Why I Won't Belittle My Athletes as Motivation

This morning - for the third week in a row - I shared the lap pool with one of the local swim

teams. And for the third week in a row, I watched one of the coaches criticize, belittle and embarrass swimmers in an effort to get them to "do better". Today, a young swimmer who I would estimate was around 8 years old teared up after the encounter with the coach. Now, I am not a team coach, a personal trainer or a fitness class teacher. As a sports dietitian, I am a different type of coach - a food coach.  But, like any other type of coach, it is my job to motivate my athletes to make changes that will improve their performance. You might disagree with me, but one thing I have not done and will never do is belittle or - even worse - swear at my athletes. These practices have unfortunately become expected in some settings. Other coaches and trainers often ignore this type of treatment of athletes, believing that this is what needs to be done to make athletes "the best". Whether the athlete is 6 or 60 years old, I disagree. 

Pre-workout Eating: Don't do what I did

Because I work professionally as a sports dietitian, I consider myself pretty good at workout fueling. So good that sometimes I forgot to use my head which results in really bad workout fueling. That is exactly what happened this morning. To benefit all of you, I want to share my mistake. I will tell you what happened first and then explain why it happened along with what I should have done differently...the same process I use with my clients.

What happened
Wednesday morning is my spin class morning. Spin is at 8:15am. My kids are generally up early (6am-ish). Typically my husband is up with my daughter at 6am, I get up to feed my son around 6:30am and the morning progresses from there. This morning was different in that I got up with my daughter at 6am and my son slept in, which meant I woke him up at around 7am. I ate breakfast with my daughter at 6:15am before tending to my son. I left the house around 7:45am for class.