Feedback

Feedback is an element which is crucial in a athletes development, so many factors can influence the effectiveness of the feedback. These factors could be; how you say it, what you say, when you say it and who you say it to. These factors are all connected and to be able to deliver effective feedback you have to take all of them into consideration.

It is important you know your group of athletes and appreciate how they deal with feedback, some athletes like to be told straight what they did wrong and what they did right and they just want it said bluntly. Others deal with feedback a lot differently and can get disheartened when given critical or constructive feedback. So it is important you know your athletes and appreciate the way they deal with feedback. The timing of the feedback is crucial, the athlete needs to be allowed to make mistakes to an extent before the coach steps in, however some athletes don't understand that their are performing something incorrectly. My view on this is let the athlete make mistakes and then see if they can correct themselves before you jump in with solutions, they can watch others and they will start to realise and work it out for themselves. What you say is important and I touched on it with who you say it to, some of the athletes will respond differently to different ways of feedback. It's important you consider the language and content, tutors on coaching courses advise that you try and remain upbeat and focus a lot more on the positives and only touch on the negatives. The language is key to getting the response you want, the way you word the feedback can determine if its going to be effective or not. The last one Is how you say it, the way you say things can impact the athlete immensely, if you tell the athlete what they need to do they haven't learnt anything and will not understand why it was incorrect. It is crucial that the athlete understands why and this can be done by questioning. For example what did you do to get the javelin to go that far? Why did it land there? Tell me how you gripped it?

The best method I use in giving feedback to young children is the sandwich method, you tell them something positive about their performance, then something they need to work on and finally another positive. I have found this helps the athlete stay focused because they feel that they have succeeded and there is progress. One frustrating thing about coaching is trying to tell the athletes to be patient, they want to be the best and throw a javelin for example over a certain distance first time they throw it. I admire their attitude and enthusiasm but sometimes they get downhearted when they don't throw the javelin as far as the elite athletes do on the tele. Therefore this method helps nurture and control that enthusiasm by explaining that there is positives but also areas to work on.

There are 2 main feedback types; intrinsic and extrinsic, intrinsic is where the body gives the athlete feedback; for example when I jumped off the board it felt really good. Extrinsic feedback is when something external provides feedback, so for example when the athlete completes their jump they can refer to the results to check if it was a good jump or not. So results, crowd, distance can provide external feedback. When I coach my athletes at my club i try to focus more on intrinsic feedback like; how did that feel? Rather than how far did that go? I find that they can reflect on their own performance and depending on the experience of the athlete they could provide their own feedback. After they have dealt with their intrinsic feedback this can be verified extrinsically via the distance or the results. This sometimes cements the point and helps highlight progression. Extrinsic feedback is used in my coaching to compare results of performances and show progression. For example if motivation is down I will show the athlete past results to highlight progress, I will show results from when they started to latest results to identify how far they have come and improved.

To summarise, when delivering feedback to athletes there are some factors to consider; how you say it, what you say, when you say it and who you say it to. One of the better methods of delivering feedback is to use the sandwich method. This is done by providing a positive on the athletes performance then touch onto a negative or an improvement, then finish with another positive. There are 2 types of feedback which are intrinsic and extrinsic, intrinsic feedback comes from the athletes body and extrinsic is external so crowd, coaches and results. Any comments would be appreciated.