{"id":19798,"date":"2023-08-23T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-08-23T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/?post_type=article&p=19798"},"modified":"2025-12-15T05:11:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T05:11:09","slug":"easy-accessible-social-and-timely-exploring-the-environmental-nudges-available-to-coaches-in-high-performance","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/easy-accessible-social-and-timely-exploring-the-environmental-nudges-available-to-coaches-in-high-performance\/","title":{"rendered":"Easy, Accessible, Social and Timely: Exploring the Environmental Nudges Available to Coaches in High Performance"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
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\n 23 Aug 2023 <\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>Articles<\/a>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t

Easy, Accessible, Social and Timely: Exploring the Environmental Nudges Available to Coaches in High Performance<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n \n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Category<\/div>\n Coaching & Development<\/a>, Leadership & Culture<\/a> <\/div>\n
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https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/easy-accessible-social-and-timely-exploring-the-environmental-nudges-available-to-coaches-in-high-performance\/<\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/section>\n\n\n\n\n
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In the second half of a our two-part interview, physical performance coach Ben Rosenblatt discusses behavioural nudges and the gamification of training.<\/p>\n \n \n \n

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By John Portch and Sarah Evans<\/h6>\n
When it comes to performance, the current generation of athletes are, on the whole, better informed and more inquisitive than their predecessors.<\/h6>\n

But what can a practitioner do when an athlete doesn\u2019t ask \u2018why\u2019?<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a few options,\u201d says Ben Rosenblatt, a physical performance coach who has worked with the England men\u2019s football team, GB and England women\u2019s hockey teams and Olympic Judoka amongst others.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you know them well enough to understand why they don\u2019t want to know? If it\u2019s because they just want to get told, they\u2019ve got trust, and they don\u2019t want to know \u2018why\u2019, they just want to crack on with it and say \u2018go on then, give us the programme\u2019, I\u2019ll commit to it, we\u2019ll give it a crack, and then afterwards we can work out how well that worked.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo they not want to know \u2018why\u2019 because they\u2019ve disengaged? If so, then you might just see them floating around a session or trying to disrupt others.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe other one is that they\u2019re just not that interested in physical conditioning and preparation because not everyone is. Most people take up sport or play high level sport not because they love doing press-ups and sit-ups, it\u2019s because they love their sport.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo you\u2019ve got to try and understand the reason why they\u2019ve disengaged and you\u2019re also trying to find out, as a consequence, how they\u2019re best going to receive information. So you can just ask some really simple questions to ascertain that. If it were you and me working together I\u2019ll ask: \u2018what\u2019s the best way that we communicate with each other? What do you need from me? what\u2019s important to you physically? what\u2019s worked in the past?<\/p>\n

\u201cYou might say: \u2018I just need a programme and to crack on\u2019. That\u2019s absolutely fine and that\u2019s what you\u2019re going to get. But then we can also ask the athlete \u2018can we review it every six weeks?\u2019 This will give you both the opportunity to learn more about each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is the second part of our interview with Rosenblatt, who discussed behavioural mapping<\/a> in the first instalment.<\/p>\n

The conversation takes a turn into nudge theory, which is defined by Imperial College London as: \u2018based upon the idea that by shaping the environment, also known as the choice architecture, one can influence the likelihood that one option is chosen over another by individuals.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is where you bleed into the gamification of training and environmental nudges to encourage people to engage in stuff they might not necessarily want to,\u201d says Rosenblatt, who in 2021 visited the Behavioural Insights Team (commonly known as the \u2018Nudge Unit\u2019), which previously operated under the auspices of the UK Government but is now run independently. It has informed his approach, as have visits to University College London, the University of Bedfordshire, and the Design Museum in London.<\/p>\n

Returning to nudge theory, Rosenblatt says: \u201cThe basic principle is called EAST, which is making things: easy, accessible, social and timely.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you can make anything align with any of those four things, if you can make something really easy to engage in, really accessible, so it\u2019s at the right time and the right place, it\u2019s part of the social environment and it\u2019s timely, it\u2019s at the time when they should be doing it, then you\u2019ll absolutely get the behaviour change.\u201d<\/p>\n

He cites an example from his time with the England men\u2019s football team. \u201cOne problem was how we get the players to go in the pool immediately after training on a particular day with the physical performance team. Using nudge principles we decided to nick the players trainers and put them in the pool area! This meant, to walk back to the hotel, they had to go to the pool first! We also put recovery shakes in there and scattered some balls and some inflatables in the pool. So when they went to get their trainers, it was easier to take a shake and then jump in the pool with their mates rather than leave! They ended up staying in for half an hour or so.<\/p>\n

Gamification can be a useful tool in training environments. \u201cIf it\u2019s a group that does want to engage a little bit more, like the hockey girls, then you do things like have a synchronised swimming competition. Again, if you\u2019re saying we\u2019re going to do a pool recovery session, then the players will come in knackered, they\u2019ll go up and down the pool for 10 minutes and get out. If we say we\u2019re having a synchronised swimming competition and you\u2019ve got 15 minutes to come up with a routine, they\u2019re in there for 40 minutes working out what the routine is, hanging around the pool to play afterwards etc. Those are ways you can get players that just aren\u2019t interested or who don\u2019t want to know. Rather than giving them full autonomy, you create an environmental nudge that means that they have to dive in there literally.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s other ways of doing it. One other idea is to play with the schedule. OK, so let\u2019s say you\u2019re trying to introduce a new form of training to the group (like strength work). Rather than make the session an additional training session, make it part of the original training session. So if they\u2019re coming into the gym before going onto the grass, start with a familiar warm up, something they’re comfortable with and then you introduce the new activity as a competition. If it\u2019s aligned to something you want them to get better at and want them to improve at; because it\u2019s a competition everyone\u2019s automatically engaged in it.<\/p>\n

\u201cAgain, this is more relevant to athletes who aren\u2019t as engaged with their physical preparation. But if you do a familiar warm up and there\u2019s some little competition then they\u2019re automatically going to engage in it.\u00a0 If it\u2019s aligned to the physical outcome that you want, then they\u2019re going to improve! The best way I\u2019ve found of organising competition for maximum engagement is 1 1v1 competition in a team v team scenario\u2026 essentially you stack up points for your team by winning individual competitions against your opponents.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can then start to make it fun. We had an ongoing jump squat competition throughout the Euros where the players would compete for boxing belts based on how fast they were moving the bar. Training intensity and enjoyment went through the roof! All the athletes have noticed is that they\u2019ve had a bit of fun and they\u2019ve enjoyed themselves whilst being really physical. But if you start stacking that up over a course of two, three, four or five weeks, you\u2019ve got a really strong physical conditioning response there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ben Rosenblatt is the Founder of 292 Performance.<\/em><\/p>\n

Want to discuss environmental nudges with Ben?<\/em><\/p>\n

Email: ben@292performance.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Twitter: @ben_rosenblatt<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/div>\n \n \n \n <\/div>\n

\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"featured_media":19799,"menu_order":0,"template":"","categories":[22,20],"pathway":[375],"topic":[361,314,315,316],"sport":[380,303],"class_list":["post-19798","article","type-article","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-coaching-development-performance","category-leadership-culture-performance","pathway-planning-and-delivery","topic-collaborative-workflows","topic-operational-planning","topic-project-planning","topic-strategic-planning","sport-field-hockey","sport-football"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nEasy, Accessible, Social and Timely: Exploring the Environmental Nudges Available to Coaches in High Performance - Performance Institute<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/easy-accessible-social-and-timely-exploring-the-environmental-nudges-available-to-coaches-in-high-performance\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Easy, Accessible, Social and Timely: Exploring the Environmental Nudges Available to Coaches in High Performance - Performance Institute\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/easy-accessible-social-and-timely-exploring-the-environmental-nudges-available-to-coaches-in-high-performance\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Performance Institute\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-12-15T05:11:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/app\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/08\/GettyImages-1444139875-scaled.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2560\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1707\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:image\" content=\"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/app\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/08\/GettyImages-1444139875-scaled.jpg\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/easy-accessible-social-and-timely-exploring-the-environmental-nudges-available-to-coaches-in-high-performance\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/easy-accessible-social-and-timely-exploring-the-environmental-nudges-available-to-coaches-in-high-performance\/\",\"name\":\"Easy, Accessible, Social and Timely: Exploring the Environmental Nudges Available to Coaches in High Performance - Performance Institute\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/easy-accessible-social-and-timely-exploring-the-environmental-nudges-available-to-coaches-in-high-performance\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/easy-accessible-social-and-timely-exploring-the-environmental-nudges-available-to-coaches-in-high-performance\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/app\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/08\/GettyImages-1444139875-scaled.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2023-08-23T09:00:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-12-15T05:11:09+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/easy-accessible-social-and-timely-exploring-the-environmental-nudges-available-to-coaches-in-high-performance\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/easy-accessible-social-and-timely-exploring-the-environmental-nudges-available-to-coaches-in-high-performance\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/easy-accessible-social-and-timely-exploring-the-environmental-nudges-available-to-coaches-in-high-performance\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/app\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/08\/GettyImages-1444139875-scaled.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/app\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/08\/GettyImages-1444139875-scaled.jpg\",\"width\":2560,\"height\":1707,\"caption\":\"DOHA, QATAR - NOVEMBER 24: Bukayo Saka and Mason Mount of England train during the England Training Session at Al Wakrah SC Stadium on November 24, 2022 in Doha, Qatar. 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