Coaching with Fewer Words: Why Intentional Coaching Creates Better Athletes

When I was a young coach, I couldn’t wait to share everything I knew about training and fitness. (Dunning-Kruger effect, anyone?) I’d kick off a session with a mini dissertation about the science behind the workout, throwing around terms my athletes had never heard of.

What purpose did this serve?

For my clients—nothing. For me—it made me feel smart. I was impressing myself with all the knowledge I had, not actually helping them move better.

In fact, my long-winded explanations often left athletes overthinking simple movements like squats or lunges—things they did every day outside the gym. The result? Confusion, hesitation, and robotic movement.

Intentional Coaching Lessons from Nick Winkelman and Rob Gray

Everything shifted for me when I came across Nick Winkelman’s work on coaching communication. His framework showed me what intentional coaching really looks like: choosing every word with purpose and using cues that actually help athletes perform better. Two lessons stood out:

1. Be intentional and economical with your words. Long explanations don’t equal better coaching. The fewer words you use, the more space athletes have to move and learn.

2. Prioritize external cues over internal cues.

   
   

Here’s the difference:

• Internal cue (body-focused):“Keep your chest up, drive your knees out, sit your hips back, and brace your core.”

• External cue (environment-focused):“Push the ground away” or “Reach your hips back like you’re closing a car door.”

  
  

By shifting to external cues, coaching becomes both simpler and more effective. Athletes stop overthinking body parts and instead connect their movements to the environment. That’s the essence of intentional coaching: saying less, but coaching more effectively.

This idea connects closely with what Rob Gray, PhD, discusses in his book Learning to Be an “Ecological” Coach. Gray points out how much coaches love to talk—providing feedback on every single rep—yet all that talking doesn’t always translate to better skill performance. Instead, athletes often need space to explore and discover movement solutions within well-designed constraints.

In practice, this means letting athletes fail forward. By struggling a little and self-organizing their movement, they develop deeper, longer-lasting skills than if a coach prescribed every detail. Both Winkelman and Gray emphasize that words should serve the athlete, not satisfy the coach’s urge to lecture.

Why Intentional Coaching Sometimes Looks Like Under-Coaching

Here’s the paradox: when I use fewer words, athletes sometimes feel like I’m under-coaching them. The truth is, this isn’t me being passive—it’s me being intentional.

Both Nick Winkelman and Rob Gray highlight the same principle from different angles: athletes don’t learn best by being over-coached. Winkelman shows us that carefully chosen external cues are more effective than wordy internal ones. Gray reminds us that constant feedback can actually interfere with learning, because athletes need the freedom to explore and self-organize.

That’s why I often let athletes attempt a new movement without saying much at first. If they “fail,” that failure is productive—it pushes them toward a deeper solution. This is the essence of failing forward.

By intentionally holding back, I create an environment where the athlete has to solve the movement problem. My role is to design the right constraints and step in only when a cue will genuinely help. This is intentional coaching in action: not silence for the sake of silence, but silence that gives space for skill development to happen.

Intentional Coaching and the Ecological Approach at VPSC

At Victory Performance, our philosophy is rooted in the idea that athletes don’t just need instruction—they need the right environment to learn. Intentional coaching means being purposeful with words, leaning on external cues, and, at times, saying less so athletes can discover more.

This aligns with the ecological approach described by Rob Gray, PhD: athletes thrive when given space to explore, self-organize, and “fail forward” within well-designed constraints. Instead of prescribing every movement detail, we design training that encourages athletes to solve problems, adapt, and build resilient skills that last.

Whether it’s improving speed, strength, or movement efficiency, our goal is to develop athletes who can perform confidently—not because they memorized instructions, but because they own their movement solutions.

👉 Ready to experience intentional coaching through an ecological approach? Contact us today and see how VPSC can help unlock your full potential.

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