenging but supportive environment where athletes can push their limits and learn from failures. Teach athletes to view setbacks as opportunities for growth rather than insurmountable obstacles. Encourage them to set ambitious goals and develop strategies for overcoming obstacles.

Why is mental resilience important in sports? Mental toughness often makes the difference between good and great athletes. It helps athletes perform under pressure, bounce back from setbacks, and maintain focus and motivation during long training periods. By helping your athletes develop mental resilience, you’re equipping them with a valuable skill that extends beyond sports into all areas of life.

Building Confidence Through Competence

Remember that athletes develop confidence through competence. Thorough preparation is key to building this confidence. Design your training programs to progressively challenge your athletes, allowing them to build skills and experience success. Celebrate small victories along the way to reinforce their sense of progress and achievement.

In conclusion, successful coaching is a multifaceted endeavor that requires continuous learning, effective communication, and a balanced approach to athlete development. By implementing these coaching tips and continuously refining your methods, you can create a positive and productive environment for your athletes to thrive. Remember, coaching is not just about developing great athletes – it’s about nurturing great individuals who can carry the lessons learned through sports into all aspects of their lives.

101 Coaching Tips – WG COACHING

It takes 20 years to become an overnight success. Successful coaches have by a combination of experience, skill, education and practice, developed ways and means of getting the best out themselves and their athletes.

Here are 101 Coaching Tips to help you achieve your coaching goals.

1. Plan.
2. Develop communication skills and never stop trying to improve them.
3. Learn to effectively utilise the Internet, social media and email.
4. Never stop learning. Learning is for life.
5. Be open-minded. Never say, never.
6. What you may lack in knowledge, make up for with enthusiasm, desire and passion.
7. Be a role model for your athletes.
8. Accept constructive criticism as a positive. Learn from mistakes, take steps to improve from the experience and move on.
9. Allocate time every day for personal health and fitness.
10. Keep a detailed diary and record work actually done by athletes not just what was planned to be done.
11. Embrace effective change.
12. Use sports science wisely. The art of coaching drives the science of performance.
13. Seek out information – don’t wait for the “secret to success” to fall into your lap.
14. Coach with your heart but don’t forget the basics. Secure adequate training facilities, keep good records, observe O.H. and S principles, and maintain a commitment to safety and equity. Having the “nuts and bolts” organised allows you to focus on what you do best – working with athletes.
15. Believe in your athletes – they believe in you.
16. Steal ideas from others sports (and improve on them).
17. Strive to make yourself redundant – develop coach independent athletes.
18. Listen with your eyes and watch with your ears.
19. Attitude + application + ability = achievement.
20. Coach the person not the athlete. Coach the person not the performance.
21. Develop a network and support structure. Be a resource manager.
22. Best, better, brilliant – there’s always room for improvement.
23. What you believe will happen, will happen. What the mind can conceive it will achieve.
24. Persistence pays – never give up.
25. Learn basic business skills. Understand the basics of insurance. Be familiar with legal liability. Understand the basics of taxation and the tax system. Make coaching your business!
26. Give an ounce of information and a ton of practice.
27. Communicate – clearly, concisely, calmly, constructively, consistently and cleverly.
28. Seek out a critical friend. They are you greatest asset.
29. Help develop your sport not just your current athletes.
30. Mix with successful people. Success breeds success.
31. Delegate, delegate, delegate, give athletes, assistants, parents and officials responsibility for aspects of your (their) program.
32. Enthusiasm, encouragement, energy = Excellence.
33. Look for things to improve in yourself.
34. Have fun. Life is short.
35. It is easy to coach athletes when they are performing well. Do you have the ability to help athletes (and yourself) deal with the tough times?
36. Focus on the long term even when trying to achieve in the short term.
37. Contribute to the development of other coaches. You may learn from teaching and students are often the best teachers of all.
38. Listen to your athletes.
39. Develop peripheral vision – in your mind.
40. Present information at coaching courses and workshops. Be willing to share.
41. Treat athletes like customers – coaching is the ultimate in client service.
42. Read journals from alternative industries and seek out principles that you can apply to sporting situations.
43. Be flexible in your methods and approach.
44. Embrace the principle “For the love of it, not the money in it!”
45. Athletes develop confidence through competence. Nothing develops confidence like a thorough preparation.
46. Constantly challenge yourself and your athletes.
47. Create a safe, stimulating, interesting training environment where athletes enjoy coming to train.
48. In preparing athletes: leave nothing to chance, nothing untested: don’t rely on luck: make your own!
49. Subscribe to this Blog!
50. Do your homework. Know the strengths and weakness of your athletes, yourself, your opposition. Know the standards, what are the world records, national records, state records, regional records, and club records, what are your goals?
51. Look to help each athlete achieve their best, no matter what that level is. Not all athletes want to be the world champion.
52. Be innovative. Be creative. Dare to be different.
53. Try not to over-coach. You don’t need to talk ALL the time.
54. Never lose confidence in yourself. You can do it!
55. Encourage your athlete to have ownership of the program.
56. Maintain good appearance, look like a professional.
57. Technology is your ally not your enemy. Use it wisely.
58. When the going gets tough, the tough get going. Mental toughness is still a key component of successful competition.
59. Adopt the D.R.A.M.A. approach ” Do, Record, Analyse, Modify, Act”
60. Confront problems calmly by talking directly with the athlete – don’t rely on rumour, relayed messages or other second hand methods of communication. If a message can be misinterpreted it already has been.
61. Empathise not sympathise.
62. Keep the reasons you coach at the forefront of your mind and your goals close to your heart.
63. Desire: keep the dream alive, everyday. Motivation is a lifestyle not a one off event.
64. What makes a great coach? Great athletes!
65. Be firm and fair.
66. Build your program around the five “E’s”: Equity, Excellence, Empathy and Empowerment.
67. Share a joke, not sarcasm, just a funny joke, when appropriate.
68. Field questions and throw back answers. Challenge athletes to discover the answers for themselves and to learn lessons.
69. Observe, ponder, respond, be an observer of human behaviour.
70. Share experiences willingly.
71. Establish open and effective communication with all stakeholders, parents, athletes, administrators, officials and important others.
72. When in doubt, pause and check it out. Don’t be afraid to say “I don’t know”.
73. Employ actions that minimise risk. The primary responsibility of all coaches is the safety of their athletes.
74. Encourage your athlete recovering from injury by involving them in the program in some capacity. Everyone is needed and everyone belongs.
75. Be aware of and carry out your legal responsibilities.
76. Efficient coaches take responsibility for their own effectiveness.
77. Self-reflection is your constant companion: be your own best critic but strive to be objective rather than self destructive.
78. Recognise the contribution of others, players, parents, officials, assistants, facility maintenance staff, everyone enjoys being appreciated.
79. Recognise, publicise, and reward. Praise in public, criticise in private.
80. Lead from the front and support from the rear.
81. The coach is the creator of positive experiences.
82. Proper prior planning prevents pitifully poor performance.
83. Praise and positive reinforcement are tools for the coach.
84. Think about what you say before you say it. Then watch for reactions to your words before saying anything else.
85. Body language replaces many words: Its not what you say but how you say it.
86. Inspire your athletes to be all they can be, everyday and in all things.
87. Coaching is a two-way process: The athlete feels but can’t see, the coach sees but can’t feel.
88. Get to know something personal about your athletes. They are people who have chosen to play sport: not just sportspeople.
89. Holistically challenge your athlete’s mental skills. They can be developed just like physical skills.
90. Athletes listen when the coach listens to them.
91. Know when to say no.
92. Demonstrate, explain, demonstrate again, practice and give constructive feedback.
93. Concentrate on the performance not the outcome.
94. Process goals (how to achieve) should predominate over outcome goals (what to achieve).
95. Facilitate motivation by allowing athletes to fulfil their goals in some way at every session.
96. Coach your athletes to distinguish between attainable and unobtainable but to never stop dreaming of what’s possible.
97. Buy a video and refine your filming and reviewing skills.
98. Sports officials give your athletes the best opportunity to achieve the best result – work alongside them. Welcome them into your program and invite them to provide input.
99. To coach well you’ll need to know the current interpretation of your sports rules and regulations.
100. The coach has a great opportunity to easily expand their social circle, you’ll never be lonely.
101. Last year’s programs produce last year’s results. Resist the temptation to coach by routine and habit.

(Why not add your own tips to the list and share them with me and all the Sports Brainers??)

Wayne Goldsmith

Related

The Leader as Coach

Idea in Brief

The Situation

To cope with disruptive change, companies are reinventing themselves as learning organizations. This requires a new approach to management in which leaders serve as coaches to those they supervise.

The Challenge

In this new approach, managers ask questions instead of providing answers, support employees instead of judging them, and facilitate their development instead of dictating what has to be done. But most managers don’t feel they have time for that—and they’re not very good at it anyway.

The Solution

Companies need to offer their managers the appropriate tools and support to become better coaches. And if they want to be sustainably healthy learning organizations, they must also develop coaching as an organizational capacity.

Once upon a time, most people began successful careers by developing expertise in a technical, functional, or professional domain. Doing your job well meant having the right answers. If you could prove yourself that way, you’d rise up the ladder and eventually move into people management—at which point you had to ensure that your subordinates had those same answers.

As a manager, you knew what needed to be done, you taught others how to do it, and you evaluated their performance. Command and control was the name of the game, and your goal was to direct and develop employees who understood how the business worked and were able to reproduce its previous successes.

Not today. Rapid, constant, and disruptive change is now the norm, and what succeeded in the past is no longer a guide to what will succeed in the future. Twenty-first-century managers simply don’t (and can’t!) have all the right answers. To cope with this new reality, companies are moving away from traditional command-and-control practices and toward something very different: a model in which managers give support and guidance rather than instructions, and employees learn how to adapt to constantly changing environments in ways that unleash fresh energy, innovation, and commitment.

The role of the manager, in short, is becoming that of a coach.

This is a dramatic and fundamental shift, and we’ve observed it firsthand. Over the past decade, we’ve seen it in our ongoing research on how organizations are transforming themselves for the digital age; we’ve discerned it from what our executive students and coaching clients have told us about the leadership skills they want to cultivate in themselves and throughout their firms; and we’ve noticed that more and more of the companies we work with are investing in training their leaders as coaches. Increasingly, coaching is becoming integral to the fabric of a learning culture—a skill that good managers at all levels need to develop and deploy.

We should note that when we talk about coaching, we mean something broader than just the efforts of consultants who are hired to help executives build their personal and professional skills. That work is important and sometimes vital, but it’s temporary and executed by outsiders. The coaching we’re talking about—the kind that creates a true learning organization—is ongoing and executed by those inside the organization. It’s work that all managers should engage in with all their people all the time, in ways that help define the organization’s culture and advance its mission. An effective manager-as-coach asks questions instead of providing answers, supports employees instead of judging them, and facilitates their development instead of dictating what has to be done.

Companies are moving away from traditional command-and-control practices.

This conception of coaching represents an evolution. Coaching is no longer just a benevolent form of sharing what you know with somebody less experienced or less senior, although that remains a valuable aspect. It’s also a way of asking questions so as to spark insights in the other person. As Sir John Whitmore, a leading figure in the field, defined it, skilled coaching involves “unlocking people’s potential to maximize their own performance.” The best practitioners have mastered both parts of the process—imparting knowledge and helping others discover it themselves—and they can artfully do both in different situations.

It’s one thing to aspire to that kind of coaching, but it’s another to make it happen as an everyday practice throughout the many layers of an organization. At most firms, a big gap still yawns between aspiration and practice—and we’ve written this article to help readers bridge it. We focus first on how to develop coaching as an individual managerial capacity, and then on how to make it an organizational one.

You’re Not as Good as You Think

For leaders who are accustomed to tackling performance problems by telling people what to do, a coaching approach often feels too “soft. ” What’s more, it can make them psychologically uncomfortable, because it deprives them of their most familiar management tool: asserting their authority. So they resist coaching—and left to their own devices, they may not even give it a try. “I’m too busy,” they’ll say, or “This isn’t the best use of my time,” or “The people I’m saddled with aren’t coachable.” In Daniel Goleman’s classic study of leadership styles, published in this magazine in 2000, leaders ranked coaching as their least-favorite style, saying they simply didn’t have time for the slow and tedious work of teaching people and helping them grow.

Even if many managers are unenthusiastic about coaching, most think they’re pretty good at it. But a lot of them are not. In one study, 3,761 executives assessed their own coaching skills, and then their assessments were compared with those of people who worked with them. The results didn’t align well. Twenty-four percent of the executives significantly overestimated their abilities, rating themselves as above average while their colleagues ranked them in the bottom third of the group. That’s a telling mismatch. “If you think you’re a good coach but you actually aren’t,” the authors of the study wrote, “this data suggests you may be a good deal worse than you imagined.”

Coaching well can be hard for even the most competent and well-meaning of managers. One of us (Herminia) teaches a class to executives that makes this clear year after year. The executives are given a case study and asked to play the role of a manager who must decide whether to fire or coach a direct report who is not performing up to par. The employee has made obvious errors of judgment, but the manager has contributed significantly to the problem by having alternately ignored and micromanaged him.

When presented with this scenario, nine out of 10 executives decide they want to help their direct report do better. But when they’re asked to role-play a coaching conversation with him, they demonstrate much room for improvement. They know what they’re supposed to do: “ask and listen,” not “tell and sell. ” But that doesn’t come naturally, because deep down they’ve already made up their minds about the right way forward, usually before they even begin talking to the employee. So their efforts to coach typically consist of just trying to get agreement on what they’ve already decided. That’s not real coaching—and not surprisingly, it doesn’t play out well.

With the right tools and support, almost anybody can become a better coach.

Here’s roughly how these conversations unfold. The executives begin with an open-ended question, such as “How do you think things are going?” This invariably elicits an answer very different from what they expected. So they reformulate the question, but this, too, fails to evoke the desired response. With some frustration, they start asking leading questions, such as “Don’t you think your personal style would be a better fit in a different role?” This makes the direct report defensive, and he becomes even less likely to give the hoped-for answer. Eventually, feeling that the conversation is going nowhere, the executives switch into “tell” mode to get their conclusion across. At the end of the exercise, no one has learned anything about the situation or themselves.

Sound familiar? This kind of “coaching” is all too common, and it holds companies back in their attempts to become learning organizations. The good news, though, is that with the right tools and support, a sound method, and lots of practice and feedback, almost anybody can become a better coach.

Different Ways of Helping

To get managers thinking about the nature of coaching, and specifically how to do it better in the context of a learning organization, we like to present them with the 2×2 matrix below. It’s a simple but useful tool. One axis shows the information, advice, or expertise that a coach puts in to the relationship with the person being coached; the other shows the motivational energy that a coach pulls out by unlocking that person’s own insights and solutions.

At the upper left, in quadrant 1, is directive coaching, which takes place primarily through “telling.” Mentoring falls into this category. Everybody knows what to expect here: A manager with years of accumulated knowledge willingly shares it with a junior team member, and that person listens carefully, hoping to absorb as much knowledge as possible. This approach has a lot to recommend it, but it has some downsides too. Because it consists of stating what to do and how to do it, it unleashes little energy in the person being coached; indeed, it may even depress her energy level and motivation. It also assumes that the boss knows things that the recipient of the coaching does not—not always a safe assumption in a complex and constantly changing work environment. Additionally, because it allows leaders to continue doing what they have always excelled at (solving other people’s problems), it does not build organizational capacity well.

That said, coaching is not always the answer. There may be times when all team members are productively getting on with their work, and the right approach to managing them is to leave them alone. This approach, which we call laissez-faire, appears in quadrant 2.

At the bottom right, in quadrant 3, is nondirective coaching, which is built on listening, questioning, and withholding judgment. Managers here work to draw wisdom, insight, and creativity out of the people they’re coaching, with the goal of helping them learn to resolve problems and cope with challenging situations on their own. It’s an approach that can be highly energizing for those being coached, but it doesn’t come naturally to most managers, who tend to be more comfortable in “tell” mode.

At the top right, in quadrant 4, is situational coaching, which represents the sweet spot in our framework. All managers in a learning organization should aspire to become expert at situational coaching—which, as its name suggests, involves striking a fine balance between directive and nondirective styles according to the specific needs of the moment. From our work with experienced executives, we’ve concluded that managers should first practice nondirective coaching a lot on its own, until it becomes almost second nature, and only then start to balance that newly strengthened ability with periods of helpful directive coaching.

The GROW Model

One of the best ways to get better at nondirective coaching is to try conversing using the GROW model, devised in the 1980s by Sir John Whitmore and others. GROW involves four action steps, the first letters of which give the model its name. It’s easy to grasp conceptually, but it’s harder to practice than you might imagine, because it requires training yourself to think in new ways about what your role and value are as a leader.

The four action steps are these:

Goal.

When you begin discussing a topic with someone you’re coaching, establish exactly what he wants to accomplish right now. Not what his goals are for the project or his job or his role in the organization, but what he hopes to get out of this particular exchange. People don’t do this organically in most conversations, and they often need help with it. A good way to start is to ask something like “What do you want when you walk out the door that you don’t have now?”

Reality.

With the goal of your conversation established, ask questions rooted in what, when, where, and who, each of which forces people to come down out of the clouds and focus on specific facts. This makes the conversation real and constructive. You’ll notice that we didn’t include why. That’s because asking why demands that people explore reasons and motivations rather than facts. In doing that, it can carry overtones of judgment or trigger attempts at self-justification, both of which can be counterproductive.

During this stage, a good reality-focused question to ask is “What are the key things we need to know?” Attend carefully to how people respond. Are they missing something important? Are they talking about operational issues but forgetting the human side of the equation? Or the reverse? When you ask people to slow down and think in this way, they often lose themselves in contemplation—and then a light comes on, and off they go, engaging with the problem on their own with new energy and a fresh perspective. This step is critical, because it stops people from overlooking pertinent variables and leaping to conclusions. Your job here is just to raise the right questions and then get out of the way.

Nazario Graziano

Options.

When people come to you for coaching, they often feel stuck. “There’s nothing I can do,” they might tell you. Or “I have only one real option.” Or “I’m torn between A and B.”

At this point your task is to help them think more broadly and more deeply. To broaden the conversation, sometimes it’s enough to ask something as simple as “If you had a magic wand, what would you do?” You’d be surprised how freeing many people find that question to be—and how quickly they then start thinking in fresh, productive ways. Once they’ve broadened their perspective and discovered new options, your job is to prompt them to deepen their thinking, perhaps by encouraging them to explore the upside, the downside, and the risks of each option.

Will.

This step also doesn’t usually happen organically in conversations, so again most people will need help with it. The step actually has two parts, each involving a different sense of the word will.

In the first part you ask, “What will you do?” This encourages the person you’re coaching to review the specific action plan that has emerged from your conversation. If the conversation has gone well, she’ll have a clear sense of what that plan is. If she doesn’t, you’ll need to cycle back through the earlier steps of the GROW process and help her define how she’ll attack the problem.

Situational coaching involves balancing directive and nondirective styles.

The second part involves asking people about their will to act. “On a scale of one to 10,” you might ask, “how likely is it that you will do this?” If they respond with an eight or higher, they’re probably motivated enough to follow through. If the answer is seven or less, they probably won’t. In that case you’ll again need to cycle back through the earlier steps of the process, in an effort to arrive at a solution they are more likely to act on.

Of course, workplace coaching usually takes place outside of formal coaching sessions. Most often, it happens in brief exchanges, when a manager might respond to a request for help by posing a single question, such as “What have you already thought of?” or “What really matters here?” When more of those interactions occur—when you notice your managers growing increasingly inquisitive, asking good questions, and working from the premise that they don’t have all the answers—you’ll know you’re on the right track.

Coaching as an Organizational Capacity

So far, we’ve focused on coaching as a managerial skill. That’s a vital first step, but to transform your company into a genuine learning organization, you need to do more than teach individual leaders and managers how to coach better. You also need to make coaching an organizational capacity that fits integrally within your company culture. And to succeed at that, you must effect a cultural transformation that involves the following steps.

Articulate the “why.”

Managers and professionals are busy people. If coaching strikes them as simply the latest fad being pushed by HR, they will roll their eyes and comply with the requirements as minimally as possible. If you want them to embrace coaching as not just a personal skill but also a source of cultural strength, you’ll have to make clear why it’s valuable for the business and their own success.

A good “why” inevitably connects coaching to an organization’s mission-critical tasks. Consider the example of the international law firm Allen & Overy. When David Morley, then the senior partner, decided to make coaching a key part of the firm’s leadership culture, he began talking with his colleagues about the importance of high-value conversations. Morley is an alumnus of one of our (Anne’s) leadership coach trainings. “My pitch,” he told us, “was this: ‘As a senior leader, you have roughly 100 conversations a year that are of particularly high value—in the sense that they will change your life or the life of the person you’re talking to. We want to help you acquire the skills to maximize value in those 100 conversations, to unlock previously hidden issues, to uncover new options, and to reveal fresh insights.’ That resonated. Almost everybody in a key leadership position at the firm recognized that they struggled with how to make the most of those conversations, and they could readily see that they lacked skills.”

Articulating the “why” can also involve helping people see the collateral benefits of coaching. That’s what worked at the Berkeley Partnership, an international management consultancy, where many partners who have received our training in coaching tell us it has significantly enhanced their ability to serve their clients. According to Mark Fearn, one of the firm’s founders, Berkeley partners are now better equipped to respond when clients ask for assistance with big, messy, sometimes ill-defined problems that often extend far beyond the firm’s initial brief. Having developed their coaching skills, partners have become better at recognizing situations in which they don’t have to provide answers; they understand that in such cases, they may be able to offer more value by listening attentively, asking the right questions, and supporting clients as they work out the best solution. “Now that we’ve added coaching expertise,” Fearn told us, “our task can sometimes be just digging the answer out of them, creating a space to think.”

Model the behavior.

If you want the people you work with to embrace coaching, you first need to embrace it yourself.

Nobody has done this better than Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft. As noted in a London Business School case study that Herminia cowrote, when Nadella took the reins, in 2014, he was only the third chief executive in the company’s four-decade history. During the 14-year tenure of his predecessor, Steve Ballmer, revenue had tripled and profits had doubled, but by the end of that time, the company had lost its momentum. A culture of inspection and judgment prevailed, and the managerial mindset was fixed: Managers evaluated direct reports according to how well they mastered skills and generated numbers that would allow them to reproduce the successes of the past.

This culture had contributed significantly to Microsoft’s remarkable run of dominance in the world of personal computing. But as the energy in the tech sector shifted to smartphones and the cloud, the old management practices began to impede progress. By the time Nadella took over, risk aversion and internal politics were hampering cross-divisional collaboration, senior leaders were resisting open-source innovation, and the company’s stock price had stalled. Additionally, technologies were changing so quickly that managers often had out-of-date knowledge and practices, but they kept passing these down because that’s what they knew how to do.

Nadella quickly realized that Microsoft needed a cultural transformation. To regain its momentum and assert itself as a force in this new landscape, the company had to move away from its entrenched managerial style and instead develop what the Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck has called a growth mindset, in which everybody in the organization was open to constant learning and risk-taking. As Nadella himself aptly put it, the leaders of the company had to shift from being know-it-alls to being “learn-it-alls.”

Nadella understood that the process had to start with him, so he began modeling the behaviors he wanted Microsoft’s managers to adopt. He solicited thoughts from everybody he talked to and listened empathetically to what they had to say. He asked nondirective questions, demonstrating that his role was to support rather than judge. He encouraged people to be open about their mistakes and to learn from them. “He’s with you,” said Jean-Phillipe Courtois, a member of his leadership team. “You can feel it. You can see the body language. It doesn’t matter if you’re a top executive or a first-line seller; he has exactly the same quality of listening.”

Modeling is powerful because it shows that a leader walks the talk. Moreover, it builds momentum. Researchers have found that when people are in doubt about what behavior is appropriate, they copy the actions of others—particularly those who have power and status. So it’s not surprising that in these times of rapid change, which inevitably bring business uncertainty, employees look to their leaders for cues to follow. If they notice that their leaders are working to foster learning and cultivate the delicate art of leadership as conversation, they will do likewise.

Build capability throughout the organization.

After Nadella became Microsoft’s CEO, the corporate climate changed and the company’s performance surged. But Nadella was not single-handedly responsible. With more than 130,000 employees, he depended on the members of his leadership team to tailor the growth mindset to the unique requirements of their individual businesses. For Courtois—who in 2016 assumed control of Microsoft’s global sales, marketing, and operations—that meant transforming the culture from one of command and control to one of coaching.

Herminia has studied Microsoft’s revival in depth, so we have a clear understanding of how things unfolded. Courtois recognized that the “why” of the shift to coaching was Microsoft’s move to a cloud-first strategy. The fundamental economics of cloud computing are based on the premise that customers will pay only for the resources they use (how long a server is utilized, say, or how much data bandwidth is being consumed). With revenue growth now depending more heavily on consumption of Microsoft’s offerings, everyone at the company had to become adept at having conversations in which they could learn what they did not already know—how to serve the unmet needs of their customers. And with the availability of powerful digital tools that provided everyone with real-time data on key metrics, it no longer made sense for managers to spend their time monitoring and controlling employees. So, after a restructuring effort aimed at giving Microsoft’s sales teams the right technical and industry skills to accompany corporate customers as they moved to the cloud, Courtois followed up with workshops, tools, and an online course designed to help the company’s managers develop a coaching style of leadership.

“If we want to get the transformation all the way through the organization,” he told us, “our biggest challenge is to reboot our people managers. ‘People manager’ is a job. You’re not just a sales manager, where you have a quota, a territory, customers, partners, and goals to achieve. You’re actually someone whose mission it is to pick, grow, and motivate the best capabilities to build customer success.”

Remove the barriers.

As in many organizations, managerial life at Microsoft had a rhythm dictated by quarterly business reviews. One of those, an annual gathering known as the January midyear review, was one of the most visible manifestations of the command-and-control culture.

Over time, the midyear review had developed into a kind of corporate theater in which the C-suite team, adopting an interrogatory stance, would grill senior managers from around the world on their progress and plans. This format of “precision questioning” ended up having “a fear impact on people,” said one executive, “because they felt like they were going into that meeting to be judged personally. So they felt they had to paint the best picture they could without showing any mistakes or failures.” Stories abounded of senior managers anxiously beginning their preparation well before the December holiday period. In other words, to make a good impression, a raft of the company’s most valuable people were diverting more than a month of their time to preparing for an internal review.

As part of the shift to a learning culture, Courtois had already encouraged his team to abandon precision questioning in favor of a more coaching-oriented approach that involved asking questions such as “What are you trying to do?” “What’s working?” “What’s not working?” and “How can we help?” But old habits die hard. Only after Courtois eliminated the midyear review—thereby removing a significant barrier to change—did everybody understand that he meant business.

Something similar happened at Allen & Overy, where year-end appraisals and rankings had become a largely unproductive ritual. In its push to become a learning organization, the firm recognized that these exercises were a deterrent to the kinds of open and supportive conversations that employees needed both to develop professionally and to advance the organization’s mission. It therefore abandoned that performance review system and now trains its partners to engage year-round in coaching conversations with associates, providing them with real-time feedback on their work. Employees report that these conversations create a new and useful level of dialogue about their career development. And once again, there are collateral benefits. Although the program was designed for internal use, it has made the organization’s senior leaders more comfortable in conducting unstructured conversations in other contexts, especially during high-stakes client negotiations—and that, in turn, has led to higher revenue and deeper client relationships.

CONCLUSION

We live in a world of flux. Successful executives must increasingly supplement their industry and functional expertise with a general capacity for learning—and they must develop that capacity in the people they supervise. No longer can managers simply command and control. Nor will they succeed by rewarding team members mainly for executing flawlessly on things they already know how to do. Instead, with full institutional support, they need to reinvent themselves as coaches whose job it is to draw energy, creativity, and learning out of the people with whom they work.

A version of this article appeared in the November–December 2019 issue of Harvard Business Review.

10 Tips for Effective Employee Performance Coaching

What is it that HR can learn from Formula 1 racing? Great teamwork and being super efficient at solving problems together for sure – think of pit stops that last barely 2 seconds. But that’s not what we’re talking about here. Performance coaching is something else they are very good at in Formula 1. And that’s what this article is about. We’ll look at its definition, benefits, and share 10 tips for effective employee performance coaching. Ready, set, go!

What is performance coaching?

Performance coaching in the workplace is still a relatively uncommon phenomenon, as not many companies do it deliberately.

We would describe performance coaching as the use of various techniques to continuously stimulate employees to improve their skills, gain new skills, and reach their full potential.

In a way, employee performance coaching is a form of on-the-job learning. It’s a collaborative process that takes place through everyday interactions between a manager and an employee, but also between employees.

Let’s take Sales as an example of what this could look like in practice. When a manager has had the opportunity to observe a sales representative interact with a customer, they can immediately have a conversation on what went well, what didn’t, and why. Together, they can reflect on the interaction. The manager can encourage the sales rep to come up with ways to make customer interactions more productive. This leads to a positive difference in the employee’s performance.

Ideally, performance coaching should be an integral part of your organization’s talent management strategy. It can have a big impact on employee engagement and productivity – and therefore, by extension, on the performance of the business as a whole.

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The benefits of performance coaching

Performance coaching is a very common thing in, for instance, Formula 1 racing. If you watch the moments before the race starts, you’re likely to see Lewis Hamilton or Max Verstappen walk around with someone whose role will be displayed on screen as ‘Performance Coach. ’

From an interview with one of these performance coaches, I learned that their job consists of ‘making sure their driver is in optimal shape to perform during the race weekend’ and ‘to always help if there are little aches and pains.’

If we draw a parallel with performance coaching in the ‘slightly more’ traditional workplace, we get the following benefits.

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• Performance improvement. Obviously… The main goal of performance coaching is to improve the work performance of employees. As every person is different, the way to maximize someone’s potential is too. Performance coaching enables organizations to personalize their talent management approach and get the best out of every single talent. This, in turn, will have a positive influence on the performance levels of the organization and help it reach its business goals.
• Stronger relationships. For coaching to be successful, there has to be trust. Employees need to trust the organization, their coach, and they need to have trust in the whole idea of coaching. Once there is trust between the coachee and the coach, this will lead to a stronger relationship between them and ultimately to better collaboration.
• Higher engagement levels. When employees receive personalized performance coaching, it shows them that their employer cares about them and invests in their professional development. As a result, they are more likely to feel motivated to improve their performance and contribute to the organization’s goals. They’ll feel generally more engaged.
• Better retention rates. An added bonus of the benefits just mentioned will be that your engaged employees are less likely to leave the organization.

10 tips for effective employee performance coaching

Going back to our Formula 1 example, HR has two main roles when it comes to performance coaching:

1. Enable and facilitate employee performance coaching in the organization to make sure that every employee is in optimal shape for their own ‘race’ and ready for new challenges
2. Be there whenever an employee or manager experiences ‘little aches and pains’.

The tips we’ve listed in this section are all related to one of these roles.

1. Build a coaching culture

If you truly want to enable and facilitate employee performance coaching, you need to work on building a coaching culture in your organization first. This is what that looks like:

• in the organization, people trust each other
• they have the ability to question the status quo and;
• the willingness to co-create together, regardless of their position in the organization
• individuals have a growth mindset and want to help each other grow.

There is a lot more to say about building a coaching culture; the topic deserves an article in itself. You can read all about it in our interview with a professional coach and co-founder of digital coaching platform SparkUs, Ozlem Sarioglu: How HR can establish a successful coaching culture or watch the video below:

2. Coach managers

Managers are likely to play a crucial role in making your employee performance coaching initiative a success. A common mistake, however, is to think that you can simply train managers on how to coach and that’s it.

You can’t expect someone who has never received coaching – and experienced the benefits of it – themselves to be a good coach to others. So, before you give your managers yet another hat to wear, let them go through a coaching process first.

Bear in mind that you might need external help to facilitate coaching of your more senior managers. This can be, for example, a performance consultant.

Does that sound like you need a big budget? Not necessarily. There are some great digital coaching platforms out there that can automate a part of the process while keeping human coaches involved for the moments that matter most.

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Using a digital coaching platform can be a great way to scale your management coaching efforts while keeping the costs under control.

3. Identify performance improvement opportunities

Some would say ‘identify performance issues’, but I prefer the term improvement opportunities since the word ‘issues’ implies that there’s something wrong.

While it can indeed be the case that someone is underperforming, it doesn’t have to be. It can very well be that some of your high performers are doing great but they simply haven’t reached their full potential yet.

Now, what do these performance improvement opportunities look like then? They can come in many different shapes and sizes but here are a few examples:

• Either an employee or their manager has noticed that the former needs to develop certain technical skills in order to better do their job.
• The employee encounters certain barriers that prevent them from performing at their best. Think, for instance, of obstacles such as time or tools.
• An already very effectively contributing employee would like to further improve their contribution.
• An employee is underperforming.

A question that comes to mind here is when would a manager be able to spot these improvement opportunities?

A traditional performance management approach where managers and team members meet each other maximum twice a year for the dreaded performance review doesn’t cut it here.

First, because we’re talking about employee performance coaching as a continuous process. Second, because if a manager only sits together to talk about their employees’ performance once or twice a year, they’re not likely to spot any issues other than underperformance. However, the goal of employee performance coaching is to be a learning process.

Therefore, performance management should also be an ongoing process and there should be continuous coaching conversations – throughout the entire year – between a manager and their team members.

Once this kind of continuous dialogue has been established, it will be much easier for a manager to detect performance improvement opportunities for their employees. For the employees, on the other hand, it will be much easier to raise any kind of challenges they encounter in their job with their manager.

The fact that there is this open, ongoing conversation with their boss creates trust, a stronger relationship, and a safe environment. In such atmosphere, people feel they can be open and honest without the fear that this will have a negative impact on their evaluation.

4. Discuss the action plan together with the employee

Once the manager and/or employee have identified the performance improvement opportunity, they can come up with potential solutions together. What the actual solution looks like depends on the issue and on the employee; even when two people need to develop the same competencies, for example, the best way for them to obtain those competencies may differ.

The action plan can consist of a combination of different learning and training methods, for example an online training course and peer coaching. It’s important that both the manager/coach and the employee agree on the action plan and that they set a date for when they’ll have a follow-up coaching session.

As an illustration, let’s say that a customer service team lead sees negative customer feedback about an interaction with a particular, typically high-performing agent. In an environment of trust we’ve mentioned above, the team lead can easily approach the agent about the interaction. Correspondingly, the agent feels comfortable sharing their struggles with the manager. For example, the agent might have insufficient knowledge about a new product. Then, they can identify actionable points of improvement for the agent together.

In this case, it could be attending a product demo and listening to call recordings of agents with a good grasp of that product. The team lead needs to make sure to collaborate rather than micromanage. That way, coaching engages the employee and becomes truly impactful in helping them improve.

The performance coaching action plan should also include the results or performance goals the employee wants to achieve and within which timeframe.

This allows everyone to a) know where they’re headed and b) enables you to evaluate and measure performance.

5. Show support

In a way, this comes back to the very first point we raised about building a coaching culture. In a coaching culture, people trust each other. Everyone in the organization has a mentality of wanting to help others grow.

When you have successfully established a coaching culture in your organization, the support doesn’t only come from an employee’s manager. It comes from their team members, HR, and other colleagues too. As such, performance coaching has become a shared responsibility for which everyone takes ownership.

This sounds lovely in theory. Yet, the reality is that many, if not most, organizations have not yet been able to establish a coaching culture. Thus, the ones who should play an important role when it comes to showing support are the managers and HR.

Here are a few ways to show employees support:

• Express your confidence in them and let them know that you are there to support them.
• Check in regularly to ask them how things are going and how you can help.
• If you have a peer coaching or peer mentoring program in place, offer them one of these peer programs for additional support.

6. Promote continuous learning

A coaching culture and continuous learning go hand in hand. When it comes to the promotion of continuous learning, HR has an important role to play too. They need to think of how to create a work environment where people feel motivated to learn and improve their performance continuously.

Part of this involves performance coaching. Another part of it involves training managers to be learning evangelists and role models. Highlighting people within the organization who show great continuous learning behavior also plays an important role.

I recently spoke with the Head of People at a Swedish start-up and she said something very interesting about the role managers play in coaching and building a learning culture.

She said, ‘When you’re a manager and one of your team members comes to you with a question, don’t give them an answer immediately.’ 

Instead, she said, ‘ask them to first think of what the answer or the solution could be themselves. If you want to, you can nudge them in the right direction but not more than that.’ 

While this is may sound like a simple thing to do, it can take a while for team leaders to adopt this as a new reflex instead of giving the answer right away. Shifting to this approach will, however, greatly benefit your people’s inquisitiveness and ability to solve problems together.

7. Gather feedback

Feedback is an integral part of any kind of coaching process and it should be a two-way street. Managers should regularly talk with their employees about how they perceive the coaching activities. They should find out what could be improved to make the coaching more effective.

These improvements can concern the coach as well as the coaching activities. Here too, it’s important to regularly have these feedback sessions, ideally, this even is something that is ongoing.

Feedback doesn’t only have to come from the manager and the coaches, by the way. In a coaching culture, people are used to giving and receiving feedback and do so on a continuous basis.

8. Customize performance coaching activities

Employee performance coaching isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. Depending on (among other things) their potential, skills, and experience, people who are just starting out their careers require a different approach than senior leaders.

To give you an idea, here are some examples of performance coaching activities:

• Gather feedback from all team members/people the coachee work with and share it with them; this will help the employee reflect on how to improve, both in case of underperformance and in case they want to further develop their potential.
• Following up on the previous; as a coach, when a coachee brings up an issue they need to solve, let them reflect back on that, ask probing open-ended questions, and walk them through the process you would use.
• As a coach, ask people to introspect on questions. Then you can add your own answers based on your experience. Disclosing your own weaknesses can also help in creating a safe psychological space and trust.

9. Regularly evaluate performance

Of course, you want to evaluate the impact of your performance coaching activities on your people’s….performance. The achievable goals you’ve set together with the employee and included in the action plan can help with this.

Regularly here means more than once or twice a year during the performance appraisal. An obvious moment to evaluate performance could be during the follow-up meetings that the manager and employee set once they’ve agreed on the action plan.

If performance management is an ongoing process in your organization and there is a continuous dialogue between managers and their teams, this will make it easier for managers to observe and evaluate performance.

10. Keep track of the improvements

A logical consequence of the previous point is that you need to keep track of the developments and improvements of people somewhere; the data needs to be documented.

One way to do that can be in a talent management system. This is an integrated software solution that enables organizations to keep track of performance management and learning and development (among other things).

Wrapping up

Employee performance coaching should be an ongoing process within teams. Don’t treat it only as a solution for underperforming. Instead, make it a tool to continuously improve the performance of every single one of your employees. Think of them all as Formula 1 drivers.

10 tips to be the best coach

Manchester City’s Pep Guardiola is rocking the perfect coach at the moment. If you want to be the perfect coach, here are a few pointers as to the qualities you will need to develop to be the best.

TOP TWO Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola and Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho

AUTHORITY

A good coach should always be in control. With some players it’s easy, with others it’s more challenging. If you want players to have time messing around, that’s fine, but it should be on your say-so and on your terms.

MENTAL STRENGTH

No matter how successful you are you will always have your critics. Sometimes it can be useful, so be strong enough to take criticism on board and use it if it’s of value. If it’s not, don’t take negative comments to heart and believe in yourself.

SENSE OF HUMOUR

Playing soccer should be fun. While having control is crucial, it’s also important to be able to have a laugh with your players. A little bit of banter helps to bond a team as long as it doesn’t go too far.

ADAPTABILITY

Having a plan is always good whether it’s for a training session or a match but sometimes drills don’t go well or tactics don’t work. Have a back up in mind should things go wrong and don’t be afraid to admit you’ve made a mistake.

PATIENCE

Each child is different and players develop at a different pace. Coaching youth soccer requires patience, because it takes time and effort to help players fulfil their potential – but the rewards will be worth it when a team comes together.

COMMUNICATION

The ability to get your message across to players is vital. There are many ways of doing this but the key, particularly with kids, is not to go on too long. Get the message across quickly and succinctly and repeat it at regular intervals until you’re sure it’s hit home.

APPROACHABILITY

Don’t put a wall up between yourself and your players. They have to feel they can talk to you about problems. It might be a football issue, but equally you might be the person they turn to if they are struggling with issues in the wider world.

RESPECT FOR RULES

Remind yourself, your players and their parents of your league’s code of conduct on a regular basis – this is vital when it comes to match day. It’s your reputation on the line, so make sure everyone knows what’s expected.

GOOD OBSERVATION SKILLS

Watch what happens during training closely. Players develop different strengths as they grow – you might spot something that means your left back is developing into a left winger. Watch what happens off field too, so you can nip any problems in the bud.

MEMORY FOR DETAIL

Gradually build up a mental picture of each member of your squad. Their skills will be apparent quickly but just as important is tapping into their personality. Knowing them will make them easier to manage.

About Dave Clarke

Dave Clarke is head coach and editor of Soccer Coach Weekly, providing thousands of subscribers worldwide with drills, insight and advice covering all aspects of coaching.

Tips for Effective Coaching Conversations

Coaching Tips to Strengthen Effective Behavior:

• Recount the successful behavior, in detail and its outcomes and impacts.
• Use specific examples and elements that contribute to a successful result.
• Help the employee to identify the root causes for this successful behavior.
• Brainstorm with the employee about benefits/ways the behavior can be replicated in the other circumstances.
• Express your confidence in the employee’s ability to continue to demonstrate it.
• Document notes of this discussion.
• Observe and praise repeated demonstration of the successful behavior.

Coaching Tips to Address Poor Performance:

• Focus on one specific behavior considered to be poor performance.
• Describe one thing the employee could do differently to achieve greater success. Caution: discussing only the cause in detail won’t create different results.
• Describe the benefits of the desired behavior and your confidence in the employee’s ability to demonstrate it.
• Use specific examples, time frames and explain the impact it would have on others.
• Listen carefully and be open to the employee’s perspective without judgment.
• Help the employee identify how to master and apply the new desired behavior.
• Draft a mutually agreeable development plan, if required.
• Document key elements of the discussion.
• Set dates for a follow up discussion.
• Observe for and praise demonstration of the new desired behavior.

Coaching Tips to Follow-Up on Poor Performance

• Gather sufficient evidence of demonstrated behavior and results: direct observation, specific work results, reports and records, feedback shared from others, including customers.
• Review the initial discussion around poor performance. Praise any progress made by the employee in demonstrating the desired behavior as well as on the employee’s development or performance improvement plan.
• Engage the employee in discussions about why behavior improvements are insufficient, and look for a reason why.
• Describe, in detail, the desired behavior and when/how it should be exhibited.
• Discuss consequences of poor performance and agree on next steps.
• Ensure that employees have all the support and resources they believe necessary to help them change their behavior; allocate as required.
• Check-in frequently.
• Set dates for improvement milestones and review on going.
• Frequently communicate your confidence in the employees and your support of their development.

Top Tips for Coaching and Mentoring Employees | Accel 5 Blog

It is a commonly held belief that coaching and mentoring relationships help to bring out the best in people. In corporate settings, those in leadership positions are often expected to work with their employees to provide support and encouragement, acting as their “coach” or “mentor.”

However, many leaders do not know how to balance this new relationship. Mentoring or coaching is about much more than just telling someone what to do — it requires working with employees to make decisions, solve problems and develop skills. These relationships not only benefit the mentee but the company as a whole by creating a more independent and efficient workforce.

But as a busy leader, how do you find the time to sort through the world of information and noise to seek the best advice? EBSCO’s corporate learning platform, Accel5®, helps you and your organization access the top thought leaders, their published works, training courses, videos, etc. These resources can help build your learning paths and improve your strengths as a leader.

Keys to being a great mentor …

Build an Authentic Connection

A critical step to becoming a great mentor is making your mentee feel comfortable. This requires an authentic connection where both parties feel respected and understood. The Accel5 business book summary for Coaching Up! Inspiring Peak Performance When It Matters Most outlines simple steps that mentors can take to establish this connection, including:

• Greet employees warmly and personally. Remember that the person with the most power or authority is responsible for making the other person feel comfortable, so always be kind and warm with your employees.
• Begin with a human connection. Instead of launching into an issue, a coach should ask open-ended questions such as, “How is it going?” or “How was your weekend?” so that the conversation can begin with a more casual and natural tone.
• Maintain a relaxed posture. A coach should deliberately relax his or her posture when meeting with an employee. If the employee makes a particularly sensitive or important point, the coach should lean in to indicate interest.
• Practice humility and humor. Both humility and humor are grounded in vulnerability; these qualities make a coach seem real and lay the ground for authentic connections.

“Mentoring or coaching is about much more than just telling someone what to do — it requires working with employees to make decisions, solve problems and develop skills.”

Recognize Their Strengths

As a mentor, it is your job to help your mentees reach their full potential. To accomplish this, it is best that you help them understand and build upon their strengths. In a video for Accel5, author Curt Coffman offers a tip that leaders can use to help others discover their strengths. Coffman suggests that a good leader will pay attention to what people do outside of work to see what their talents are. As you get to know your employees, pay attention to what they do for fun to see how this aligns with their roles in the workplace.

Earn Their Trust

In an effective mentor and mentee relationship, there is a high level of trust which gives employees the confidence needed to share their goals and concerns. Building a trusting relationship takes time and patience. In the Accel5 book summary for the HBR Guide to Coaching Employees, there are daily behaviors outlined that will help coaches to earn the trust of mentees, including:

• Give credit to your team for their accomplishments.
• Model the behavior that you’d expect from your mentee.
• Complete or assist with assignments for employees who need time off.
• Be transparent and approachable regarding tough decisions and feedback.

Identify and Pursue Stretch Goals

As a mentor, do not be afraid to encourage your mentee to aim high with “stretch goals.” According to the Accel5 summary for “9 Powerful Practices of Really Great Mentors” stretch goals are lofty ambitions that can only be reached by taking big leaps.

To begin the stretch process, you should speak with your employees about where they see themselves in their careers in five or ten years. You should then work with your mentees to define a path to their goals with measurable milestones. This will help to ensure that the mentees do not get overwhelmed or lose confidence.

There are many ways to nurture employees in their careers. A Stacks corporate learning portal is a scalable, sustainable, customizable workforce development solution designed to empower learners and bring together learning initiatives. Stacks enables you to transform your corporation’s learning experiences into a single, streamlined, intuitive workflow that generates meaningful insights and improved outcomes. Stacks is the first turnkey, responsive web platform with plug and play integrations designed specifically to bring together proprietary content, courses and electronic resources alongside subscription and supplementary sources. Stacks creates a seamless user experience on any device, anywhere.

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Sales Coaching: The Ultimate Guide

Imagine your sales team performing 19% better month after month.

Sound nice? Of course.

A study from CSO Insights reveals a correlation between quota attainment and coaching. When coaching skills exceed expectations, 94.8% of reps meet quota. When coaching skills need improvement, only 84.5% hit.

In other words, no other productivity investment is nearly as impactful as sales coaching. So, what is sales coaching, and how do you do it well?

What is sales coaching?

Sales managers invest in sales coaching to maximize sales rep performance and empower reps to positively impact the greater sales organization. The sales coaching process is designed so every rep is supported and equipped to effectively reach their personal quota as well as the team’s quota and goals.

Effective sales coaching is iterative, individualized, and inclusive. It’s designed to reinforce positive behavior or correct negative behavior. Typically part of each sales rep’s daily or weekly routine, sales coaching is focused on skills and techniques rather than numbers.

What does a sales coach do?

A sales coach uses data to monitor individual rep performance to identify areas for improvement and reinforce behaviors that lead to success. They also develop coaching initiatives that build confidence in reps by providing them with the tools and skills they need to succeed.

Most importantly, a sales coach creates an environment of success that empowers employees to feel as though they can grow, contribute to team success and take accountability for their performance. Becoming an effective sales coach comes from experience, but there are various sales coaching programs that can help you learn how to build successful teams that consistently meet and exceed quotas.

It’s important to note that a sales coach is focused on the individual development of a sales rep, which is what differentiates the role from a sales manager.

What doesn’t fall under the sales coaching umbrella?

• Telling salespeople exactly what to do (rather than giving them the end goal and letting them figure out the specifics).
• Giving the same advice to every single person.
• Ignoring individual motivators, strengths, and weaknesses.

Examples of Sales Coaching

To get a better sense of what sales coaching looks like, here are a few examples:

• Reviewing a call with a sales rep and discussing what went well and where they could improve.
• Offering inside sales training and tips.
• Reviewing remote selling techniques and tools.
• Scheduling weekly check-ins with reps to discuss objectives and areas of the sales process they’re less confident in.
• Shadowing or listening to a rep’s meeting or phone call with a prospect.
• Reviewing a rep’s email conversations with prospects throughout different points in the buyer’s journey.

Benefits of Sales Coaching

As highlighted in the introduction, sales coaching has a proven, positive impact on your bottom line. But win rates aren’t the only reason you should coach your sales reps.

1. Sales c

oaching improves employee retention rates.

Rep turnover is a notorious problem in sales. While burnout or a bigger salary elsewhere will always tempt some, professional development opportunities will motivate many others to stay. 9 in 10 employees say professional development is “important” or “very important,” and 4 in 10 specifically want in-house programs.

2. Sales c

oaching gives you an opportunity to share best practices.

When you notice one rep is using a strategy to great success, you can immediately teach the rest of your team to do the same thing, similar to how a HubSpot sales rep’s success with video prospecting spread throughout his team. Think of sales coaching as a rising tide that lifts all boats.

3. Sales c

oaching maximizes your investment in sales training.

Companies spend billions per year on sales training, but research shows most of the curriculum doesn’t stick. Effective sales training relies on consistent, long-term reinforcement — which the sales manager can achieve through sales coaching.

Sales Coaching Models

There are hundreds of different sales coaching models. Many managers are less than enthused about them — and it’s not too difficult to understand why.

Some coaching models are designed for any manager with reports, rather than a sales manager and their reps. But sales is an incredibly distinct profession. It requires a unique coaching model. If you’re considering a generic model, you’ll likely struggle trying to adapt it to your team.

Some models only work with specific methodologies. That can be frustrating if you don’t like the model you’re supposed to use. Luckily, you can always create a hybrid of your prescribed coaching model — one you’re more enthusiastic about.

And remember, some models are overly structured. Look for something flexible that you can use with different sales processes — that way, if you change your strategy, you won’t need a brand-new coaching model.

If you aren’t sure if a coaching model is a good fit, ask your team. Their feedback matters most; after all, they are the ones who should benefit. You might use an employee feedback tool, or conduct an internal survey, to get this information from your team.

Now that you have a better understanding of what sales coaching is and why it’s important, let’s look at some sales coaching techniques you can implement.

Sales Coaching Techniques

1. Use sales data.
2. Mix up your sales coaching style.
3. Get buy-in.
4. Leverage your best sales reps.

These commonly-used coaching techniques are applicable to all types of sales teams. Don’t be afraid to incorporate some (or all) of them on your team.

1. Use sales data.

It can be overwhelming to figure out what to focus on in terms of sales coaching — both team-wide and among individual reps. That’s where data comes into play. Rather than using your gut to guide you, use your HubSpot CRM and/or sales software to identify where your salespeople could improve.

Wondering what that might look like?

Keep track of conversion metrics on a monthly basis. If you notice deal velocity is increasing but close rates are decreasing, you should dig into your reps’ email-to-meeting, meeting-to-demo, and demo-to-close rates (or the applicable metrics for your sales process) to understand where they’re moving too fast.

You may also see many reps are skipping the discovery call and jumping straight to the demo, which saves time but leads to generic, low-value presentations … and, therefore, decreasing win rates.

In addition, compare each salesperson to their historical performance, the team’s average performance, and/or your top performers’ performances.

For example, let’s suppose your rep’s average deal size is $500. This quarter, their average was $300. Your best salespeople are averaging $600. With this context, it’s clear this rep needs help.

2. Mix up your sales coaching style.

Selling requires a variety of skills and techniques, so make sure your coaching incorporates multiple styles.

Director of Sales Enablement at Brainshark, Mike Kunkle, recommends varying between:

• Strategic coaching, or big-picture guidance, on topics like selling into a specific market, navigating a complex buying process, working with customer champions, etc.
• Tactical coaching, or nitty-gritty suggestions on starting a relationship, qualifying, etc.
• Specific skill coaching, or helping salespeople improve their communication, questioning strategies, rapport-building abilities, remote selling, etc.

3. Get buy-in.

What’s one of the worst ways to try to change a salesperson’s behavior? Tell them what to do.

Most salespeople are fairly independent — that’s why they’ve chosen to work in sales — and don’t respond well to being ordered around.

You’ll have far more success if you involve them in the improvement process. That means asking them how they think they performed, what they can do to get better, and which metrics will help them measure their progress.

4. Leverage your best sales reps.

Salespeople can learn just as much from each other as you. Use that to your advantage — if one person on the team is crushing it, ask them to share their learnings with everyone else.

To give you an idea, imagine two of your reps are getting great results from prospecting on LinkedIn (social selling is a highly-effective tactic, after all). Figure out what they’re doing differently. Are they sending a specific message? Targeting a specific set of users? Answering questions in specific groups?

These reps should give a presentation on their winning strategy — perhaps during your next team meeting. Your other salespeople will be eager to imitate them, and the group will potentially find an even more effective way to execute this play.

Let’s also take a look at the various tools that can help you manage all of these coaching tips and techniques more easily.

Sales Coaching Goals

It’s best to adapt your sales coaching goals to align with the specific needs of your business. For example, if your company aims to achieve 100,000 in revenue per quarter, you should adapt your coaching to drive reps to meet that goal.

However, here are some standard sales coaching goals and objectives that can relate to every company:

• Strengthen relationships with sales reps and create an environment of trust.
• Provide consistent and ongoing coaching and feedback to reps, so they understand their performance and are aware of areas that need improvement.
• Work with sales reps to develop the professional skills they need to succeed by providing them with the necessary tools and resources.
• Build confidence in reps and their ability to succeed by calling out behaviors that lead to success.
• Inspire reps to take responsibility and accountability for their sales performance.

Sales Coaching Desired Outcomes

Effective sales coaching inspires professional development and is the key to ensuring your business can reach its revenue goals. Specific outcomes can vary, but these are common desired outcomes of sales coaching:

• Sales reps are productive and successful independently, and guidance is only needed when data shows that performance is falling. However,
• Sales reps are accountable, take ownership of their daily activities, and know when to ask for help.
• Targets are consistently met and exceeded, and the business is on track to meet revenue goals.
• Pipelines are filled with qualified, relevant leads.
• Deals have a higher win rate.
• Sales cycle length is not too exhaustive.
• Retention rates for sales reps are high.

Sales Coaching Plan

As mentioned above, the sales coaching program that you design to lead your teams should depend on your business goals. However, there are a few key elements that should be present in every sales coaching plan.

1. Onboarding Plan: Let the reps know everything they need to know about joining your sales org, like a training schedule, key people to know, and required tools and resources that will help them succeed.

2. High-Level Goals: Outline what is expected of sales reps in their current position. This can be broken down in goals that are to be met monthly, quarterly, or after a determined period of days.

3. Check-in Schedule: Let reps know when you will be meeting with them to asses their progress towards meeting those goals.

While these are the most important aspects of your coaching plan, the sections you include should go in-depth and provide reps with as much information as possible. Below we’ll provide a sales coaching plan template that can be customized to meet your business needs and help you lead your teams to success.

Sales Coaching Plan Template

The following free template is a guide that will help you create personalized coaching plans for your reps that begin on day one and extend throughout the time they spend on your team.

You can create a 30/60/90 day plan in which you outline expectations and goals and create a check-in schedule to ensure reps are on track, allowing you to work with them to modify and improve upon behaviors that don’t contribute to success. The image below highlights a section of the goal template, where objectives are broken down month-to-month.

Create a Sales Coaching Plan with this Fillable Template

Sales Coaching Tools

1. Chorus.ai
2. Gong
3. HubSpot Sales Coaching for Managers
4. Showpad Coach
5. ExecVision

There are a number of tools you can use to improve and simplify your sales coaching techniques. These tools include software and educational resources you can use both individually or in combination with each other.

1. Chorus.ai

Chorus.ai provides a simple way for you to use sales enablement practices to coach and empower reps. You can build, implement, and measure the success of your sales coaching tactics to ensure you’re supporting your reps so they’re more likely to hit their goals.

The software’s AI capabilities simplify the creation of your coaching tactics and plans while pulling from real rep conversations, data, and interactions with leads and customers.

2. Gong

Gong provides a unique look into rep interactions with your customers by using the product’s conversation intelligence capabilities. As a sales manager, this feature will make it easy to identify and replicate the actions your best reps are taking as well as assist other reps in the areas they need support. You can review the conversations your reps have with your prospects and customers on the phone, email, or web conference.

3. HubSpot Sales Coaching for Managers

HubSpot Sales Coaching for Managers is a free program for sales managers to learn how to better coach and support reps. The lessons focus on the best ways to coach reps so they can hit their goals and so your team continues to excel and positively impact the business’s bottom line.

4. Showpad Coach

Showpad Coach, formerly known as LearnCore, is a sales coaching and training software. It allows you to organize and manage coaching (as well as onboarding and training) for each rep on your team.

The software offers features that allow you to review analytics related to each of your reps — this way, you identify which people need what type of support and coaching. You can also create and share coaching videos to customize and tailor the support you’re providing your reps with.

5. ExecVision

ExecVision is a conversation intelligence program ideal for coaching large teams of reps. The software makes it easy to assist your reps and focus on their specific areas for improvement by focusing on their behaviors.

The software allows you to easily identify coachable moments in every rep’s processes. It transcribes sales calls and highlights key moments in every rep’s workflow. Then, you can go in and coach the reps in the areas in which they need support.

Sales Coaching Tips

1. Focus on the middle 60%.
2. Share your vision.
3. Learn each salesperson’s drivers.
4. Use incentives effectively.
5. Give personal rewards.
6. Seek and experiment with new coaching practices and resources.
7. Prepare and practice with multiple coaching scenarios.
8. Leverage your entire sales team.
9. Have the hard conversations.
10. Provide more positive than negative feedback.

In addition to sales coaching techniques and tools, here are some all-encompassing tips to keep in mind as well. These tips will help you effectively coach reps to ensure your team is as productive as possible.

1. Focus on the middle 60%.

According to Brent Adamson and Matt Dixon, authors of The Challenger Sale, most sales managers tend to spend most of their energy coaching the “very best and very worst” salespeople on their team.

Managers feel compelled to help the bottom 20% to get their team to quota. They want to help the top 20% because it’s rewarding.

Consequently, the middle 60% gets the least amount of attention. But Adamson and Dixon explain “the real payoff from good coaching lies among … your core performers.”

After all, the worst-performing salespeople (who are consistently underperforming, that is) usually aren’t right for the role. You should replace them, not try to train them up.

And the stars on the team show little to no performance improvement from coaching. So when you’re thinking about which reps to focus your attention on, think of the middle of the pack.

2. Share your vision.

Sales reps want to feel as though they’re contributing to the company’s overall success. This is motivating and provides them with non-monetary fulfillment.

Come up with a mission for your team that goes beyond “Sell X amount of business.” This goal should be specific, actionable, and exciting — think “Break into A market,” “Become known internally for doing B,” or “Break the company record for C.”

Periodically throughout team meetings and one-on-ones, share the overall team’s progress toward this objective. You should also point out the people who have made significant contributions in doing so. For example, you might say, “I want to recognize Joella for landing a huge new corporate account, which will definitely increase our visibility in that market.”

3. Learn each salesperson’s drivers.

Everyone is motivated by different things. Even if the majority of your reps are motivated by making money, their specific financial goals probably vary widely. One salesperson might be paying off their student loans, while another may be saving up for a house. Some salespeople are primarily in sales because they love autonomy.

To identify how you can engage your reps, former HubSpot Executive Dan Tyre recommends asking what they want to accomplish in both their personal and professional lives.

“This will not only show you the type of person they are, but also give you insight into what things will motivate them the most,” he explains. Tyre asks these questions:

• Are you motivated right now?
• What motivates you long-term?
• What can you do to motivate yourself?
• How will I know if you are not motivated?
• What do you want me to do if you don’t appear motivated?

Having these insights will allow you to tailor your coaching style to each sales rep and their personal visions.

4. Use incentives effectively.

Sales contests and incentives should change behaviors, not reinforce existing ones. That’s why offering $100 to the first rep to make a sale that day probably isn’t helpful.

Figure out what your salespeople aren’t doing that you’d like them to — and design your contest around that action.

To illustrate, maybe your reps are focusing too heavily on product A because it requires less technical knowledge than product B. You might give a bonus to every salesperson who sells more than X units of product B.

5. Give personal rewards.

Individual prizes should be tied to a specific rep’s goals. For example, if a rep is working on increasing their call-to-meetings rate, you might say you’ll take them to a nice lunch once they improve by X%.

Not sure what to offer as a prize? Here’s where knowing every salesperson’s motivators is handy. You can also directly ask them, “What can I give you as a prize for achieving [objective]?”

6. Seek and experiment with new coaching practices and resources.

There are many sales coaching techniques and tools available today — don’t be afraid to experiment with them. Every team and individual are different — meaning, no sales coaching techniques are always going to be one-size-fits-all.

Learn about what’s going to work best for your reps and their needs and ask each rep for their feedback on your coaching style in your one-on-one meetings. Then, stick with these tactics until you reach a point in time when you need to reevaluate their effectiveness and impact.

7. Prepare and practice with multiple coaching scenarios.

As a sales manager, it’s your job to prepare and practice with multiple coaching scenarios. Your team is bound to evolve and the people on it are going to change (in terms of their skillset but also rep turnover).

Stay efficient and effective in regards to coaching by preparing for different scenarios — this way, you’ll be ready to assist and teach reps with different needs and areas for improvement at any point in time.

Additionally, you might notice you have several people who need the same type of coaching in a specific problem area. In this case, you can prepare with training and information around that topic and share it among the group.

Or, if one rep is struggling in a specific area, you may have a prepared outline of a plan you can then tailor towards their needs — then, you can use it again in the future with another rep.

8. Leverage your entire sales team.

Some sales reps learn by example, which is why it may be valuable to leverage other members of your sales team (perhaps to top 20%). Schedule some shadowing sessions during which the reps who you’re coaching can listen in on a few successful sales calls (or sales call recordings). Afterwards, debrief with your reps and break down why the calls were so successful, what could be improved, and how each rep would’ve handled the calls themselves.

Moreover, ask the more successful members of your team what helps them during their calls and consider providing similar resources or encouragement to those reps with room for improvement.

9. Have the hard conversations.

Many sales reps struggle to meet their potential because of the inevitable prospect push-back … and the dreaded word, No. But most reps work their way through this discomfort with practice.

With the sales reps you’re coaching, role play some uncomfortable scenarios and hard conversations, practicing some common objections. Once reps get more comfortable hearing those objections and responding accordingly, they’ll be better equipped to face them on real sales calls.

10. Provide more positive than negative feedback.

For as many pieces of constructive criticism you provide to your sales reps, give twice as much positive reinforcement. Not only does this help maintain morale, but it also allows sales reps to recognize what they’re doing right — and hopefully encourages them to repeat and build on that behavior.

Put Me In, (Sales) Coach

Sales coaching is both an art and a science. It’s one of — if not the — most important components of sales management. Do it well, and your team’s results will speak for you. So, begin incorporating the various sales coaching techniques, tools, and tips to help your team close more deals, boost revenue, surpass quota, and grow better.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in August 2017 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

90,000 best exercises for teenagers – Moscow 24, 09.12.2014

Photo: TASS / Andrey Kholmov

Many teenagers dream of relief muscles, but do not know which exercises to start with. What beginners need to know, says Eduard Kanevsky, a member of the Association of Fitness Professionals, TV presenter.

Before plunging into the world of physical education, let’s define what a healthy lifestyle is?

A healthy lifestyle means regular exercise, a balanced diet, long sleep and rest, and no bad habits.These are, of course, ideal conditions, like those of Buddhist monks, in reality it is very difficult to observe them, but it is quite possible to adhere to the basics.

Let’s start with training. For a teenager, there is nothing better than running. While running, the heart and lungs work and develop perfectly, endurance increases and subcutaneous fat burns, if one of the boys and girls managed to acquire it, eating in various eateries. If you don’t like running, then any team sport from football to water polo will perfectly replace it.Cycling or rollerblading is great in summer, and cross-country skiing in winter. The main thing is to actively move at least three times a week.

Photo: M24.ru

Many young men dream of big and strong muscles and in pursuit of them too early begin to swing on their own both at home and in the gym of a school or lyceum. Indeed, exercising in the gym creates the conditions for muscle growth, but for teens under 16, they can be dangerous.Those who started attending the gym early often have serious injuries to the back, knees, shoulder joints, as well as a hernia of the abdomen and even diastasis (stretching of the rectus abdominis muscle, which visually looks like a fat belly). As our grandmothers used to say, the navel was untied. Everything has its time: while a young person’s skeleton is growing, it is almost impossible to gain muscle mass, moreover, classes in the gym can slow down growth.

It is worth starting to practice on good old bars or a horizontal bar.Moreover, training on them can be turned into a real sport. No wonder there is such a direction as “turnstiles”. They are, of course, not gymnasts, but their figures are superbly developed, they have good health, without spending a huge amount of time on it. On the horizontal bar, you can not only pull yourself up with different grips, but also master the “pulling out by force” and lifting-overturn. When exercising on the horizontal bar, the muscles of the arms, shoulder girdle and back work, and when lifting the legs, the muscles of the abdomen. Various options for push-ups on the uneven bars strengthen the pectoral muscles and arms, and if you add push-ups from the floor, you get a good, varied workout that develops almost all muscle groups.

Photo: M24.ru

Related links

Those who are over 16 years old need to remember the basic rules:

• First, you need to work out the technique of performing one or another exercise to automatism. To do this, you need to contact the coach;
• Secondly, you should not chase the result, even if everything turns out well. It is better to consolidate the result obtained at each next workout and only then improve it. This will save beginners from possible injuries;
• thirdly, it is imperative to monitor your diet: it is important to eat two hours before training, ideally porridge or muesli, and after classes have a snack for forty minutes to close the so-called “protein-carbohydrate window”, that is, the time when the nutrients obtained by the body will be used to restore the energy expended by the body.

The rule “don’t eat two hours after training” when building up muscles is irrelevant. Eat plenty of protein. It is best to do this four to five times a day. Protein is found in any type of fish / poultry / meat or fermented milk products, especially cottage cheese.

And do not get carried away with sports nutrition. For beginners, it is frankly useless. In addition, these supplements cannot be substitutes for normal foods, but are an addition to the diet, provided that it is really necessary.

Eduard Kanevsky

90,000 Lose weight without hunger and counting calories: 10 simple tips

The way to lose weight is difficult for everyone in their own way. It is easy for someone to rebuild their diet and lifestyle in general, while others have difficulty performing simple exercises. Any fitness trainer will tell you that it is impossible to get rid of extra pounds without proper nutrition and physical activity. But there are many “buts”. Each has its own characteristics of the figure, its flaws and problem areas.Therefore, the most safe option would be a special program designed for your parameters.

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Weight loss is one of the best investments you can make in yourself. Your overall health depends on a comfortable weight. Weight affects almost every aspect of our body. Skeleton, organs, spirit, energy, sleep, relationships and more. Let’s start recovery from the inside out.

Alla Shtatura is a certified instructor in the field of personal training and proper nutrition for over 8 years, a multiple winner of the International Federation of Bodybuilding.From his own experience, he knows that results can be achieved only by first changing yourself and your approach to sports and nutrition.

Alla Shtatura (center) took 1st place in the competition

“First, I ask the client everything about his habits, his diet, lifestyle. It is important to find out how a person lives, because all this affects the result. And contraindications are important. Each has its own characteristics. When it comes to losing weight and maintaining weight, what works best for your girlfriend may not work for you.Individual genetics play an important role in how each of us responds to diet or maintain a healthy weight. Our genes influence how we metabolize various foods, predispose us to food sensitivities and allergies, and influence our individual risks of obesity. But if you do not map your diet, the key to determining the right nutrition for you begins with understanding how your body reacts to various foods and how your weight and other health indicators affect, for better or for worse, “Alla explained.

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She noted that many women want pumped gluteal muscles, abs, thin waist and beautiful arms.

“We are starting from this. I am building a training program and a nutritional complex. If a person wants to lose weight as quickly as possible, there are several ways. One of them is to do exercises with supersets. These are two exercises in a row without rest. You can alternate between different muscle groups, if the client is a novice and has never been engaged before at all – it will be easier this way. And who is more experienced, more prepared – it is possible for the same muscle group in order to maximize the load on a certain muscle, ”shared Alla Shtatura.

Alla Shtatura (center)

The trainer noted that proper nutrition is not a diet. She does not support those who decide to lose weight through diets and is sure that this is a big mistake.

“Proper nutrition is a way of life. Diet is for a while. Then, when a person leaves it, the opposite effect begins – you want to eat everything that was missing. I am for a balanced diet, without any breakdowns. The purer the food, the faster the result. This is unambiguously verified.You can train at least every day, but at the same time do not observe nutrition – there will be no result. It is important to combine proper nutrition and exercise. Then there can be quick results in 10 days. But based on the initial data of clients: metabolism, age, eating habits. Everything is individual. A quick result may be, the main thing is the approach, ”said Alla Shtatura.

She shared simple tips for losing weight that do not require much effort and cost:

• active lifestyle (more movement, less sitting position, especially those who work in the office at the computer)
• exclude fried and sweet food, bakery products
• change the processing of products: replace fried food with baked, boiled and steam
• remove sugar, replace it with fruit, dried fruit
• remove bread or replace with yeast-free bread
• remove sweet carbonated drinks, juices packaged

According to a fitness trainer, if you follow these simple tips, you will soon see noticeable results.

Alla also spoke about the importance of sleep and morning exercises.

“I would advise you to wake up early. Our body starts to work as soon as we wake up. It is important to do a short warm-up in the morning. Ideally, a run. At least half an hour, when the weather permits. This is very useful and necessary. Then take a shower, ideally a contrasting one, if there are no contraindications. Try to temper your body and body. Then drink a glass of water, or two, on an empty stomach before breakfast for half an hour.This way we will cleanse our intestines. These are elementary rules. Ideally, standing for a minute in the morning in the plank is a very effective exercise for losing weight, which tones the muscles and does not take much time. It is important not only to get up early, but also to go to bed on time, no later than 12 at night. This also affects the recovery of the body and the body, ”the trainer shared.

Let’s first look at why this principle is needed

Getting all the nutrients it needs is important for the whole body to function well.And in many respects it depends not only on the quality of nutrition, but also on the normal functioning of the gastrointestinal tract. Eating only one protein or drastically cutting back on carbohydrates, we shock our intestines. Many necessary substances simply “fly by” without being absorbed in the body.
In order for proteins to be well absorbed, fiber from vegetables is needed. And to stay productive throughout the day, it’s not enough to eat oatmeal for breakfast – we need complex carbohydrates all day. Therefore, adherents of the “plate” principle urge to eat proteins, carbohydrates and fiber at every meal.

This goes against some popular beliefs about diet, but helps to avoid a sharp bias in different meals when we eat, for example, carbohydrates only in the morning, and only proteins in the evening. The intestines are not happy with such a “swing”.

What to do if not counting calories?

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Good afternoon!

I have already published an article in which I shared with you a terrible secret: it turns out that counting calories in food is not only not fashionable, but also generally useless.This system does not work for humanity.

What then should those who want to either lose weight or stay in shape do?

I decided not to torment you with a long wait. I share the techniques that I successfully apply on myself and on my clients.

You will not hear any advice “Do not eat” from me. You will be surprised, but even such a cardinal decision how to stop “eating” does not work for all . Isn’t this just another proof that calorie counting is a disastrous and boring business? Of course, if you starve for a long time and stubbornly, then the body will eventually surrender all reserves.But this has nothing to do with a healthy lifestyle.

Here are some of the most effective methods for maintaining and correcting weight without counting food calories.

Method one: dividing products on a plate into categories

I wrote about it in great detail here . Now, let’s add a few details.

According to this method, all products are divided into 4 categories: proteins, vegetables and fruits (with a predominance of vegetables), cereals (and other fast carbohydrates), fats.Let me remind you that in the basic division, the ratio should be as follows:

50% – vegetables (and fruits, but with a predominance of the former)

25% – cereals (this also includes potatoes and other starchy vegetables)

25 % – proteins and fats

This scheme is intended for those who DO NOT need to lose weight, but just need to maintain their current weight and shape.

For those who want to lose weight, the proportions of food on the plate need to be slightly adjusted:

50% – vegetables (and fruits, but with a predominance of the former)

20% – proteins

15 % – cereals

15% – fats (good quality!)

As you can see, we have reduced the proportion of cereals by increasing proteins and fats.For details on how to apply the model in practice and which products to include where – in article about the separation of the plate.

Method two: limiting or excluding sweets from the diet.

Describing the model of dividing the plate into food products, I completely missed such products as soda, sweets, honey, cakes and cakes, chocolate … I was so carried away by healthy eating that I simply lost touch with reality. After all, many of us just gained weight, because we overdid it with these delicious harmfulness.

It is better to exclude these products altogether. At least until the desired weight is reached. With all the usefulness of honey, you can live without it.

If you don’t have the strength to give up sweets, then you have as many as 3 ways :

• Allow yourself these products occasionally, given that these are FAST (I would even say “instant”) carbohydrates. This, of course, is not cereal. But it is to this category of products that we attribute sweets. Therefore, after eating a chocolate bar, do not forget to exclude a piece of bread or rice from your lunch.
• Read 2 of my posts about giving up sugar and about its negative impact. There are also some recipes for sweets without sugar! If the information impresses you, then you can move on to the 3rd path.

• We turn to the third secret (which, in my opinion, is not a secret at all – we all know about it, but our drug-sugar-dependent brain prefers to “forget” about it all the time):

Choose foods with a high NUTRITIONAL value.

What does this mean?

Almost the same as the principle of tray separation. Eat as much VEGETABLES, nuts, cold-pressed vegetable oils, fruits, and good quality protein foods as much as possible. Those. your diet should be dominated by fresh products. It is even better if they are made at home .

Why do we eat? Besides pleasure, we need food to keep us alive. First of all, it is for life, and only then for pleasure.

Why do people gain unnecessary weight and get sick (even without excess weight)? Because , the priorities of were skewed in our brains: pleasure comes first, costs second (time spent on cooking, money for food), and somewhere at the very end of the list there is modest support for life. In a society where food is stuffed with sugar, salt and fat (not of the best quality), it is difficult not to become addicted. So we prefer the cake to the vegetable salad.

Very often I see (especially on trips to the Motherland) how slender girls eat cake and drink cappuccino at supper … INSTEAD of supper.Yes, it is tasty. And the body forgives us such tricks because of its youth. And then it starts, closer to 30: it hurts, it hurts, thrush, problems with conception, problems with skin, weight, etc.

If you eat a sufficient amount of vegetables and fruits with nuts, then your appetite will SIGNIFICANTLY decrease. A much smaller portion will be enough for you! I noticed that the green cocktail with avocado, parsley and celery satiates me better than any scrambled eggs or porridge. Why? The body has received its dose of vitamins and fiber, and now it is enough.

If I eat a roll with cheese and jam for breakfast, then in 2 hours, if not earlier, I will be hungry again. Because, firstly, there are few vitamins and fiber in a bun with cheese and jam. And secondly, such food causes a jump in blood sugar: at first, sugar rises sharply, and then drops sharply. Moreover, not only will I be hungry, but also tired.

The same happens when you eat ALL fast carbohydrates, no matter how useful they are: cereals, bread, sweets (including dried fruits).

Therefore, before you eat something, do not count the calories in food, but just think – how much is this product useful?

And the last (for today) secret: drink more water!

It’s that simple! Sometimes I notice for myself that, despite all the healthy foods I have eaten, I still want to eat. Not that my stomach was rumbling, or that it was really hunger. But a certain dissatisfaction is felt. And I drink a large glass of clean water. No tea, no juice.Precisely water. And the “hunger” goes away. If you are not used to drinking water, then the practical advice HOW to do it is to eat here.

There are many more healthy eating tricks, but they cannot be accommodated in one post. But the above methods are the main ones.

I really hope that you will try them and be happy with the result! Good health to you!

Source: author’s blog (nutritionist-nutritionist, functional medicine therapist, Denmark)

Now let’s take a closer look at each part

Vegetables

It turns out that half of the diet consists of vegetables.They are low in calories and rich in vitamins. And most importantly, they contain fiber, which is essential for the health of the digestive tract. Fiber also helps weight loss by removing toxins from the body. Paradoxically, it is fiber that is most often lacking in modern people.

Vegetables in almost any form are appropriate on our plate – except fried in oil. That is, it can be slices and salads from fresh vegetables, stewed, boiled, steam or grilled.

There is an exception here – potatoes and legumes.Potatoes are high in carbohydrates, and legumes are on the protein side of the plate.

Greens are also vegetables, so decorate your dishes generously with parsley – this makes the plate look more appetizing.

Proteins

These are building materials for our muscles. They are needed even if you are not building muscle.

Here you can place meat (preferably white), fish and seafood, eggs and cottage cheese. Vegetarians can safely place legumes and soy products.

Carbohydrates

These are the fuel for our lives at all levels.Complex carbohydrates take longer to digest and provide the necessary energy gradually – this time is just enough before the next meal.

Place on this part of the plate various ready-made cereals (buckwheat, rice, bulgur), durum wheat pasta, whole grain bread or potatoes (boiled or baked).

The path to the ideal figure

I seriously thought about the figure at 18 years old. Then a young man took me to the gym for the first time, where I just fell in love with strength training.My weight was about 60 kg (now I weigh about the same, and this is muscle mass), but there were problem areas in the abdomen, legs, hips. Initially, I only wanted to “pull iron”, I was engaged in some basement rocking chairs, in the sports section of powerlifting. After a year of training, she participated in the amateur armwrestling championship. Being 100% confident in myself, I did not even think that I would leave there with a difficult fracture. I remember hearing the crunch and just thinking: “How can I learn to pull myself up now?” Then I was diagnosed with a fracture requiring surgery.I spent a month in the hospital. It took over a year to recover. But I set aside time every day to develop my hand.

A year later, I began to gain kilograms – future muscles. Then the Internet was already full of unstructured information. Initially, I thought: in order to gain muscle mass, you need a lot of fat.

Stopped at 75, realizing that it was overkill. At the same time, the realization came that training is not a sport, but regular fitness, which keeps the body in good shape and forms a relief.It took 5 months to lose weight. I started eating a calorie deficit and exercising four times a week (strength training). Nutrition is hyperimportant, but I have never encouraged girls to limit themselves in food. Many people find it difficult to believe that you can eat everything. For example, for breakfast I like bread with cheese, milk, banana. For lunch – vegetables with a side dish of legumes or any cereals and a proteinaceous meat or fish dish. For dinner – cottage cheese with honey and vegetable salad with vegetable oil. Snacks are a must. It can be an apple, dark chocolate, nuts.It was important for me that the result was a daily calorie intake of 1700. For comparison: before losing weight, I consumed 3000 kcal per day.

Three months later I weighed 68 kg and went to Paul Dance class. The arm was still not fully unbendable then, it was difficult to hold on even in a simple support. But I still tried to come to training twice a week. After another month and a half, I achieved the desired result and began to receive the first compliments about my figure.

Now the body looks very different.For 4 years now I have been maintaining my figure, not striving to gain muscle mass or pump up an incredible number of “cubes”. I would like to have the same relief until I am 60-70 years old. I practice three to four times a week. This can be strength training and group training, which I do in the gym. By the way, about work. At the age of 18 I was studying and did not know what I would do. When fitness appeared in my life, I realized that it could become my favorite job.

Personal experience

During the preparation of the article, I ate on this principle for a little less than a week (namely, from Monday to Friday).For breakfast I ate the usual sandwiches with coffee. But lunches and dinners were organized according to the principle of “plates”. In between, sometimes there were snacks in the form of sour milk and fruits.

5 days of such nutrition – and now the scales are already minus 1 kg.

I did not set any special goals for this experiment, but 1 kg per week is a good, and most importantly, healthy result.

And what about your health?

Everything is fine! Have you noticed that sometimes in the evening you get the feeling that you immediately want to eat something specific, or in general “you want something, but I don’t know what”? So in eating according to the principle of the “plate” such a feeling does not arise.There is no feeling of hunger during the day either. It can be concluded that the body has received all the necessary nutrients and trace elements.

Following this “diet” for another week, I noticed that the craving for sweets was also disappearing.

For the same reason – the body gets everything it needs from our plate, the need for fast carbohydrates (that is, sugar) is completely eliminated.

How does it work in practice?

The intuitive approach is not yet very common in Russia. But its effectiveness can be easily traced in the example of an experiment that was carried out in England.It was attended by children who were divided into two groups. The first one was fed according to all the standard rules: calorie calculation, meals on a schedule, adherence to the ratio of proteins, fats and carbohydrates.

In the second group, children could easily take any food from the table at any time. Of course, no fries or hamburgers could be found on it. But everything needed was present: fruits, vegetables, eggs, cereals, nuts, meat and other products.

Photo: istockphoto.com

As a result, there was no deficiency in the second group of children: vitamins, minerals and other important parameters were normal.But half of the children from the first seemingly “correct” group had certain deviations.

The expert explains the resulting result by the fact that children still know how to really listen to themselves, their bodies are not clogged with an abundance of refined and artificial products. That is why such a pure organism gives the right hints.

Helpful nutritional advice from fitness trainer

Change yourself in one year

On September 1, the first reality project was launched in Vladivostok, which is aimed at promoting a healthy lifestyle and sports.For a certain time, the correspondent of RIA VladNews must change his life.

Not every person can independently make up a nutrition program that would fit a certain rhythm of life. Let me remind you that a week ago I tried to compose a diet on my own by researching articles on the Internet.

Now the trainer of the fitness club Elena Vinogradova has given me all the meals. It is worth noting that Elena herself adheres to such a program.

Breakfast:
In the morning on an empty stomach – 1 glass of clean water.And only after 20-30 minutes – breakfast:

1. Complex carbohydrates: various cereals (buckwheat, millet, wheat, oatmeal, except semolina). On water or low-fat milk (1% -2.5%). You can add 2-3 nuts, dried apricots, berries, prunes, apples, pears or other dried fruits and vegetables.

Serving: 3-4 tablespoons of porridge!

2. Protein breakfast: cottage cheese (no more than 9%, then it will seem fat), sour cream 1 teaspoon – no more than 10% fat! Or a little kefir is better so that the cottage cheese is not dry.You can also add fruits / dried fruits and get a curd mass. SUGARLESS! You can add 1-2 teaspoons of honey.

3. Protein breakfast: Omelet on water / scrambled eggs without oil on water. Excellent and tasty. You can add a little salt. But gradually the body will begin to grow out of the habit of salt.

4. “Hearty breakfast”. If after waking up and a glass of water you want to eat, this means that there really is hunger. Breakfast is a very important meal, the most important one, so it should NOT be skipped.You can also eat meat (lean, for example, chicken breast with vegetables) or something else.

Drinking at Breakfast:
– Since childhood, we have been taught to drink with food. But I have not done this for a long time, I try to drink at least 30 minutes after eating and I feel great. You don’t have to push anything! – advised Elena Vinogradova.

Coffee lovers do not have to give up an invigorating drink, but coffee should only be natural: espresso WITHOUT SUGAR and MILK.It is important to feel the aroma of natural coffee! Tea also needs to be drunk natural WITHOUT SUGAR AND HONEY.

“Right Snacks” / Water
As a rule, 2-3 hours after the main meals, in order to understand whether you are really hungry, it is enough to drink 1-2 glasses of purified water.

Snacks can be very diverse: vegetable salad, fruits, bread with low-fat cheese (15-25%), cottage cheese, nuts (but no more than 10 pieces per day, since nuts contain a high content of fatty acids).

On proper nutrition, you should exclude sugar, white bread from your diet, and then you will notice that after two weeks extra pounds begin to go away. Snacks are best done two to three hours after the main meals and to understand if you are really hungry, it is enough to drink 1-2 glasses of purified water.
Servings: Eat 5-6 times a day in small portions. The body should start the metabolic process, that is, the food received should not be deposited in fat, but should be processed for spent energy during the day.

In addition to proper nutrition, regular exercise in the gym, outdoor sports, running, swimming, etc. will help improve metabolism. But more on that in the next blog!

Spices: Only natural spices should be added: onions, herbs (dill, parsley, etc.).
We pay attention to the composition of the products! Very often on the front of the packaging of this or that product, in order to attract attention, it is written in large letters about the naturalness of the product, but when you start to carefully read the composition, you can argue about its naturalness.The composition contains salt, sugar, but the worst of all are dyes and flavor enhancers.
Lunch: At lunchtime, we combine protein (chicken breast, fish, lean meat) with “healthy” or “right” carbohydrates (brown rice, durum pasta, buckwheat) and fiber (salads WITHOUT MAYONNAISE, you can add olive oil, balsamic vinegar).

Dinner:
“Full dinner”

– There is an opinion that in order to lose weight you should never eat after 18 hours.I want to please you that this is an erroneous opinion and it is not only possible, but also necessary to have supper. The ideal food combination for dinner is protein and fiber. Fish, lean meat (beef, veal), chicken breast, steamed, grilled or in the oven and vegetable salads with the addition of olive oil will make your dinner not only healthy, but also very tasty, – said Elena.

Three hours before bedtime, you can also have a light snack, but the main thing is not to pass on and not gorge.

Elena Vinogradova – licensed instructor of Zumba-fitness, trainer of the fitness club “Fitness Geometry”, author of the project “Slim with a trainer”

So, I can honestly say that a glass of water can really help determine the feeling of hunger.In the morning, oatmeal is not only healthy, but also very nutritious. It’s also delicious, especially if you add fruit to it.

My snacks are also fruit – healthy and tasty!

For lunch this week I tried to make a vegetable casserole (a blog with recipes will come later), it turned out that giving up the sauces that we are so used to is hard, salt and sugar are easier.

Dinner. Problems do arise with dinner. Either I refuse to eat at all, or the meal comes quite late.Let’s see what happens after a regular sport appears in my life in the evening.

Health is the main path to success. Go in for sports and take care of your health!

90,000 Top 25 Tips from Swimming Coaches

Have you just started going to the pool or have you been training for a long time? For swimmers, we’ve compiled 25 of the best tips from American swim coaches.They will tell you what to do and how to do it right!

Avoid comparisons

The first rule of swimming is that there is no “right” way to swim. Just as everyone runs differently, everyone swims differently. “All good swimmers build on perfect stroke technique but incorporate their own moves,” says Jamie Baron, director of aquatic sports at Chelsea Piers. And he adds: “You should try to use the ideal technique in the way that physiology will allow you.”This means that you do not need to compare yourself with the person floating on the next path.

Make it a habit

“Going to the pool once or twice a week is a great way to get nowhere,” says Jamie Baron. “If you don’t invest your time, don’t expect results.” New to swimming and excited? The only way to overcome your fear is to make you feel comfortable in your new environment. “This process will be greatly accelerated if you go to the pool more often.Four 30-minute workouts are better than one 2-hour workout, ”says Jamie Baron.

Invest in good inventory

“Find the perfect goggles,” says Robert Pennino, swim coach at the renowned Equinox fitness club and founder of the Terrier Tri triathletes club. Each person has their own facial structure, so take the time to try on different glasses and choose the one that suits you best.

Come to the pool without cosmetics

The next tip will be relevant for girls: we will talk about hair and care products for them.If you apply conditioner, balm or mask to your hair before entering the pool, chances are that the silicone cap will slip through your hair and, as a result, fly off during the swim. To prevent this from happening, you can pick up a hat made of another material (for example, fabric or combined). Swimming coach at the renowned Equinox fitness club, Robert Pennino, advises using hair conditioner after going to the pool, not before exercising.

Don’t forget to drink

When exercising in the pool, the body loses moisture, as during other physical activities, but it is more difficult to notice this.Therefore, it is easy to forget about replenishing the water balance. Fluids are essential for good performance. “Keep a bottle of water on the side of the pool and drink a little during your workout,” says Robert Pennino.

Develop Flexibility

For you to achieve good stroke technique, speed and efficiency, your body must be able to flex, twist and stretch with each stroke. “Otherwise, you will look and move like a snake in water, not like a fish,” says Paula Newby Fraser, 8-time Ironman World Champion.Stretching for 5 minutes before entering the water lengthens muscle fibers and improves blood circulation. Earlier in our article, we talked in detail about the warm-up before swimming.

Straighten up

You probably know that your body should look like a straight line in the water. Are you straightened up? Truth? “The straighter you are in the water, the less resistance you create and the easier it will be for you to paddle,” says Amanda Elizabeth Sawyer, trainer at the Health and Racquet Club in New York.”This is especially important in open water, where there are many more unpredictable moments such as waves, currents, other swimmers and aquatic life.”

Blow Bubbles

Sounds childlike, but blowing bubbles is an important exercise. “Your head should be submerged in water, exhale through your mouth, your goal is a long chain of bubbles,” says Ellis Peters, trainer at the famous American fitness club Equinox. “Say” Hmm “when you exhale. The presence of sound is an audio confirmation that there is still air in your lungs. “

Look Down

What is the best way to learn to breathe correctly? “Look down – I mean the bottom of the pool – when you exhale,” says Amanda Elizabeth Sawyer. “By being face down, you keep your body erect.”

Keep your head above the water

You do not need to keep your entire face above the water to breathe freestyle. “Keep your head in a neutral position while swimming and turn it just to breathe.It’s important not to lose momentum, ”says Sara Borell, a top-notch triathlon and swimming coach in the Masters category.

Minimize head movements

Move your head only when necessary (namely, to breathe). The more head movements you make, the less they are directed clearly forward. Amedeo Pablo Olivares, trainer at New York’s Health and Racquet Club and operating director at the Pinero Swim Club, advises thinking of your head as the steering wheel in a car – where it goes, your body goes, so keep it straight.

Focus

In the water you cannot look around, hear, talk – you can only get everything out of your head. Thinking about something negative can cause you to panic. “So just breathe,” says Laura Kozik, instructor at Equinox Fitness Club and creator of the New York women’s triathlon team Team Lipstick. “Focus on your good shape, focus on your breathing and focus on turning your body into a car … preferably a Ferrari.”

Practice swimming on both sides

“The shortest path between two points is a straight line. Swim straight, developing a balanced technique on both sides of the body, ”says Laura Kozik. She suggests trying one-arm exercises to develop both the right and left: stretch your arm out in front of you and hold it in that position while you stroke the other arm along the entire length of the pool. “You will also learn how to breathe correctly on both sides,” adds Laura Kozik.”After all, you can only turn to inhale in the direction of the hand that is currently working.”

Shoulders down, hips up!

“Believe it or not, the most important part of swimming is what happens between your thighs and the crown of your head,” says Misty Hyman, who won the 2000 Olympic gold medal in the 200m butterfly and is currently training other swimmers. To keep your hips higher in the water (which allows you to breathe more freely), make sure your head is in a neutral position (neck is long, straight) and your eyes are pointing down.Keep your torso straight and tilt your upper torso slightly towards the bottom. This will help keep your hips higher.

Arms must be long

Rowing and backstroke requires the swimmer to rotate both shoulders and hips at the same time. The leading hand reaches forward while the other grabs the water and moves along the hips back. What is the key to creating this efficient, coordinated movement? “Long arms, long strokes and maximum pivots should be the focus,” says Ellis Peters.Extend your arm fully at the beginning of the pull motion and again at the end. Your shoulders and hips will unroll at the same time.

Longer stroke

“Many people who swim for themselves do not increase their stroke length, although this is probably the most important detail in swimming,” says Radenko Miskovich, elite personal trainer at Chelsea Piers NYC Fitness Club. Longer strokes result in maximum speed with minimum energy consumption.To improve your stroke, Radenko Miskovich suggests trying freestyle with straight arms. Hint: Imagine trying to pick apples from a tree directly above you, twisting your hips to reach as many as possible.

Protect your shoulders

Shoulder injuries are very common among swimmers. “When swimming freestyle, make sure your fingertips enter the water first with every stroke,” says Sarah Borell, a top-class swimming and triathlon coach in the Masters category.Avoid entering your thumb first as this can put too much stress on your shoulder.

Draw line

To move faster, focus on moving your arm straight back as you twist your shoulders and inhale. “Your arms should not cross the center line of your body in any of the stroke phases,” says Amedeo Pablo Olivares.

Increase speed

Swimming for short distances at a slow pace is not very helpful if you want to get better and faster.Instead, Radenko Miskovich recommends adding sprint to your workout routine – swim at maximum speed for 12 seconds or less, then recover. Divide the pool into swimming zones with varying intensities. Experiment to find your top speed.

Push yourself to the next rung

“Legs are the largest muscle group in our body and they require the most oxygen. Working on the legs is vital for the swimmer, ”says Paula Newby Fraser.She recommends adding a 180-meter swimboard exercise to your warm-up.

Foot movement – whip

“When it comes to footwork, it’s very easy to overdo it. It can be tedious and much less effective than a push that looks like a whip, ”says Misty Hyman. Imagine wanting to pour something out of your fingertips. The movement of the whip begins at the hip, then the glutes and hamstrings come into play to lift the leg up.“You should feel like you’re getting a boost from both the downward and upward movement of your leg,” says Misty Hyman. “If you do everything right, your knees will not stay directly opposite each other – they will move vertically in a scissor fashion.”

Pull Socks

Keep your socks stretched out! “It makes you feel more focused,” says Maria Compos, personal trainer at New York’s Health and Racquet Club. “When you don’t pull your toe, your legs and lower body work against the water, slowing you down.”

Swim from the hip

Do not bend your knee – think about the whole leg taking part in the clean and jerk. “The push from the hip is the opposite of the push from the knee,” says Maria Compos. “Bending the knee creates resistance, while relatively straight legs allow you to move with less effort. You are using other muscles such as the thighs and glutes, not just the quads. ”

Make turns perfect

If you do your turns correctly, they will help you take your swimming technique (and competition) to the next level.“You have to control the distance to the side to do the flips in a timely manner. A strong and correct push can give you the edge and help you catch up, ”says Gregory Kinchelo, head swimming coach at the Athletic Club in New York.

Hold breath

The finishing spurt can change everything during a competitive swim. Gregory Kinchelo recommends not taking a breath in the last 5 meters to the finish, even if you think it is necessary.Instead, focus on touching the rim as quickly as possible. When you’re done, you can breathe.

Share in the comments which of these tips you found the most important and interesting. Or perhaps you have already come to some of these truths yourself in the course of a long practice of training – what became the most effective for you?

90,000 The Right Training Approach: Top Coach Tips

How and how much do you need to do to have a result?

When you just start exercising, a lot depends on the percentage of muscle mass and the condition of the muscles.It happens that a person comes to training for the first time, and he succeeds on the first try, there are no problems with either technique or endurance. This option is possible in the case of a sports past (dancing in childhood, martial arts, playing sports).

In childhood, it is easier to develop the ability to feel your body, mastery of muscles. Such people look at the exercise and immediately, perhaps even unconsciously, determine where to pull which thread to repeat the movement. If a person does not have such skills, there will be difficulties in technique, it will be necessary to learn how to control the movement of muscles and joints.Over time, the technique comes back to normal, you cannot rush in such cases. Joints and ligaments in people who have no training experience need to be strengthened. The chain is closed when the ligaments are strengthened and the technique becomes correct, the need to tensely control every centimeter of movement disappears.

There are litmus exercises that help determine your level of fitness. The main basic exercise is squats. The correct position of the back while squatting is a slight forward bend, the knees do not go beyond the projection of the toes, the emphasis on the heels.If the heels come off the floor or the knees fall inward – you need to work on the technique and it is still a long way to squatting with weights.

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The more muscle mass a person has, the less time he needs to achieve a result. Accordingly, if you work out muscles in the gym, but for some reason stop training for a while, it will be much easier to regain the shape than to create it from scratch. Muscle memory will allow you to quickly achieve the same indicators, you do not have to waste time setting up the technique.

I often hear versions that if you “pump up” your muscles and then quit training, then everything will certainly sag in an instant. Of course it is not. The shape will go away depending on the experience and intensity of training – the more training experience, the more muscle tone, the slower they will thin out. If you stick to a proper diet and eat enough protein, even a month or two without training, will not greatly affect the figure of a person who has been actively involved in more than a year before.

You have to try very hard to “sag” the muscles. Sit on a low-protein diet and do not move at all. Most often, fat is taken for sagging, which appears as a result of refusal to exercise. The exercising person needs more energy, more food is needed. Accordingly, if you take a break from training, but continue to eat the same amount of calories, excess energy will begin to accumulate in the form of fat. The simultaneous loss of tone and an increase in body fat gives the effect “well, everything is sagging, fitness is not for me.”It is worth adjusting the diet and returning to training, as after 3-4 weeks everything will begin to recover.

A properly structured training process allows you to take time-outs for 2-3 weeks already six months after the start of training and up to two months with more than one and a half years of experience. Moreover, sometimes you need to rest. I recommend taking a day off from training every season for 2-3 weeks, changing or adjusting your training plan when you return. A load change works best – keeping an active lifestyle, but switching to another sport.After returning, usually, there is good progress in gaining muscle mass and, conversely, in losing weight.

– See also: Remove belly after childbirth: The best advice

90,000 9 tips from trainers for those who dream of losing weight

You know exactly how many extra pounds and centimeters in the waist separate you from your dream figure. You even made a schedule of classes and followed it conscientiously, but for some reason the weight stays in place. Our simple tips will help you improve your training performance and achieve your desired results faster.

1. Train with pleasure

Yes, regular training guarantees results. But exercises through force cause an acute desire to quit them. It is impossible to constantly play sports that you do not like. Therefore, try different sports activities – run, walk, take zumba lessons, jump rope, start doing burpees, or sign up for kickboxing training to find what suits you. The emotional component plays a huge role!

2.Don’t get hung up on calories

Don’t focus on the number of calories you burn. There are many other factors that contribute to weight loss, including the correct intensity of exercise. Instead of counting calories, focus on other goals: increase the number of sets of exercises or start using weights. “Focus on improving your health and wellness,” advises Jessica Smith , Certified Trainer and creator of the original Walk STRONG: Total Transformation 6 Week System.This approach will help you feel comfortable and achieve better results!

3. Control the intensity

When doing cardio for weight loss, you need to evaluate how hard the workout is for you. For example, you might want to reconsider your exercise routine if you feel so tired after doing short, high-intensity exercise that you don’t even want to hang out with your friends. In this case, aim for longer, stationary cardio so you can “chat during your workout,” explains Pete McCall , Certified Personal Trainer and author of the All About Fitness blog.Another easy way to keep track of your intensity is to wear a fitness bracelet or heart rate monitor, which will measure your heart rate (heart rate). If you are doing strength training, remember at what intensity and number of sets you feel comfortable. “And if you find yourself doing exercises on autopilot, it’s time to move on to a more intense workout,” says Smith.

Train effectively at home with a course from the best trainer in Hollywood, Jim Barsena.Read more about the course here.

4. Do not overdo it with high loads

If you go to a regular, “classic” workout to lose weight, you do not need to do high-intensity exercises all the time. “On the enhanced program, do no more than three times a week, and start each subsequent such workout, fully recovering your physical strength,” advises Smith. “High-intensity interval training (HIIT) can significantly increase the amount of calories you burn, but only at the expense of additional volume,” explains McCall.Therefore, three to four times a week, set aside 15-20 minutes of training for stationary cardio exercises. This will allow you to do more sets in a short amount of time and (hopefully) enjoy them rather than pushing yourself to the limit. Some great cardio options include brisk walking, cycling, and swimming.

5. Strength training – the way to pumped up muscles

“Strength training increases muscle mass. And increasing the amount of strength training helps to speed up the metabolism, as calories begin to be burned not only during exercise, but also at rest, which is important for weight loss, ”says McCall.For best results, do strength training 2 or 4 days a week.

6. Use different muscle groups

Introducing complex exercises will allow you to use different muscle groups. The more muscles you put to work, the more calories you burn. “By increasing your heart rate, you simultaneously increase your potential for burning calories. The bicep exercise – the lunge curl or squat plus shoulder press – is a high-intensity workout system, ”says Sarah Pace , Corporate Fitness Program Manager, Personal Trainer and Health Coach.

7. Don’t Skip Stretching

“Flexibility is important: it improves overall muscle and tendon health and prevents injuries that can be easily earned in any workout,” explains Pace. Spend a few minutes stretching before you start exercising – stretching increases the flexibility of your body and thus soothes muscle soreness after exercise.

8. Be persistent

Week after week of hard training is what will bring results and lead to your goal.Regular activities will help you maintain an active lifestyle. “By repeating simple steps, you can maintain a healthy weight over time,” says Pace. And remember: the absence of a relief body is completely normal, with time everything will come! However, if your results stalled, try changing the duration, intensity, or type of workout.

9. Remember, losing weight is not only about training

You can even train every day, but do not forget about movement in everyday life.“So, walk every hour for 5-10 minutes, or at least stand,” explains Smith. In general, try to increase your level of daily physical activity – walk, if possible, skip the elevator, ride a bike or scooter to work. This approach will not only help you burn more calories, but also have a positive effect on your overall well-being.

So, it is quite clear that you need to train persistently, regularly, intensively, but at the same time reasonably. We hope that our advice, which you will bring to life, will become your steps to success: to health, good mood and, of course, to perfect harmony!

Source: allure.com

Photo: bigstock.com

How to become a fitness trainer from scratch?

WHAT WAYS OF DEVELOPMENT FOR THE COACH?

Any relationship requires development. The relationship with your career is no exception.

Even if you are just about to become a fitness trainer, you probably have a thought: “What will happen next? Where to go? ” There are a lot of options. Let’s try to systematize them. First, let’s highlight two directions:

The first path. Develop in the profession.

The following is the personal trainer career ladder:

Personal Trainer Assistant

↓

Gym instructor

↓

Personal trainer

↓

Master Trainer

↓

VIP coach

↓

Teacher

Let’s talk about the most common ones.

Gym instructor . A trainer of this level of professionalism uses basic training methods in training, conducts instructions for new clients, and develops simple training programs.There is practically no creativity here.

Personal Trainer has a wide range of services and training programs, has extensive experience and teaching skills. He can easily determine the degree of preparedness of the client for certain loads, choose an individual program for him and assess the reaction of his body in advance, instruct how to effectively reduce weight by eating right. Such a coach is much more interesting and in demand than an instructor.

Master Trainer is distinguished by special training, has knowledge of rehabilitation practice and physiotherapy exercises, knows how to work with certain diseases.

It is not uncommon for master trainers to become teachers or presenters at various fitness conventions. Such a coach should have such qualities as: teaching gift, charisma, ability to hold attention, interest the audience, share his knowledge and skills. After all, dozens of people will listen to it, and maybe hundreds of participants in the conventions. You have to become a role model, a kind of guru, which implies a special great responsibility. Such work takes you to a new stage of development in your profession and will require constant growth.Success can be achieved by becoming a person with a capital letter.

Group program instructor

The career ladder here is much shorter than that of a personal trainer:

• Group instructor (generalist or highly specialized trainer)
• Fitness teacher or presenter

As a rule, the instructor teaches 1-2 directions of training, which are closer to him from professional experience. For example, dancing or cycle.Over time, the trainer begins to study and master more and more areas of fitness training and teach various areas of group programs.

The career of such an instructor can develop in two ways:

1) A trainer can become a recognized master of one direction of fitness and conduct classes in various clubs, as well as sell individual training for fans of his direction.

2) A versatile coach studies several types of group programs and teaches in several clubs.The training methods that are used in personal training with such a trainer are always varied and help to solve the problems of each client to the maximum.

Well, if a trainer wants to present his authentic group training program, to become a teacher or an international presenter, then he needs to start attending fitness conventions. After all, while you are at home, you do not have the opportunity to tell people about the most interesting and effective training program that you yourself have developed, and even more so to promote it to the masses and become a recognized teacher.

Second way. To develop along the administrative ladder.

Instructor

↓

Division Manager

↓

Fitness Director

↓

Fitness club manager

This way of development is good for those who feel they have managerial potential.