Coaching practices for Autogenic Training with My Team

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Autogenic Training with My Team, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

• The people I’m training just go through the reps I dictate, checked-out and joyless, and I dictate every detail because I assume that’s my job
• I keep doing this the same skill a slightly different way every time to keep it interesting, and months in it’s still just as effortful and clumsy as day one
• I run through it a handful of times, feel like I’ve basically got it, and then move on
• I keep trying to do the whole complicated thing all at once and there are just too many moving parts to track at the same time
• I can do this thing fluently when no one’s watching, but the moment it matters I start micromanaging every step

Practices that may help

1. Autogenic Training, Made Practical
   Autogenic training (AT), developed by psychiatrist Johannes Schultz in the 1930s, is a structured self-relaxation method that uses repeated, specific phrases — "My arm is heavy," "My arm is warm" — to trigger physiological relaxation through passive concentration. A 2002 meta-analysis found AT effective for anxiety, insomnia, and functional somatic complaints. The warmth and heaviness described in the phrases are real physiological responses (vasodilation and muscle relaxation), not metaphor.
2. Give performers choice within practice to support autonomy
   Offer self-directed options in practice — which drill, how many reps, which cue — to enhance intrinsic motivation and learning.
   External Focus of Attention, Made Practical
3. Consistent-mapping practice
   Always pair the same stimulus with the same response — inconsistency permanently blocks automaticity.
   Automaticity: When Skills Run Themselves
4. High-volume repetition blocks
   Log more trials than feels necessary — automaticity is earned through quantity, not complexity.
   Automaticity: When Skills Run Themselves
5. Sub-skill isolation and sequencing
   Automate the components of a complex skill one at a time before combining them.
   Automaticity: When Skills Run Themselves
6. Trust Self 2 — give the body an image, not instructions
   Set the target in vivid sensory terms and then let the body execute without conscious direction.
   The Inner Game: Quieting Self 1
7. Contextual interference for integration
   Once sub-skills are automatic, interleave them randomly to cement integration.
   Automaticity: When Skills Run Themselves
8. Train at 40-60% of maximum — the sub-maximal effort rule
   Each GTG set should feel easy: you stop well before any form breakdown or perceived effort.
   Greasing the Groove, Made Practical
9. Automaticity: When Skills Run Themselves
   Automaticity is the state in which a practiced skill operates without consuming working-memory capacity — the result of consistent stimulus-response pairing across many repetitions. Schneider and Shiffrin’s landmark research established that automatic processing is fast, parallel, and load-resistant, while controlled processing is slow, serial, and capacity-limited. The transition requires consistent mapping and sufficient volume of deliberate practice.
10. Coached practice with targeted feedback
    Attempt the task yourself while a coach observes and provides immediate, specific feedback on process.
    Cognitive Apprenticeship: Learning by Making Thinking Visible

Describe your situation in your own words to search the complete practice library.