There has been a major shift in classrooms across the country. Gone is the one sized fits all model where a hard-nosed teacher motivates students with threats of poor grades, detentions and overall fear. Studies have shown that the type of “motivation” we experienced does not yield positive results, especially with the post-pandemic student.
Just as pedagogy has evolved quickly over the last decade, so has coaching. While some players did and do respond to the dictatorial approach, many do not. They come up short of their maximum potential and because of that, many teams fall short of what they can accomplish. So the question is, how does a coach create a learning environment that maximizes player success. While all athletes will not achieve the same level of success, a successful coach creates an environment for all players to reach THEIR potential.
NOT ALL AROUSAL IS EQUAL
Let’s get right to it. Moderate arousal is good and productive. Athletes have to have a heightened state of awareness and adrenaline to perform athletic tasks. We have all seen a weightlifter psych themselves up before going for a record-breaking lift or a team motivate each other prior to a game. However, excessive anxiety in practice and games is detrimental to player success.
Player anxiety creates a “slowing” effect in athletes. Anxiety adds a mental load. Worry consumes essential mental working energy. It impairs attention and drastically disrupts fluid performance that is necessary for an athlete to play free. Anxiety leads to hesitation, slowing reactions and the proverbial “choking.”
In a practice setting, anxiety prohibits the athlete from completing drills, memorizing plays and understanding key concepts in game planning.
In a nutshell, a coach has to find a balance between creating a competitive, motivating environment and an anxiety-ridden setting that limits players.
THE INVERTED U PATTERN
Research has demonstrated that performance follows an inverted-U curve with anxiety. Low levels of arousal or anxiety create boredom and sluggish processing. This is a poorly planned practice or a practice being led by a coach that does not care. Moderate arousal and anxiety is where peak performance takes place. This is the sweet spot. There is enough arousal to stimulate an athlete’s learning and performing. High anxiety narrows attention and elevates cognitive effort, slowing decision making and execution.
A 2025 study on elite shooters in Olympic sports (air rifle, air pistol, rifle) proved the U hypotheses of the Yerkes-Dodson Law. Y. Zhao and colleagues just released the study in November of 2025 and the research showed moderate arousal and anxiety was optimal for success. We can extrapolate that coaches have to help athletes find their “optimal zone” or the top of their inverted U pattern through communication, self reports, physiological measures (heart rate), pre competition routines and techniques.
COGNITIVE DRAIN
Eysenick & Calvo’s study back in 1992 proved that anxiety preoccupies working memory. This monopolizes mental effort that should be used for the task at hand. In other words, athletes have to work harder but react slower.
This also applies to a practice environment. If the practice environment is one that does not support mistakes and growth, especially early on in the learning process, too much of the available mental load is hijacked.
If a football coach is teaching a base play or basic set of plays, the athletes have to have a moderate level of arousal but not too much where their ability to learn the fundamentals are limited. A coach has to properly teach the concepts but also allow the athletes to learn based on intrinsic motivation coupled with a moderate level of arousal within the environment.
COACHING STRATEGIES
Knowing this undisputed proof of how anxiety limits all athletes (albeit at different levels), what can a coach do to create an optimal environment for players.
The first is a coach has to have an understanding of where the top of a player’s inverted U is. This will vary from player to player. Some players can tolerate a higher level of arousal and anxiety. Others can not. With that being said, the optimal arousal zone is within a similar range for most athletes.
A coach wants to live in that optimal arousal zone. Confidence is one way to regulate the fluctuations of the zone. If a player has confidence, and if the coach builds confidence in that player, the inverted U becomes a bit wider and allows for a bit more fluctuations, especially in game situations.
Coaches have to establish pressure-proof drills and plans that allow for mistakes early and then gradually introduce arousal and moderate anxiety. In other words, teach in a structured environment that allows for a player to work their way through the learning process and then gradually amp up the stakes.
Let’s use a competitive swimming coach as an example. Instead of running flat, boring low stakes drills which leaves an athlete disengaged, the coach has to design progressive pressure sets.
The coach starts with a baseline low-pressure phase. Athletes perform skills (like flip turns or dolphin kicks) in isolation or small groups. There is no audience, no timing and only encouraging feedback. This is where the instruction takes place. This prevents boredom and under arousal while also building the necessary confidence.
The coach then begins to ramp up in a core learning block. The swimmer will now perform the task with some teammates watching or simulated crowd noise on a speaker system. A coach can provide small performance consequences. If a swimmer hits a target time, the group gets a two minute rest. This is where a coach and swimmer must monitor their arousal zone. Ask the question, “How energized or focused do you feel right now?” Ensure arousal stays in a 5-7 out of 10 alert phase.
After each set, athletes communicate their arousal and performance. Ask the questions, “Did your turns feel smooth or rushed?” “Did you feel confident in your strokes?” Based on the answers, a coach can adjust the environment accordingly. He can amp up the crowd noise for the under aroused athlete or provide breathing cues to an athlete slipping out of the arousal zone on the high side.
OPTIMAL ENVIRONMENT
When an athlete is in that moderate zone, cognitive processing accelerates. Not only do they perform better, but they have the cognitive ability to adjust what they are doing to constantly improve their performance. They are more in tune with their own bodies and performance because they are aroused but not so anxious they are focusing on their own anxiety.
Additionally, by gradually creating an environment that mirrors performance, the skills practiced in the pool can translate to competition. The athletes learn the skill while managing their own emotions – and understanding where their optimal performance state is. In our swimming example, race day feels familiar because of the environment the coach created in practice.
As we have stated in earlier posts, a coach is a behavior architect. Designing practices that focus on managing anxiety is paramount to allowing an athlete to achieve optimal success.