Sustainable Behavior Change: The ‘8 Controllables’ For Optimal Athlete Recovery

As published on the OWN IT App blog:?https://ownitapp.com/blog/

A recent?November 2021 study ?shows that a wearable device?combined?with individualized coaching demonstrated significantly better outcomes than a wearable alone. We discuss the nuances of that new study?here .

The coaching methods in the study were simple: daily text messages from a real coach. Contacting clients to give accountability is the bedrock of?any?coaching. It’s the price of admission. Nobody questions the impact of that — but time to consider if more can be done to get athletes taking ownership of their recovery and performance. Could it be the ‘8 Controllables’?

What Are The ‘8 Controllables’?

Any change that an athlete can make to alter their behavior rests in one of the ‘8 Controllables’:

• Nutrition
• Sleep
• Hydration
• Exercise
• Stress Management
• Immune Function
• Environment
• Mindset

By examining an athlete’s biometric data, like their HRV, you can determine which of the ‘8 Controllables’ will have the biggest shift. Justin Roethlingshoefer, Chief Performance Officer of OWN IT, says you should “think of the ‘8 Controllables’ like a checklist. When you have a clear list of options for how to improve your habits, you can examine them one by one.” These elements are the levers that affect an athlete’s recovery, and in turn, performance.

To see progression in recovery, coaches need to move from seeing athletes as over-stressed or over-trained to athletes being?under-recovered. With this outlook, the ‘8 Controllables’ can provide guardrails that equip athletes with the awareness and tools to create sustainable habit change.

For example, in working with an athlete you may find out through their wearable data and from conversations with them that they aren’t sleeping well. When asked how they slept, coaches are going to hear vague responses like “fine” or “not great”. Without data, it’s nearly impossible to determine the difference between time in bed and time asleep, one of the most basic metrics of sleep performance. It’s common for collegiate athletes to neglect their sleep and exhibit poor sleep hygiene (i.e. inconsistent bedtimes, late eating, using their phone in bed, etc.).

At OWN IT, coaching staffs (like the University of Miami football ) are assisted as they implement simple protocols like the 3-2-1 rule — no food three hours before bed, no work two hours before bed, and no screens one hour before bed. By measuring the biometric data of your athletes and using the ‘8 Controllables’, you initiate positive changes in habits and behaviors that affect athlete recovery and performance.

Just like the examples above, the moment you bring awareness, it establishes the first principle of sustainable change — consciousness.?From there, you initiate the steps necessary to take that new information and devise a plan to shift from a new routine into something that happens instinctually.

Athlete Recovery Requires More Than Accountability

For decades, coaching staffs have relied on athletes revealing how they feel and then reactively trying to solve the problem. This causes massive gaps on two fronts. For one thing, athletes often aren’t able to accurately depict how their body actually feels —?added strain and stress is difficult to recognize. Secondly, this forces coaches to respond?reactively?to the stressors their athletes are facing.?When we talk about?true?behavior change, there’s a large part that comes from the buy-in of the athlete. The biggest way to create buy-in is through quality communication, purposeful education, and systemized support systems.

The third mistake that we see coaches making is not equipping their athletes with the tools they need to assess their own recovery beyond stating their feelings. By not working through the ‘8 Controllables’ to develop a plan for habit changes, the low quality sleep, poor hydration outside of practice, and other stressors create cycles of poor recovery that return as soon as the athlete makes the quick fixes suggested by coaches.

Limit Decision Fatigue to Ensure Behavior Change

For most, habit change has often summed up with some poor cliches of advice like these:

• “You just need to make a commitment to drinking half your bodyweight in water”
• “It takes 21 days to form a habit”
• “Send me a text every morning telling me if you went to bed at a decent time”

There is no shortage of poor advice about forming habits. Part of forming positive habits stems from awareness and data — but the most powerful component comes from creating a plan that athletes feel in control of. Because they’re ultimately responsible for making changes, athletes need to be equipped with an achievable plan and the ability to assess progress.

As part of that plan, limiting the amount of decisions an athlete must make is critical. It’s much easier to eat healthy when you’re not the one making your own food. In the same sense, the plan you create for each athlete needs to reduce the need for remembering to uphold the habit. If you leave too many decisions on the table, decision fatigue leads athletes back into poor habitual patterns that negatively affect their recovery.

Use Habit Changes to Impact Athlete Recovery

By providing athletes with their biometric data and a plan built upon the ‘8 Controllables’, you pave a sustainable path towards improved recovery — no more temporary adaptations like going to bed earlier for one night before a big game. With the ‘8 Controllables’, athletes better understand what they need to do to make permanent changes that improve their recovery that they truly want to own.