Asking Athletes the Right Questions
Using open-ended questions has been the single biggest breakthrough for me as a coach. It’s also been the hardest thing for me to do consistently. Today I’m going to walk you through:
- Why you should be using open-ended questions
- How to use open ended questions
- My favorite go-to questions for different situations in the gym
Why you should be using open-ended questions
I talked about open-ended questions first in my positive culture post. If you haven’t had a chance to check that out, go do that now! If you need a refresher: A positive culture in one where respected, heard, supported, loved. It allows athletes to perform better, speak up when they’re uncomfortable, and stronger teams.
Using open-ended questions as a coach, when you genuinely care about the answer, is a guaranteed way to boost athlete ownership in their work. It puts the decision-making in the hands of the athlete. If they don’t follow through, it’s not because of your assignment or unclear direction – it’s all on them!
Another way this benefits athletes is it teaches them to think critically about their own performance. Instead of looking to the coach after every turn for a correction, they will learn (with lots of time and practice!) to look at themselves for the correction first, and the coach second. This is also great practice for going into coaching – figure what is wrong and how to fix it!
Lastly, as athletes get better at analyzing their own performance and making their own decisions, they buy into goal setting HARD. They can set goals, determine how they are going to accomplish them, and every turn know if they are doing what needs to be done.
I won’t go as far to say my optionals are self-coaching at this point, but my job has gotten so much easier. I’m still writing assignments, setting up drills, spotting landings and polishing choreography, but the constant barking of corrections “Susie point your toes, Julie – tight arms, Mary – KNEES!” is gone. The rotation is quieter, happier, more focused. My voice isn’t horse at the end of the day. And when I do make a correction, the girls know it’s serious.
How to use open ended questions
Ok, so how do you do this? It’s really simple: ask the question you want to know the answer to.
Stay with me…
When I started coaching, I knew enough about education to know I wanted my athletes to feel engaged. My go to question was “did you [fix the thing I always ask you to fix]?” Without fail, the girls would just guess. My intention was to get them to think about their performance, but by turning it into a yes/no question, I took all of the critical thinking and ownership out of it!
Now, of course there’s a wrong way to use open-ended questions. I see coaches all the time badger their athletes with rhetorical questions. “Why are you falling on everything?” “Do you even care about your form?” “Do you want to go home?”
I believe that rhetorical questions like this are inherently negative and shaming. Don’t ask someone for their opinion if you’re only going to interrupt them as soon as they open their mouth to give you an answer. Kids are smart – they get that when you do that, the intention is for them to feel bad about themselves.
Now when I ask an athlete a question, it’s because
- I want them to think about the answer,
- I want them to hear them say the answer, and
- I am willing to make decisions based on the answer.
That third part is crucial. Without it, it’s another rhetorical question that brings morale down.
Let’s look at an example:
Jennifer is training level 8. She has her bhs-bhs series on low beam, but has been avoiding taking it up to a high beam. Jen and her coach are both getting frustrated at the lack of progress.
Coach: “What do you need to do in order to feel comfortable doing this on the high beam”
Jen: “um, i think I need to stack mats all the way up and slowly take them away. I’m scared of missing my hands or feet on the second handspring”
Coach: “Good job recognizing your fear, and a reasonable plan to work on it. When are you going to get rid of all of the mats?
Jen: “one mat a week… so like a month?”
Coach: “nope, that’s not going to work. You have a week to get rid of the mats”
What went well here:
- Coach asked Jen an open-ended question to help her achieve her goal
- Jen identified her specific fear and a way to manage her fear
- Coach allowed Jen to decide on her specific course of action based on her specific fear
Up until now, our unnamed coach had been doing a good job of following the rules for open-ended questions. But when it came to timing, they forgot about the essential #3: willingness to make decisions based on how an athlete answers.
If the coach legitimately felt that end of the week was reasonable for this athlete (no judgment there) they could have said something like this:
Coach: “Good job recognizing your fear, and a reasonable plan to work on it. Focus on getting the numbers you need to feel comfortable, and get rid of the mats by the end of the week.”
Jen: “Friday?! That’s so soon!”
Coach: “It is, but I know you can do it. The series is clean and consistent, you just need to get over the fear. I will increase the number of series you have every day this week, and decrease numbers for other skills so you can focus on achieving this”
This is well-done because the coach is sticking with the timeline they envisioned, but still making an appropriate compromise to make sure Jen is successful.
(Or the coach could have ok’d the original request of a month. In a perfect world, this is how I would always coach, but I rarely do. Athletes will underestimate themselves, or have a horrible concept of time, or purposely sandbag themselves. Coaches make judgement calls. That’s part of the job. But once you ask for the athlete’s opinion, you absolutely must show respect for the answer.)
Need some Examples?
These are my go-to questions that I keep on the tip of my tongue every minute I’m in the gym.
- What was your biggest mistake in that skill/pass/routine? (a great starting point for using open-ended questions in the gym)
- What is one thing you did well, and one thing you need to improve on your next turn? (Good for routines where the good or bad can pile up quickly and get overwhelming. Hold them accountable for that single improvement on the next turn)
- How are you going to make your next turn better? (Good for after a good turn to help the athlete hone in on the little details. Again, accountability is key here)
- How did that feel? Why did it feel that way? (I use these a lot with new skills or combinations)
- What do you need to be successful right now? (perfect for dealing with rational and irrational fears)
- What are 2 goals for the day/the rotation/the routine? (need a fresh, positive start? This is the way to do it.)
- What are you doing to accomplish your goals right now? (this has two very different uses. First: hormonal teenagers that are in a bad place and are struggling to think positively. Second: kids who are goofing off and not accomplishing a whole lot of anything)
With all of these: CARE ABOUT THE ANSWER. Even if it isn’t the “biggest” problem. The problem they are aware of and thinking about is the easier one for them to fix. If a kid says they are going to fix their legs on their leaps then they should focus on that first. When they show improvement, that’s when you go in with a compliment: “great effort on that change!” Then your coaching judgement call on what to focus on next: “now you need to really focus on the size of your split for the rest of your turns.”
What kinds of questions do you ask your athletes to help them improve? Let me know in the comments below!