Choosing the Right Cue in Barbell Training

Since the world of strength sports has entered the online sphere, more and more coaches are providing services remotely. This shift is incredible, but it leads us to question what a “cue” really is and highlights a huge misconception of what constitutes cueing for barbell athletes.

And for those who are still coaching in person, cueing can be a bit overwhelming for you and your athletes. Constantly wrestling with questions such as: “what is the best cue for this athlete or this particular movement?”, “When is the most appropriate time to provide a cue?”, “how many times do I use the same cue before you try a new one?” and “why isn’t this cue working for this individual?”

In this episode, PRS Clinical Coaches Dr. Rori Alter, PT, PRSCC, SSC and Dr. Alyssa Haveson, PT, PRSCC, CSCS get into the nitty gritty of “cueing.” They answer all your questions in just 10 minutes (with a few bonus minutes!) and cover:

✔️How to effectively “cue” someone online and what you may be doing wrong

✔️The various types of cues, their effectiveness, and how to identify the best one

✔️The proper implementation of cues for the main barbell lifts when you are providing real-time coaching

✔️9 Elements of Safe and Effective Barbell Training

After listening to this episode, you will gain confidence in your ability to give cues effectively. The what, when, why and how so that you can efficiently communicate with each of your clients to ensure they maximize strength while reducing the risk of injury.

Dr. Rori Alter, PT, PRSCC, SSC: [00:00:10] And we're back with another Ten-Minute tip Tuesday, we set a timer for 10 minutes, and we discuss a topic that we get questions on all the time, which we get a lot of questions all the time. So we have a lot of ten-minute tips. But in today's episode, we will discuss how to choose the right cue to help your friends, your athletes, or your rehab coaching clients move more optimally. So I will go ahead and set my timer for 10 minutes. And the first thing that I want to talk about is defining what a coaching cue is. So a coaching cue is a visual, auditory, or tactile reminder of something you want the lifter to do regarding their movement. So cues are not the same thing as conversations. They are not full instructions and should not be something new to the lifter while that person is moving. So you shouldn't yell knees out at someone if you've never told them what knees out means or what they're doing that you're trying to correct with that term. A cue should be very clear. It should be a carefully chosen word or phrase that has already been discussed with the lifter and used right before they start moving or while they are moving. So, Alyssa, what is one big misconception about the term cue?

Dr. Alyssa Haveson, PT, PRSCC, CSCS: [00:01:58] A cue is different than a conversation, and we tend to use the word cue too much.

Dr. Rori Alter, PT, PRSCC, SSC: [00:02:04] Yeah.

Dr. Alyssa Haveson, PT, PRSCC, CSCS: [00:02:05] And a lot of coaching has shifted to the remote realm, and when we're working remotely with somebody, we're not cuing them unless we're doing a remote session and giving them that cue in realtime. So if we are providing feedback on your videos, it's never a cue. It's a conversation, education, and a description of what we want you to do. Now you might.

Dr. Rori Alter, PT, PRSCC, SSC: [00:02:29] What we see you doing and then a description of how we want you to change the movement in the future.

Dr. Alyssa Haveson, PT, PRSCC, CSCS: [00:02:35] But the thing is, that could turn into a cue that you give yourself while you're training. So if we say, remember, knee's out when you're lifting and in your head say, okay, knee's out. So now you're cueing yourself. But we didn't cue you.

Dr. Rori Alter, PT, PRSCC, SSC: [00:02:52] So that goes back into that little definition that I was having of cues. It's not just something we, as coaches or an external party, provide lifter. We can also have internal cues. So there's external where it's coming from a coach, it's coming from a friend, it's coming from a clinician or an external object, or there's an internal cue. So now we remember in our head, I've got to shove my knees. So you think knees, knees out. I feel my knees got to shove them out like it's our internal cues. And I think that is part of the whole lifting lifter journey as we go from learning about the lift to having more autonomy in our lift execution and our consistency in our technique. So I interrupted you again as usual. So where were you? I'm sorry.

Dr. Alyssa Haveson, PT, PRSCC, CSCS: [00:03:42] I think we covered the misconception about cues.

Dr. Rori Alter, PT, PRSCC, SSC: [00:03:45] The misconception, especially in the remote realm. It's not we're not cueing when we leave comments on someone's video in our Facebook group, or we're commenting back to our clients who have sent us videos from their training sessions this week because it's not in realtime and because it's not one, two, or three-word phrase of a conversation that we've already had. And it's not slightly before or while you're executing the lift. So it's not a cue. It's a conversation, education, etc., etc. So when we're talking about things in the remote realm, it's a conversation you then take and turn into an internal cue. So choosing the right cue is a very common question: how do I know if I should be using the word knees out or shove your knees out? Or how do I know if I should focus on the knees or the bar path? Or how do I know what to focus on first, and how do I know what to say? Right. So I think the right cue depends on two things: the lifter is on their journey. Are they a novice lifter? Are they an intermediate lifter? Are they advanced? Is it their first week of training and their first time performing these lifts? Have they been doing it for a couple of weeks, or have they been low-bar squatting for the last ten years? So, how will we talk to a lifter based on where they're at in their journey? And then the second element or the second component of deciding the right cue to focus on is the nine elements of safe and effective barbell training hierarchy.

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