Have a think about what you pay for any professional service on an hourly rate. Now think about how much time you want the coach to put into your planning, programming, analysis and feedback.

The economics work like this...

Almost all people that come to triathlon have zero-to-very-little experience in 1-to-3 sports. Consequently, almost anyone that speaks from authority on one of the three sports can convince a large percentage of new triathletes that they are an expert and a worthy coach. The demographics of the average new triathlete are generally - "lots of disposable income". From there it just takes some ingenuity and persistence to start your coaching enterprise.

Sirkilio, I see you've been around ST for over a year and have nearly 1000 posts. You could probably pass the USAT level 1 cert right now. The real question is, what's stopping you from starting your own coaching business?

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Erik
Strava

Depends on what you need...

Do you need someone:
Local to teach hands on?
To make you feel good and pump you up?
To give you a set of workouts?
To plan a season for you?
To report to?

Think about your needs and what you want to pay. You can get a lot from a book if you are motivated. Personally I need someone to report to and tailor my workouts for me.

I use tripower.org cuz it gives me everything I need for a great price.

There are only so many athletes one coach can handle and do a good job and then there's the opportunity cost of the time spent coaching.

Based on the reasons given why aren't college, high school and club coaches paid better in various sports?

Better than what? In the sports that generate high revenues the coaches are paid very well.

Two problems:

1) Triathlon is not a high revenue sport, so equating it with them is illogical.

2) I was not just talking about high revenue sports.

All will have a super expensive programs but most have some cheaper options. My coach is O'brien Forbes and he is deffinatly worth the money. http://coachob.com/

Depending on the service coaches really don't make that much. For 150 a month, which I think is a fairly fair rate, Your coach likely spends 1-2 hours per athlete planning a weekly schedule. Then if he or she is worth anything will examine your workouts once every day or two and examine your feedback and let you know their thoughts and ideas. This takes another 1-2 hours a week. Then you can annoy the hell out them when they call you once a week or so to dial in your training plan and get more detailed feedback. Between me and my coach this takes another hour after texts emails and all that. 5 hours a week, I'm sure not everyone gets this treatment, but for 20 hours a month your coach gets 150 dollars. Not even minimum wage. Now for coaching certs usat charges to get certified as a coach, I think they have a yearly fee as well.

coaches have to eat too

There are plenty of college football coaches that are pretty well paid ;)

A good coach is almost certainly going to save you the most time/$ invested, on the bike at least.

Funny I almost posted a very similar post yesterday after i stopped into the local "pro shop" to check it out. They attempted to sell me on a 6-month plan of personalized coaching of $250/month. While put into the context of personalized service, I can see that this isn't much considering I charge that same amount per hour of work, but it seems outrageous to me that someone would pay $2,000 for 6 months of training advice for their sport/hobby. I'm not knocking someone else's choice to spend their money in that fashion but I would not pay that much to be told when to run/ride/eat/drink.

Coaching is, or it should be, a service provided by a professional. It's not different from hiring a lawyer or a doctor. As for those professionals, the best ones cost a lot of money, so really, it's not that different.

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The Triathlon Squad

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I was hoping this thread would be something other than complaints about money. In my experience (including my interaction with other triathletes who have coaches), the real cost is not monetary. To get the most out of having a coach, the athlete has to follow the coach's plan & advice. The problem is that the coach may not be providing you with the guidance that works for you. At the end of the season, you could follow all the advice and end up with sub-par performances (as a result of injury, fatigue or a lack of fitness/preparation). A coach that has you follow a crucible of a plan (i.e. one that tends to grind you to dust physically and/or mentally) is 1) likely to leave you injured and hating the sport and 2) terribly expensive even if it is free.

Considering the huge amount of money I spend on equipment, races, travel, PT, gym memberships, etc. along with the ancillary costs of my time & focus (I have changed jobs to allow me to train how & when I want), the monetary costs of a coach are not significant. The reason I don't have a coach is that I have learned the hard way that a bad coach can be worse than no coach. Until I am confident that I could identify the "right" coach for me, I will go without. Not many AGers need a coach but that is not the same as saying many would benefit from a good coach. If it is too much for you, rest assured that you are not necessarily worse off as a result.

It should be like that but unfortunately it isn't. I see many coaches asking some high prices and their athletes never won anything.

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Miguel Andrade
http://mitano.blogspot.com

As with any professional, you need to do your research before picking who to hire.

I am sure there are many lawyers out there that charge as much as the best, when they're not better than your common ambulance chaser.

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The Triathlon Squad

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Say I want to get an online coach. I pay him. How can I trust someone who is far away from me and do I know if the plan is offering me is not something that he took from other place or gives to all his athletes?

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Miguel Andrade
http://mitano.blogspot.com

Funny, but in 31 years of triathlon, I have seen the opposite. The ones who got decent, consistent coaching were the ones who flourished, and the others were left to compare workout logs with insane tales of mega workouts and little race day success. Big fish, small pond....

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Gary Geiger
http://www.geigerphoto.com Professional photographer

TEAM KiWAMi NORTH AMERICA http://www.kiwamitri.com, Rudy Project http://www.rudyprojectusa.com, GU https://guenergy.com/shop/ ; Salming World Ambassador; https://www.shopsalming.com

You tend to pay for what you get. I've used a professional coach for 8 months now and he's worth every penny (Marky V). Is it expensive? I don't know, expense is all relative isn't it? I'm not talking compared to income, I'm talking compared to disposable income and time/ cost of investment. Being debt free (except for the house), I have more disposable income that a typical person, so I have more money to play with. I could spend 6-700 a month on a new car, or spend a 1/3 of that amount and get a coach and investment in something that I love. It's all about the choices you make with your money.

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I agree but would emphasize the "decent, consistent coaching" parts of your qualified statement. I assume in your 31 yrs of tri that you have also known of a lot of coached athletes who ended up unnecessarily injured or leaving the sport. It is not uncommon for coaches to prescribe very long runs (20 milers) and even speed work for newbies training for a first IM (who end up finishing in 15+ hrs). I once had a coach recommend I do a 16 mile run on pavement a few days after I had to cut short a 5 mile run due to an ankle injury. I got a lot of pleasure telling him to stop loading workouts into my TP account. I was pissed not because of the money I paid but rather the time I wasted with that guy.

Just because they are paid and have some POS certification does not mean they know what they are doing. This is not meant to be a comment on all coaches but rather a note of caution that there are a lot of idiots posing as such.

Have you gotten a massage lately? Any idea how much they charge per hour? Now a good coach that is a resource for everything you wanted to know about sport for 15+ hours a month for phone time, email time, plan preparation, or even personal one on one time with the athlete if local isn't a bad deal at all if you base it off $200 or less. Depends on what $$ you have, for a millionaire $700 a month may be a good deal. Ever hire a personal trainer for an hour? Yeah, not cheap. But like Paulo said, do your homework, ask for references, look at the experience of the coach and do not pick one just because they have a lot of athletes thinking they "must be good" if they have a lot. Often they are overloaded & you'll get squat for time (not saying you always will but it happens), but just be weary of diminishing "me time" when dealing with them. Of course, you must bring the motivation (can lead a dog to water but can't make them drink type thing). As a student athlete I think you said...be a student, ask a lot of questions, and definitely go overboard on feedback to the coach so they can tune your preparation quicker for you each week. I would prefer to read a "book" log entry rather than a "Ran per workout, felt okay." Tells a coach about nothing--how about conditions, HR, aches, pains, mental state, technique, warm up info, cool down info, nutrition during/after or before (especially long workouts) and tons of other stuff you can put in there. Good luck!

Yes, you are very correct in your statements, and you also were more forthright than many my pulling the trigger on the one who did that to you. I just feel that coaching is a collaboration, not just someone writing workouts intended to make make "everyone" faster. As we all know, every bit of this sport, from sleep to nutrition to workouts to race day mental focus is individual and the minute one separates the two way communication from the equation, the whole process fails. That's why I feel that finding that coach can take one to places he doesn't even see yet. The coach who tells everyone they can do an ironman just after taking up the sport is not doing the sport and the coaching profession any justice. I like to learn from the bad coaches as much as from the good....

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Gary Geiger
http://www.geigerphoto.com Professional photographer

TEAM KiWAMi NORTH AMERICA http://www.kiwamitri.com, Rudy Project http://www.rudyprojectusa.com, GU https://guenergy.com/shop/ ; Salming World Ambassador; https://www.shopsalming.com

i like the analogy... there's a local coach known for drafting and cutting run courses, that also encourages his athletes to do likewise. insert some crooked lawyer joke...