How do you know if you’re a good coach or trainer? It is extremely difficult to tell if a strength coach or trainer is effective and efficient. There are so many variables that go into our clients and athletes, so how do we know if what we’re doing is working or not? A good coach should set objective weekly goals, as well as subjective and objective daily goals. These goals should include technique and skill, your client’s/athlete’s ability to lead and problem solve, and the culture you all bring into the weight room each day. Each goal, whether it be daily or weekly, should be getting you progressively closer to your goal. Anyone can walk into a weight room and bang out a quick lift. It’s not the sets and reps that make the individual successful, it’s knowing WHY you’re doing what you’re doing each day that lights the fire to fuel success.
Being able to take a qualitative analysis of each individual is imperative to success. If you have a room full of athletes doing the same exact lift each day, what measurements are you using to track growth outside of them being able to lift more weight? What measurable outcomes are we setting in place each time someone walks into our weight room? These measurable outcomes are what shows us if our programming and coaching are effective. If there’s anything I’ve learned over my time in exercise science, it’s to stop overcomplicating things and start doing the basics really well.
When looking at how to approach your basic skills and techniques, there is one thing that stands true throughout time: the Whole-Part-Whole approach. Show the skill in its entirety, break it down part by part so your athlete can truly feel the movement, then put the movements all together to create the whole again. Your athlete cannot fix what they cannot feel. Again, coaching is not just about the sets, reps, and yelling. Be a technical guru at your craft, get your athletes moving properly, and get them to understand the importance of each movement. No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care. Show this by teaching them why what you’re working on with them is important to their success!
Talking about success, what’s the difference between success and winning? Many young or naïve coaches will tell you there is no difference. The goal is to win the game/match/race/etc, right? Wrong. Even if you have a winning record, are you really doing your job as a coach if your athletes walk away from the sport without the skills you could have taught them that carry over into life? Are you just helping teach the game or are you helping to turn them into leaders? As a coach, you have the ability to help shape and grow your clients and athletes into individuals that will go out into the world and positively impact others. Your job isn’t to do anything to keep your athlete. You job is to help your athletes grow and achieve life long success. Our job is not transactional, it is transitional. This is where you tell your athletes “I care about you. I want you to improve. But you are not special.”
Let those three sentences sink in and digest for a second. This is what I mean by transitional. We aren’t here to hold your hand and make you believe that you are the best thing to happen to your sport. Our job is to push the athlete, help them grow, help them become something greater than they believed they could. We can’t do this job if we’re constantly putting them on a pedestal, it just doesn’t work that way. Challenge your athletes. Help your athlete see that their sport isn’t about getting THEM better, but improving everyone around them. It’s not about the individual, it’s about the whole. Find a way to get your athletes to compete at their highest level because they care about improving the player next to them, not just themselves. This competitive culture helps to break the barrier with transitioning skill from the weight room into real game or real life scenarios.
Be technical. Create a culture for success, not just winning. Be transitional, not transactional. Be a great coach today.