We are limited by the amount of
time and money that we have to spend on triathlon and there are many options
beyond hiring a triathlon coach that can help you improve your health, fitness
and performance. Some of these options include programs put out by Crossfit,
the YMCA, triathlon clubs, etc. These programs
tend to be less expensive than individualized coaching and provide some
valuable benefits such as a community atmosphere, a designated time and
location, and a trainer to push you through the workout. These programs are fun
and help you to stay motivated to work out on a regular basis.
That said, these types of programs
are generic. Perhaps the most distinct advantage of a personal triathlon coach
is that your training program will be individualized. What this means is that
there is more one on one, personal interaction with your coach. This provides
the coach with time to observe and address your own personal challenges as an
athlete. This interaction also allows the coach to see your life as a whole.
Unlike a generic program that tends to neglect the other stressors in your
life, a coach engages in an ongoing dialogue with you about training, racing, and life
in order to design and tailor a program to you; a program that adjusts to your
stressors, your goals, and your races. The idea is that when your program fits
you personally, it enhances your training and racing experience. It helps you
remain consistent and motivated. It helps you to not only achieve your goals
but to achieve a level of health, fitness, and performance that you didn’t know
existed. Of course, this relationship requires that an athlete is willing to
change his or her approach and put in the time to do so. The purpose of the
following is to help you understand some of the affordances and constraints of
hiring a personal triathlon coach. This will hopefully help you decide whether
or not this is a good option for you.
Coach-athlete
relationship
Generally, hiring a coach involves engaging in an ongoing
coach-athlete relationship. The two biggest constraints of this relationship
are that, like all relationships, it takes commitment and time. Unlike a
generic program where you don’t need to develop a relationship with a trainer,
individualized coaching requires that you are committed to developing the
relationship in order for your coach to help you change and grow as an athlete.
Although an opening interview will give your coach a sense of your background,
education, experience, and goals, it takes time for a coach to figure out how you
operate on a physical and psychological level. And it takes time for an athlete
to trust in the coach’s program.
Conversely, you will
benefit greatly from this relationship when you commit and put in the time to communicate
with your coach. The more your coach knows about you and your life, the better
he will be able to design a training program and the better he will be able to
coach you. For instance, if you have an event coming up and are feeling run
down from work, your coach can modify your training program to help you get
more rest before your race. Second, he
can inform you about things that you do not know. It’s not often the things
that we know, but the things that aren’t even on our conscious radar that limit
us from improving. If you tell your coach that the training is too easy so you
have been going out for harder rides and runs, your coach can inform you of why
he has backed off of the training. Maybe he will explain to you that you are in
a taper phase of your training, and although you may feel like you are getting
out of shape, your body is recovering quickly and resting up for your race. Your
coach can bring these things to your attention as they come up. And third, the
more you talk about the process of training and racing with your coach, the
more things that you will find to work on and improve. When you notice that
your calfs are tight while you run, your coach can suggest ways of relaxing
them. This will give you something to work on during your next run instead of
continuing to run without changing anything. When you have something to focus
on in every workout, you tend to be more engaged in the process and more motivated
to become a better athlete.
Resources
As I said in the introduction, we are limited by the amount
of money and time that we have to spend on triathlon. A constraint of hiring a
coach is that it takes time to communicate and you have to pay for the
relationship. An affordance is that your coach can help you make better use of
your money and time. Your coach should know triathlon equipment well and will
help you understand the value of the equipment that you might purchase. For
instance, he can help you understand that buying an aero set of wheels may save
you more time on a bike course than buying a new bike frame. And a structured
plan with quality focused workouts will help you get the most out of your time.
If a coach knows your 5k PR for the season, he will be able to write specific, time
based track workouts to help you get faster in a shorter amount of time.
Goal Setting
Generic programs do not usually address your specific goals
beyond, say, staying active or finishing your first triathlon. These programs
are certainly helpful and are almost always a great first step to becoming a
better athlete. Individualized coaching, however, takes achieving your goals to
another level by asking you to be specific. Individualized coaching assumes that
clearly defined goals coupled with a time frame make it easier to develop a
program, monitor your progress, and actualize those goals.
A constraint of talking to your coach about your personal
goals is that you have to share something intimate about your life. This can be
hard because some goals are intensely personal. Sharing a goal can make you
feel vulnerable because you are asking to do something or achieve something
that you’ve never done or achieved before. You might not be sure if you’ll be
able to achieve it. Or maybe it’s something that you’ve tried to do but failed
at multiple times before.
That said, there are many affordances to discussing these
personal goals. Namely, putting your goals into words is the first step to
accomplishing them. Next, your coach can help you clarify these goals, develop
a time frame, and help you understand what is required so that you can achieve
them. After a coach knows your goals, he can help you understand how you might
get there, design a plan to do so, monitor your progress along the way, and
keep you accountable. If your goal is to run a 10k at the end of an Olympic
triathlon in 42 minutes and right now you are running it in 44 minutes, he can
help you understand that one way you might achieve this goal is to incorporate
a weekly track workout at your desired race pace for the next 6 weeks and include
a few brick workout so you can learn how to balance your bike and run. If you
agree, then he can incorporate these workouts into your training. In essence,
your coach can and will refocus your attention from your goal to the process
that will help you achieve it.
Structure
Once an athlete has a clear set of goals, a coach can design
a program that will help an athlete achieve those goals. The constraint of a
training program is that it tends to isolate athletes. Especially if the
athlete doesn’t have a lot of time, the training can get very specific and you may
feel as though you cannot train with others. That said, if the coach knows that
training with others motivates you, he can build group workouts into your
schedule and schedule training specific days on other days of the week. The
structure can also act as a constraint if the training conflicts with your work
or family life. This requires the athlete to spend time with the coach, figuring
out a logistical schedule that can work. The structure also becomes a problem
if you aren’t willing to do the workouts. You have to commit to the schedule in
order to reap the most benefits from the program.
That said, a well structured program has many affordances. Timing
is a very important part of triathlon. Unlike a generalized program that
focuses on only one goal and ends when that goal is achieved, a well structured
training program takes your races and goals into account and ensures that you
are doing the optimal type of training for specific parts of the year. The most
common way of doing this is through periodization theory. This theory tends to
prevent against burnout, allows time for building and overloading, has built in
rest to prevent overtraining, and has benchmarks to make sure you are
progressing towards your goals. Structured programs also change up the training
to help athletes maintain consistency throughout the year. It takes a few weeks
to get use to a program, but once you integrate it into your life, it provides
you with a pathway to success.
Physical technique
There are three main limiters that prevent us from getting faster
in triathlon. The first two are fitness and health which a coach addresses with
a structured program. The third limiter is technique. Overall, I’d say that the
general fitness classes do a great job with this. Trainers tend to have a very
technique centered approach and this is one of the advantages of going to a
group class. A personal coach also should have a general handle on the
technical aspects of the sport, has studied how athletes move, and has the
pedagogical skills to help you move more efficiently. One constraint of getting
help with technique has to do with physical location. It’s best when a coach
can be in the same location so that he can give you instant feedback. Of
course, there are ways around this such as using video, but the feedback is not
usually as fast. A second, and possibly a consequential constraint, is that
your coach may require you to pay extra for his time and travel. Further, you
have to find a time that works for both of you. That said, meeting with your
coach to work on technique can afford him the opportunity to guide you in a
productive, more efficient direction.
Although his guidance might not click right away, it will most likely
help you in the future. Another affordance is that he can get to know you a
little better as an athlete by watching how you move. This will give him a new
perspective and will help him design your program to address technique issues
in future workouts.
Decisions
Life is complicated. You never know when a challenge is
going to arise like a scheduling conflict, a family emergency, or an injury. A
coach is there to help you make decisions specifically about triathlon, but
coaches know well that everything you do outside of triathlon will impact your
physical performance. Again, the constraint of a coach helping you make decisions
is that it takes time. Further, you have to be willing to tell him what is
going on in your life. But if you are willing to communicate, a coach can
help you see how this challenge fits into the bigger picture and open up your
ability to choose.
Consider this example: I’ve been working with an athlete
who’s been trying to qualify for Kona. He scheduled a half ironman three weeks
prior to a full ironman. The athlete
injured himself at work a week prior to the half ironman and the injury only
affected his running. The day before the half, he felt good enough to run and
called me to tell me he was going to do it. It seemed to me that the pressure
of racing this half plus the injury had placed blinders over his eyes. He was
seeing this race as more important than his overriding goal to qualify for
Kona. First, I reminded him of his overriding goal. I reminded him that we had
been working towards the ironman all year and that it was his chance to qualify.
Next, I explained that he had at least four options. First, he could choose to
run during the halfiron and possibly have a great race, but risk an injury that
might take him out of his ironman. Second, he could make a decision as he came
into T2, but that the decision might not be as clear because of the high
emotions that come with racing. He might feel great during the race but injure
himself during the last few miles of the half marathon. Third, he could make
the decision to step out of the race after the swim and bike. In addition, he could
redefine his swim and bike goals to make the race a successful workout. This
option would give him more time to allow his run legs to recover prior to the ironman. Last, he could choose not to race the half. I left the choice up to
him. He decided to swim and bike and save his run legs for his ironman. Three
weeks later, he went on to qualify for Kona.
We all need help making decisions from time to time. A coach can help
remind you of your priorities and help you make decisions based on your overriding
goals rather than on your emotional response in that isolated situation.
Motivation
Sometimes motivation is hard to come by. Again, the most
common constraint of having a coach is that you have to reach out to your coach
and be willing to come up with solutions to overcome challenges like a lack of
motivation. An affordance of having a coach is that he/she can sometimes pick
up on a lack of motivation and proactively discuss it before an athlete even
knows he/she is unmotivated. A coach can also help you recreate motivation.
This may involve just listening to you, helping you see your progress, helping
you see the bigger picture, and helping you to redefine your goals.
Success
The athlete-coach relationship often yields success. The
constraint is that you might have to change what you’re doing to become
successful. The affordance is that you might just be successful. There is no
coincidence that almost every Olympic athlete and most pro triathletes have
coaches. The best coaches help athletes to get to a level of health, fitness,
and performance that was never on their conscious radar.
Conclusion
Clearly, I’m biased. I am a professional triathlon coach, I
am coached, and I find both roles extremely rewarding. That said, I understand
that hiring a coach isn’t for everyone for a variety of reasons—namely time,
commitment, and trust. This is why I’ve set out to write about the affordances
and constrains of hiring a coach. It provides me with a more lucid perspective
on why coach-athlete relationships work out and why they might not. It’s just
as valuable for a coach to know these things as it is for perspective athletes.
Please note that I’m sure that there are many more
affordances and constraints that I haven’t mentioned. Some may depend on the
variety of coaching styles and some may depend on individual athlete’s lives,
their needs and their wants. I hope this provides you with a sense of the value
of a triathlon coach so that you can make a better, more informed decision
about whether or not you should hire a personal triathlon coach.
Motivation isn't something we possess, it's something we create. We create motivation by simply being there, doing the work, and building off of the work we've done. 
This was a HUGE weekend for Power On Coached athletes Jake Stevens, Lucy Rogers, and Ted Breault! Jake has been working with Jon since June and dropped his half marathon PR from a 2:08 to a 1:43. Lucy has been working with Jon since September and she dropped her half marathon PR from a 2:15 to a 2:03. And finally, Ted has been working with Jon for one year and PR'd in his first time at Kona with a smoking 9 hours and 50 minutes! Great job to these three Power On athletes!
The fourth step is exploring the area.
You can do this in variety of ways. One good way to start is by comparing the side that feels good to
the side that feels awkward. What is it that you are doing on the right side
that allows you to move so fluidly? Is it that you are more flexible on that
right side? Is it that you are engaging and relaxing your leg muscles on the
right side differently than you are on your left? Another way of exploring is
by changing your position on the
bike. What happens to your hiccup and your power as you move forward and
backward on your seat? What happens if you increase the seat height or lower it
by 1cm? A third way is to investigate through drills. A common drill that helps athletes smooth out their peddle
stroke is called a one leg drill. This is where you peddle with one leg as the
other leg is clipped out and rests on the trainer. One leg drills allow you to
focus on a particular leg, noticing how you engage your muscles to do the work.
Are you engaging your calf all the way around your peddle stroke? Is this
necessary? Is this somehow contributing to the hiccup? What happens when you relax
that calf? Does your stoke get more or less fluid? It’s important to remember
that drills isolate your leg from the functional movement which occurs when you
peddle on both sides. Drills are great ways to find out more about how you are
engaging your muscles, but they do not account for the complexity of the full
functional movement. In other words, your body is a complex system where
everything is connected. Peddling with your right leg, your movement from side
to side, your body position, among many other things will affect the way you
move your left leg. If you choose to do drills, make sure that you adapt what
you’ve learned when you return to the full functional movement. 
Looking for a new way to improve your running, swimming, and biking? Try strengthening your core. You can find some great ideas in this video! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aNq5v695T0
Who We Are: We are a team comprised of multisport
enthusiasts. The club was founded based on our desire to create a totally
inclusive environment where members can find a community of like-minded individuals
wishing to peruse fitness and health through exercise and sport. Our members
are those who enjoy the freedoms of exercise while pool and open water
swimming, mountain and road riding, trail and road running, walking, hiking,
paddle boarding, cross country skiing, triathloning, racing, and everything
else. Some of our members just enjoy going to club lectures and clinics to
learn how to improve their nutrition and lifestyle habits. Others enjoy their
involvement with behind-the-scenes tasks like maintaining the club website and
planning events. In other words, C3 is open to absolutely everyone. We welcome the big and the small, the
heavy and the light, the young and the old, the experienced and the novice, the
educators and the students, the fast and the not quite so fast (just yet), and
everyone else in between. If any of this defines you, you will fit in perfectly!
Looking for a new way to improve your body position and strength
in the water? Try implementing a band strength drill into your weekly workout routine.
For those of you who don’t know, a band is simply a rope or race belt that you
strap around your ankles, limiting you from kicking. Restraining your kick whilst pulling builds
shoulder and core strength while also teaching you at least three things: optimal
body position, optimal balance, and optimal stroke engagement. 
Note that band swimming puts pressure on your shoulders,
especially if you are pushing down towards the bottom of the pool. Be cautious
when taking your first stokes and build your way up to longer efforts. Those who
have had shoulder injuries in the past should use extra caution. 
Open water swimming
can be daunting! As many of you know, open water swimming is different than
pool swimming. Unlike the pool with its calm, clear water and its black line on the bottom which helps guide swimmers to
the other end, open water tends to be turbulent, murky, and rarely has a cable
to direct swimmers through the course. These less than perfect, open water
conditions are uncomfortable and lead even the best swimmers to panic. This is
why the Connecticut Cycle Center, The World’s Famous Zane’s Cycles, and USAT
certified, Power On triathlon coach Jon Fecik are teaming up at Lake Q on May
20th to help you feel more relaxed in open water. 
I think the world of sport has changed dramatically, even since Young wrote this preface in 2004. In the very least, national bodies such as NFL, the NHL, USAC, and USAT are more aware of the negative long term benefits of concussions. But the quote is still thought provoking in many ways. I think reflecting on how you define health will bring about an awareness of what you are willing to go through in order to achieve a particular performance goal. This reflection will help you make decisions about how to react in those moments of pain and injury--those moments when the pain or injury directs our attention away from the ramifications of our actions. So, how do you define health? Is health a specific body image? Is health a lack of disease and injury? Or do you have a more holistic view of health that involves body, mind, and spirit? Is health something you attain or maintain? How do you attain or maintain health (does it involve physical activity, nutrition sleep, social activity)? In what ways do you think your sport is healthy and in what ways do you think it is unhealthy? How do you evaluate whether you are healthy or unhealthy. For instance, do you account for pain or just physical injury in this definition or what is unhealthy? How does time and frequency influence your definitions of being unhealthy? Given your definition of health, how far are you willing to become unhealthy in order to achieve your goals? 
One strength run that seems to be benefiting my athletes is
a treadmill workout. I have the athletes warm up for 15 minutes and go on to do
4 repeats of 5 minutes at race pace and at an incline of 3%. The athletes take 3
minutes of active recovery—jogging or walking—between each interval. The athletes finish the workout with a 15 minute cool down jog. The aim of
this workout is to run at an even race pace while working to decrease perceived
effort. There are an infinite number of ways to decrease perceived effort. One
is to relax the upper body. A second is to modify form. A third is to modify foot
cadence. A fourth is to let go of the mind and let the body do the work. 
I think Paul Newsome from Swim Smooth gets a lot right when he talks about swimming. Why? 1.) He starts out with the open ended question of "What is an efficient freestyle stroke?" which gets us thinking about what an efficient freestyle stroke could be rather than what it is. 2.) He acknowledges that the "ideal" way of swimming works for some, but not everyone. 3.) He shows us that not all elite swimmers (Olympic swimmers and world class triathletes) swim in the same way 4.) He asks us to consider our RELATIONSHIP with the water rather than focusing on how we can achieve perfect form. 5.) He makes the assumption that our bodies are all different and constantly changing and, therefore, getting faster is an ever evolving process rather than achieving an idealized (objectified and commercialized) product. Needless to say, "What is An Efficient Freestyle Stroke?" part 1 and part 2 are worth watching. 