“Have Some Feel” – This is an expression that I first heard working in professional baseball. To be fair I have no idea if it exists in other areas of strength and conditioning, but if you ever work in professional baseball you will DEFINITELY hear it. It’s one of those phrases that is really applicable but isn’t the easiest to define. I recorded a podcast episode for The PBSCCS Podcast with Joe Hudson (Red Sox) and Casey Callison (Toronto Blue Jays) about this topic (HERE). I would check it out to hear some good (and funny) stories about what is and is not good “feel”, but I wanted to sum up my own thoughts on the topic in an article as well.

To me, “having feel” really boils down to three C’s: Common Sense, Common Courtesy, and Court Awareness.

Common Sense

“Common sense ain’t so common” is something my dad would tell me as a kid ALL THE TIME (mostly because I lacked common sense most of the time). Using common sense will take you a long way in your quest to “have good feel”. This may seem to be a pretty straightforward concept, but some examples specific to being a strength and conditioning coach in professional baseball would be:

-If the field is wet from rain, it would be common sense to not do any high-level agility work on the field (both from a player safety and field maintenance perspective)

-If the team had a long overnight trip and you did not arrive to the hotel until late (4 in the morning for example), it’s common sense to not have an early gym bus that same morning (either make it later, optional, or push it to another day)

Common Courtesy

This is one that I put a lot of stock in personally. As a whole I believe people are not as genuinely courteous nowadays (call me old-fashioned or whatever, but the social media age has made people less likely to interact with each other appropriately in real life). I could give a million examples for this one, but some important ones for the professional baseball strength and conditioning coach are as follows:

-If you are in line for food and a player approaches, offer your spot to the player. He may say no and allow you to go, but it will go a long way if you at least make the offer (and not for nothing playing 9 innings at shortstop is much more demanding than sitting on the bench eating sunflower seeds for 9 innings)

-If a player picks up your cones for you after a conditioning session say thank you to him. This seems so remedial, but a small show of appreciation for a player going out of his way for you can go a long way in building a positive relationship with that guy

Court Awareness

Having court awareness has a couple different meanings for me. It could mean being cognizant of your surroundings (as in seeing a player approaching and waiting to hold the door for him), and it could also mean being “one step ahead” of guys (having a player’s lifting card out for him ahead of time and having his lift set-up). This is the hardest one of the three to develop, but over time your learning from your experiences should help you to have better court awareness. A couple key points for strength and conditioning coaches are as follows:

-Set the environment ahead of time (know how you want the weightroom to flow, have cones set out ahead of time, have the supplement table prepared, etc.)

-Keep your eyes open to your surroundings and always try to know who is where. Take stock in what players are around and what their plan is for the day.

Conclusion

Using Common Sense, displaying Common Courtesy, and mastering Court Awareness will help you to earn the right of someone who “has good feel”. Of course there may come a point where you have TOO MUCH feel, but that seems better than someone who is completely clueless in a situation. Sometimes “feel” can come naturally, and other times you have to learn your lessons the hard way. Give the podcast episode a listen for more examples and to learn from the successes (and failures) of other coaches to help you gain an edge in the “feel” department. Once you display good feel it will help you to connect with players easier and get better buy-in when times get difficult!