Hi Matt, Man, I'll tell you, I don't mean to rant but: Excellent athletic perfromance/ability does NOT qualify someone (and is not a prerequisite) to dispensing coaching advice. A formal, accredited coaching background and education is the appropriate credential for a coach- not a race resume' a mile long. In the U.S. (that I am aware of) there is no Master's level endurance sports coaching acredation available. To call yourself a coach you take a three day "coaching clinic". that's absurd. The people who call themselves (and charge for!) coaching advice in the U.S. are frequently unqaulified to do so. that's a big concern.

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Tom Demerly
The Tri Shop.com

I agree with you Tom in that performance and ability do not necessarily mean someone is a great coach. The one example that always comes to mind is Jumbo Elliott, the legendary Villanova track coach. Always standing trackside with a stoogie hanging from his mouth.

There is a Masters level program here in the US, but it probably has no application to this sport and is probably more oriented to high school coaching (football and basketball). It is at the United States Sports Academy in Daphne, Alabama. Their Masters program has a Sports Coaching concentration.

I do agree that the current certification program offered by USAT leaves a lot to be desired. I have seen many coaches that have this certification and they still don't have a clue. There are many that have this certification and are great coaches but I don't think the certification has anything to do with them being great coaches.

The newest thing that I am starting to see is getting certified by these other coaching outfits, you can now be a CTS certifed coach, a Troy certified coach, a Friel certified coach and so on. Does it make them any better of a coach? Beats me. It comes down to if you want a clone coach or not. Maybe Slowtwitch needs to start a certification program for coaches. I would love to help work on that.

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Mike Plumb, TriPower MultiSports
Professional Running, Cycling and Multisport Coaching, F.I.S.T. Certified
http://www.tripower.org

My swim coach growing up had no formal qualifications and sent 2 swimers from our club to the Great Britain National Squad and one of the girls in my HS class to the 92 Oly trials.

Adrian Moorehouses (sp?) coach had no formal qualifications if I recall, was in her 70's, I think he won 2 Oly Golds.

Mark Wetmore at CU is an English Grad I think and has coached the Torre's, gouchers and Ritz???? and won National XC titles and is probably one of the most respected track and field coach's in the country.

Radcliff's coach never did it, Alec Stanton isnt it??? my memory is failing me these days, but she had probably one of the greatest T&F seasons of all time last year but he never put the numbers up.

Just because you have a degree in English or French or German or a certificate that says you are a personal trainer or a tri coach or bike coach or that you have won 10 IM does not mean that you can be, will be or should be a coach, a teach or anything else, it's a piece of paper. teaching anything is about communicating......

Conversely you might not be able to swim a mile but if you can convey the message and the principles involved in what it does take to swim a mile you might be better qualified to coach than any of the previous examples I gave above..........

Slowtwitch did sort of with this FIST program!??

What did Carmichael every do? Don't you think that Lance doesn't consult with him? They are only together because after racing Lance will be the head guy at CTS. He owns a good chunk of it. Lance probably is listening to Johan(who in my opinion seems to be a little more in tune with reality).

Oh yea, How about Jan saying that Postal offered him a job!

the FIST program is all about how to assess and fit someone to their bike and nothing (to my knowledge) about how to coach an athlete. This could be the next step in the evolutionary process at Slowtwitch though.

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Mike Plumb, TriPower MultiSports
Professional Running, Cycling and Multisport Coaching, F.I.S.T. Certified
http://www.tripower.org

Mike, I got what it was but what qualifies Slowtwitch to be fit experts. Not saying that rudely but goes back to the original question of what makes a good coach? Why are they so qualified to give us their knowledge? I think I know why but I playing devils advocate to discuss knowledge of coaching or fit for that matter. If you went under 10 hours in Ironman? won a couple of sprint races? Or did you fit 500 people on bikes without a complaint or what? Is it all trial and error or is it just finding someone with experience and developing a trust to follow them blindly in what they say? Or is it a combination of all?

good questions all Matt. Obviously Dan would be much more qualified to answer why he is a so called expert in fitting someone to a tri bike. Might have something to do with him inventing the tri bike (26" wheel, steep seat tube geometry) as we know it today. That is a little more cut and dry as to why he is more qualified than most to offer such a fit certification. The coaching thing is a whole other bowl of Cheerios though. I don't think that there is any one set of standards or qualifications that make for a good tri coach. I know the things that all combined make me a decent coach, a combination of experience, business sense, customer service, customer service and customer service.

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Mike Plumb, TriPower MultiSports
Professional Running, Cycling and Multisport Coaching, F.I.S.T. Certified
http://www.tripower.org

(snip) What did Carmichael every do? Don't you think that Lance doesn't consult with him? They are only together because after racing Lance will be the head guy at CTS. He owns a good chunk of it. Lance probably is listening to Johan(who in my opinion seems to be a little more in tune with reality).

OK, you must be trolling - the alternative is, well, not flattering.

Chris had a pretty distinguished career as a rider before he took up coaching - just do a search on the 'net, and you'll see.

As far as Chris/Johan with Lance, well it's pretty clear wht the relationship is; Chris fine tunes the engine, Johan drives the car. Different roles, but complementary. Johan is a strategist, Chris is a trainer - they work together to get the "Lance Project" just right, in form, on time, every year. This is a pretty formidable task, and it takes Carmichael, Bruyneel, a very controversial Italian doctor, and a whole passel of support crew to pull it off.

A friend of mine was in France with Chris at tour time last year, and his accounts of the trip certainly remove any doubt as to the extent of the Carmichel involvement in "Team Lance." When LA lost the TT, there were apparently some pretty sweaty brows around the table, and, presumeably, some veerry interesting cell-phone calls...

It's been interesting to watch the development of a whole "anti-CTS"sentiment in cycling/tri circles. Interesting but disturbing.
I had been working with a coach for a couple of years when he was invited to join CTS, and I encouraged him to do so, even though it meant I would no longer be able to afford his services. CTS afforded HIM the opportunity to work with the pre-eminent coaches in cycling today (Chris Carmichael foremost among them,) access to information and testing at the cutting edge of sports science, and, most importantly, the ability to make a living wage as a coach.
I was self-employed for almost 10 years, and I know what it's like to struggle to find health insurance, chase down deadbeat clients, and grin while the IRS chews your legs off every year. It sucks.

CTS gives it's coaches the opportunity to do what they do best, which is coach, while the organization takes care of all the life-sapping BS that haunts the small business owner. Kudos to them for that, and kudos also for this: they are doing one hell of a job promoting the awareness of coaching as a needed service, and legitimizing it by charging reasonable prices - reasonable as in not ridiculously low - And they're getting slammed for it. A lot. I think that's a shame.

On the topic of fat/out of shape coaches - anyone seen Eddy Mercx the last 10 years or so? Does anyone doubt his ability to provide useful advice on any aspect of cycling ?

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Tech writer/support on this here site. FIST school instructor and certified bike fitter. Formerly at Diamondback Bikes, LeMond Fitness, FSA, TiCycles, etc.
Coaching and bike fit - http://source-e.net/ Cyclocross blog - https://crosssports.net/ BJJ instruction - https://ballardbjj.com/

good point on eddy merckx---id take advice from Lance even if he was 300 lbs 20 yrs from now. In my memory, Lance will always be thin, fast, and confident---even if 20 yrs from now hes fat, slow and self concious (sp?). And he'll always be in yellow.

I had a question about carmichael's role on the team, a little back and didnt ask it----whose the coach? I know carmichael is lance's coach---but is that only in the offseason? Does carmichael make training plans for lance and then the rest of USPS just do that too, or does he make training plans for all of USPS. Or does Johan? Or both?

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Want: 58cm Cervelo Soloist. PM me if you have one to sell

Vintage Cervelo: A Resource

I think that a good education and the proper certification are essential for a good coach. Planning a season and its phases requires scientific knowledge in my opinion. In addition, every sports coach should be tuned with the newest and hottest advances in training methods. However, I would rely much more in someone who has also experienced the same feelings that I’m going to pass through. Or at least someone who as coached so many people for a certain sport that he is already used to all the variability and possibilities in that sport and is able to give me the proper advice. This doesn’t come out from books or scientific papers I think. Experience is equally essential. And this is not related with the way he looks now…

A good friend of mine works as a coach for CTS and he told me Chris is very hard to deal with. As for Lance well unless he gets so pub from it, he'll pass on talking to you. When he went out for his intial interview it was with Lance at his house in Austin. He was very gracious but as soon as my friend was hired the attitude change, not as gracious as he seems.

When your at that professional level, do you think Lance doesn't do his own specfic day to day workouts that he designs? That he probably gets help from Johan and Chris with his yearly plan but as for the day to day, Lance is on his own. I was reading a article< I think in CycleSport and Johan said that Lance only works out with the team maybe one day a week because if he did more the team could not function because Lance trains so hard.

I like this thread. It gets at the heart of some questions I've been pondering: What kind of education is appropriate for a coach? My sense is that, with some exceptions, the right answer is that someone should have some formal higher education in some area related to athletics; i.e. athletic trainer, kinesiology, nutrition, etc. etc. I suppose an underlying catalyst for this belief lies in my own life experience. I spent 10 years as an enlisted Marine before commissioning as an officer. All I wanted to do was lead infantry and lead Marines (Coach). Did the Marine Corps automatically assume that I knew how to do it simply because I'd been a Marine (Triathlete) for so long? No, they put me through 9 months of The Basic School and Infantry Officer's Course. Only then did they put me in front of Marines as a qualified platoon commander. As I look to transition, upon retirement in 4 years, to coaching, I'm looking for how I can "educate" myself for that profession. I don't think I can simply rely on my 20+ years of experience and reading all the "right" books and informally guiding others at that point.

My second question: "Is education/experience enough?" To that question I'm much more certain of the answer. The one thing you'll find in all good and great coaches is that they are leaders first and foremost. They aren't all the same type of leader, but they are leaders, and they know themselves first, and their athletes second. As I went searching for a coach recently I looked first for this quality. I know, for me, I need someone who is strong enough to call me on my shit. I've got a lot of personal biases based on years of entrenched ideas. In order to get my $$ worth out of a coach I can't use someone who isn't strong enough to guide me in new directions. Conversely, I think many people go into coaching because they really do love the sport and have a lot of knowlege but ultimately fail because they can't get their guidance across to their athletes in a meaningful form.

My thing is to know how YOU did it. My first masters coach was an Olympic Gold Medalist. I used to love hearing about how he did it, what types of training he did. Natural athleticism does not make a good coach, but if you make it to the top of your game, you know a lot about it also.

As far as out of shape coaches. They may at one time been great, retired and got fat. Who knows. It matter about what they did and how they did it.

There may also be coaches who have never accomplished anything in a sport and who later became good coaches. I would think that is the exception and certainly not the rule. Buyer beware.

As far as CTS. They may be great coaches, or they may not. However, I think when you start with a canvas like Lance, who was already very good, it does not take much to look smart.

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"Remember: a bicycle is an elegant and efficient tool designed for seeking out and defeating people who aren't as good as you."

--BikeSnobNYC

Let me ask you people something--What if Lance and Chris hooked up as a business venture? Chris coaches 5-6 elite level athletes and supposedly coaches Lance which would seem to be a full time job with all that is at stake. He also runs a company that is fairly large and has many employees and travels around the world speaking and what not plus writing articles and books. When then does he find time to work with Lance. Oh yea and one can only imagine the stress with company that he is under. Was it just business that Lance see's as a multi-million

dollar company that he has attached his name to only?

Oh well, I love having so much time off work right now to sit and ponder these thoughts. Plus all I do is eat, sleep, and train. I feel like a professional athlete--oh crap its snowing with new bike gear from the sky, I better go push some of it around.

I might call your view somewhat conspiricist in nature, or at least skeptical and glass half-empty. The fact is, Lance already has a full-time handler in JB and the USPS staff. Carmichael is the "in the weeds" guy when it comes to LA's training. This isn't a full time job. You can bet he spends time every day dealing with LA and his training, but it wouldn't require a full 8-10 hr workday to keep him on track. He's working on proven principles and just has to dissect each days training data and assimilate it into future training guidance.

Not only that, CTS is a business. A fairly good sized and growing business. At this point, CC is not handling every facet of the business. And judging from the success of CTS, he's hired good people in all the right areas. CTS isn't just a bunch of coaches sitting around coaching. You're talking about a real business with needs like financial management, legal representation, WEB DESIGN (are you listening BicycleSports?), etc... No way CC handles these issues.

This isn't a "which came first, the chicken or the egg?" situation. Lance was with Carmichael long before CTS became a household name in the coaching business. They've both profited from the relationship. There is no doubt of that. CTS would be foolish not to capitalize on the success of the LA/CC relationship. LA would be foolish not to look for opportunities to capitalize on his success by forming business ties outside of actual coaching with CC/CTS. He won't be "about the bike" forever.

Good answer. I Just don't want people to assume all coaches are good just because they affiliate themselves with Lance. But I do think that Chris got Lance to the peak of his sport with time tested prinicples that were arranged in a way for Lance to benefit.

I was just wondering what others were thinking. Thanks.

I agree with the original poster, that it doesn't make the best first impression if a coach doesn't at least appear to be fit themselves. Kind of like a CEO showing up to a meeting in shorts and a tank top.

However, I would be very careful about judging a coach simply by his/her past accomplishments in the sport. I've never worked with a Tri coach, but I used to be a personal trainer and I've seen a lot of trainers/strength training coaches that have successful athletic backgrounds, but are completely out of touch with what their average client can handle. They are often very fixed in their ways and give people workouts that worked for them without consideration of the recovery capabilities and differences in each individual.

I agree here also. Being a good athlete does not necessarily make a good coach. When it comes to some of the top coaches over the years, I believe Dr. Joe Vigil (legendary U.S. Endurance Coach) was a physiologist to the core. Short, overweight, never ran a day in his life (well, maybe once or twice, but not nearly enough to have him win all those NCAA championships, and his running didn't make him the U.S. Olympic coach in the 70's).

Certifications programs are becoming rampant, and are a good business marketing ploy. However, just because someone attends a seminar, does not make them an expert either. I think a combination of schooling, understanding many methodologies, possibly doing some "testing" themselves...all this insures a coach is willing to learn and trying to stay current in the developments occuring in todays sports exercise world.

If it's true that there were larger gains in knowledge in the area of sports exercise science during the 80's than the previous 5 decades combined, I wonder where we stand now. Coaching, like participating, is a constantly evolving realm.

~ Craig

my little corner of the world is try bike fit. we'll certify people to do that, i can't imagine hosting any sort of coaching certification program. an issue has been raised about FIST, though, to which i'll respond.

ray browning was the first person to ride a QR tri bike in a triathlon (IM NZ '89). actually the first person to ride a QR tri bike in a multisport race was john gailson, who rode one in the desert princess duathlon earlier that same year. in fact it was the same bike browning rode in NZ if i remember correctly. (gailson's now up here in valyermo with us).

these were the first tri bikes, as we consider them today. if you're riding something other than a road race bike in your multisport racing, you're riding the progeny of these first QR bikes. since i designed them, this makes me both the originator of this style of bike and of its resulting position, and it makes me the guy fitting people on these bikes for a longer period of time than anyone else.

it also means i've worked on the position of the pros who've ridden these bikes, which includes browniing, liz downing, julieanne white, jurgen zack, wolfgang dittrich, scott tinley, heather fuhr, peter kropko, lance armstrong (in the VERY old days), and so many others i can't even begin to list them.

does this make me qualified to certify people on how to fit triathletes to their bikes? i don't know. i guess it depends, first, on whether my methodology is sufficiently agreed-upon, or close to universal. second, whether its measurable, repeatable, demonstrable, provable. third, whether it is easily teachable. and fourth, whether there is someone else who's got a better claim, or has better methodology--whatever--to host tri bike fit certification. people will vote with their feet.

i doubt seriously whether i'd have ever embarked on FIST workshops except for the fact that triathletes are having so much problem getting themselves fit properly, and most shops and coaches appear to have no certain idea how to go about the process.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

I guess I didn't realize about you Dan--I'm new to the sport and have not had a chance to really investigate about the history of the sport. Any good books that would help or articles?

If I offended you, then I apologize sincerely. Matt

I live in baltimore, I am the siwm coach for the triathlon club at my local health club. Have lots of folks brand new to it, never done a race before, want to check it out. Who else is in Baltimore? troy Jacobson and triathlon academy.

For the brand spaniking new person who needs to know in basi terms "How do I train?" which I get asked a lot because even though I don't have many years experience as a triathlete nor at triathlon coahing, I'm all they have; I am perfectly comfortable helping them out. If Francois were to show up in town and say well, I'm consistently top ten, I'v ebeen doing it for a long time but want to go to the next level I'm clearly not the guy to ask. Troy Jacobson is certainly more likely to be the one.

But haivng started recently I am closer to the original questions that the brand newbie asks than the might be.

Not to mention i don't charge actual money; but I'll gladly accept food or a weekend at your beach house.

I've seen it form both sides of the swimming area. i was ata club that built a pool and hired a masters coach; she was a nice girl but was simply someone who had been ona swim team her whole life. She ha dnever investigated how to coach, she just gave workouts like coaches gave her.

She didn't really know how to tell someone to do any particular part of the stroke because well, it had been years since she had learned it. She learned to swim with her head in the water when she was 8; maybe not even through explicit direction but kind of worked it out on her own. This little lady wa s agreat swimmer but had no idea how to work with the people inthe class as far as technique.

Now that's a bit off course I know; folks hiring tri coaches don't get a lot of swim technique help.

As I've gotten better at swimming (not a gootd triathlete yet) I am in the position you describe. I need ot know how the best got to be that way. i need to know what the ver top guys do. I can find out by asking them, many open water swimmers are adults and self coached or i can find the coches of the ones that do. In that case I am much more like you.

<If I offended you, then I apologize sincerely>

you didn't offend me at all. it's almost impossible to offend me anyway. and your question was entirely appropriate. it's a question i ought to be prepared to answer if i'm going to set myself up as the guy who's the authority on tri bike fit. so don't worry about that.

as for articles on tri bike fit, the history if it, etc., there's a fairly good assortment of them here on slowtwitch. there's a button on the front page that'll take you to them.

there aren't really any books on the subject that are any good, and really that's sorta the point of FIST. there would be no need for it if there WERE good resources out there. now, gerard from cervelo and i are intending to perhaps do something about that, but that's another story.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

In Canada triathlon coaches who are qualified can apply to be in the NCCP level 4 program at a National Coaching Institute. The course is 8 months or 2 years part time, which I am doing since I coach full time. This program is very intensive and consists of up to 20 tasks, each one being a specific area such at annual plan design, recovery, athlete psychology, long term planning and talent ID, leadership, etc. At the end of the course you have to present your annual plan which includes all the factors. You have to defend your plan or they won't graduate you.

There are only two level 4 certified triathlon coaches in Canada, I will be the fourth next year (there are two of us doing it) now.

Joel in Victoria

www.competitionzone.com