Is it me, or is anyone else seeing an amazing number of “coaches” hitting the market? Coaches with credentials like: 2 time Ironman Finisher. From what I understand some of them are really cashing in. Is there that big of a market? I dont know anyone being coached.
Interesting post and there have been a few discussions on the coaches forum about this as well. Like any other activity, once the participation goes up so does the number of connecting opportunities. Triathlon is very big right now so from a product or service stand point it does seem more people are trying to cash in and it is a bit frustrating to many of us who have been involved in coahcing for a while (we’ve been in business 8 years). As well, there are a number coaches who are not certified, insured or licensed by anyone and who are just good athletes themselves.
It’s really up to the consumer to the homework, research the coach and make a good decision. It is interesting how people gravitate to “coaches” who market there own accomplishments like 200 time IM finisher and National Champ this and that versus what there athletes have accomplished and what the coaches methodology is. Just my .02 and some random thoughts.
Some thoughts
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From the outside looking in this looks like a complicated sport. The reality is that it is a complicated sport. You have 1,2 sometimes three activities and all the gear, that someone may have never done before.
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Like most things these days, there is an expert on every corner. I am in the process of buying a house right now, and you would not believe the numbers of so-called “experts” that are out there spewing out all sorts of wisdom about house/home buying, remodeling and so on. It’s the same in triathlon. I tend to stay quiet, but it’s particularly rich, when I get lectured by someone out of the blue about how to do this or that in triathlon, despite the fact that I have been in the sport for 20 years, have worked with some of the top coaches in the sport, trained with some of the best athletes in the sport and have had a modest amount of succes myself. I love these people telling me how to train for an IM. I tend to let these “experts” ramble.
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People lead busy lives. They want to know what to do and I mean exactly what to do and when to do it.
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I have eschewed coaching formally for a while now( I do coach/advise my girlfriend), but have been approached twice in the last week to coach people. So something must be going on.
Fleck
A lot depends upon the level at which you compete. A middle aged newbie AG’er would have different requirements than an IM pro or ITU Olympic hopeful.
I’ve completed my level 1 tri coaching cert and am teaching an intro triathlon seminar at a local community college, but don’t consider myself qualified as a coach. I’m probably OK on bike fit and injuries or can help newbies with the basics but there are much better people out there to coach a serious triathlete.
Don’t understand how anybody without certification or equivalent education/experience can hold themselves up as a coach. Sounds like a case of buyer beware.
Fleck,
Your marketing strategy is even more stealth than mine… 
Niles - Good post! … i agree with Lee 100% … and it is up to the consumer to do their homework, BUT yes I do believe the word “coach” is used a bit liberally, and as Lee says it can be frustrating for those of us who have been coaching for a number of years. I actually was at the first USAT Level 1 licensing course in 1998 and have been teaching coaching since 1990. Though athletic experience plays a role in a “coaches” ability … their ability to teach, adapt by intuition/experience, and passion for teaching/coaching make that athletic experience more applicable. So, as experienced coaches it is our job to find away to keep improving and set the standard for teaching/coaching/educating a little bit higher.
I agree completely. When I decided I needed a coach for this year, I researched different coaches for a LONG time. I basically ignored all the ones whose credentials read, for example “6 time IM finisher, Kona competitor, IM PB=9:26” (these numbers are made up), and I gravitated towards the coaches who seemed to be students of coaching methodology themselves, rather than simply athletes who decided they could make a training program for me. I also tried to find a coach for whom coaching was his/her sole profession, or at least a very high priority. Not that there is anything wrong with having another job, I"m sure it’s essential for a lot of pepole, but my coach last season only “coached” 3 days a week, and every weekend he went out of town for races, so it was hard to contact him!
I think, in the end, I made a good decision. We’ll see at the end of the season! I don’t understand how someone could spend their money to basically ride the coattails of a good athlete, rather than have someone really put thought into a training program.
-Colin
I think there’s a flood of new ‘coaches’ without any formal education out there because of the easy money you can make, while being virtually assured of having positive results.
It’s really not that difficult to help a BOP/MOP athlete improve, especially if they’re out of your region and you don’t have to observe them during their swims. Also consider the added motivation of plunking down your hard-earned coin.
Doing a good job coaching an athlete - FOP to BOP - IS time consuming, it’s just that it can be done in little time while still having the athlete improve, especially a BOPer. That, and the unwillingness of triathletes to question the exorbitant amounts of money they pay on their hobby, explains it in my view.
“Don’t understand how anybody without certification or equivalent education/experience can hold themselves up as a coach.”
Not necessarily disagreeing with but, in “sport” I’m not sure I’d put a whole lot of stock in “certificates and degrees”. I’ve read on more than one occasion that it’s the athletes themselves that are showing the “scientist” what to look at, not the scientist telling the athletes what to do to get better.
In the “real world” I’ve seen LOTS of “degreed” & “Certified” individuals that were EXTREMELY incompetant in their field of expertise. OTOH I’ve see ALOT of experianced “uncertified” or “degreed” individuals that were truely genius in the same fields. If this is the case in a fields that are fairly mundane and fairly easily “book learned” fields, I suspect the situation is far more severe in a field such as athletics.
I guess what I’m saying is that if I where looking for a coach, I’m not sure “certificates & Education” woudl be right at the top of my list. I’m thinking experiae is far more important in sport than education.
~Matt
I agree with you, but please note that I meant certification or equivalent education or experience as a standard of judgement. Real world practical experience will beat the diploma hanging on the wall every time.
Having a bunch of initials doesn’t necessarily mean much. It does mean that you’ve passed a test to reach a certain standard but doesn’t mean you’ll be competent in what you learned for the exam.
Another question that can thrown out there on this topic is does anybody think that a good coach has to also be a good athlete?
I would tend to think it doesn’t hurt, but wouldn’t consider it as a requirement. I’m sure a lot of great athletes are there on genetics and would likely not make good coaches. We’ve seen that in the pro ball and stick team sports many times.
Having a bunch of initials doesn’t necessarily mean much. It does mean that you’ve passed a test to reach a certain standard but doesn’t mean you’ll be competent in what you learned for the exam.
– What it does mean that there is a slightly higher chance that person is intelligent. There’s plenty of smart folks out there without a degree though, and some not so intelligent people w/ a MD or PhD. My dad never even went to High School, and he’s probably smarter than me, his college-educated son.
The other point with someone who has a bio background is that they can probably read scientific literature. Is this critical to 98% of athletes? No way. Daniels’ running formula has been around a few years, and I’m told it still produces fast runners.
Another question that can thrown out there on this topic is does anybody think that a good coach has to also be a good athlete?
– I think that holds some truth in skill-based sports such as gymnastics/baseball (hitting coaches), where the trainees themselves want to reach that skill as well. But it’s also a problem for the MOP guys if their IM star coach can’t understand the problems someone w/ a 50-hour work week faces, or ratchet up intensity/duration too quickly.
I think it can work as a great motivational tool - an ‘atta boy’ probably goes a long way from an IM winner!
To me, past a basic knowledge of exercise science, trust, professionalism, and other intangibles like that would probably be most important. Make your client feel comfortable.
A perfect example was in my first career…teaching…I went to school with a ton of masters, phd guys that went into teaching…they were horrible teachers, but man were they smart guys…problem is kids can see right through them and eat them alive! My belief is the coach has to have the experience, that would be my main credential if I was seeking a coach…now I know there are some coaches out there that are not triathletes, but for the most part this is not the case, and many of them are not good long course coaches.
There are a lot of coaches out there, too many in fact. But if you know what you’re doing when shopping for a coach, it is pretty easy to pick the good ones from the bad ones.
I’ve had inquires from ppl here in Forum about me as a coach. Some of them knew what they were looking for. Some didn’t. Those that didn’t and don’t are just setting themselves to fail, so is that their fault or the bad coach they end up picking? Either way, I think the US market is going through a boom, and in 1-2 years things will settle down.
One other thing, I disagree with the comment that you need it to be your only job or at least close to your only job…I coach but have a career as well, I just don’t take on a ton of clients, and I coach because I want to help others learn about our sport and feel I have something to offer them. I do not hide the fact that I have a career when people ask for coaching, actually most expect you to do something other than coaching, at least here in Canada.
You only have to look at baseball to see that a lot of mediocre catchers in the majors have gone on to become good managers after their own playing days were done. And names escape me, but there have been a few outstanding hitting instructors who, in their own careers, did not post impressive batting statistics. For whatever reason, these guys understand the nuances of hitting, even though they couldn’t get all of the finities aligned for themselves when they were playing…but they are gifted at imparting that knowledge to others. Having said all that, though, herein maybe lies a crucial difference - triathlon does not lend itelf to observation and scrutinization to the same degree as does baseball. We ALL like to think we are students of triathlon, and for most of us we HAVE to be students if we hope to continue to improve, but we are too actively engaged in our races (and training) to devote the time to actually studying what others are doing. For a lot of professional players, however, they spend unimaginable hours on the bench watching their betters play regularly, and the more savvy of them use this opportunity to stockpile all their acquired knowledge and eventually become exceptional coaches and managers.
Good points being made in this thread. How does one define a professional tri coach from someone hanging out a shingle saying they can coach you? I think if your looking for a coach look at the number of years the coach has coached, overall experience - someone with a good breadth and depth of knowledge, education and certifications. IMO the racing resume is least important.
IMO, one of the things that seperates good coaches from lesser coaches is time and the willingness to step outside the box to try things. For instance some believe a HRM is the ultimate training tool, others think it is one of many training tools. Five years of coaching offers a greater breadth of knowledge than six months of coaching. If your training two runners going for the same race their training plans should not mimic each other unless the athletes are a perfect genetic clone of each other.
On the job training goes a long way IMO. In my case, I started my coaching about a decade ago w/ an age group swim team. I learned more in those two years about training, set design, stroke technique, stroke correction, motivation etc than I did in all my years of competitive team swimming and running XC in college. Could I or someone have learned it all sooner or later? No doubt, but having two other swim coaches and my XC coach to talk with and learn from helped greatly. Taking what I learned there and applying it to other sports made the transition from swim coach to rehab specialist and tri coach much easier then had I just became a tri coach from day one.
Does formal education play a role? I think having a degree in the exercise field never hurts. Take two coaches starting one the same day, one with an exercise degree one without, the degreed one will have a greater understanding of physiology behind exercise and the rationale of doing X instead of Y. It adds to the depth of knowledge that a coach calls on to help athletes improve.
What about a coaching course and/or certification? It will probably depend upon the individual. I thought the USAT Level 1 course was superficial, lame and almost a complete waste of my money. I didn’t learn anything new about coaching techniques, methodology, physiology etc that I did not already know. They never even covered heart rate zones or how to establish them. On the other hand Lee did a great job with the business lectures. That was the only thing that made it worthwhile for me. Others in the class thought it was great course. I think it depends upon experience, knowledge etc.
Athletic experience is probably the most hyped and overrated, IMO, part of being a coach. That gymnastic coach, forgot name, never was a gymnast but has an awesome grasp of how to turn out world class gymnasts. The problem with many athletes is they are self coached, have never coached any endurance sports and know basically what works for themselves. This may or may not translate into helping you. They have a limited breadth of knowledge and might possibly have a limited depth of knowledge.
It’s a buyer beware market. If your looking for a coach talk with that person, ask questions about their methodology, knowledge experience. If you choose to sign up, sign up with the coach your most comfortable with after they answer your questions.
If by experience you are talking about time spent in the sport, I think you are dead wrong, but if you are talking about racing at a high level experience I agree? A perfect example is my wife who coaches people one on one for swimming…she started swimming at a late age and it was always her weakness, but she had many different coaches and had to break her stroke totally down to improve…she had to make herself learn to swim through breaking the technique down. Now she has become a way better coach than say someone who had come by it naturally because she knows how to show people how to break their stroke down. If you have a person with no experience other than reading about it, how do you think they are going to break the sport down into parts and be able to teach it? Just my opinion
I think we are on the same page. High level racing experience does not directly translate into the ability to be a good coach. For further clarification, I don’t think that just because someone has been involved in multisport for years that makes them a good coach. But if they have the ability to take all that they have learned, their education, experience, the data and feedback that their athletes provide, and be able to give that back to someone, as your wife has been able, then that puts them on the path towards being a good coach.
However I think you hit upon what I think is the most important aspects of coaching here.
“but they are gifted at imparting that knowledge to others”
and here
“and the more savvy of them use this opportunity to stockpile all their acquired knowledge and eventually become exceptional coaches and managers.”
Exceptional athletes don’t always, IMO rarely, make exceptional coaches. Some of these exeptional athletes simply never had to “collect” knowledge, it simply came to them and they did it. They can’t teach because they didn’t have to learn. Also exceptional athletes may often get stuck in the “This is worked for me so it will work for everyone” metality.
Can’t say with 100% certainty but I suspect the most gifted coaches will almost always be mediocre athletes or athletes that rose very slowly to a rather high standing. It is these athletes that may not have the natural ability that where forced to collect knowledge in order to squeeze every ounce of benefit from the probably sub par abilities in order to move up the ranks.
Coaching, IMO, is also a different mentality than being an exceptional athlete. In many cases that mentality may not make teh best crossover from world class athlete to world class coach.
Of course all of teh above is simply speculation based on nothing more than my opinion, but it makes sense to me.
~Matt
I agree with most comments here - great post! I have coached for around 15 years, on the back of what I would say was OK performance as an athlete. A great athlete does not necessarily make a great coach - especially for a talented athlete. You guys have this down. Qualification don’t really matter. They do help understand what is going on, but coaching is more art than science, and it is also about relationships. The coaches I rate the highest don’t have formal qualifications. Which leads me to the next point - coaching is a two way relationship. Sometimes great coaches and great athletes just don’t work together. Writing out programs (particularly from a template) is not coaching. There is also getting into the athletes head, and adapting training plans to the athletes environment and “real life” situation. And that is without going into technique issues. You don’t only need to coach/train the body, the mind is just as important - not only for the pro!
Probably talking to the converted - but my 2 cents worth.
Tony - www.challenge-yourself.com