Digital coaching and athlete’s self-efficacy : A quantitative study on sport and wellness technology

Abstract

The use and demand for sport and wellness technology devices among athletes are increasing. The technology is used to improve the quality of training but also to improve quality of life by, for example, reducing risk of injury. Together with the increased interest towards sport and wellness technology, the demand for clear and easy to understand personalized information is growing. Digital coaching offers solutions for this demand by not only providing valuable training data but also offering instructions and guidance on how to improve the training. By doing this, the sport and wellness technology can act as a personal coach and therefore can also affect athletes’ confidence and perception of their own abilities through, for example, evaluative feedback, expectations and verbal persuasion. This exploratory study investigates subjectively perceived effects of digital coach among cross-country skiers. The focus was on the changes in the level of athletes’ self-efficacy during a one-month period when preparing for a ski marathon race. The results indicate that a digital coach can increase the athletes’ knowledge regarding their technique as well as provide improvement on perceived level of skiing technique. These results give more insight to sport technology companies as well as athletes and coaches about the effects and possibilities of digital coaching among athletes.