Words Matter

by Mitch Hauschildt, MA, ATC, CSCS

Building an environment that sets people up for success should be a priority for all of us, regardless of who we are, where we work, and who we interact with.  For most of us reading this post, that means physically preparing our patients and clients with proper progressions to make sure that they have the tools needed to accomplish the tasks that we are asking them to perform.  I think we can all agree that if someone isn’t strong enough, stable enough, or have the motor control to perform a movement, it is an exercise in futility to push them into it.  But is controlling the physical environment all that is needed to help people improve and succeed as a coach or clinician?

It doesn’t take reading very many of my posts to know that I greatly value the brain and nervous system.  Because of this, I believe that as part of the overall care of our patients and clients (and personal relationships for that matter), that our words really matter.  We don’t always realize it, but the person who receives our words really does put a large value on the our choice of words.  This true with just about every situation that we encounter through our day.

I have learned this the hard way far too many times in my career.  A poor choice of words or the wrong tone will affect how those around us feel, move and interact.  When I coach my 9 year old son’s baseball team, I keep everything positive and uplifting, as I think most of us would.  I can’t imagine tearing down those young boys because of mistakes made or a less than desirable outcome.  Should we use that same approach with everyone that we work with?  Let’s look at several different situations where our choice of words likely matters more than most of us realize.

Motor Learning

Motor learning is extremely important for the people that we work with.  If our clients can’t or don’t learn new patterns well, we can’t make the physical changes needed to make people feel better.  Research indicates that qualitative feedback accelerates motor learning of a new task.  Meaning, when affirming words and constructive feedback are used in a learning situation, the brain is more likely to learn a new skill than when negative words are used.

This means that we should encourage our clients with words like “do this” and “that looks better, now lets refine this part”, and avoid phrases like “don’t do that” or “stop doing it that way.”  Affirming, positive words encourage our clients, but on a neurological level, they help the brain to learn a new activity faster.

Further, literature supports that playful movements are learned faster than when our training sessions are boring or non-eventful.  On a primitive level, we all like to play and part of that play is using fun activities to learn efficiently.  We can do this with our words as well.  As a clinician, being positive, playful, and funny with our words can also impact how we learn to move.

Performance

Most armchair psychologists will acknowledge that if we encourage people to run faster or jump higher, that they usually do.   We also understand that running next to someone usually makes us faster than running on our own.  But, can we actually see physiological changes with positive or negative emotional feedback?

A study published in 2012 had athletes watch different emotional videos (sad, erotic, aggressive, motivational, and neutral) and subsequently measured testosterone levels and squat performance.  Interestingly, the aggressive and motivational videos increased testosterone levels and squat performance.  The sad video actually decreased testosterone levels and reduced performance.  The other videos were fairly neutral.

This infers that if we use motivational, aggressive and encouraging words, not only we see our patients and clients perform at a higher level (somewhat common sense), we will also see a spike in testosterone levels.  Of course testosterone and performance are related, but this can have powerful impacts on other systems in the body.

Choosing words wisely will affect performance by changing hormone levels in the body.

Safety and Danger

We talk a lot about this in our Rocktape courses.  The brain is constantly balancing danger and safety.  When the brain feels safe, it performs.  When it is uneasy and senses danger, it won’t perform well.

The words that we use around our patients and clients will affect them in this area as well.  If we choose to use reassuring and comforting words when we discuss an injury or movement that is viewed as challenging by someone, our odds of getting a positive outcome are much higher than if we speak bluntly and in a matter-of-fact tone.

The brain loves to feel safe.  Use comforting words as you interact with your clients during challenging situations and you will see improvements due to appropriately managing the danger sense.

Stress Management

There are a number of studies that are easily found that demonstrate a positive attitude and affirmation helps us manage stress in difficult situations.  When we feel good about ourselves and the likelihood that we will have a positive outcome, our stress reduces significantly, and the actual likelihood that you have a positive outcome is heightened.

Lets face it, we’re all stressed physically and emotionally in today’s world.  This is especially true of the people that we work with.  As providers, our words can help this situation by managing stress.  Let’s use our words to encourage and equip people in stressful times, not criticize ad tear down.

Overall Behavior

Tony Dungy talks a lot in his books about being transformational or transactional.  A transactional person is simply concerned with the transaction between 2 people.  Basically, you do something for me and I’ll do something for you.  If you don’t do something that I want, you will do this as punishment and regret it.  This is one way to modify behavior.

The transformational approach is such that you show love and caring and people want to change their behavior because they see this love and want to do what is right to achieve approval.  The transformational approach is more effective for achieving long term changes in individuals than a transactional approach.  Transformational individuals encourage and inspire every day and people respond well because of it.

Our words are important for achieving transformational changes.  Encourage and inspire.

Conclusion

Our words matter more than we know and typically appreciate.  How we speak to and interact with everyone around us will change the outcome for the better or worse, regardless of whether we’re trying to change how someone moves or restore a relationship.  I’ve learned the power of my words over the years, and unfortunately, I haven’t done a great job of using them in the past.  I am still learning and I hope that you recognize the value of wise word selection as well and use words to your advantage in any situation.

Kilduski, N. C., & Rice, M. S. Qualitative and quantitative knowledge of results: Effects on motor learning. American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 57, 329–336.

Cook, C.J. & Crewther, B.T. (2012). Changes in salivary testosterone concentrations and subsequent voluntary squat performance following the presentation of short video clips. Hormones and Behaviour, 61, 17–22.

Creswell JD, Dutcher JM, Klein WMP, Harris PR, Levine JM (2013) Self-Affirmation Improves Problem-Solving under Stress. PLOS ONE 8(5): e62593.