The voice of the S&C coach: Developing an under-appreciated coaching skill

With all the articles, blogs, conferences, textbooks, takes and Twitter advice running through the strength & conditioning profession, it’s hard to believe there could still be one coaching quality that many developing S&C coaches undervalue.

Last year, reflecting back on the many aspiring S&C coaches I interviewed at Coalition Performance, in addition to those coaches I’ve mentored over the last 15 years, one standout quality emerged as a key differentiator. Yet it’s one that, in my experience, is not spoken and written about as much as it should be. In fact, I now rate this quality as the main factor that differentiates S&C coaches early in their career. Coming at such a critical time, it can make the difference between being good versus being great, between being one of many and standing out amongst all the others.

When you were a child, still partly believing the dream that you could one day become the next Beckham, MJ or, in my case, David Platt (yes, I am nearly 40), what made some of your coaches really good and memorable, compared to those who seemed – even to a young athlete – somehow less skilled, simply not as good?

What did they do, or who were they as people, that made them different?

From our perspectives now, we could probably identify many technical or professional characteristics that many lacked and a few possessed. But one that everyone can perceive is how they communicated.

Coaching communication is the combination of three related qualities:

1. Projection: how you speak when you coach, in relation to the level of your voice.
2. Tone: the specific pitch of your voice.
3. Flow: the tempo at which you speak and how you break up what you say.

These combine to underpin the quality of how you deliver a message and how those you coach perceive you. They are directly upstream of the extent to which athletes engage in your session.

Unsurprisingly, research shows that athletes form impressions and expectations of their coaches based on factors like these ^[1].

This article shares practical experiences in how to value and develop this key communication skill as a coach. For simplicity, we will describe the combination of voice projection, tone and tempo simply as “the coaching voice.”

Having been a full time, professional sport S&C coach for the last 15 years and growing a leading S&C facility for eight years, I have had the opportunity to coach an extremely diverse range of of people: 11-92 years old, athletes of all abilities across a dozen sports, the general population, male, female, those with disabilities, major injuries and health problems. On top of that, I’ve been exposed to the experiences of those coaches who come to us for our “coach the coaches” services. Those encounters provide supporting evidence of the value of and success that comes from coaching skills like this.

Why is the coaching voice often ignored?

Is it really any surprise that so many of us need to improve our coaching voice?

Our development starts at university, sitting in dark lecture halls, just listening. Even practical sessions often involve coaching 1-3 people, all of whom you already know very well, in quiet, sterile, controlled environments that don’t reflect those you will actually coach in during your career.

Although S&C courses didn’t exist when I studied, the odd module that involved practical coaching was in an old lab with a 1970’s décor, one power cage squashed in, a group of three of us and the only background noise being that of the main road outside.

Aesthetics aside, the point is that while studying to be an S&C coach, you aren’t often exposed to the environments and circumstances that require you to hone your coaching voice. Instead, it’s just left to sort itself out.

Six months ago I spoke with a long time S&C coach affiliated with several universities, who openly felt a lack of real world culture during university study. That left many sport science students lacking key skills like coaching voice, and other critical qualities like organisation and accountability. This isn’t a dig at anyone running university S&C courses, simply pointing out the large amount of work left to do in some places more than others.

One classic counterpoint against developing your coaching voice that many in S&C still believe is that the art of communication is something that some people just “have” while others don’t.

While I do believe great, established S&C coaches all eventually develop a good enough coaching voice, that doesn’t mean they couldn’t have been more competent in their communication earlier in their career. I have experienced first-hand how two individuals with similar S&C knowledge, motivation and technical skills took drastically different durations (six months vs. 18 months) to achieve a high quality coaching voice. That bolsters the importance of focusing on this ability early in and then throughout your coaching development.

Does coaching voice really matter?

S&C coaches sharing the same technical message can have that message perceived very different by those they coach. I’ve seen that repeatedly, from every side of the bench.

The root factor is how they conveyed that message, maybe in regards to how they gave advice on someone’s squat or how they welcomed that person when they first saw them.

At some point, you must have experienced a great coach who explained something to you in a way that made you feel that they really knew their stuff. It made total sense, you really trusted what they said and it felt like they gave a damn. Now compare that to a coach who said similar, but their voice was more stuttered, quieter, monotone… would you rate them and their advice the same?

A superb example of this is an old video from Martin Rooney. He opens a guest lecture to a group of university students by saying what he wants to say in two distinct ways:

One of our standards of performance is for coaches to be leaders, not supervisors. That is mainly influenced through coaching voice. Chris Thorpe is an S&C Coach at Loughborough University who leads the continuing professional development for coaches on their mentorship pathway. He said the ability to “command,” not just “observe” or oversee, a session is one of the biggest barriers amongst aspiring coaches. He contrasts a coach who is present but quiet, milling about on the fringes, unengaged to one who is being proactive and engaged via technical feedback, tips, encouragement and, dare I even say it, exhibiting a bit of personality.

This is not an isolated barrier. It would be easy to pigeonhole coaching voice as one thing, but it influences other key coaching qualities that most coaches highly rate.

Coaches with a good coaching voice frequently accompany their voice with positive body language and movement. You could say they just have a flow about how they coach sessions.

While many of us joke about the cliché S&C coach’s body positions and the rah rah coaches, the ability to lead the gym floor with a great, authentic coaching voice, accompanied with positive body language and movement is hugely influential in how athletes and clients perceive you.

From a peer-to-peer perspective, coaching voice can tell you a lot about an S&C coach’s character and can act as a green or red flag when recruiting. Lacking communication skills as a coach, those fundamentals of communication that underlie the coaching voice, could be a huge differentiator in success or failure. If someone exhibits a distinct lack of a good, authentic coaching voice when on the gym floor, either they are potentially not motivated by this career path, or they just have not gained the necessary fundamental knowledge and experience. Either way, it is a big red flag.

OK, it matters. But what influences it?

Just because something is simple to understand and appreciate doesn’t mean it’s easy to improve. One core underlying reason that coaching voice isn’t easy to master is confidence. And since you can’t get coaches, any more than athletes, to be more confident by just saying “Be more confident!” we have to work on what we can actually improve.

The correlation between the quality of a coach’s voice and their self-confidence is incredibly strong. Looking into this further, two qualities determine whether confidence and coaching voice travel upwards together, or down:

• Experience / time actually coaching
• Ability to turn theoretical knowledge into applied knowledge

The first one tends to be the focus, which makes total sense. Interestingly, though, in recent job interviews I’ve conducted, some applicants with 12 months of coaching experience alongside their degrees completely lose confidence when they have to coach. Fear and panic set in, and their coaching voice was so lacking it was uncomfortable.

The breadth of ability, goals and personalities we coach at Coalition Performance is why we spend approximately six months initially onboarding a new coach.

It’s easy to be confident and have your coaching voice when working with someone familiar like a youth rugby player, but what happens when you have to coach a 40 year old cyclist with lumbar pathology, minimal knee meniscus and a personality you’ve never really experienced? Suddenly, a lack of confidence from not truly understanding this type of person and how to apply S&C to their goals causes your coaching voice to fade.

This can not only affect S&C coaches earlier in their career, but also experienced coaches who go into a new field of S&C, for example, a different sport, gender or age.

Simply connecting lack of coaching voice to experience and time on the gym floor is flawed. We need to truly understand the logic and theory behind what we are planning and coaching. A lot of times, we can spend our early careers learning theory and we don’t study or mentally rehearse in a way that translates easily to coaching on the gym floor.

Coaches tend to be happier about improving qualities linked to knowledge, as opposed to qualities linked to their personal character. Working on the latter requires you to limit ego volume, accept you’re not perfect and challenge yourself.

Developing coaches who struggle to improve their coaching voice often lack sufficient self-awareness and proactivity. They struggle to know what they need to do or wonder if they need to do it, and their motivation for self-improvement is lukewarm, at best. Consequently, they lack in other areas, as well, and struggle to embrace the challenge. I can’t think of any established S&C coaches who have a substandard coaching voice. This highlights that those who make it in our field have the psychological characteristics to improve this against the challenges encountered, not that these are the ones who are “born with it.”

That all makes sense. What can I do to succeed?

Learn theory, but develop it through role play

One of the first methods I use with S&C coaches is “putting the pieces of the puzzle together.” Like a puzzle yet to be assembled, they have plenty of knowledge, but a lot of it is not meaningfully connected in ways they can effectively use in coaching contexts.

Through creative scenarios or role playing, you can force yourself to ask “how does this apply to situations I face as a coach?” This can be highly useful and will nurture confidence, thereby improving your coaching voice. Don’t just learn facts. Bring them to life.

Listen to yourself

I give Tom Clough of Ulster Rugby credit for this one. Two years ago, we started using a phone and the headphone mic to record ourselves during various sessions. I then had each coach listen back to the first three minutes, middle three minutes and last three minutes of the session. What did they hear? What was different to what they thought?

Critically, I never listen to their audio. As the leader of this group, this exercise could quickly be perceived as controlling if I listened, too. The benefits from this exercise don’t come from the leader – we get to listen to them all the time. Instead, it’s getting them to hear what you and others hear, so they can realise for themselves what elements in their coaching voice need improving.

Experience it

During the period of pandemic lockdowns in the UK, we did a coach development session where I coached the coaching team. Every couple of minutes, I changed my coaching voice. For example, I kept the technical quality of my feedback high, but one moment the coaching voice was great and then the next it disappeared, leaving the session feeling flat, empty, less focused and purposeful. This is a simple but useful way to get coaches who struggle with coaching voice to truly feel and value this skill, and then be motivated to work on it.

Ask for feedback from a colleague

In a world of growing technology and more mentoring opportunities than ever, it’s easy to forget one of the best tools available is to get feedback from a trusted colleague who works with you.

From them simply sitting in the office, what did they hear? How did it sound? The beauty of this is they get the context of your coaching environment, which maybe an external person wouldn’t. Some of the best experts are literally those sitting next to you.

Observe how others do this in different environments

Early in my career I was fortunate to work with a variety of coaches who excelled in different ways. One example was Kevin Mannion (now of Sale Sharks), a one man wolf pack who coached 20-30 academy players each evening. While this was not a scenario that allowed for detailed, one-on-one programming or the ability to spot every player, one of the key assets was the way his voice sounded and travelled. It set the tone from the first moment of the session, which got the players’ juices flowing even if they had just done 90 minutes of full contact rugby. They could all hear his voice, but without him screaming or sounding panicked. The tone was full of energy, confidence and purpose, without sounding manufactured or robotic.

Before that I also had time with Chris Ross, then head S&C coach at Birmingham University.

His sessions involved 3-4 athletes on a converted squash court. His coaching voice always brimmed with enthusiasm, confidence and know how. Because his context was different to Kevin’s – fewer athletes, smaller space – he didn’t need to propel his voice as far and as loudly.

These contrasts taught me how coaching voice is critical to creating a great training environment, and how you use your voice best will differ between scenarios.

Focus on connecting the dots

Shane Lehane of the Sydney Swans recently spoke about his current research into differences in approach and thinking between coaches of different experience levels. He talked about how more experienced coaches are better at grasping the bigger picture of what they are trying to coach, and some stand out in this skill in a way that contributes to having a great coaching voice and confidence in explaining “why.”

A member of my coaching team said yesterday that one of four elements that he believed grew his coaching voice was the self confidence in being able to link what he said to what matters to the person he was coaching.

Simply, you could say this is the ability to talk each athlete’s language when delivering your coaching messages. By doing so, you can have true confidence that what you communicate will be positive, in turn fuelling a more effective coaching voice.

Despite seeming simple, this is one of the hardest crafts to hone, and takes a lot of experience. Linking knowledge to application and then communicating concisely will often cause coaches to waffle.

Consider this a long term project, which means the earlier you start on it, the greater the returns it will yield.

Know how to coach from a distance

COVID meant we had to re-open using social distancing. We didn’t make it obvious, but we did have to begin coaching and communicating from a further distance than usual. One benefit of this imaginary two meter divide was that it made you very conscious of whether you were projecting your voice and your tone.

Literally taking a few steps back can be a great way to put yourself in a position where you have to project your voice.

It’s OK to be overheard

“If I can hear your voice in the office, it’s on point.” This is a common phrase we have used to help coaches grasp what great projection is. This doesn’t mean I have to hear what you’re saying, but I should at least hear the presence of your voice.

I often walk through our main entrance, which is 12 meters from the start of the gym floor. Within a moment of walking in, I should hear coaching voices, which cultivates a sense of leadership.

Commit and be accountable to 1-2 specific actions to improve

It’s so easy to burden coaches with development work and activities that are simply over the top. Our scientific, detailed brains like to think up beautiful flow charts and detailed action plans.

My experience suggests otherwise. Focusing on 1-2 micro goals within a larger goal produces greater ability to act on what’s actually needed to develop.

When improving the coaching voice, we might set two micro goals to begin: spend more time a little further from someone to allow you to be aware of and properly project your voice; and learn more about a specific technical area to increase your confidence on the gym floor.

Aim to be perfect, but accept you’ll never be

On the Netflix tennis documentary “Break Point,” a psychologist to one player explained how this factor is often a big mental barrier in the highest level of the sport.

To be an S&C coach, you have to be motivated towards the game. This can lead to wanting to be perfect. Yet we have to avoid excess pressure and the drop in confidence that can come from recognizing that you won’t be perfect.

In the pursuit of improving coaching voice, you will feel uncomfortable and you will make some small mistakes. But that’s part of development. Actually, if you don’t feel some of that, I’d suggest you’re not actually committing to improving yourself.

For example, listening to audio of yourself might sound so easy. But most people I tell about this don’t do it. Why not? Because no one likes listening to themselves, and the fear of what you might hear stops you.

Don’t be that person. Be comfortable with knowing that discomfort is a sign you are doing what’s needed to develop.

Coaching voice do’s and don’t

While coaching is considered an art, the fundamental do’s and do-not-do’s are still based on sound logic. These are the train tracks: a very clear and sound logic to guide the art, like the rails of a train track, with the space between the tracks for interpretation your personal mark.

Sincere versus synthetic

Ed Deci and Richard Ryan developed self-determination theory, which aims to illustrate the foundations of human motivation. One element of this framework is that being coercive compromises motivation in those you support ^[2]. Your behaviours influence your communication, so they have to come from a place of authenticity and care.

A great example is adopting a coaching voice that says the right things but, in its tone and tempo, exhibits a clear lack of sincerity.

For example, you’re think you’re encouraging someone during a brutal watt bike conditioning session. You say all the right things to encourage them, but you say it in low energy, steady monotone.

Maybe you struggle to like that person? Could you be frustrated with them? People are far better than we often think at picking up on this. Rather than providing a climate for that person to perform as well as they could, they see right through you and now you’ve compromised the coach-athlete relationship.

Don’t hate the player, hate the environment

The best example of this are S&C coaches who are received as “rah rah” practitioners: huge energy, super vocal, highly present in how they speak. They are often in the firing line of criticism from many in our field. But one inconvenient fact exists about some of these coaches: they are highly successful and highly respected by their employers and those they coach.

Could it just be the environment they operate in actually thrives off such a coaching voice?

The point is that you can hate the coach because of what their coaching voice is, but in reality you may just disdain the environment, because that’s what truly governs what voice will work best. By contrast, this also explains why a “rah rah” coaching voice would fail dramatically in other environments.

There is unlikely to be one universal, optimal coaching voice, but rather fundamentals that are best adapted to each set of circumstances.

It’s better to be great as you, rather than average as someone else

A great coaching voice isn’t one thing. Yes, it can be distilled down into some key fundamentals, but how each coach puts these into action and applies them will differ.

The way I explain this to those I work with is “I’m not trying to make you something you’re not, but instead allow you to understand how to develop into the best version of you.”

And that’s the beauty of coaching. Develop your coaching voice. Don’t hide behind excuses and end up being a supervisor of sessions. Instead, be a leader by using your own great qualities.

Like strength training, you have to do the reps

Without sounding cliché, this is a journey. Consider your own strength training. Did you learn something about how to be stronger, put it into two weeks of training and then thought “Sweet, I’ve smashed that now. Job done. It’s nailed.”

As we all know, not only do the reps take longer to provide the results we want, but we have to continue to do them (unless you know how to maintain strength without doing strength training). Yet with developing your coaching voice, it’s easy to just reflect on it, think you’ve done some good stuff and then forget about it.

In every case I see of this, the same thing happens: the coach doesn’t improve but they think they have.

Commit to this being part of your ongoing reflection over the years ahead, and make it part of how you mentor and lead other coaches. Remember that this takes time. The underlying qualities that a coach needs to develop to improve their coaching voice – time on the floor, practical knowledge, technical skills, reflection – take time to evolve, just like every other skill in our profession.

Raise your coaching voice and speak up

I hope this article has created awareness of and maybe reinforced the value of the coaching voice for S&C coaches, whether you are early in your career or you’re an established coach who leads and mentors others.

I’d love to hear of your experiences, so feel free to dial up your coaching voice and give me a shout.