The Importance of Body Language

Slamming Bats.

Throwing Helmets.

Blaming The Ump.

One unfortunate trend I’ve noticed in recent years is that youth athletes’ emotional outbursts and reactions to failure and adversity have increased in both frequency and intensity.

The reasons behind this are likely numerous and include:

• Increased pressure from parents and coaches
• Year-round travel teams that begin at younger and younger ages
• Non-stop tournaments with “championships” on the line every weekend
• Unrealistic expectations
• Win at all cost coaching mentality

But even in the healthiest of sports environments, maintaining a level-head in order to control nerves and emotions is difficult.  This is especially true for young kids whose brains are still developing and who are still learning emotional regulation in all areas of their young lives. 

You rarely see a professional athlete have a huge emotional or demonstrative reaction when they “fail” in a game; booting a ball at 2nd base, missing a short putt, or air balling a three pointer all usually result in the player taking a calm and focused attitude to the next play. Sure, we all remember John McEncore slamming his racquet or David Ortiz absolutely demolishing a dugout phone with his bat, but we mostly remember those because they are OUTLIERS.  Even for the most volatile professional athletes, their response to adversity is almost always one of emotional control. 

In Little League, there should be zero tolerance for things like throwing helmets or slamming bats and overall I would like to see a lot more accountability from coaches towards players when those outburst happen. On teams that I coach, those reactions are met with an immediate consequence.  That said, those outbursts are exactly that: extremely short-lived seconds of loss of emotional control.

 

The more common, and longer-lasting, negative reaction to adversity is bad body language.

The symptoms: Slumped shoulders.  Heads dragging.  Walking out to play defense instead of running.  Moping around the dugout.  Frequent tears.  

And you probably know what happens next: the team with the bad body language almost always starts to play worse.  Bad body language and defeated attitudes are contagious.

Let me be clear: I don’t expect youth athletes to be nearly as emotionally mature as adult athletes.  However, one fairly simple way coaches can teach healthy regulation and appropriate ways to respond to in-game challenges is by modeling and focusing on positive body language. 

The good news is that, just like everything else in sports, we can train and practice skills that will improve emotional regulation and mental performance!

Teaching athletes to recover quickly from disappointment/failure/adversity is important for several reasons.

1. Something disappointing or frustrating or “unfair” happens in literally every single game in every single sport, so learning how to respond in a healthy way to frequent adversity is a skill that will be used constantly on the field. 

2. Kids play sports to be challenged and to have fun, not to spend the entire game sad or angry. The sooner they learn how to get over the “speed bumps” on the field, the more they’ll be able to focus on the game and the more fun they’ll have.

3. Players who bounce back quickly are more likely to be successful than players who are stuck in their own mental “Pit of Despair” after something doesn’t go their way. It’s simply impossible to play your best when you are distracted by the last call or play.

Less than 1% of Little Leaguers will play college baseball and that percentage drops to .002% when looking at D1 baseball.  .00002% of Little Leaguers will get drafted to play professionally.  

But 100% of them will become adults who have to navigate all the challenges life will inevitably throw at them.

Using sports to teach resiliency, grit, and perseverance is the best gift we can give our kids during their childhood.

Resilient players who bounce back quickly become adults who do the same.

Resilient players who keep hustling become adults who do the same.

Resilient players who keep their heads up in the face of struggle become adults who do the same.

These are the types of players who make themselves and their teams play better, who create positive momentum, and give their teams an opportunity to be successful no matter what the short term score or situation may be.  

Overly emotional players who stew over mistakes become adults who do the same.

Overly emotional players who quit playing hard become adults who do the same.

Overly emotional players who make every little “failure” a bigger deal than it is and allow past performances to dictate future results become adults who do the same.

Experienced coaches often refer to these types of players as “Energy Vampires” and they can single-handedly sabotage a team’s chance of winning with just their attitude and body language.

One way to gauge how the players are doing is to conduct what I like to call “the scoreboard test.”

If you showed up to a game and the scoreboard wasn’t working, based solely on body language of the teams (and of the coaches, for that matter), I bet you could tell who was winning and who was losing.

I bet you could tell which players were 3-3 and which players were 0-3 with 3 strikeouts. 

In a perfect world, you would have no idea who was winning and losing, who was having a good game or who was having a bad game because the player’s body language wouldn’t give any hints about the results taking place on the field.  

Both teams should be playing every pitch with the same engaged, optimistic, and spirited attitude that they started the game with.

This is not easy to accomplish, but is worth prioritizing and instilling at young ages.

How can we, as coaches and parents, teach this vital skill to our kids?

1. Model Outstanding Body Language Ourselves!
   
   
   
   1. If the adults at the field are tossing clipboards, throwing their hands in the air after every questionable call, and having minute-by-minute mood swings based on what’s happening in the game, then that’s how we’re teaching our kids to respond to adversity.  If we model emotional stability instead of emotional volatility from the dugouts and stands, the kid’s attitudes will start to mirror our own.
   
   
   
   
2. Emphasize the NEXT PLAY!
   
   
   
   1. Bad body language is the result of focusing on the past.  Unless Bill and Ted invented a sports time machine I don’t know about, we can’t go backward to undo a mistake so let’s always be using our energy to prepare for the next play rather than wasting it worrying about the last play.  
   
   
   
   
3. Teach “A Flush”
   
   
   
   1. Most great athletes have an actual physical habit that they use to “flush” the last play.  Aaron Judge picks up a piece of dirt in the batter’s box and throws it away after a bad swing; literally tossing the negativity away.  Pitchers might step off the mound to rub up the ball.  Infielders might draw a X in the dirt with their cleats.  Those are all quick and easy devices that recognize the emotion of disappointment or frustration for just a split-second, but is followed by a physical act that quickly allows an athlete to move on. Create one for your team, a simple hand gesture or wave to acknowledge and move on is a powerful tool.
   
   
   
   
4. Give Brief “Permission” To Be Sad
   
   
   
   1. It’s OK to let hitters be disappointed after a strikeout for exactly as long as it takes them to get back to the dugout.  Acknowledge the feeling, and then move on.  Fielders who make an error have exactly as long as it takes the pitcher to get back on the rubber to be frustrated, and then they need to move on.  Athletes are humans, not robots, and asking someone to never have emotions is unrealistic.  What we’re striving for is to teach them how to deal with disappointment and frustration in a healthier way.
   
   
   
   
5. Be the “10th Man”
   
   
   
   1. Coaches and parents also need to practice staying regulated so that they can be the “10th man” from the dugout and in the stands. Kids are still learning how to regulate, so help them through their toughest moments by shouting words of encouragement and reminding them to pump up their teammates by saying what they need to hear. Nothing beats a high five or a fist bump from a teammate or a “you got this!” from the cheering section to help a struggling player turn the page. Too often a kids’ reaction is linked to the perceived disappointment from a coach or parent; make sure your praise and encouragement is even louder than that little voice in their head!
   
   
   
   

Like all things in life, achieving this takes training and practice.  Spring Training coaches sprinkle in teaching resiliency during every program we run.  And now we have a dedicated member of our team, Coach Zach, who has a master degree in Mental Performance Training from Cal State Fullerton (one of the best MPT programs in the country) available to further help young athletes develop tools to handle the frequent adversity that sports present.  If you’re interested in setting a free consultation for your athlete with him, please follow this link to set that up: www.calendly.com/zachfind1

Being a great athlete involves a lot more than just physical skill development, and if we’re being totally honest with ourselves, teaching our kids how to deal with disappointment, failure, frustration, and adversity will be a FAR more useful skill to have in life than teaching them how to hit an 0-2 curveball.

PLAY HARD, HAVE FUN!