Introduction [00:00:00] This episode contains references to issues that some athletes and people in high performance sport may find troubling. If you need support, reach out to confidential services such as AIS Be Heard and the AIS Mental Health Referral Network. Details can be found on the AIS website ais.gov.au

Cam Tradell [00:00:21] Hello and welcome to our coaching and officiating podcast series. My name is Cam Tradell and i am the Project Lead for Coaching Officiating at Sport Australia. Over this series, we will look at what it takes to modernise Australia's coaching and officiating system. Each podcast, we will be joined by a special guest who will share experiences and practical tips on their topics. We're pleased to have Lauren Burns join us today. Lauren won an Olympic gold medal in taekwondo when the sport made its debut in the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. Lauren is currently working with the AIS Gold Medal Ready program, assisting athletes preparing for Tokyo and Paris. She is currently completing her PhD in lifestyle practises and mindset of elite athletes, and has published papers of her work in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. Welcome, Lauren. It's great to have you on the line.

Lauren Burns [00:01:18] Thanks so much for having me.

Cam Tradell [00:01:21] Interesting journey for you, and I know from winning a gold medal at the 2000 Olympics to where you are today and publishing research papers. I'd be really keen to understand. But what are your research papers? You know, what are they really about? And what was the motivation to actually duck diving down into your subject area?

Lauren Burns [00:01:40] Well, it's funny you ask what the motivation was, because I think with research, it never really well, you don't always go where you first set off to to go. So I my background is I'm also a naturopath and nutritionist, and I was actually looking at doing a clinical trial on organic food and how that impacted athletes. So basically, whether, you know, eating pesticides could impact cognitive function, reaction time, performance, that sort of thing. So that was where we started that we ended up not getting the funding for that trial, and I don't know, I think one day maybe I'll do that. So as part of looking at at food, we were also looking at lifestyle. And that was kind of the umbrella to sort of when you look at the research with athletes, there's a lot out there and a lot of it is sort of broken down into different areas. And they sort of, you know, they silos and, you know, you might have all the sports psychology research and then you got all the biomechanics or the physiology and the nutrition. You know, they're huge. That fit a lifestyle as a holistic framework is not really looked at. So I guess to start with, I decided to go to the top and I chose, you know, Olympic and Paralympic gold, medal winning athletes or world championships, depending on the benchmark of their sport. So, you know, some some sports don't have Olympics like surfing, for example. I has people like Layne Beachley, Ian Thorpe, Russel Mark, Kerri Pottharst, Jackie Cooper, like these incredible athletes. And I purposely sampled them so I had a real cross-section of individual athletes, team sports, in a small team or a team as a big team, so I have Chole Dalton from Rugby Sevens. Combat Sports. I had Carmen Marton who's the world champion in taekwondo. So I had this real cross-section. And really we were just, you know, Cathy Freeman asking what, you know, what do you do with your life? How what did you think? What did you attribute your success? What did you think impacted your performance? Negatively, positively? There were very open ended questions and we didn't really know where we were going to go from that. So it was it was actually fabulous. And I think when I first retired myself from elite competition, I didn't really want anything to do with high performance sport. I didn't think I certainly didn't think I'd be doing research. But coming full circle. I've just you know, I really enjoyed this process and especially seeing some of the results that have come come from it. And then we did a larger study, a survey which we surveyed Australian athletes from podium to emerging athlete. But that was also another they all kind of actually supported the findings that were in our initial study.

Cam Tradell [00:04:27] That's interesting. You sort of started to talk about, you know, some of the positives and some of the negatives. Were there common traits coming through with regards to absolute imperatives at the at the development years of athletes that came through is just being key and core to their success?

Lauren Burns [00:04:44] Well, I think, you know, intrinsic motivation, unstructured play a really big markers in development. We didn't really ask a lot about there wasn't a lot about upbringing necessarily. Someone more like, you know, obviously naturally gifted. I mean, Russell Mark talks about like to throw anything in the air and he can shoot it. Like he was just sort of born with that ability and others sort of had to work a lot more.  But that intrinsic motivation was certainly something that was cultivated and developed in all those athletes. It was really apparent. So psychological attributes were just outstanding. So that realistic optimism, resilience, that ability to be knowledge seekers, going out, finding anything, leaving no stone unturned, being really resourceful. That intrinsic motivation by all of those attributes were really strong. And then there were these other elements. So it was really this those psychological attributes, the performance strategies, which obviously we're talking once you talk to athletes at that level, they sort of you know, it's not about their skill necessarily or their talent. I mean, those things are a given. They've worked so hard to get to that point that that's really well established. Then the lifestyle practises, which is something, again, that I as I mentioned, it wasn't really where I thought I was going to go, but that was quite, quite fascinating. And then I think the thing that really stood out to me was the importance of interpersonal relationships and how that can attenuate stress and how intrinsic that is to to performance and those four elements of psychology, performance, relationships and lifestyle, it's like there's a there's this it's like a dynamic interplay. So those elements are like a tilt of where the athlete needs to lean into those areas more. And that's something that's about and is very, very apparent with that mastery level athlete, because it's about their ability to self regulate and to be able to lean into that, like to be able to get those psychological skills to draw on their knowledge in that space and or do they need to go and catch up with a friend and have a laugh or, you know, talk to the coach or hang out with, you know, go to their parents for dinner and, you know, like those. So that's something that those athletes that are at that top level have really they know themselves so well that they're able to do that without really thinking. And that's sort of where, you know, you want to get to in that space is being able to move between those elements.

Cam Tradell [00:07:23] That's really interesting. Did anything come out in your research that talks about, you know, where people do go when they want to get that help and support?

Lauren Burns [00:07:30] In terms of a positive way to motivate people, is this level of challenge and support and I haven't written about that a lot in my papers, but I certainly wrote quite extensively on it in my thesis. And its that level of being able to to challenge someone you want people to stretch. And we're talking about, you know, if you're going to the Olympic Games or you're going for a gold medal, you need to rise to that occasion so that the athletes want be challenged, the coach wants to challenge them. And so you want people to grow and you want them to stretch that they need to do that and have the need to have that respectful environment, and to be able to, you know, have the support backing there as well and to feel like they were supported and I know with me, my coach, my club coach, like he always pushed me and challenged me, especially mentally in ways that I never thought that I could grow. But I always knew he had my back. And he was he had my best interests at heart. And I could say to him, this is too much. Or, you know, I always felt like there was a really open dialogue. But, you know, I think there's also there's just human decency as well, like just being a good person, you know, just and being, you know, getting the best out of someone is not, you know, putting them down or making them feel less than or,  yeah about, you know, specific body characteristics or anything like that. So that that can be quite damaging for life, and one of the things that when I was writing up the paper about the I wrote an editorial piece about interpersonal relationships specifically that was published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. So I can give that to you. I can give it to you and you can share it with your listeners. But one of the things that we that I highlighted in that paper is that unfortunately, and this is in the world, but certainly in Australia as well as athletes, progress along their journey, as the higher they get in the performance pathway, the higher chance there is of bullying, ostracism, violence, sexual assault, all kinds of abuse, harassment, coercion. Now, that's really unfortunate. So it is topical. And, you know, this is great. We're having these kinds of conversations at the moment because those things shouldn't be happening. And, you know, you think about our kids and we, you know, have great community involvement, that kids go up and play sport and they get involved in teams. And if they want to progress, they go further and, you know, and then they get into this little hamster wheel of a elite sport and you don't want them to have all of those things happen. So I guess part of putting that in the editorial is that we need to speak about this and to, you know, keep talking about it until it's not there anymore. And there's a lot of things that we can put in place to to educate our coaches and support staff and people that are around the athletes, because that's one of the things that we found was highly important. And the athletes, you know, said that they often valued some of the support staff more than they did the coach, so you know the massure, the physio, the people that are travelling. And, you know, I think there's a lot in that. But when I was thinking about that, it wasn't just that the massure was a nice person, but they were human touch, there's regularity. Often the massure's travelling with them, or they're seeing them every day. And there's also a sense of, you know, there might be some more power dynamics with the coach where you've got selection or whatever that might be going on. It's a little bit more high pressure. And when an athlete is just sitting, lying on the table or getting their ankles strapped by the physio, whatever, they can just chat. And so I think these you know, these service providers, you know, they have a great role to play in performance. So and, you know, a lot of the some of the work that I was drawing on when I wrote this piece and I talk about it in the article, is how, you know, quality relationships, so people that you feel comfortable with, they don't have to be, you know its not a Disney. It's not all utopic, but those people that you can be real, authentic self with, they actually being around them, are staying in close proximity, can lower cortisol levels. And a lot of your stress markers will come down to just being near someone which, you know, we kind of all know, like we have good friends that you just hang out with. You feel great just being with them or, you know, you "oh I'm so glad we caught up." it was awesome seeing them, I just feel, you know, they just lift you and, you know, people are like that. We made that human connection.

Cam Tradell [00:12:10] When you talk about that, I think about the role that that community has to to service that with regards to providing athletes, players, participants with that ability to if they do need to talk, they do need help. They do need support, is that it can almost cultivate athletes and condition them so that for the one percent that actually get up to podium performance level or, you know, the small percentage that if we can arm athletes and participants with the tools to navigate through that of they are faced with something like that, I think that becomes very, very powerful with regards to, you know, regaining their power in situations that you're talking about.

Lauren Burns [00:12:51] That's right. And one of the great things about sport is that many of the skills that you learn while you're playing sport or you're involved in, you know, a community level, grassroots, whatever level of sport and recreation, those skills are relevant in so many different areas. So, you know, it's not just getting someone to compete at a mastery level or an Olympic Games or world championships. It's also, you know, this is about growing our community and our culture and keeping people active. And, you know, so there's so many elements to along that pathway that if we can support people and provide skills and it, you know, for their health and wellbeing and, you know, there's just so many benefits, really. So we don't want people having a bad experience and stopping it. And then they always have this negative association with board or the coach so that they don't want to go back to that. But that's not good.

Cam Tradell [00:13:53] I like what you said before. It's about that community cohesion as well, about sort of reflecting your community and reflecting who you want to be so aspirationally you might not want to play for Australia. That might not be what you want to be aspirationally, but you want to be a better person. You want to be better yourself and sports a great conduit for it.

Lauren Burns [00:14:10] Yeah. And we talk talking in the Gold Medal Ready program. We talk about experiential avoidance and, you know, reminding athletes of that it is our job as human nature is that as we get towards something that's harder, we our mind is like go back, don't do this. It's hard. It makes me feel uncomfortable. I don't like it, you know, but to do any of those great things in life like to finish your degree or to finish running a half marathon or maths or whatever it might be, you have to move. You have to lean into that discomfort. And that's where that coaches and support teams can be really influential and team-mates and, you know, social scaffold. But, you know, those things, you know, sports is such a nice parallel for it. It because, you know, I mean, I took my son got his black gold in taekwondo and, you know, there was times when he didn't want to do it. And that's what he pushed through and he got it. And so now that can be well, you didn't want to do this. And it's the same with you know homework or, you know, study or finishing your work or getting a submission or whatever it might be that you're doing it. Sometimes we have to just lean into that discomfort a little bit, and that's when we grow and we stretch.

Cam Tradell [00:15:24] Fantastic. Lauren, thank you so much. We really, really appreciate your time this afternoon. It's always good to catch up and talk. Really appreciate you've given us a lot to think about there. And thank you so much. Thank you for joining me today. If you'd like to find out more about coaching and officiating, or have any feedback or questions, please email us at Workforce@sportaus.gov.au. My name is Cam Traddell and I look forward to you joining me for the next podcast in the coaching and officiating series.

Disclaimer [00:15:57] If you need support, reach out to confidential services such as AIS Be Heard and the AIS Mental Health Referral Network, details can be found on the AIS website. ais.gov.au