Dealing With The Hyper-Sensitive Athlete

The fourth-round draft pick told me, “I’m sorry I’m being so nit-picky,” even though I initiated a detailed conversation to pick all the nits. 

The Olympian said, “It’s only a one-degree upswing,” in her equipment. “They’d have to change the production line to change it. I should just deal with it even though it feels worse for me.”

One league’s All-Star was told, “You’re always going to have pain, so you just need to learn to deal with it.” Secondly, “Don’t look for the 1 percent gains; just focus on the meat and potatoes.” Which he agrees with until you have the meat and potatoes, and he has plenty of steak and spuds.

Another professional athlete completely tore two ligaments. His team’s practitioner, who has many degrees and still makes well over six figures, said, “Someone else came back in four weeks. Why can’t you?” 

That seems ridiculous when all I tell you was he tore a ligament. But we label his injury as an “ankle sprain” and even trivialize the traumatic ones. Instead of listening to the athlete, the practitioner invalidated his experience and told him he was too sensitive even though the ligaments were still stitching themselves together, and the dude had pain walking.

The standard attitude about athletes’ sensitivity is hypocritical and misunderstood, and I get it! The coach can’t perceive what the athlete is on about, so he thinks it’s nothing. The athlete might as well complain about a microscopic pink unicorn perpetually pissing on his plantar fascia. The beast doesn’t exist in the practitioner's world or any data, so relating to it is hard. If the athlete complains about the rainbow urine enough and the coach never sees or smells the yellow stream of glitter, the athlete is taken as seriously as this paragraph. But I’m here to tell you we must take these athletes’ experiences seriously—and, naturally, that unicorns are real.

The Value of Subtlety

In Formula One, a driver’s sensitivity is not only a job requirement, it’s how he stays alive. Drivers are so attuned to their autos that they often report an issue with the car before the technicians see it on their computers. Being that sensitive to the car wins championships. 

But if an athlete uses her biological vehicle to get around a track and notices something slightly askew in her skeletal chassis, she’s labeled as “too sensitive.”

F1 technicians get data to legitimize the driver’s perception of the car. The coaches and practitioners of traditional sports have no such data. They only get the athlete’s experience, which can be accurate or inaccurate. But accurate perceptions are trainable and the main source of feedback. The more sensitive, the better. More on that in a sec.

Coaches who chastise sensitivity ridicule the very thing they want to develop in athletes with the practices and training sessions they design. The whole point of practice and some movement and strength training is to increase athletes’ sensitivity to their bodies, minds, and environments.

Mitch Haniger only needs a fraction of a second to see where the pitch is going. If I took an at-bat, I’d ask the pitcher to stand at second base or even the outfield, so I could have the slightest chance at making contact—and I’d pray I was wearing the brown pants of the Padres, those would conceal the colored effects of an MLB fastball zooming inches away from my nuts. I lack baseball-specific sensitivity. 

Athletes become more sensitive when they have varied practices instead of predictable and repetitive. If a batter can’t get over the Mendoza Line, he lacks sensitivity and likely has too monotonous of practices. Errors from challenging and novel practices lead to increased sensitivity, leading to better skills.

You know the name Mike Trout because of his extreme sensitivity to pitchers and balls in the air. Would any coach in their right mind tell him to stop being so sensitive to the seams of a spinning curveball? So why would someone tell him, or any athlete, to stop being so sensitive to his body or equipment?

Add five grams to anyone’s club on the PGA tour, and he would notice before the club left his bag. (For comparison, I put thirty-five grams of coffee grounds in my conical filter to make my sixteen-ounce pour-over.) Mitch feels when his bats are off by one or two grams! Yes, they change, and he weighs them on a scale.

Mastery Is Sensitivity

What if we took this general distaste of sensitivity to any other field? 

Imagine a chef with a Michelin star telling his student, “Your tongue is too sensitive. You’re tasting too many details. Just shut up and cook.”

“Damnit! My surgeon's hands were too steady. I have such a clean and tidy scar.”

“My three-year-old is too aware of her surroundings. She never falls! Ugh. Worse, she labels her emotions and tells me exactly how she feels. How obnoxious.”

“Ugh. My husband is just too accurate. The sides of the toilet are spotless of his pee.”

“Babe, you listen too well. Not only do you remember what I’ve said, you really hear my tone of voice and understand everything it conveys. Could you ignore me more? You’re too sensitive.” 

Mastery is sensitivity. It’s true everywhere you look. The exceptions are some conversations between athletes and their movement and skill coaches. 

“Hey Bob, my back is feeling slightly off again.” 

The fact that you know one of Bob’s potential standard replies without me typing it in makes my point clear. Bob, and all of us, must heed the athlete’s reports unconditionally. It could be a warning and deserve investigation. Hypersensitivity isn’t a problem to be “dealt with.” It’s a trait to empower and improve.

I built my career by crafting extremely sensitive eyes, ears, hands, and philosophies. They, along with my mind, are my most valuable assets. They are how I give athletes outcomes they couldn’t find anywhere else. I teach this sensitivity in my course too, and that’s how my students repeat awesomely uncommon results.

When athletes, practitioners, and coaches of skill and strength become more sensitive, sports evolve. 

Hyper-Sensitivity And Those Athletes

I’m sure you’re aware some people differ from my examples above. You may have imagined someone and been holding back a “But Austin, what about…” Yes, some people may appear needlessly sensitive. It’s not a problem, though; it’s an asset. The problems are that they are inaccurate and make every perceptual input “a thing.” Coaching tropes like “Suck it up. It’s nothing. Play through the pain. It’s in your head” will never help these athletes.

These people need a better filter. They need to learn to distinguish the signal from the noise. Questions do that. You can encourage and empower accurate perceptions through inquiry. If the athlete seems inaccurate, acknowledge and validate their feelings first—and then ask questions that promote a search for truth. 

It might sound like, “Right, I understand you think something’s wrong with your back. That’s gotta feel awful. Are you in danger? Are you putting your back at risk? How do you know? Let’s figure this out together.” 

Or it can be about equipment, “I hear you. Something feels unpredictable in the strings of your racquet. Can you pinpoint what it is? If you can’t change it now, can you turn this into an advantage or consider it good practice?

These questions can come from a strength or skill coach, a clinician, or a teammate, or they can be self-talk and journal prompts.

Lastly, these athletes may need a psychologist, too. (Don’t we all?) No matter how sensitive they might seem, their sensations are real. So be compassionate and understanding. Even if you don’t know what questions to ask, acknowledging their feelings will go a long way.

Accurate Perceptions

One of my foundational principles is asking questions to all athletes to increase the accuracy of their perceptions. I’ll say, “What did you feel? What position were you in?” I almost don’t care what they say. I care that they searched for subtleties within themselves and sharpened their awareness. Whether or not their “glutes worked” is less important than the search. 

If an athlete gives me a generic answer, “My weight was in my feet.” I’ll get her to look deeper, “Yeah, of course. You’re standing. But where in each foot? The front, back, inside, outside, or a mix?”

There are times to play through problems. But you must understand which ones those are, which requires accurate perceptions of one's body and mind. Whether you’re a coach, parent, or teammate, athletes can develop such accuracy when sensitivity is encouraged instead of admonished by people like you. 

Oh, and instead of disregarding incontinent unicorns as imaginary issues, ask detailed questions that help people perceive more accurately.  

Thanks for reading, sincerely,

— Austin Unicorn 

(In German, Einhorn = Unicorn. I told you, they’re real🙋‍♂️.)