Strength in Numbers #21
I love Thanksgiving as it gives me a time in the year to reflect on all the people who have helped me in my career, who fuel my passions, friendships, and of course, family.
When I was in professional baseball, I made a point to at least text each player and my staff members a Happy Thanksgiving message. As much as it felt good for the soul to connect after a long baseball season, waiting until Thanksgiving to connect with your players on a personal level in the offseason is the bare minimum for someone working day in and day out with athletes.
Connecting on a deep level with your players and staff is important. I have come to find that two things are essential in building a strong organizational culture and to motivate players.
Those two things are APPRECIATION and RECOGNITION.
The combination of acknowledging these two aspects in sport brings forth the most powerful emotion outside of love that humans can experience – that being GRATITUDE.
To dive deeper, APPRECIATION refers to acknowledging someone as a person. You should make a point to mention your athlete’s work ethic, integrity, focus, ability to handle adversity, humor, and other personal traits that distinguish them as people.
When it comes to RECOGNITION, celebrate their work and accolades. Baseball is very easy to recognize athletes, as there are so many metrics associated to them that are both product and process metrics.
Product metrics are a result of the process. For example, slugging percentage is a product metric, and the process metric would be the barrel percentage of the number of balls hit between 10-25 degrees at 95 mph or more. When we recognize our athletes, we should make mention of process metrics first, as they are the expression of hard work, more related to the individual athlete’s execution of a skill, and are a result of dedicated practice.
Try to refrain from saying, “Good Job.” It’s better to be specific about what the athlete is doing well for a longer-lasting impression of recognition.
When you give athletes and staff feedback in this manner, you will add to your staff and players’ GRATITUDE meter. You are feeding into a more profound feeling of thankfulness in having someone like you guiding their career development. In turn, you will feel grateful for being able to contribute toward someone’s future in a meaningful and positive manner.
Keep spreading APPRECIATION and RECOGNITION as it brings out the best results and creates long-lasting relationships, which is the name of the game.
In closing, I want to say that I appreciate you and recognize how hard you are working in the game of baseball to improve performance for your athletes. For this Thanksgiving, I am grateful to provide you with more education, going even deeper into isometrics showing examples of both overcoming isometrics and yielding isometrics for the throwing arm in this week’s ArmCareIQ.
Integrate them in your program, and you will see great benefits for both strength improvement and pain reduction.
Please feel free to reach out to support@armcare.com for questions you may have regarding the implementation of isometric training. We look forward to hearing from you.
Happy Thanksgiving, and remember to have an attitude of gratitude!
