Understanding and and Influencing Elite Athlete Motivation

A research informed presentation by PhD researcher and applied practitioner, Matthew Cullen. You will learn all about:

• How elite track & field athletes think, feel and act when optimally motivated and when they are having motivational difficulties.
• Practical strategies athletes and coaches can use to help sustain optimal motivation and use to help in times where athlete motivation might be compromised.

There will also be an opportunity for attendees to reflect on their experiences of optimal and compromised motivation in athletes:

• How do you as an athlete think, feel and act when optimally motivated & when having motivational difficulties.

• For coaches on the call, what have they noticed in athletes when they are optimally motivated and having motivational difficulties - similar to the themes we identified ? Or perhaps something else to add..
• What strategies have coaches on the call adopted when they have noticed athletes exhibiting some of the thoughts, behaviours and feelings exhibited by elite athletes when they are having motivational difficulties.

We will ask people to share their key practical takeaways from the session. Something practical they can grab hold of and use as an athlete / coach. A new awareness, idea, concept you can take into your next training session over the weekend / next week.

About your speaker:

Matthew Cullen (BSc hons, MSc, QTS) is a PhD Researcher at the University of Birmingham, England. His PhD research is focused on understanding and impacting the motivation and motivational climate of elite track & field athletes/coaches. He appeared on a previous BMC webinar providing a broader overview of his PhD research.

He has spent the last 4 years working as a Senior Associate for DDP Ltd supporting individuals, teams and organisations on the human side of performance in business and sport. Prior to this he spent 8 years working at Aspire Academy (Doha, Qatar) facilitating the delivery of sport psychology support programmes for student-athletes & more recently supported staff to develop coaching & learning environments that were psychologically adaptive. Prior to this he worked as a Physical Education Teacher in the UK and also spent 7 years working in an applied practitioner role at Liverpool Football Club in their Academy.

He has run 16 marathons on 6 continents (just the Antarctic to go), most recently running a 20 second course PB in New York in November last year.

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