Use This 3-Step Timeout Framework to Refocus Your Team Fast

Struggling with timeouts? Discover a 3-step strategy to reset your team and shift momentum. Get more strategies in our free training → https://coachfreetraining.com

A timeout can be a turning point—or a missed opportunity. After 14 years of coaching (and four state championships), I’ve learned the hard way that winging it in timeouts doesn't cut it. In this episode, I’m sharing the exact 3-step framework I use in every high-pressure timeout to refocus my team and actually coach through the chaos.

I’m Coach Bre – a mental performance coach for girl athletes, Co-Founder of The Elite Competitor, and longtime head volleyball coach. I’ve called timeouts that turned games around—and ones that left my team more confused than before. Learn how to use timeouts to reset momentum, not lose it.

Here I break down:
 ✔️ The 3 things I always say in timeouts
 ✔️ How to ground your athletes mentally in seconds
 ✔️ What to say when you're out of timeouts (but not out of chances)
 ✔️ How we came back to win State—after a failed timeout

Key Moments
 00:00 – Introduction
 00:55 – Step 1: State the problem
 01:50 – Step 2: Ground and reset team (Snapback Routine)
 02:52 – Step 3: Give specific instructions (focus on one thing)
 03:15 – The belief booster (aka the cherry on top)
 05:20 – The 3-step timeout framework recap
 06:26 – What to watch next

💬 Coaches – what’s your biggest timeout challenge? Drop it in the comments.

📌 Ready to strengthen your team’s mental game?
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Head to coachfreetraining.com to grab our free training for coaches to quickly level-up your team's mental game!

Transcript

1:04

Let's talk about timeouts because these can be the things that can bring your team back to life when it matters. Or it can literally just add to the dumpster fire that's already happening on the court or the field. And as a head coach for the past 14 years, I've led my team to four state championships over the past four seasons. However, I have called several too many timeouts where I didn't know what I was going to say, and then ended up saying the things I didn't want to say. And my team walks out even more confused and flustered than they were when I called the timeout in the first place. So if you're in this boat where you're like, what do I say in a timeout? There are. Three things that I do consistently. It's almost like a framework, kinda a little checklist. And it has saved me time and time again when I know that I need to call, call a time out, but I'm not really sure what to say or I'm afraid that I'm just going to lecture them or give them like 36 things to work on. And then they go out and work on not one of those things. And we're just back where we started. So here it is. Number one, when I call a timeout, I am stating the problem. I am not sugarcoating it. I'm just gonna state it, but I'm only stating it in like one sentence. Maybe two at most. I'm not lecturing them on like why we got here and how we shouldn't have been here. I'm gonna give you an example of this in the state championship this past fall. And we were playing in the fourth set, and I, I coach volleyball, you best, you play best three outta five. We were winning in the fourth set and we were two points away. So we had 23 points and the other team had gone on a little run and they were catching up and now all of a sudden they were tied. It was 23, 23, and we should have ended this game like points ago, which we only needed two more points. So I called time out because I'm like, okay, now they're. They're tied with us. All right, so I'm stating the problem, saying the team, you know, we let them go on a little bit of a run. I don't need to like go on and on and on about how they should have got their heads outta their butts and finished this game points ago. And you know, I've done that before and it doesn't work. So I've learned my lesson and here we are doing something differently. So I state the problem, then I do something to kind of ground and reset my team. So the thing that I do is called the snapback routine. If you've been following our stuff, you probably have heard about it, but I teach mental training. In our program, in the snapback routine is like the simplest thing that my athletes learn to help them reground themselves and reset themselves in the present moment. It takes one second. So I say, all right, let's do our snapback routine. It's like a breath. They say the reset word, and they do some sort of reset to signal on the exhale. I have leaned on this countless times because now I have a shared language with my team and I don't need to say. Get your head back in the game or get outta your head or something like that, that's actually not useful. I say, let's do our breath and say our reset word, and so we'll do that collectively. I literally did that in the state championship when I called this time out. I don't know. My team's reset words, like they all have their individual things, but we have this shared language where I can say to them. Say your reset word or take a breath and say your reset words. We all did that together. So now we're like, you know, 10 seconds into the timeout because I've stated the problem. We've done our, our reset thing and, and I'm gonna give them something specific to focus on as they go back into the, the match. All right. Something that's actually gonna be useful. So I think I said something like, Hey, this server is going to probably serve a short float to area one. Let's make sure we get our platform platform angled to the target. So we get a good pass on that. Okay. And then we'll go from there. So I'm just giving them something. Okay. We're just gonna focus on this one thing and then we'll go back. So that's really the, the three steps that I focus on. If you want a little cherry on top, what I also do is add in a belief about themselves. So I leave them with a belief about the team that we are, the players that they are. Because you likely have been saying this all season. You have your core values, you have your team identity, the things that you're enforcing as a team. So I might say something like, Hey, we're built for this. This is what we train for and whatever that is for you, it's something like, you know, we are a team that rises under pressure. We are a team that thrives when, um, when adversity hits, something like that. So you're leaving them with a belief about who they are when they step back out onto the course. So I usually do that as a little cherry on top. So that's what I did in this time out. I am gonna tell, tell you right now that, uh, this isn't a foolproof method. Um, we actually didn't get the next point and I had to call another time out. So I called back to back time out. So now the team, the other team has 24 and now they have championship point to win state. And so I call time out and I'm like, this is literally my last time out. Um, like I can't do anything else, um, as far as timeouts go. And so I stated the problem. I said, you know. Um, we did not execute how we wanted to, but good news is we have another opportunity. All right, take a deep breath if you need it. Here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna pass a three. We're gonna pass it nice and high off the net. Okay? Not, I'm not telling'em what I don't want them to do. I'm not gonna say don't pass it tight. Okay? We're gonna pass off the net. We're gonna set our outside hitter and we're gonna get a kill here. We're gonna go back to serve and take care of it from there. Hey, guess what happens? Next point, we did win. We actually did exactly that. No, I'm not saying that this is gonna win you state every year, but it's going to prevent you from going down a path that's not gonna be useful for your team. So we ended up getting that point. We actually ended up getting the next two points to win that fourth set, go into a fifth, and then we won state. So yeah, it worked out for us then. But this, this little framework has not failed me yet because there's so many times as a coach where I get emotional, I get flu flustered, and I just wanna like. Say, so. I'm not saying that you shouldn't be passionate about this, about, you know, what's going on with your team and your teammates or your, your players should see you passionate. But, um, when you get carried away and you're just lecturing and you're not actually providing anything useful, you can actually dysregulate your players more and they're going out there and. Not actually doing anything useful or productive or what you want them to do. So following that framework, stating the problem, reset them re like, you know, ground them. If you want a simple way to do that with your team, head to our free training@coachfreetraining.com. Um, that's where I teach you how to do a snapback routine with your. Athletes. And then also just some other really simple mental training strategies that you can use, especially for those pressure moments where it really matters because it is such a lifesaver when you have a shared language with your players around how to reset them. Instead of saying, shake it off next play. Just be confident. Get your head out of whatever. Like those things actually aren't useful. Giving them actual skills to be able to do that, that is useful. So that's at coach free training.com. And then. You can give them something specific to work on. You can actually coach, like you don't actually like, have to spend all this time like coaching their emotions. You can just do, do what you want to do, which is coach. So give them something very specific to work on when they're back out there. And then as a cherry on top, um, infuse in them a belief about themselves, a belief about themselves, um, as a collective team as well. That's really useful. All right. Now if you are in a situation where you're finding that your players tend to spiral. So they spiral from one mistake to the next, and then you have to call timeouts and you're like, oh my gosh. Here we are again. Um, let's stop the spiral before it starts. You can head to coach free training. That'll give you some really great tools, but you can also check out this next training that I'm doing all around this next YouTube video on how to stop the spiral before it starts. So some simple things that you can be saying as a coach and some tools that you can be giving your athlete to help stop the spiral. So I'll see you in the next video.