Why Attentional Focus is Your Essential Coaching Tool
You Haven’t Coached Until They’ve Learnt
If you care about coaching enough to be reading this article, you already know coaching isn’t just about barking instructions from the sidelines like a caffeinated drill sergeant. It’s about speaking in a language the athlete's brain actually listens to—especially under fatigue, pressure, or when learning something new.
Enter the fascinating world of attentional focus—the science-backed secret sauce behind faster sprints, better retention, and fewer glazed-over stares during drills. Whether you’re coaching a future Olympic hopeful or a herd of energetic U8s, understanding where your athletes place their attention could be the difference between short-term compliance and long-term performance gains. So let’s leave the vague “knees up!” cues in the early 2000s and embrace the sharp, outcome-focused language that gets results—and sticks.
Internal vs. External Focus
Internal Focus: Attention on body parts (e.g., cueing an athlete to "extend your hip").
External Focus: Attention on the outcome or effect (e.g., cueing an athlete to "push the ground away").
🧪 External focus consistently improves sprint performance, movement efficiency, and long-term learning across novice and expert athletes.
As track and field coaches, we’re always chasing marginal gains—lighter spikes, better surface contacts, more precise block settings. But how often do we consider how we deliver instructions as a performance variable in itself? One of the most powerful (and underused) levers we have is the type of attentional focus we encourage in our athletes. And here’s the twist: not all cues are created equal.
An internal focus directs the athlete's attention inward—toward the mechanics of their body parts. You’ve heard it, and probably used it: “Drive your knee,” “Keep your hips high,” or “Extend your ankle.” These cues may feel biomechanically correct, but research shows they often get in the way of fluid, explosive movement—particularly under pressure. Why? Because focusing internally disrupts the body’s automatic control systems. It’s like trying to type fluently while thinking about every finger movement. The result? Slower, stiffer, and often less confident execution.
In contrast, an external focus shifts the athlete’s attention toward the outcome of the movement. Instead of “extend your hip,” you might say, “blast the ground away behind you.” Instead of “lift your knees,” you might cue, “drive your legs like you’re breaking through glass.” This subtle shift taps into the body’s natural ability to self-organise. Movements become smoother, more explosive, and—crucially—stickier in the long term. You’re no longer micromanaging the movement; you’re helping the athlete feel the result.
For coaches, this is game-changing. Numerous studies now confirm that athletes—whether complete beginners or elite—demonstrate faster sprint times, more efficient force production, better jump performance, throw farther and better retention of technique when they adopt an external focus. It's like switching the lights on in a dark room; suddenly, everything connects.
And here’s the kicker: despite all this evidence, internal cues still dominate many coaching environments. According to one study, over 80% of cues given to elite sprinters were internal—even though we now know external cues are the ones that supercharge motor learning. So be the coach who breaks the cycle—don’t just copy what you’ve seen or heard; consciously craft your cues to drive external focus and help your athletes move with intent, clarity, and confidence.
So, the next time you’re on the track, think of attentional focus as your secret coaching variable. The difference between “sprint tall” and “chase the sky” isn’t just poetic—it’s powerful neuroscience. And in the world of track and field, where milliseconds matter, that could be the edge you’ve been looking for.
Key Message: We want to generate an external focus of attention when possible, where the athlete concentrates on the outcome or effect of the movement, not their body.
Reflection Task: Think back to your last training session: what were the three most common cues you used? Were they focused on body parts or movement outcomes? How might you rephrase one of those cues to promote an external focus—and what effect do you think that might have had on your athletes’ performance?
Structuring Cues That Stick: Less is More and Metaphors Matter
Now that we’ve nailed down what kind of focus we want (external), let’s talk about how to deliver it so it actually lands. Because even the sharpest cue is useless if the athlete can’t remember it, picture it, or apply it under pressure. Enter the golden rules of practical cueing: keep it simple, keep it sticky, and keep it relevant.
First up: the human brain—athlete or not—has limited short-term memory. Asking an athlete to hold on to three or four detailed cues while running at max velocity is like asking them to recite the periodic table while clearning hurdles. Research suggests that one or two focused cues at a time is the sweet spot. So rather than a shopping list of instructions (“stay tall, knees up, dorsiflex, quick ground contact!”), zero in on a single powerful image: “Run like you’re chasing down the bus.” One cue. One outcome. Massive impact.
Next, make it vivid. Cues wrapped in action verbs and analogies tend to resonate far more deeply than dry, mechanical commands. “Explode out of the blocks like a rocket” is not only more fun than “extend your knee”—it triggers motor patterns automatically through imagery. For juniors and emerging athletes, the analogy might need to be playful or relatable (“pop off the ground like toast from a toaster”), while for high-performance sprinters, you might lean on sharper, sport-specific language (“bounce off the ground like a bouncy ball”).
Importantly, the best analogies are culturally and contextually tuned. What inspires a 12-year-old middle-distance runner might not land with a 25-year-old elite triple jumper. So be flexible. Experiment. Borrow language from sports, pop culture, animals, physics—whatever evokes the feeling of the movement you’re after. It’s not about being cute—it’s about using imagery as a precision tool for neuromuscular coordination.
And lastly, deliver those cues at the right time. Use them before the rep to prime the movement, or after the rep to reinforce the focus. Mid-rep corrections often do more harm than good—especially if the athlete’s motor system is still calibrating under load. Think of yourself as a spotlight operator, not a puppeteer.
You’re guiding attention, not controlling limbs.
Key Message: Fewer words, bigger images, and just the right cue at just the right moment. That’s the artful science of coaching. And once you get it right, you’ll start hearing things like “that felt easy,” or “I didn’t have to think about it”—which, paradoxically, is exactly when you know they’re learning.
Building Your Cue Toolbox: Experiment, Reflect, Repeat
Great cueing isn’t a fixed script—it’s a living, breathing part of your coaching craft. Start by identifying one or two key technical goals for your athletes (e.g., powerful block clearance, upright max velocity posture). Then, develop a few simple external cues or analogies for each goal. Test them. Tweak them. Ask your athletes what clicked and what didn’t. Over time, you’ll build a personal library of high-impact cues tailored to different age groups, events, and performance levels. The best coaches aren’t the ones with the most complex language—they’re the ones who can translate performance goals into crisp, memorable cues that stick under pressure.
Your Task - Adjust the Cues: The following 10 cues are some of the most commonly used ones you’ll hear as an athletics coach. Using what you’ve learnt about internal vs. external focus, think about ways you can potentially adapt these to an external focus and relevant to the age and experience of athletes that YOU coach.
e,g. “Quick ground contact” might become “Bounce off the track like it’s hot lava”
“Drive your knee up”
“Keep your hips tall”
“Extend your ankle at toe-off”
“Hold a neutral spine”
“Punch your arms back”
“Keep your chest up”
“Tighten your core”
“Don’t let your foot collapse”
“Land with bent knees”
“Shorten the length of your final stride prior to takeoff”
What external focus cues have you used that really hit the mark with your athletes? Whether it’s poetic, powerful, or just plain weird—but effective—we want to hear it! Drop your best cues in the comments below and help other coaches level up their cue game.
