Measuring Your Expertise: Matching Intentions with Outcomes for Athletes' Success
I heard a story the other day, and it's one I hear too often. A national team staff member repeated the same exercises with an athlete for eighteen months without any improvement. This practitioner intended to help, but it resulted in a year and a half of failure without adaptation or learning. Worse, this person disliked and rejected certain exercises even though they helped him. Instead of accepting what reality showed, the staff member chose to stick to their beliefs.
When our intentions repeatedly fail to match desired and expected outcomes, we’ve got something to learn.
Your expertise is measured by the number of repetitions it takes for you to notice and change.
We owe it to our athletes. They trust us with their ligaments, tendons, muscles, hearts, and careers. If not for them, don’t you deserve to learn and grow?
I see this mismatch (between intentions and outcomes) appearing as emotions, behaviors, beliefs, and certain statements. Becoming aware of how mismatches arise allows us to notice their inevitable arrival. The more sensitive we are to their appearances, the less time and energy we waste—for ourselves and the people who trust us.
The most common emotion is frustration: you didn’t get the result you wanted. Emotions help trigger actions. Repeating the same protocol makes you the architect of your frustration. Trying something new transforms your frustration into fuel for learning.
Sadly, practitioners and coaches often resort to blame when protocols are unsuccessful, albeit unintentionally: “Well, something must be wrong with you and your hamstrings. There’s no reason you should repeatedly strain them. We do precisely as many Nordics as the peer-reviewed paper says we should.” Translation: If he’d accept responsibility, he’d learn.
Buried deep beneath this habitual way of thinking is a belief: something’s wrong with the other person, and it’s unfixable. “You’re just injury-prone and have a bad shoulder.” Genetic errors like “bad knees” and “bad backs” are exceedingly rare. The more accurate belief can be hard to hear: we did something ineffective. It doesn’t make us bad practitioners. It means we have a chance to get better. Refusing to learn in the face of failure makes us bad practitioners: we’re not practicing.
When we hear ourselves say any of the following, reality is trying to teach us something:
“You just need to do more.”
“You’re always ___(insert adjective and body part)___.”
“You always have a knot ___(insert body part)___.”
“You never ___(insert behavior)___”
“You just need to stretch betterer.”
The human body is too adaptable for us to rationalize and cling to ineffective practices.
I call these feelings, thoughts, and words warning signs. Sometimes they are red flags. They are all guideposts to help us navigate.
If you’re feeling that familiar frustration from ineffective actions, try something new. Not a new, hot course, like mine. No, not yet. New actions. You can do this today. The process of trial and error is tried and true. You already know what’s failed. Stop doing it.
Perpetuating ineffective protocols is like trying to fix a leaky faucet by turning up the volume on the radio. It ain’t gonna work.
Just to be explicit here: if you’re prescribing scapular pinching for the sixth week in a row and her shoulder blades still wing and she still has pain. Stop. What evidence do you have that warrants even more investment of irreplaceable resources? How many more trials do you need before concluding that the experiment failed? How much more of your athlete’s time and energy is there left to waste? Your career continues as long as you want it to, whereas hers comes with an expiration date.
So you’re done telling people to “do more,” but you’re unsure what else you should do. Keep reading.
Rather than distill wisdom down to three click-baity items, I’ll share three principles. These won’t match your intentions to your outcomes for you, but they will give you somewhere to start.
Observe, learn, adapt.
Observe what happens with as much detail as possible.
Look in new places. Notice where your eyes naturally gravitate and then look somewhere else. Anywhere! Stare deeply into her ear hole, if you’re into that sort of thing—just don’t repeat what you’ve always done. (I watch how bones move. How skin folds, blushes, or blanches. I hear and watch breathing. I listen for the tone in which athletes speak.)
Learn from the mistake.
(Seems obvious, but is rare.)
Like mine, your first attempt at fixing someone’s problems, whatever they are, will likely fail. That’s normal, and a good thing. It gives you information.
In the example of scapular retraction, the six-week experiment failed. Stopping ineffective actions is learning. (It’s also like writing your name on the SAT, free points.)
Refocus on the goal. In our hypothetical shoulder case, the goal isn’t to bring the shoulder blades to the spine, or get the rhomboids stronger. It’s to get the scapula flush to the rib cage instead of winging because that’s likely to help her feel and perform better, which is the ultimate goal. I think we can all agree on that. So, what other movements or muscles can help achieve that outcome? What else can you do?
Adapt your prescriptions to achieve the outcome you want.
Try something else that feels likely to get you to your goal. It probably won’t. So, observe, and update your hypothesis. Act it out.
What other movements can create this scapular outcome (less winging)?
Glenohumeral joint adduction is one; add protraction if you want. Rock climbing makes people’s shoulder blades flush with their ribs—it’s almost like we evolved for it or something. Pull-ups while reaching the elbows forward are another.
Iterate.
Find out what works for that person. I have no idea which will work because that’s the honest answer, but you can find out.
You need to collect data to match your outcomes to your intentions, and all this variety helps. As long as you learn, you’ll win. As a reminder, the level of our expertise is tied to the number of failures required for us to observe, learn, and adapt.
If you’ve thought about attending my course but aren’t yet ready to try and err, don’t sign up yet. The process of trial and error is fundamental. It’s science. It’s evolution! If you want recipes, sign up for the numerous other courses that hand out cookbooks. I’m in the business of helping athletes feel and perform better, and it requires practitioners who observe, learn, and adapt. It’s messy, and I like it that way because it fucking works.