Spotting a Cowboy

Recently, while working with my high school rugby club, I’ve had the chance to watch some other coaches in action, of both sports and S&C variety. There are a few things that are common across both variations when it comes to coaches that are either just not very good or inexperienced at the least. Side note: if you ever hear me refer to a coach as a cowboy, this is the type of person I’m referencing.
 
Only using hype up phrases (or whatever you wish to call them)- There’s nothing wrong with use of these on their own, I use them, so does every other coach when they are truly excited. However, if I all I hear out of a coach’s mouth are things like; yeahaww (see cowboy), yeah baby, hell yeah, that’s how we do it and so on… there’s a problem.
 
An improvement on just these alone would be, the ability to articulate what about that excites them and being able to explain such to the clients or athletes. Otherwise, just refrain from using them too often because if nothing else, it just becomes noise, not anything worth the oxygen used on it.
 
Sticking to general cues only- If the whole week, a coach is screaming 1 of 3 general cues (emphasis on scream, dead giveaway). They might be lacking some knowledge at the least. For instance, we know anyone can sound like a strength coach just saying things like “chest up” or “stay tight”. There's a difference between harping on something like a mantra, and just screaming general nonsense. At the very least the coach needs to be able to articulate what they are looking for exactly when they use these general cues, otherwise improvements should be sought out, either from the coach or by changing the coach.
 
An improvement on this, similar to above would be cuing something more specific. Granted, this may be something that’s specific to more than one person, still it’s a more positive sign than not. Something like, put pressure through the outside of your foot or finish your pass with your ring finger pointed at their shoulder, are examples of things that will probably apply to more than one person, yet more specific and helpful.
 
 
Trying to smash the square peg through the round hole- The same shit does not work with every single person. The general building blocks will, but we often see very specific things tailored to the wrong person. Simple version, some folks will be much better off doing a back squat than a front squat or vise versa. Likewise, on the rugby pitch some players need more of a timing cue on certain elements and some are more looking for a visual or landmark cue to help them. When a coach continuously tries the same thing over, and over, and over, and over again with no improvements whatsoever, it’s not a positive sign.
 
An improvement, even a slight one, would be to see the coach eventually just leave the movement or technique be and come back to it at a later date. Even better is hearing something like, “I don’t know if this is right, let me do some reading and see if we can come up with a better solution.” Admitting they got it wrong or need more information is a super positive sign you’re dealing with a good coach.
 
I'm sure you've picked up, general theme across these, it's all about can the coach give more details or be more detailed, then it's a good sign. Now then, we all have our Spidey senses improved just a bit when it comes to coaches. Next time you pick up on one of these flags, see if the coach continues to go with these same things or improves, you’ll know what kind of quality you are dealing with. Happy Wednesday fam, thanks for reading and hope you have good rest of the week.