Yelling Doesn’t Always Help Motivate
I know it sounds strange but after writing about the new Bob Harper DVD in my posting yesterday I started to think about what motivates me during a workout. For me a healthy, focused, and demanding trainer can go a long way to making my workouts amazing. I think a lot of what works and doesn’t work for me stems from my childhood.
Let me digress for a moment into my distant past, cue fuzzy cut scene. Imagine a big kid (me) playing defense in 7th grade football. Imagine playing your first skirmish game against another local school. Your facing off against new kids in a new environment trying to size them up … all of your teenage prepubescent testosterone flowing.
Now imagine the coach telling us to find the hole and “sack” the quarterback. Now picture me doing this, 4-5 times in a row and imagine how embarrassed the other coach must be and how he’d be yelling at his kids to block me and fill the damn gap. Cool right? Well only partially right … now envision my coach yelling at me in front of both teams for sacking their quarterback so much. Apparently I was supposed to block their runners for some reason … with that perfectly huge hole between me and the quarterback ripe for a sacking?
Even at the age of 12 I wasn’t stupid nor was I tight lipped (yes I’ve always been outspoken). I took off my helmet, explained how stupid the coach was, how obvious the play was, threw my helmet at his feet and quit … I walked right off the field and never returned to football again. Just like that I made up my mind that it wasn’t the sport for me. While I was a large kid and may have fit the football mold the coaching style of that one coach ruined the game for me.
Knowing the athlete is one of the basic tenants a coach needs to understand. There is a difference between yelling to motivate someone and just yelling to demean them.
The other coach was yelling to motivate and engage his team in an attempt to help them elevate their game. My coach was yelling at me to demean and belittle me, even if he did honestly think I should cover a running back (that obviously would never catch the ball if I had already sacked his quarterback to the ground before he had a chance to throw it) I was dutifully executing his original plan yet was yelled at for it.
Yelling != Motivation
While that may seem obvious it’s not always easy to determine when it’s yelling to make a point or yelling to motivate. Depending on the coach or trainer they’ve either got it or they don’t.
They either successfully choose the right moment in time to help you elevate your game and get that extra repetition or push through some barrier … or … they make you feel like a failure, crush your motivation, and make you want to quit.
It’s always been difficult for me to find a trainer that really motivates me. They usually either just watch me work out using their little clip board or bark orders with little to no communication.
And another thing that bothers me, how can fitness trainers be out of shape? It just seems like an oxymoron to me, but I digress.
That might be a reason they don’t motivate me I suppose … if I don’t view them with credibility or competence they aren’t going to motivate me very well regardless of how much yelling is involved.
I guess that’s why I’ve liked the Bob Harper DVD the first few times I used it. There is the right amount of yelling to motivate and straight talk to push through barriers. I felt great when I was done and it made me want to use it again and again.
Do you have a coach, trainer, or DVD that really motivates you to perform at your best?
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Absolutely!!! His name is Sean and he loves me very much ;0)