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Communication and working relationships in sport and fitness
Communication and working relationships in sport and fitness

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3 Making your messages more memorable

Think about those who have tried to influence you. What did they do to make their case stick in the mind and what can you learn from this?

Activity 2 How memorable is this sport practitioner’s case?

Timing: Allow about 10 minutes

Watch this clip of Lance Walker who works at Michael Johnson Performance in Texas, USA. As he makes the case for exercise recovery to improve human performance, consider and make notes about the effectiveness of both his content (i.e. what he says) and delivery (i.e. how he says it).

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Transcript

LANCE WALKER
No matter how good your training is out here on the pitch, it's only as good as your ability to recover from it. Recovery is no longer just this passive thing that you do in between training sessions. That there's actually recovery training. That's a new- somewhat of a new term, at least here in the United States. So we can actually measure recovery- how fast you have recovered from that stimulus. And that stimulus is needed, right? So now instead of 72 hours to recover from a really heavy strength training session, which we've seen historically, wow, are there some things we can do or not do with stretching? Is there some things we can do with compression therapy or cryogenics? Is there some things we can do with the central nervous system in terms of mood and changes? I mean, think of all the crazy things that- can we potentially steepen that return angle? Now what does that allow me to do? Train more intense and be able to train in more density without the possibility of some of these injury risks or these overtraining things. And it's exciting, because I think that could potentially be the new frontier.
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Discussion

Message content: he explains different types of recovery but it is noticeable how he mainly uses the first person, drawing on not only his experience but yours too and what this could mean for you. He attempts to make it personal. For some, his words may offer a vivid vision of what may be possible, using emotive phrases such as: ‘Wow’, ‘think of all the crazy things’, ‘it’s exciting’ and ‘the new frontier’. In summary, he draws on his personal experience and he uses authentic emotion.

Message delivery: It’s his delivery which really brings his message to life – you can see his excitement through his tone, animated eyes, gestures and non-verbal communication. He even uses his hands to help draw a picture of a steep recovery curve. In summary, he speaks with enthusiasm and conviction.

This example suggests that influence may partly be achieved through an authentic approach and providing a clear vision using stirring language and enthusiasm. Some might say he also draws on emotion.

However, in addition to using appealing words, in some situations conciseness is also powerful.