How to RISE up someone else’s exercise confidence

By Dr. Francis Quinn, PhD.

Have you noticed that when you feel confident in doing something, you feel more motivated, optimistic, and that it gives you pleasure to work on it? In psychology we make a distinction between different kinds of confidence, such as confidence that you are a worthwhile person, and confidence that you can do a particular activity well – that latter type we call self-efficacy. That self-efficacy is specific to individual actions, and can vary between activities – for example my self-efficacy to do a chin-up is low but my self-efficacy to use the lat pull-down machine is high. Plenty of research has shown that people who are confident with their sport or the exercise they do feel more motivated, are more ambitious about it, and keep on trying when they get setbacks¹.

That self-efficacy is a set of beliefs that we come to based on various sources of information: our own experiences of success or failure at that task, seeing others like us who have managed it or not, being told by others that we can do it, and how we feel when we try it (e.g. if your heart is pounding out of your chest with anxiety when you try it). But it’s also affected by the responses we get from others, like people around us doing the same activity (e.g. fellow exercisers), friends, parents, coaches and personal trainers – we infer how much faith they have in our ability for a particular task, based on what they say, how they say it, the goals or opportunities they suggest for us, their body language and even their continued presence with us or not. This has been called RISE – relationship-inferred self-efficacy².

RISE has been shown to feed into our self-efficacy – so the actions of others (and how we interpret them!) can affect our own confidence to do a particular activity. For example, one study with personal trainers and clients found that they could predict clients’ self-efficacy for exercise from the amount of RISE those clients felt – as well as their confidence in the trainer’s abilities as a good trainer. In turn, clients with more self-efficacy for exercise put more effort into their sessions with the PT³. Similar results have been found with athletes and sport coaches⁴.  

Here are some ways you can RISE up an exerciser’s confidence (i.e. self-efficacy for exercise), whether you’re a friend, personal trainer or just fellow exerciser. Remember, self-efficacy is specific, so make your feedback specific to that particular exercise, whether it’s a barbell squat, finishing a parkrun or using good breaststroke technique!

• Remember they have to believe you really mean it, so you really should! Humans are active meaning-makers about what happens to them, so we don’t always take what we see or hear at face value! If you aren’t confident in the person’s abilities with a particular activity, try them on an easier version or an adapted version that you know they can handle. And needless to say, don’t try to tell someone they can do something when you know they can’t because with exercise this could lead to injury or at least a really bad workout they won’t want to repeat.
• Keep in mind your actions should imply you believe they can do it. This might be in words you say, or in your actions. For example, it implies you have faith in them when you suggest opportunities to them like competitions, or that you consistently work with them and focus on improving their performance or technique, or when you check in on them between sessions. The opposite also applies – seeming not to care, or even stopping working with them for no good reason, can be perceived as them not having the ability. One study spoke to youth athletes about how they knew their coaches believed in them, producing a list of ways including verbally expressing confidence in them and unspoken actions like giving them a smile, thumbs-up or high five, and taking the time to focus on improving their technique after an error⁵.
• You can use persuasion to increase their confidence. Persuasion works best coming from someone they see as having expertise, so use this when you phrase it. For example if you’re a personal trainer, you can say something like “Having trained people of your build and age for several years, I’m confident that you can learn how to do this barbell deadlift”.
• When the other person tries the activity, pick out what aspects of it they did well and tell them they did them well. Make that reinforcement of their confidence and make it specific. Maybe you can push them a little further to the next level?
• Remember, your intended messages is going to be filtered via the person’s inferring how much faith they think you have in their ability. Your statement might not land the way you intended! Not sure if the other person believes you when you tell them they can do something? Ask them how they feel about you saying that. You might get “you’re just saying that to be nice” or “I’ve never been good at this”, both of which could negate the encouragement you’re giving. You can then address their response specifically, such as “No, I really do think you can do this, having seen you do XX just fine earlier” or “Well, you really did X, Y and Z well when I watched you swim that length”.
• If you have to correct some aspect of the person’s exercise, emphasise their potential and the success or progress they have achieved so far – keep the emphasis that you still have confidence they can do this, even if they need to keep practicing or build up to it. For example, you could say “You haven’t got the back quite right with that deadlift just yet. You were closer when we didn’t use any weight. Let’s reduce the weight on the bar and have another go”.

Finally, it matters that they also have confidence in you. This other-efficacy can feed into their own self-efficacy for the task; if you’re a personal trainer, their faith in you can give them a confidence boost (compared to if you don’t know how to train someone very well!), while if you’re a friend or fellow exerciser, your encouragement will hit the mark more closely if they are confident you know what you’re doing with the exercise.

References for further reading

1. Hepler, T. J., Hill, C. R., Chase, M. A., & Feltz, D. L.(2021). Self, relational, and collective efficacy in athletes. In Z. Zenko & L. Jones (Eds.), Essentials of exercise and sport psychology: An open access textbook (pp. 643–663). Society for Transparency, Openness, and Replication in Kinesiology. https://doi.org/10.51224/B1027
2. Lent, R. W., & Lopez, F. G. (2002). Cognitive ties that bind: A tripartite view of efficacy beliefs in growth-promoting relationships. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 21(3), 256–286.  https://doi.org/10.1521/jscp.21.3.256.22535

3. Hill, C. R., Smith, A. L., Myers, N. D., & Feltz, D. L. (2022). Tripartite efficacy and behavior of clients working with a personal trainer. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 34(4), 846–861. https://doi.org/10.1080/10413200.2021.1894507
4. Habeeb, C. M. (2023). The tripartite model of relational efficacy beliefs in sport: A scoping review. International Review of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 16(1), 1–26. https://doi.org/10.1080/1750984X.2020.1815233
5. Saville, P. D., & Bray, S. R. (2015). Athletes’ Perceptions of Coaching Behavior, Relation-Inferred Self-Efficacy (RISE), and Self-Efficacy in Youth Sport. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 28(1), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1080/10413200.2015.1052890