Goal setting is an often neglected aspect of improving skills and fitness on the mountain bike, and an area that many coaches tend to gloss over quickly when working with athletes. Obviously, an athlete who has reached out to a coach wishes to improve their performance but needs help figuring out how to do that. Coaches often assume they have a formula that will work for a given demographic or for developing a particular skill or fitness – they listen to the athlete describe their goal/s, and then prescribe training that increases the athlete’s chance of achieving success. All too often, coaches let their athletes set vague goals, which many times sound something like this: “I want to finish my workouts feeling stronger,” “I want to feel great in my race,” “I want to be faster at climbing,” “I want to feel more comfortable at technical downhills,” or “I want to get on the podium at a race.” The coach then prescribes a block of training which includes workouts that target those abilities and tells the athlete to get to work. Sound familiar?
It is lazy for a coach to accept goals like these as the foundations for a training program. Goal setting should be a central pillar of the coach-athlete relationship, with specific goals that are continuously re-visited and re-evaluated. This falls on the athlete as well. The athlete is paying good money for coaching expertise. If they are seeking this type of feedback they are looking for more than recreational enjoyment. Prescribing a block of training to an athlete will probably help an athlete make some improvements. Building underlying motivation, desire, and learning into a program will fast track that process.
As coaches we need to help our athletes define and refine their goals. Perhaps you have heard of S.M.A.R.T (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-constrained) goals. Setting SMART goals is necessary, but not sufficient. I would add a few things to this list:
In setting goals every factor should be within the athlete’s control. Placing well in a race is not within an athlete’s control. Showing up prepared and rested so that an athlete can execute the skills that they have practiced in training is.
Goals should be an inspiration. This is crucial to maintain motivation. An example of this could be, “I will practice banked turns at the pump track once a week because on trail rides one of my favorite feelings is riding banked turns at high speed. Practicing this skill in a safe setting on asphalt will make me feel more comfortable when I encounter similar features that are loose and dusty.”
The goal should present a well defined and appropriate level of challenge. For example, an appropriately well defined and challenging goal could mean that, if the athlete follows the training protocol, when it is time to perform there is a 75% chance that they will achieve their goal and a 25% chance they will not. As an athlete improves and strives ever higher, the appropriate level of challenge rises correspondingly and this ratio will likely slide towards a decreasing likelihood of achieving a goal. As a beginning athlete, goals should be relatively easy to achieve and mark progress; at the elite level of sport, goals should be exceedingly difficult to accomplish.
Above ALL else, the highest goal is learning. This is not new age mumbo jumbo. It is ancient warrior wisdom. This is the deep well that must be curated to cultivate long term motivation. This is also why goals need to be revisited frequently. An engaging and interesting challenge free from extrinsic forces is THE path to growth and development at any ability level and any age.
Defining short term, mid term, and long term goals is important and this timeline is fluid depending on the athlete. As someone in my 40’s who began mountain biking when I was 9 this timeline looks quite different compared to a 16 year old who has been riding for two seasons. A short term goal for me might be something I would accomplish over the course of a season, a long term goal might take a decade or more. For the teenager new to the sport a short term goal might be something achievable in a few rides or a week, a long term goal might be defined as something to strive for over a few months. Short term goals should still be a challenge but will be easier than long term goals.
Goals are categorized as outcome-based or process-based. Both types of goals are valid and motivating, but there is a hierarchy. MUCH more emphasis should be placed on process and learning oriented goals. Prioritizing process-based goals that place the athlete in a stressful mental and physical state on the bicycle, such as engaging with a difficult hill climb interval, or repeatedly practicing different lines down a steep rock garden, puts them in a position to learn and grow. An outcome-based goal puts the athlete in a place they want to arrive in once the stress is over, such as riding each feature of the black diamond line at the bike park, or placing well in a race. Simply put, process goals are realized DURING stress and challenging moments; outcome goals are realized AFTER the stress and challenge have passed. Elite athletes think of results goals as simple tests to see how well they have assimilated their process goals.
A coach’s job is to steer an athlete towards realizing their potential, and certainly getting into the details of training and planning workouts is useful, but the coach must use goal setting that revolves around learning and growth as a Northstar to guide an athlete’s journey. Let’s take an example of a generic outcome based goal the 16 year old athlete with two years of experience in the sport might have: “I want to place top 10 at NICA state championships cross country race this October.” Coaching this athlete we would see that this goal is specific, measurable, unlikely achievable, questionably relevant, and time constrained. It is not within the athlete’s control (anyone can show up on the starting line), and it is not inspirational – nothing about it underscores progress, growth, learning, or curiosity. It is probably not an appropriate level of challenge either. The reality is that even a talented kid who has been riding mountain bikes for a few seasons can finish in the top 10 at a NICA state championships competition is slim. The talent pool in mountain bike racing is vast and many of the kids racing will have already had years of competition practice and are already riding at close to a professional level. Especially as a young and inexperienced athlete his coach must help him better define his goals and give meaning to his burgeoning passion. Taking into consideration that this young athlete is unaccustomed to hard training, inexperienced with racing, and a full time high school student with limited training time it is imperative that his workouts are fun, simple, relatively short, and put him in situations that will stimulate learning, so that he has accumulated as much knowledge and experience possible before the state championship race.
Here are some examples of goals that will better suit this athlete: “I will go to the bike park and pump track twice a week to work on jumping, cornering, and maintaining flow and speed;” “I will commit to a three hour long challenging endurance ride on the weekend to experience a level of stress and fatigue that will prepare me better for the demands of racing;” “I will find a local hill that takes me about ten minutes to climb, and once per week I will do a workout where I properly warmup, climb it twice at maximum effort with a ten minute rest in between intervals to begin building more power and increasing my VO2 max;” “I will time myself on this hill now, and will attempt to climb it 5% faster in eight weeks time;” “I will participate in a different sport of my choosing at least once a week like tennis, rock climbing, or weight lifting to target athletic skills that mountain biking does not;” “I will aim to get nine hours of sleep per night, do gentle, regular stretching, and cut my sugar intake in half;” “During the state championship race I will pace myself appropriately and rest properly before the race so I can focus well and apply all of my effort to executing the skills I have been practicing.”
One of the traps with having outcome-based goals is that as stress, or the challenge during the moment increases, our minds see things in an all or nothing, success or failure way. If the young athlete’s goal to finish his race in the top 10 goes out the window in the first ten minutes of the race when thirty riders go flying off the front, he will likely give up the effort and think, “why bother, I know I can’t catch up.” If a coach helps this athlete to be motivated by process, learning, and curiosity the young athlete will see the increasing stress and challenge of a competitive race as a great opportunity to realize his goals – improving his resilience, skills, and fitness.
In addition to steering an athlete towards realizing their potential a coach also has a duty to chart a path of longevity for their athletes. By recognizing the pitfalls and dead ends of outcome-based goal setting, and by seeing the value in cultivating motivation through a curiosity and love of learning process, a coach can lay a solid foundation for an athlete to thrive and develop continuously by making process-based goal setting a pillar of their coaching philosophy.
Sometimes athletes may balk at the idea of making this type of goal setting foundational to their training and racing program. It can be hard to realize goals when life gets in the way. We may feel bad if we don’t achieve our goals. We often have pre-programmed thinking about what goals mean due to our backgrounds in childhood, school, or work, that are unappealing. If our goals weren’t appropriately challenging we may think they are pointless. There are many ways goal setting can be a de-motivating trap if they aren’t set up intelligently. This is so unfortunate. Even athletes who are motivated simply to gain some fitness and skills to enjoy the sport more and do not harbor desires to become elite athletes will derive so much more pleasure from the process of improvement if they can create some focused process and learning oriented goals. Our intentions and whims are fickle day to day, and our egos will do anything and everything to keep us within our comfort zones. Having goals that we care about on a longer timeline keeps us on track. If we are truly passionate and care about longevity and growth in the sport the way we cultivate that is by engaging in challenges that stimulate our deep inner need to learn.
Truly smart goal setting involves a profound dive into the human mind to understand what creates long term motivation. Goal setting is paramount in the coach-athlete relationship. The wise coach visits the topic frequently and seriously with their athletes.