Coxswains Are Performers Too: Considerations for Coxswain Mental Skills Training

Understanding the performance demands of a sport are an essential first step for practitioners to formulate mental performance interventions with athletes. However, limited scholarly resources exist for coxswain-specific needs within the sport of rowing. The purpose of this article is to outline mental performance considerations for coxswains and provide additional considerations on utilizing coxswains to extend mental performance interventions to the rowers within their boats. Through increased understanding of coxswain performance demands and their performance indicators of communication and steering, rowing team stakeholders can leverage the skills of goal setting, visualization, mindfulness, and arousal regulation to enhance and bring about more consistent boat speed.