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.
