A few years back, while living in Munich, I was coaching a young German player. For context, he was 20 and one of the top players in the country for his age group - so you could call him ‘elite’.
At the time, I was deeply immersing myself in topics related to motor learning - and experimenting with this player in particular (he was quite open to new ideas).
One area that stood out to me was the topic of feedback - and its impact on learning. In other words, the area that deals with what coaches say to their players, how they say it and at how often they provide feedback. Because if you’re a coach, you know that your words can be a powerful catalyst (or inhibitor) for learning.
I was particularly interested in the frequency element of feedback. Especially because it’s not uncommon to hear tennis coaches talk A LOT during practices.
But is that a good thing? Should coaches provide feedback after every attempt? After every mistake? Or is there an alternative?
Let’s find out.
Less is More?
While many coaches provide constant feedback after nearly every attempt, the research suggests something different.
For instance, Schmidt and Lee suggest that providing coaching feedback after about every 10 attempts is more favorable than providing feedback after every 1-3 attempts. Interesting isn’t it? I thought so. So I put the theory to work.
A Feedback Story
I can recall one practice session where clearly, the German player I was coaching was having an off day. Missing long, wide and in the net. Every type of mistake you could possibly think of. Akin to a baseball player hitting foul balls or a golfer slicing it into the woods.
I was pretty quiet. I didn’t say much and really tried to discipline myself to only interject at strategic moments (this is more difficult than it sounds).
I could see he was frustrated. And at one point, he turned to me and said “can you please say something??”. Now, while I’m not sure if this is true in other sports - but it’s surely true in tennis -players are accustomed to a lot of feedback! Not only after every attempt but during a single attempt, they might hear 2-3 cues. Where does the athlete direct their focus? To their elbow position, the ball or the target?
So I suppose it’s not out of the ordinary to hear a player snap a little.
Here’s how I dealt with that. During a break, we spoke for a couple of minutes - first, dealing with the issue; “Here’s why I haven’t been very vocal today - I noticed you weren’t playing your best and I wanted to test your problem solving abilities - so that if it happens on the matchcourt, you’re ready”.
In that one moment, he got it. “Coach, I’m sorry, that makes a lot of sense...I guess I just blew up because I was missing a lot”.
I also mentioned that I wanted to experiment with a few ideas. And that would mean that I wouldn’t intervene with a comment or cue very often.
What happened next was fantastic- this player completely changed his attitude and accepted the fact that I wasn’t going to say much during practice. But when I did say something, he soaked it up and tried to implement it.
Now, that practice didn’t exactly have a happy ending. While this player did improve his mindset and effort, he was still missing more than usual. And that’s ok, because we were challenging him in ways that he wasn’t comfortable with.
But during next week’s practice - under similar conditions - he was much better. And this is completely normal when it comes to learning. Learning a technical or tactical skill - in some ways - is no different than learning how to squat or how to change direction efficiently. There’s usually a latency period - i.e. from the moment you practice, until the moment the skill is realized in some form or another.
This will differ from one player to the next - in beginner’s, we’ll probably see massive changes within one practice session. With advanced athletes, you might only see tiny changes and they’ll take time to manifest.
It also differs based on the type of skill we’re aiming to coach. Hitting a serve with proper sequencing is a heck of a lot harder than maintaining proper knee position during a lunge pattern which is a heck of a lot harder than performing a leg press on a machine. That’s why very few people on this planet can hit a serve at 130mph - and actually hit their target.
But providing the right type of feedback, at the right time - and not too often - might accelerate the learning process AND make the progressions stick a little better.
Avoid These Mistakes and Accelerate Learning
This topic is important to me because I see a lot of (well-intentioned) coaches doing things - from a motor learning perspective - that will likely hinder a player’s performance, rather than help it.
Below are a couple mistakes I see many coaches making (at times, myself included)…and strategies that will surely help accelerate a student’s progress.
Mistake #1 - Feedback is Too Frequent (and/or Timed Poorly)
I’m going to use an example from the practice court here because I’ve seen this a lot over the years (and I still see a ton of it today) - coaches feeding many balls in succession, while spitting out multiple cues with no interruption.
From a learning perspective, this is anything but ideal. How are players going to get better if they are asked to ‘hit the ball in front’, ‘keep their elbow high’, ‘move their feet’ etc and so on.
This isn’t just my opinion - although I do support it. Research has shown that when a learner is given feedback too frequently (after every attempt), they don’t perform well on retention tests.
Likewise, if feedback is given too infrequently (like after 30 or 40 attempts), that’s also not very conducive for learning. But like I said, most coaches fall into the ‘more feedback’ group.
A sweet spot does exist - and it’ll differ from individual to individual. Like I mentioned above, some research indicates that after about every 10 attempts, feedback should be given. I think that if a player isn’t showing any progress whatsoever, from one attempt to the next, an intervention is necessary. But if it IS getting better, if they’re ‘solving’ the task, why intervene?
A couple things you can do to make this process better:
Have your student hit with another player while you coach them - either giving a semi-private lesson OR using a hitting partner (a junior who wants to hit more balls might be a good candidate here). This typically gets coaches to observe more, and talk less.
If you’re feeding balls, you might want to organize the drill in sequences of 5-10 balls at a time and only give feedback in between sequences.
In both of these suggestions, the beauty is that you’re not only allowing the player more time to ‘experiment’ or ‘practice’ the desired skill or task, you very well might be helping their ‘tennis-specific’ endurance. This is true if the drill has a demanding movement component to it - as you’re intervening after every 10-20s of work.
Mistake #2 - Feedback is Too General
Hit out in front, as an example, can be a misleading cue. How far in front? It’ll depend on the player, their grip and the situation at hand.
The only time I see this type of cue working is if the player and coach agreed ahead of time, what that cue means for them personally. So that when that cue is given, they know what’s expected of them.
The point is, feedback is often too general. While things like ‘good job’ can serve a purpose at times, I have found it more valuable to be really specific with feedback. This will obviously depend on the cue + focus and/or the aim that was provided to the player.
If the player was asked to hit the ball past a certain marker (aiming for depth, for instance), and they were successful in doing so, you might say something like “great shape and height on that shot - it really helped you achieve the depth we’re looking for”.
This could be truncated sure but it’s an example of using specific information to build reassurance in the shot that’s being practiced - by actually reaffirming how they achieved the task at hand. The same can be done when talking about movement, technique or any other quality.
But again, provide the feedback then let them get back to practice.
Saying Less Isn’t Easy, But it’s Worth It
Here’s the thing, you might be a coach that really wants their students to improve (if you’re reading this, I’d definitely put you in that category). Or you’re a player (rec, elite or somewhere in between), looking for new ways to improve.
In the case of the coach, it might be difficult at first to ‘say less’ - or at the very least, wait until the right moment to speak up and provide feedback to your students. And while to some, this concept might be counterintuitive (you might have to bite your tongue at first), because being more strategic with your feedback will augment learning, I’ve seen it firsthand.
If you’re the student/player in this scenario, you might think that a coach isn’t saying enough - so why are you paying them, you might ask. I’d say that it’s best to judge the quality of a coach by their ability to get the student just a little bit better, each time they step on the court.
And if you just want to be a cheerleader, or have someone yelling at you, you’re probably in the wrong place.
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