Who is the right coach for me?
It is just coming up to the end of the season. Most people sit down at this stage of the year to review their performance and start to think about race entries for the next calendar year. Sometimes the season has not what we wanted – maybe injuries, disrupted training, cancelled races, too many other things going on, or a bad day on race-day. These things happen to even the very best of athletes! The question is what do you do next?
Sometimes we come to the conclusion that we need a coach in order to support us on the journey. But who is the right coach? It interests me to see how many people look for someone who has done what they want to do. In analysing it, I think that we are looking for ‘proof points’ to help us to feel confident that this person can help to ‘fix my issue’. Or, if we have got as far as a goal, can help me get to my goal.
This approach may work, but I think that it is risky. Why? It starts from the fact of that person is not you – they come with their own mix of strengths, development areas and lifestyle aspects. And the biggest danger is that they may simply try to get you to do what they think they did in order to reach your goal…. Which has a greater chance of failure than success.
They need to build a deep picture of what it’s going to take for you to achieve this. It requires someone who is a great listener, thoughtful, analytical, knowledgeable, flexible – but above all, works well with you. After all – it is you who is going to be out there on Race Day – not them!
So what would I be looking for?
I’d be looking for somebody with whom you can have a great conversation about goals. Somebody wants to really chew over with you what it is that you really want, why that’s important to you – and ultimately how powerful that why can be in sticking to a progressive plan to get to this exciting destination. I would expect them to work with you to build an ecosystem of sub-goals that ladder up to that bigger goal. This will be personal, specific to your event, fitted to your training time and lifestyle (with a sense of realism, rather than over-optimism of squeezing loads of training into your schedule).
I’d be looking for someone who shows me the building blocks. The foundation of this is building up a shared view of a ‘Gap Analysis’ – ie where you are now, where you want to go and what it is going to take. Then I would expect to understand how the building blocks of the plan build-up to this. It is the core difference of having a coach versus just buying a plan taken from the internet linked to your specific goal. You want it specifically structured to you. I would be expecting to see ‘test’ and ‘retest’, in order to see the progress as each layer of bricks build-up, and also to help diagnose any other emerging areas that could hold you back from your goal.
I think a lot of people look back at the season gone and think “I would have got there if I had trained harder”. This is so very rarely the answer. But it may explain why a lot of people turn to a coach who either sets a high volume of training, or have a training group with a presence of ‘beasting themselves’ every session. I think that this is a path to frustration, burn-out, injury, or possibly all three.
Of course I’d be looking for a coach who motivates you – you, and you personally. I would suggest that you want to have a coach where you are respectful of – and that engenders a feeling that you want to achieve success together with them. I don’t think you want a coach that you’re scared of, and I really don’t think that you want to be in an environment that pushes you harder and harder because that’s a one way trip to burnout over time.
There can, of course, be a specific skills element: I want to bike faster, or swim faster. This may take you to a coach for a short-time whilst you develop that, but I’d be looking for a coach who can help you much more widely than just one skills element. These skills gaps are best plugged with masterclasses or personal training sessions on those skills.
The biggest part to me is that none of us are professional athletes. Our sport is important to us, but there are other things in our life that take as much (or even greater) importance: work, family, other interests. I’d want to really understand how the coach is going to help focus the time that is available for training to get the ‘biggest bang for the buck’. And that does not mean hard training sessions! I work with a great sports massage expert who talks about how he gets the best results by easing into the injured area so that it does not tighten up and go on-alert. This is also true of training adaptation of the body – ‘muscles are made in bed’!! What I mean by that is that the progression comes in the recovery. And this all depends on lifestyle: sleep, rest, recovery, low stress, good nutrition & hydration, smart body care etc. This is virtually impossible to do all of the time. So I’d say a great coach is somebody who can help you put the building blocks of your total lifestyle together in such a way that it works. And spot the times when something needs to give, and work with you to reschedule, replan, rebalance and get back on top of it all again.
I’d expect somebody who was a good coach to be working with you in looking across the board: on rest and recovery, sports psychology, physiology (especially injury prehab and rehab) etc.
Do you need a male or female coach?
This is a very common question. The simple answer is that gender has very little to do with it – you need to take a good look at the chemistry and the match with your goals.
Some of the common traps that people can fall into are:
- competing with their coach, which can make opening up when things are not going well more difficult
- needing constant reassurance and nurturing from their coach, which can make getting a balanced perspective more difficult when some of the realities are tough to face into
- only sharing the sports aspect of their life with the coach, which can lead to blind spots around other impacts
These are not unique to any given gender – but do rely on good, open, high-trust communication at all times. I would say that for women, there is proven advantage in being able to talk about the impact of your hormonal cycle and lifestage with your coach and use the knowledge that is now being gathered in this area. But again, my own experience is that this can be as easy to talk about with a male coach as a female coach – so it is all back to the chemistry of the coaching relationship.
What would be smart questions to ask potential coaches?
I would have a look at their websites, or their social media, and listen to what other athletes say about them. Then I would pick up the phone and say to them: “Tell me about you. Tell me about your coaching philosophy. Tell me about the kinds of athletes that you like to work with.” These are all very fair questions.
Once you’ve heard them talk, then the opportunity is for you to say: here’s me, and to talk about where your sport fits in your life, what your goal is, and what specifically you think the areas are that you see gaps or see that you need help with right now.
The conversation that flows out of that should give you a sense of whether there’s the rapport, the respect, the challenge, the knowledge and the way of working, that’s going to fit for you. Because at the end of the day this is your life. Coaches should help you to take a bigger step that maybe you couldn’t take right now without their help, but you’ve got to believe that they are going to do that in a way that works for you, and you specifically.
So chemistry really, really matters, and it may take a couple of phone calls or some coffee chats to explore those questions enough for you to know whether the rapport and respect is right.
I would be delighted to have a chat about any of these things with anybody just reviewing their season and working on how to find the right coach. And if you’ve got any comments or questions, please do give me a shout on +44 (0)7730 782968.