Congratulations on your decision to hire a triathlon coach. Having a trusted expert to guide you will improve your experience in the sport dramatically. Every athlete improves from the expertise and objectivity offered by a qualified coach. You will train more efficiently, getting a better return on your investments of time, energy, and passion. You will improve your technique and learn better ways of doing everything involved in reaching your goals.
I can speak knowledgably about choosing a coach because of a variety of experiences. As a former world champion triathlete, I have worked with a number of coaches and had good and bad experiences. I have been a professional coach and owned and managed Fitness Concepts, a triathlon coaching company in Fairfax, Virginia and Annapolis, Maryland, for fourteen years. I have supervised about twenty staff coaches in that capacity. In 2003 Joe Friel hired me as Director of Training for his company Ultrafit, which provided services to thirty five coaching companies. I have also served as the USA Triathlon Regional Athlete Development Coordinator, taught at several coach certification clinics, and was Even Director for two International Coaching symposiums. Through these experiences, I have seen the common pitfalls, what works, and what doesn’t. Hopefully this insight will help you make a confident choice as you commit your triathlon life to a coach.
Look for more than athletic success…
One word of caution: the business of triathlon coaching is almost completely unregulated and anyone can call themselves a triathlon coach. Many athletes who have had some success decide that this would be an easy way to make some extra money and that it would be fun to help people train for triathlon. While they usually have the best of intentions, there is much more to being a professional coach than being an experienced athlete. Shaquille O’Neal cannot teach you to be 7’3” tall.
A successful athlete is not necessarily qualified to help you, no matter how fast they are. We coach with our brains, not our legs. Unfortunately, athletes tend to look for celebrities as coaches.
Successful athletes know what worked for them, but if your genetics are significantly different than theirs, which is extremely likely, what will work best for you may be very different.
Look instead for the race results of their clients. While you might be impressed that I’ve won word championships, that should not affect your choice of coach. That I have a long list of successful athletes who have won races and improved dramatically should. My resume as a coach is about THEIR results, not mine.
Academic background required…
My coaching staff has won three I.T.U. World Championships, but I prefer to boast that we hold three Bachelors degrees and two Masters degrees in Exercise Physiology and a PhD in Public and community Health. Look for a coach who has a degree in Exercise Physiology or who has studied extensively under someone who does. Experience, both racing and coaching, is important for sure, but you don’t learn the fundamentals of biomechanics, physiology, nutrition, psychology, etc. with hands-on experience, but by studying.
My company uses an extensive coach curriculum. For the first year a coach is with the company, they complete monthly assignments and are required to pass tests to ensure that they are establishing a firm base of knowledge. This may be overkill, but one important part of what a coach provides is knowledge. Be sure to find out the degree of study that a coach has under his belt.
Geography…
When I started coaching professionally, the most high-tech communication equipment I had access to was a fax machine and we paid enormous fees for long distance phone calls to anyone who didn’t live nearby. In those days, athletes looked for the best coach in their town and all of my clients lived within a few miles of my business. How things have changed. We now use email as our primary communication tool, clients can download video from another country to have me analyze their running technique, and we no longer pay long-distance fees for phone calls. Even some busy athletes who live or work within a 15 minute drive of the office prefer phone and email instead of in person meetings. Now, many athletes look for the best coach, wherever he or she lives.
Decide how important seeing your coach for face to face meetings is to you. While long-distance coaching can be very effective, especially for more experienced and advanced athletes, some athletes should choose a local coach. If swim lessons are the most important part of what you need, geography will play a role. If you are really looking for a highly qualified coach, you may have to look outside of your town.
The company…
A successful coaching company will have many advantages to offer a triathlete that an individual coach will not. A larger company will have a more diverse staff who provide deeper expertise in specific areas. One coach may be an expert at ironman-distance training, another may provide excellent bike fitting, and another may have the most experience teaching swim technique.
A larger company may also offer more resources than an individual coach, some of which may be beneficial for you. Successful companies will have testing laboratories to improve your workout efficiency and may also have high tech equipment such as underwater video equipment, altitude chambers, hyperbaric chambers, hyperoxic training equipment, and other training tools. A larger company will have equipment that you can borrow, such as bike travel cases, race wheels, and aero helmets.
Insurance…
Nobody ever hopes or expects to need insurance and no coach wants to pay a big premium every month, but the reality is that unexpected things happen. Every competent coach will have insurance that covers both coach and client. Make sure that a coach has insurance and, if not, look elsewhere for more professional help.
Network…
In this age of specialization, nobody can be an expert in everything. A good coach will have a broad expertise, but even the best will lack in depth knowledge in important areas. Top coaches have a network of experts that they can access for specific assistance for their clients needs. A coach should have access to equipment experts for swimming, cycling, and running, a variety of medical experts, sports psychologists, other top coaches and many more. Hiring a coach with a network gives you access to a hundred professionals for the price of one.
Sponsorship…
In case you haven’t figured it out yet, triathlon can be a very expensive sport. One of the benefits an established coach provides clients is discounts on products and services. You may actually save money by hiring a more expensive coach. If your coach can get you 15% off bike accessories and labor, running shoes, nutrition for training and racing, and many other expenses, it can amount to hundreds of dollars per month savings. Consider this carefully when choosing a coach.
Sports Science
Modern, scientific methods work. While there is absolutely an art to applying scientific methods optimally to each unique individual, a coach who is not up to date with the latest scientific methods will not be able to give you the level of guidance you deserve. Certainly you are not a lab rat, but chose a coach who has studied what happens to lab rats under different circumstances.
A laboratory that tests aerobic threshold, lactate threshold, and VO2 Max will improve your training dramatically. Find a coach who knows how to analyze the results to optimize your training and racing. He will be able to determine much about your individual physiology – efficiency of movement, muscle fiber types, and they types of training that your body responds to best.
Trains the mind as well as the body…
Joe Friel says that the three most ignored areas of training are movement economy, nutrition, and psychological skills and I agree completely. Developing stronger psychological skills is not just for athletes with “problems” any more than training is just for athletes with weak bodies. Any good coach addresses attitudes, beliefs, self-talk, psychological mode, and works to train the athlete mentally, emotionally, and spiritually as well as physically. See how a prospective coach responds to questions in this realm before hiring him.
Listens before he speaks…
As a coach who has worked for years to build this storehouse of knowledge, it is so tempting to, in a well-meaning way, throw that knowledge at anything that moves. In college, I had a professor that requires the entire class, at the beginning of the semester, to write in huge letters across the top of every page in our notebooks, “Understand the Problem”. That was a powerful lesson for me. Just as doctors must diagnose before they prescribe, make sure a prospective coach hears you out thoroughly before offering solutions
YOUR Lifestyle…
Every triathlete varies in the investment we want to make in our sport. As a professional coach, it is easy to assume that an athlete making the investment in hiring a coach wants to invest a huge amount of time and dedicate his life to the sport. Many of my clients are not elites who train twenty hours per week, but busy executives who balance long hours at the office, a spouse, children, church, and other civic responsibilities. Some even want to relax for at least an hour a week. Be sure that you chose a coach who will be on the same page with where the sport fits in your life.
You get what you pay for…
Like any business, coaches charge as much as the market will bear. If you pay a Yugo price, you’ll get Yugo service. You obviously need to work within your budget, but understand that a coach who charges high rates can do so for a reason. What seems too good to be true, probably is.
Do your homework…
Signing on with a triathlon coach is a gigantic commitment. Be sure to do the research to determine who is right for you. Spend time on the company’s website, check with references, and have a meeting with the coach in which an extensive checklist is covered.
Don’t ignore the subjective…
Who is right for you will include both objective and subjective aspects. Make sure you cover the checklist of items discussed in this article, but check in about the subjective too. Does he give you energy? Do you leave the meetings smiling and feeling good? Does he seem to get what you’re after in the sport?
Working with a highly qualified coach can be one of the best investments you’ll ever make. Good luck!
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