How to get the most out of your coach/athlete relationship
Now that you have found the right coach that aligns with your style as an athlete and the two of you have created a plan to help you achieve your specific goals, it’s time to get the most out of this relationship! These five keys will help you foster a symbiotic bond that allows for the most growth, development, and goal achievement.
Honest communication: There should always be an open dialogue about your training. As the foundation to the coach/athlete relationship this requires A) availability, accessibility, and openness on the part of the coach and B) honesty, candor, and accountability on the part of the athlete. The athlete needs to honestly communicate their goals, abilities, and desires to the coach, who in turn needs to clearly communicate his/her expectations and strategies to meet those goals. The athlete then needs to be accountable to trying the agreed upon strategy and provide feedback. This model of developing, analyzing, and modifying plans only works if both parties play their role. A simple example is scheduling- if something doesn’t fit into the athlete’s schedule, the schedule needs to be changed. Possibly one of my biggest challenges as an athlete is the fact that I have a habit of simply putting my head down and doing the work regardless of schedule or external factors. If that means I run 10 miles at 10pm because my work day got away from me, so be it, I’ve done it. I, therefore, am plenty accountable to my plan, but fail in the “candor” side of our relationship. The correct way to handle that is to communicate with my coach as soon as I know my schedule so we can come up with an optimal solution so my training won't suffer. On the other hand, I currently have an athlete who is the exact opposite of me. Months in advance I’ll know his schedule to include; work trips, vacations, races, etc. This open line of communication allows me as his coach to do a lot of long term planning so we can periodize his training properly.
Accountability : A lot of people, my girlfriend included, seek out a coach to be their source of external motivation. The 5am alarms are a struggle (for her particularly) and paying a coach feels like the boost of motivation that will drive you. A good coach provides you with a structured plan and check-ins. If you use an app like Training Peaks, seeing a day or week or month of perfectly completed green workouts, triggers your brain to release dopamine, the reward chemical in your brain, and makes you want to continue feeling that success. It is much harder to stimulate that neural response without a plan. A coach also keeps you accountable to your broader goal. To tell yourself you want to go for a run today is one thing, to tell yourself you want to do an Ironman in November is another. What if there are days between now and then that I lack the drive? What if I lose interest? Or push myself too hard and burn out? These are things that a coach, with your candid feedback, will build into your periodized cycle. He/she takes on the burden of building a plan that gets you to your goal and leaves you responsible for giving it your best effort.
Personal responsibility: While a coach can be a level of added motivation, they aren’t “on call” 24/7 and your success in this sport is also on you as the athlete. You sought out a coach- it’s your training, racing, and life that are being balanced, and you can’t absolve yourself of all responsibility for your own success. If you only train when everything falls into place perfectly and feels easy you’ll rarely train. Anyone who has raced knows that your brain loves to give you excuses to stop, slow down or quit all together. No matter what level you're at as an athlete those excuses don’t stop coming, you just train yourself to not listen. During a workout, your brain is combining physical signals with how it expects you to feel to create the sensation you feel as fatigue - switching your perception and thinking positively can pull you out of that rut. If your brain is quitting before the workout even starts, telling yourself that you can use this opportunity to listen to a favorite podcast or playlist, or ride a route you love the view from, can reframe this as an experience you look forward to. If you know you have a busy work day and will be getting home late but are scheduled to run for an hour that day, rather than dread and worry about it all day, you might need to consider setting your alarm clock an hour early and getting to bed sooner. Shocking, I know. Ultimately, the sport is hard and there will be days you will struggle. But it’s satisfying because it’s hard, so hold yourself accountable, get in the right headspace, and get the work done.
Give it the right amount of time: Results don’t happen overnight in anything, but in this sport it could take years to accomplish your goals. If you want to qualify for Ironman World Championships, even if you have a solid athletic background, get ready to commit 4-10 years to that goal! Even at the most basic level, to see the beneficial physiological adaptations most of us want to see from an exercise regimen, like increased endurance, lower blood pressure and resting heart rate, stabilized blood sugar, etc, takes several weeks. Understanding your goals, your current abilities, and the time you are willing to commit in the present are all important factors to how long your training road will be. To that end, there are no shortcuts, even if you’re the most dedicated athlete around. The 10,000 hour rule, popularized in Malcolm Gladwell’s book “Outliers”, would lead you to believe that 10,000 hours of dedicated practice can make you an expert. At 20 hours of focused training a week, I could therefore be a *master* triathlete in 10 years, right? Or, if I want to get there faster, I can commit to a pro level weekly volume of 40 hours a week and could be at that level in 5 years?? Unfortunately - that’s not how it works. You need to consider where you are now, the quality of all those hours, and allow for a life in there so you don’t burn out! A coach will guide you to make the best choices for reaching those long term goals and save you from yourself if needed. Suffice it to say, if you have huge, audacious, ambitious goals, you have to be willing to invest the care and time in them too.
Re-evaluate: With all of the above in mind, over this long time period, and with candid two-way communication and accountability on both sides, some of the circumstances will absolutely change over time. Maybe you will start a family and want to ease back the time commitment of training. Maybe you will be seeing success in short course triathlon and want to try a full Ironman. Maybe you will get a new job that affords a more flexible schedule. Maybe for personal reasons you will realize that you want to still do the same total volume of work, with the same big goal in mind, but focus a few months on a cycling-heavy or running-heavy block to see more concentrated gains there. The possibilities are endless! This is your life, your training, and your relationship. Steer it in whatever direction best suits your life and be receptive to guidance from your coach.
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-Ben Rotherham
Head Coach, MIssion Multisport