Integrating Strength and Conditioning Coaches’ Emotions Within a Reflective Practice Cycle

Abstract

Coaching scholars have extensively studied coaches’ reflective practice (RP) and, to a growing extent, coaches’ emotions and their cultural production and labor. Less research exists on psychosocial aspects of strength and conditioning coaches (SCCs), including analyses of their RP and emotions. SCCs’ training sessions with athletes is a fruitful context to extend an understanding of how emotions and RP are co-produced. The purpose of this study was to identify, describe, and map SCCs’ emotions throughout a RP cycle on self-perceived face-to-face interpersonal problems with their athletes during training sessions. Qualitative data from five collegiate SCCs indicated that while reflecting in and on interpersonal problems in their training sessions, they experienced a range of emotions within each stage: problem framing and identification (e.g., anger, annoyance, compassion); strategy generation (e.g., anger, anxiety, care); experimentation (e.g., anxiety, disappointment, empathy); evaluation of a solved problem (e.g., annoyance, confusion, appreciation); and evaluation of an unresolved problem (e.g., fear, frustration, self-doubt). While emotions across stages of RP were generally negative, the findings are discussed in relation to barriers and facilitators to learning through reflection, coaching education and research, and the potential for alternative ways of solving coaching problems in the S&C context.