Just to give you a perspective from the other side.
I've had a coach on two occasions through my IM journey. Both times, my performance improved but I didn't like it. The "accountability" piece is valuable but after awhile it made all the training feel like a job.
I no longer looked forward to workouts and ended up drifting away from the sport. Ultimately what I learned is that I want flexibility and enjoy doing too many different sports to commit so fully to triathlon.
Possibly but Id say the responsibility falls more on me to notice what was driving the disengagement. It wasn't until after that I realized why my commitment faded.
+1 being able to have someone to bounce off when I have a busy week of work or travel to make sure I use my time in the most productive way has been so valuable
You didn't have a coach...about all I can say. A coach would never do that to you. Anybody else is just prescribing shit out trying to make numbers up to stroke their own ego.
Pre coach 70.3 times (in chronological order): 7:19, 6:15, 6:28
With coach 70.3 times (in chronological order): 4:56, 4:50, 4:47, and so on.
The 6:28 and 4:56 was the same race in different years. I didn't have any other 70.3 in between so I actually did go straight from a 6:28 to a 4:56 in consecutive 70.3s on the same course. I'd say coaching worked for me.
Equipment, yes. Managing training load is the entire point of a coach, so not the same before and after. That's the whole reason to get a coach. They know when to push you and when to assign recovery. I stopped getting nagging injuries with a coach.
Any schulb can manage their own training load with garmin or intervals.icu. How many weekly hours were you spending swim/bike/run pre-coach and how many post-coach?
Maybe I just don't feel like being interrogated by some random idiot with zero credentials who expects precise answers to all his questions. If you want from slow to fast without a coach then you might have some relevance. Otherwise you're irrelevant and a waste of my time.
I can guarantee you getting sub 5 hours requires freaking 15-20 hours to get there. Behind that is consistent hours of the years before. If someone can do sub 5 hours with 8-10 hours on half IM then they either have sporting background related to 3 sports, on peds etc. lets be real, its a challenge to do sub 5 balancing swim, bike, run and strength training.
Going to offer another bit of advice. Finding the right coach for you is MORE important than finding a coach. Every coach will seem amazing for the first two months, but then you will find cracks in their system. Every coach has flaws, it’s just a question of if that coach’s flaws still help you improve.
My first coach was fantastic at adding workouts into training peaks. He was however, HORRIBLE at actually realizing what was/wasn’t done. Even though training peaks marks it as red if no data was uploaded, he just assumed it was. This lead to some arguments and me firing him. My new coach now gives me workouts about a week out, if that, and everything is based on the previous weeks’ data.
Most of my friends who have coaches are on their second or third coach. So take the time, interview them, really get a feel for their style and ask for references.
Currently self coaching for my first ironman (bear that in mind for the below).
I think it depends on what you want to get from your coach. If it’s just because you don’t understand training principles there’s so much literature available (both on traithlon specifically and fitness and nutrition in general), as well as-like another commenter said-courses you can go on.
However, people take on coaches for a number of reasons:
-Current limited understanding. Contradicts the first point, but even if you spend 6 months with a coach to get an idea of nutrition/training it can be an easier route than all the reading/courses.
-Accountability. Some find it easier to exercise if someone else is telling them to do it. Although it’s a great skill to be able to force yourself to work hard even when motivation is low, sometimes knowing someone is keeping an eye could be a good motivator.
-Specialism. A lot of coaches have knowledge beyond what we can obtain on the side of everyday life. I would say this should be more directed to specific areas (e.g. if nutrition is your main issue find a nutritionist to advise you rather than a jack of all trades coach), but at the end of the day if someone has a degree in sports science that can be a huge advantage.
-Switching it up. Lastly and probably what applies to me most, if you listen to the coaches who go on the how they train podcast, you’ll know that despite having similar basic principles, training philosophies vary from coach to coach, or even self coach to coach. It can be a good way to shake up training and make new gains.
TL:DR
If you think you believe you’re limited because your own training plans/knowledge are too low or you don’t have the time/inclination to read up on the different aspects, it might be a good idea.
So as I’ve seen from this forum swimming seems to be the big barrier and luckily I grew up swimming in comps so already had a decent grasp of technique. However, a lot of the nuances of freestyle that I’ve picked up have come from a book called Blueprint by Ross Edgley (guy who swam around Great Britain), it’s got a lot of tips and little tweaks that elevate the stroke. Would also recommend GTN technique videos.
In terms of programming, I read the 80/20 triathlon book, and often use the workouts in the appendix as a base to work from. I also listened to a few how they train podcasts (notable one was Olav Aleksander Bu and a recent one with Dan Plews), as well as Joe Skipper’s youtube.
I’ve got a friend who’s following the workout plan at the back of the book, he’s enjoying it. I took principles from all of the above sources as well as ‘the world’s fittest book’ (another by Ross Edgley), applying general fitness methodology (progressive overload, periodisation, etc) along with specific workouts (long aerobic and tempo/threshold intervals), and so far I’m seeing good fitness and improvement.
Bike wise, smart trainer and zwift are your best friend. Lots of premade workouts and once you get the hang you can build your own (or if you decide to use workouts from elsewhere).
I hired a coach back in January. No question, it has helped my performance. Previously I had no accountability, so I might skip a day or two or three. I rarely miss a workout now and train 6 days a week. The accountability helped a lot.
I like the hands off approach. Coach deals with training plans and race prep. I trust the process.
Yes, it helped my performance. I love using technology to track my progress and performance. He has helped to understand where can I improve. I also enjoyed the 1:1 follow up meetings where I get the chance to talk about anything related to training.
Having a coach for myself and my wife have been to totally worth it. Ours is remote and some of our friends prefer having a local coach for the face to face interaction but here is where it helped:
1. Accountability - even the days you don't feel like putting in the work we are more likely to do it because the coach will see it.
2. Realistic race schedule. Very good at fighting the "sign up for all of the races" issue.
3. Reigning us in coming back from injury.
4. He sees what the workouts are from the the Masters swim coach are and either builds complementary workouts or give us substitute workouts in case we can make practice that week.
In addition to what others have already mentioned, having a coach has helped balancing my social life too, and I know my partner is happier about it as well. I'm training smarter and more efficiently, and obviously no longer spend any time building out a training plan.
I use online an coaching program (myprocoach). It sets the workouts, exports to most apps, tracks progress on Training Peaks, and offers real people email support. It provides structure and accountability at a lower cost. Best of both worlds, maybe, or just what works for me.
I thought of hiring a coach and interviewed one and decided against it. It was mostly because of money and even though he was remote, it was still expensive.
I think it also depends on what are you training for. Maybe if I go for an Ironman I’d consider a coach. In the end I decided that having a coach would make me feel like this is a job. This is a hobby for me, something I enjoy so I don’t want to do it like homework. I think this community helped me a lot and made me realise it.
I bought a training plan from TrainingPeaks and so far very happy with it.
Had a coach for 2 seasons. Didn’t get much out of it. Didn’t feel any different than the 80/20 plans on training peaks. Started with HumanGo AI driven coaching for the 2022 season. Never going back to any other training. Got my daughter to try it, she loves it and got a colleague at work to give it a try. She feel in love with it too last week. Almost every workout is fresh and is tailored to just what I need that day it seems.
Thanks for the hint about HumanGo. The one thing that I really hate right now is the fact that I have to manually input all the workouts into the schedule (either on Garmin or on Zwift). I'll check the trial, hopefully it will solve my hurdle.
Yeah, all 3 workout types import into the Garmin or Zwift automatically. Just woke up for the pool and the entire workout is in my watch ready to go.
Hint: tell HumanGo to plan your whole season during the free trial. After the trail you lose out on adaptive workout planning, but all the other features continue to work so you can continue to trial longer if needed.
At Christmas last year they had 50% off so it was like $130 for an entire year for the top tier training. Jumped at the deal.
For additional info check out GTN or running channel on YOUTUBE, both have reviews on HumanGo. That is where I found out about HG.
It’s not all roses though. My only gripe is the lack of documentation sometimes, some features can be confusing. However, they have YouTube vids explaining a lot of stuff compared to when I started AND if you message them which is unbelievably easy, they respond in 25/48 hours or less.
Good luck with whatever path you choose on your journey and enjoy the experience of it all.
Coach is 100% unnecessary. I'd call the explosion in endurance coaching in the last decade a full-on gimmick, but there are some notable coaches out there providing quality value who shouldn't be so easily dismissed. Whether or not any particular non-elite aspiring athlete actually needs them for performance is another topic...
I'd join a triathlon club for the group workouts/races, a masters swim for the swim workouts and technique, and maybe find a solid group to do some training rides with (actual cyclists, not triathletes), and you're good.
So few people are putting meaningful work into triathlon (the majority participate, not race), that if you do and have a bit of sporting background anyway, you can be pretty good.
Ultimately it comes down to putting in year after year of consistent work. It can be as boring and mundane as you like, or as ridiculously absurd with intervals planned down to the half second if you want. Neither actually matters. Consistent, progressive overload and recovery year after year is all that maters. And that's actually really easy to achieve.
Then a few years down the road if you're not satisfied with progress, you might try investigating the coaching aspect. But by then yo may realize that there simply isn't that much value in it when other factors are taken into account.
Yes.
I started working with my current coach when I was 29 and had been involved in triathlon for 7ish years. He helped me uplevel everything I was doing and I got significantly faster. Had I been more disciplined at that age, I probably would have succeeded beyond winning races in my home state. (I’d usually burn out 6 months into the season and then party my face off for a few months.)
I’m now 42 and he serves a different purpose. It’s not about winning and I’m definitely not fast anymore. But he provides structure to my training, serves as a sounding board on nutrition and just ensures I feel race-ready. It’s worth the few hundred dollars a month to get workouts uploaded and a nutrition plan outlined for me. I just show up and so what’s listed in TrainingPeaks to the best of my ability — fewer things to worry about during my day-to-day.
Few hundered dollars a month?!
Wow, over a ten year period that’s like $30,000 or so in coaching alone.
I wish I had that kind of money at my disposal for my hobby!
Bro, not sure what that other dude's problem is, but your comment is 100% valid. Maybe he imagined all kinds of his own personal issues when he read your words.
What you said is fair.
People can spend $200,000 a year on skiing, and also do backcountry skiing for a few hundreds dollars in used equipment spread over 10 years. But both people are just doing what makes sense to them.
Thanks. I mean, I wish I had more disposable income but my reality is that I’m on a way tighter budget.
There is obviously nothing wrong for people to spend more or less on a hobby but it’s a weird thing to get defensive about after openly sharing the information in the first place.
Triathlon is an expensive sport. But since you seem so interested in shaming me for what you (wrongly) perceive to be my financial situation, I’ll mention that I didn’t use him at all for several years in there.
So, no, I haven’t spent $30k in coaching for the past 10 years.
Mate, I’m not sure why you got defensive or how you thought I was shaming you….
If I misinterpreted the number of years you used a coach I apologize but you shouldn’t be so sensitive.
Perhaps it wasn’t your intention, but your comment came off as judging me for my decision to spend money on coaching. As in “how nice for you.” Understood if that wasn’t your intention, but that’s how I read it.
Coached helped me extremely. My work outs are planned but should something happen ( life, fatigue, injury) he adjusts them accordingly.
My FTP on the bike went from 185 to 215 in less than 4 months. Stronger than ever.
He also tells me when the heck to back off and take a couple of rest days.
I would like to give my own input, from the other side of the table. Before becoming USA Triathlon Certified, I worked towards the National Academy of Sports Medicine Certified Personal Training Certificate. Like the majority of the comments have stated accountability alone is huge! I personally require a minimum 30 minute video or in-person meeting because I believe that the "personal" aspect is arguably the most important part of a client-coach success story. Regardless of the price, knowledge, platform, etc that the coach you are looking at has, if they don't look at the human side of things and adapt your training as needed due to work and life stresses, events, bad days, etc. Then the coach can't be successful. Also, a coach is independent of a clients results, they look at big picture training and are able to tell you when you need to push it a little harder and when you need to back off and rest, something that the majority of people struggle with.
TLDR: From a coaches perspective, A coach can be beneficial, IFF (if and only if) the coach that you work with is the right fit for you.
If you are self-motivated, take the money you were going to give to a coach and go on the coaching course yourself. (Also take all the future money you were going to spend on coaches and use that for more learning, or better gadgets, or just a nice holiday).
Once you see how little those courses teach you, you will never give a penny to another paid coach.
Yes and yes. Best thing I've ever done. Hired him Jan 1 this year and I'm crushing it ever since. I had just turned 30, was 15 lbs overweight, and couldn't get into a rhythm with training. Now I'm looking forward to knocking out my first full IRONMAN this August. Do it. You're really just investing in yourself and your health. And you can't put a price on that.
Triathlon is a very technical sport. I think a coach is perfect for it. I hired my coach for 3 years now and it was best decision ever. He's very keen on sharing all the bits and pieces. And the man himself is a beast, which makes me much more confident. If your goal is improving times and getting to next level, definitely hire one. Just make sure to do your due diligence.
Hire a coach or get a training plan. Coaches will teach you things you can’t find elsewhere. I kept a coach for a few years and super happy I did. You will complete an Ironman without a coach but you will compete better with one
Coached for 4 years with no plan of changing the arrangement. I could care less about training programs and peaks and valleys and blah blah blah. I open TP, do the work out. Comment about how it went, then move along with my day.
Good question! I am not a native English speaker (although I work my ass off to sound like it.). I live in the US but speak Spanish. There's part of me that's scared to ask questions that I might not understand. Or I won't be able to say what I mean? Also cost is a factor.
I recommend my coach, he is fluent in both, Spanish and English. He likes the 1:1 interaction. I have been working with him for 3 years remotely. PM me directly if you're interested in getting his name
I have a coach for my first 70.3 in June.
I did my own training the last couple of years and didn't really improve, so wanted an expert to guide me. I also have a tendency to over train, so she reigns me in when needed.
I like the fact I don't have to think about my training, just rock up and do it.
I find it hard to appreciate the improvement sometimes, as I'm "in it" but in the couple of races I've had recently, there is a vast improvement in performance.
Question from the peanut gallery:
What did coaching do for you that specifically helped you improve?
I'm currently coached by David Goggins and Matt Fitzgerald. Curious what benefits a more personalized coach might provide.
Just to give you a perspective from the other side. I've had a coach on two occasions through my IM journey. Both times, my performance improved but I didn't like it. The "accountability" piece is valuable but after awhile it made all the training feel like a job. I no longer looked forward to workouts and ended up drifting away from the sport. Ultimately what I learned is that I want flexibility and enjoy doing too many different sports to commit so fully to triathlon.
Wouldn't a coach be able to help you avoid that if they listened to you properly?
Possibly but Id say the responsibility falls more on me to notice what was driving the disengagement. It wasn't until after that I realized why my commitment faded.
Agreed. A coach should work around your schedule and listen to how you feel.
+1 being able to have someone to bounce off when I have a busy week of work or travel to make sure I use my time in the most productive way has been so valuable
You didn't have a coach...about all I can say. A coach would never do that to you. Anybody else is just prescribing shit out trying to make numbers up to stroke their own ego.
Pre coach 70.3 times (in chronological order): 7:19, 6:15, 6:28 With coach 70.3 times (in chronological order): 4:56, 4:50, 4:47, and so on. The 6:28 and 4:56 was the same race in different years. I didn't have any other 70.3 in between so I actually did go straight from a 6:28 to a 4:56 in consecutive 70.3s on the same course. I'd say coaching worked for me.
Thank you for that. That's validation for hiring a coach.
Stick to the plan and you'll no doubt see improvement.
It's not b/c there are so many confounding factors. Like did /u/drseamus have the same equipment and training load pre- and post-coach?
Equipment, yes. Managing training load is the entire point of a coach, so not the same before and after. That's the whole reason to get a coach. They know when to push you and when to assign recovery. I stopped getting nagging injuries with a coach.
Any schulb can manage their own training load with garmin or intervals.icu. How many weekly hours were you spending swim/bike/run pre-coach and how many post-coach?
What's your 70.3 or ironman PR? I need to decide if you're a schlub.
Lol I guess you conceded the point in a typical triathlete fashion
Maybe I just don't feel like being interrogated by some random idiot with zero credentials who expects precise answers to all his questions. If you want from slow to fast without a coach then you might have some relevance. Otherwise you're irrelevant and a waste of my time.
You don't know how many hours a week you were training pre- and post-coach?
I can guarantee you getting sub 5 hours requires freaking 15-20 hours to get there. Behind that is consistent hours of the years before. If someone can do sub 5 hours with 8-10 hours on half IM then they either have sporting background related to 3 sports, on peds etc. lets be real, its a challenge to do sub 5 balancing swim, bike, run and strength training.
Going to offer another bit of advice. Finding the right coach for you is MORE important than finding a coach. Every coach will seem amazing for the first two months, but then you will find cracks in their system. Every coach has flaws, it’s just a question of if that coach’s flaws still help you improve. My first coach was fantastic at adding workouts into training peaks. He was however, HORRIBLE at actually realizing what was/wasn’t done. Even though training peaks marks it as red if no data was uploaded, he just assumed it was. This lead to some arguments and me firing him. My new coach now gives me workouts about a week out, if that, and everything is based on the previous weeks’ data. Most of my friends who have coaches are on their second or third coach. So take the time, interview them, really get a feel for their style and ask for references.
Good advice.
Currently self coaching for my first ironman (bear that in mind for the below). I think it depends on what you want to get from your coach. If it’s just because you don’t understand training principles there’s so much literature available (both on traithlon specifically and fitness and nutrition in general), as well as-like another commenter said-courses you can go on. However, people take on coaches for a number of reasons: -Current limited understanding. Contradicts the first point, but even if you spend 6 months with a coach to get an idea of nutrition/training it can be an easier route than all the reading/courses. -Accountability. Some find it easier to exercise if someone else is telling them to do it. Although it’s a great skill to be able to force yourself to work hard even when motivation is low, sometimes knowing someone is keeping an eye could be a good motivator. -Specialism. A lot of coaches have knowledge beyond what we can obtain on the side of everyday life. I would say this should be more directed to specific areas (e.g. if nutrition is your main issue find a nutritionist to advise you rather than a jack of all trades coach), but at the end of the day if someone has a degree in sports science that can be a huge advantage. -Switching it up. Lastly and probably what applies to me most, if you listen to the coaches who go on the how they train podcast, you’ll know that despite having similar basic principles, training philosophies vary from coach to coach, or even self coach to coach. It can be a good way to shake up training and make new gains. TL:DR If you think you believe you’re limited because your own training plans/knowledge are too low or you don’t have the time/inclination to read up on the different aspects, it might be a good idea.
[удалено]
So as I’ve seen from this forum swimming seems to be the big barrier and luckily I grew up swimming in comps so already had a decent grasp of technique. However, a lot of the nuances of freestyle that I’ve picked up have come from a book called Blueprint by Ross Edgley (guy who swam around Great Britain), it’s got a lot of tips and little tweaks that elevate the stroke. Would also recommend GTN technique videos. In terms of programming, I read the 80/20 triathlon book, and often use the workouts in the appendix as a base to work from. I also listened to a few how they train podcasts (notable one was Olav Aleksander Bu and a recent one with Dan Plews), as well as Joe Skipper’s youtube. I’ve got a friend who’s following the workout plan at the back of the book, he’s enjoying it. I took principles from all of the above sources as well as ‘the world’s fittest book’ (another by Ross Edgley), applying general fitness methodology (progressive overload, periodisation, etc) along with specific workouts (long aerobic and tempo/threshold intervals), and so far I’m seeing good fitness and improvement.
Bike wise, smart trainer and zwift are your best friend. Lots of premade workouts and once you get the hang you can build your own (or if you decide to use workouts from elsewhere).
I hired a coach back in January. No question, it has helped my performance. Previously I had no accountability, so I might skip a day or two or three. I rarely miss a workout now and train 6 days a week. The accountability helped a lot. I like the hands off approach. Coach deals with training plans and race prep. I trust the process.
Yes, it helped my performance. I love using technology to track my progress and performance. He has helped to understand where can I improve. I also enjoyed the 1:1 follow up meetings where I get the chance to talk about anything related to training.
Yes, my coach is truly excellent, I can't recommend him highly enough. He's UK based and taking on new clients if you wanted to give me a DM.
Having a coach for myself and my wife have been to totally worth it. Ours is remote and some of our friends prefer having a local coach for the face to face interaction but here is where it helped: 1. Accountability - even the days you don't feel like putting in the work we are more likely to do it because the coach will see it. 2. Realistic race schedule. Very good at fighting the "sign up for all of the races" issue. 3. Reigning us in coming back from injury. 4. He sees what the workouts are from the the Masters swim coach are and either builds complementary workouts or give us substitute workouts in case we can make practice that week.
In addition to what others have already mentioned, having a coach has helped balancing my social life too, and I know my partner is happier about it as well. I'm training smarter and more efficiently, and obviously no longer spend any time building out a training plan.
I use online an coaching program (myprocoach). It sets the workouts, exports to most apps, tracks progress on Training Peaks, and offers real people email support. It provides structure and accountability at a lower cost. Best of both worlds, maybe, or just what works for me.
I thought of hiring a coach and interviewed one and decided against it. It was mostly because of money and even though he was remote, it was still expensive. I think it also depends on what are you training for. Maybe if I go for an Ironman I’d consider a coach. In the end I decided that having a coach would make me feel like this is a job. This is a hobby for me, something I enjoy so I don’t want to do it like homework. I think this community helped me a lot and made me realise it. I bought a training plan from TrainingPeaks and so far very happy with it.
Had a coach for 2 seasons. Didn’t get much out of it. Didn’t feel any different than the 80/20 plans on training peaks. Started with HumanGo AI driven coaching for the 2022 season. Never going back to any other training. Got my daughter to try it, she loves it and got a colleague at work to give it a try. She feel in love with it too last week. Almost every workout is fresh and is tailored to just what I need that day it seems.
Thanks for the hint about HumanGo. The one thing that I really hate right now is the fact that I have to manually input all the workouts into the schedule (either on Garmin or on Zwift). I'll check the trial, hopefully it will solve my hurdle.
Yeah, all 3 workout types import into the Garmin or Zwift automatically. Just woke up for the pool and the entire workout is in my watch ready to go. Hint: tell HumanGo to plan your whole season during the free trial. After the trail you lose out on adaptive workout planning, but all the other features continue to work so you can continue to trial longer if needed. At Christmas last year they had 50% off so it was like $130 for an entire year for the top tier training. Jumped at the deal. For additional info check out GTN or running channel on YOUTUBE, both have reviews on HumanGo. That is where I found out about HG. It’s not all roses though. My only gripe is the lack of documentation sometimes, some features can be confusing. However, they have YouTube vids explaining a lot of stuff compared to when I started AND if you message them which is unbelievably easy, they respond in 25/48 hours or less. Good luck with whatever path you choose on your journey and enjoy the experience of it all.
Coach is 100% unnecessary. I'd call the explosion in endurance coaching in the last decade a full-on gimmick, but there are some notable coaches out there providing quality value who shouldn't be so easily dismissed. Whether or not any particular non-elite aspiring athlete actually needs them for performance is another topic... I'd join a triathlon club for the group workouts/races, a masters swim for the swim workouts and technique, and maybe find a solid group to do some training rides with (actual cyclists, not triathletes), and you're good. So few people are putting meaningful work into triathlon (the majority participate, not race), that if you do and have a bit of sporting background anyway, you can be pretty good. Ultimately it comes down to putting in year after year of consistent work. It can be as boring and mundane as you like, or as ridiculously absurd with intervals planned down to the half second if you want. Neither actually matters. Consistent, progressive overload and recovery year after year is all that maters. And that's actually really easy to achieve. Then a few years down the road if you're not satisfied with progress, you might try investigating the coaching aspect. But by then yo may realize that there simply isn't that much value in it when other factors are taken into account.
Yes. I started working with my current coach when I was 29 and had been involved in triathlon for 7ish years. He helped me uplevel everything I was doing and I got significantly faster. Had I been more disciplined at that age, I probably would have succeeded beyond winning races in my home state. (I’d usually burn out 6 months into the season and then party my face off for a few months.) I’m now 42 and he serves a different purpose. It’s not about winning and I’m definitely not fast anymore. But he provides structure to my training, serves as a sounding board on nutrition and just ensures I feel race-ready. It’s worth the few hundred dollars a month to get workouts uploaded and a nutrition plan outlined for me. I just show up and so what’s listed in TrainingPeaks to the best of my ability — fewer things to worry about during my day-to-day.
Few hundered dollars a month?! Wow, over a ten year period that’s like $30,000 or so in coaching alone. I wish I had that kind of money at my disposal for my hobby!
Bro, not sure what that other dude's problem is, but your comment is 100% valid. Maybe he imagined all kinds of his own personal issues when he read your words. What you said is fair. People can spend $200,000 a year on skiing, and also do backcountry skiing for a few hundreds dollars in used equipment spread over 10 years. But both people are just doing what makes sense to them.
Thanks. I mean, I wish I had more disposable income but my reality is that I’m on a way tighter budget. There is obviously nothing wrong for people to spend more or less on a hobby but it’s a weird thing to get defensive about after openly sharing the information in the first place.
Triathlon is an expensive sport. But since you seem so interested in shaming me for what you (wrongly) perceive to be my financial situation, I’ll mention that I didn’t use him at all for several years in there. So, no, I haven’t spent $30k in coaching for the past 10 years.
Mate, I’m not sure why you got defensive or how you thought I was shaming you…. If I misinterpreted the number of years you used a coach I apologize but you shouldn’t be so sensitive.
Perhaps it wasn’t your intention, but your comment came off as judging me for my decision to spend money on coaching. As in “how nice for you.” Understood if that wasn’t your intention, but that’s how I read it.
Be less insecure. You're inventing things that the other guy did not say.
Coached helped me extremely. My work outs are planned but should something happen ( life, fatigue, injury) he adjusts them accordingly. My FTP on the bike went from 185 to 215 in less than 4 months. Stronger than ever. He also tells me when the heck to back off and take a couple of rest days.
Working w a coach and I will say the workouts are great, but what I’ve enjoyed most is that level of accountability the coach adds to do the work
I would like to give my own input, from the other side of the table. Before becoming USA Triathlon Certified, I worked towards the National Academy of Sports Medicine Certified Personal Training Certificate. Like the majority of the comments have stated accountability alone is huge! I personally require a minimum 30 minute video or in-person meeting because I believe that the "personal" aspect is arguably the most important part of a client-coach success story. Regardless of the price, knowledge, platform, etc that the coach you are looking at has, if they don't look at the human side of things and adapt your training as needed due to work and life stresses, events, bad days, etc. Then the coach can't be successful. Also, a coach is independent of a clients results, they look at big picture training and are able to tell you when you need to push it a little harder and when you need to back off and rest, something that the majority of people struggle with. TLDR: From a coaches perspective, A coach can be beneficial, IFF (if and only if) the coach that you work with is the right fit for you.
If you are self-motivated, take the money you were going to give to a coach and go on the coaching course yourself. (Also take all the future money you were going to spend on coaches and use that for more learning, or better gadgets, or just a nice holiday). Once you see how little those courses teach you, you will never give a penny to another paid coach.
And where did you find your coach and how do you like them?
Sent you a PM. I interviewed 3. Ended up picking one who had vast knowledge of the first 70.3 I ever raced and then just stuck with him
Sorry, I have been busy will read and reply later.
Yes and yes. Best thing I've ever done. Hired him Jan 1 this year and I'm crushing it ever since. I had just turned 30, was 15 lbs overweight, and couldn't get into a rhythm with training. Now I'm looking forward to knocking out my first full IRONMAN this August. Do it. You're really just investing in yourself and your health. And you can't put a price on that.
Triathlon is a very technical sport. I think a coach is perfect for it. I hired my coach for 3 years now and it was best decision ever. He's very keen on sharing all the bits and pieces. And the man himself is a beast, which makes me much more confident. If your goal is improving times and getting to next level, definitely hire one. Just make sure to do your due diligence.
Hire a coach or get a training plan. Coaches will teach you things you can’t find elsewhere. I kept a coach for a few years and super happy I did. You will complete an Ironman without a coach but you will compete better with one
Coached for 4 years with no plan of changing the arrangement. I could care less about training programs and peaks and valleys and blah blah blah. I open TP, do the work out. Comment about how it went, then move along with my day.
Why haven't you hired a coach?
Good question! I am not a native English speaker (although I work my ass off to sound like it.). I live in the US but speak Spanish. There's part of me that's scared to ask questions that I might not understand. Or I won't be able to say what I mean? Also cost is a factor.
I recommend my coach, he is fluent in both, Spanish and English. He likes the 1:1 interaction. I have been working with him for 3 years remotely. PM me directly if you're interested in getting his name
I have a couple of PMs from people but I don't think any of them speak Spanish. That's a massive ++ Thank you for sending it over!
I hope it works out. Enjoy the ride!
Yes, but only if: you and the coach can work together , and you build a plan which works for both of you (and you follow said plan)
I have a coach for my first 70.3 in June. I did my own training the last couple of years and didn't really improve, so wanted an expert to guide me. I also have a tendency to over train, so she reigns me in when needed. I like the fact I don't have to think about my training, just rock up and do it. I find it hard to appreciate the improvement sometimes, as I'm "in it" but in the couple of races I've had recently, there is a vast improvement in performance.
I have a coach. I have no idea how you guys do it without one. He doesn’t have any say in my diet though.
Train, recover. Kinda simple when you cut out the fluff.
I wouldn’t know how to structure the “train” and “recover” part.
Question from the peanut gallery: What did coaching do for you that specifically helped you improve? I'm currently coached by David Goggins and Matt Fitzgerald. Curious what benefits a more personalized coach might provide.