Posts Tagged ‘coaching’

I’ve been struggling with a lot of stress-related injuries recently which have made racing very challenging. But that doesn’t mean that I cannot compete vicariously. I’m back coaching with DUCC. We got a few swim sessions together last year but this year we have a much stronger schedule with three swims per week. We also have a track day coming up in a few weeks so I am looking forward to that.

Life coaches help people work out what is important, set goals in line with their values and lead more fulfilling lives. In my new course, I will teach you all of the key skills you need to get started with life coaching. We’ll cover the theory, practice and techniques to help yourself or others get more out of life.

Watch the trailer below or preview the course on Udemy.

I have been playing around with a range of options for tracking training for myself and my athletes. Here is a brief write-up of my findings.

Final Surge

Really nice. The new beta platform looks good. It’s free. The downside is that you cannot integrate TrainerRoad or Zwift, and if you connect Garmin and Strava to get them both, you get duplicate workouts. Actually, TrainerRoad support is there via TrainerRoad. But on Zwift support.

Today’s Plan

Costs money. Very power base and forces you to enter values from the start. I have to put the sports in that I do, but why> I select triathlon but then the other sports, too? It does have integration with Zwift, but despite sticking TrainerRoad’s logo on their page it is actually a manual upload process at the moment.

TrainerRoad

It’s beautiful but it’s all about cycling. It does not import my other workouts so I cannot analyse my load. I use it just for cycling.

TrainingPeaks

Integrates with everything. I have used TrainingPeaks previously but it seemed expensive for what it was. That said, thanks to the integrations and how nicely it all works together, TrainingPeaks is a winner for me.

I’m now an IRONMAN Certified Coach. I am already a certified coach with British Triathlon, but it is reassuring to know that my coaching skills also extend to looking after long format athletes and that I am not just winging it based on my personal experience completing full distance and 70.3 races.

I might write up a proper review of the IRONMAN U programme later but in the final assessment, your skills get put to the test when you have to design a detailed training plan for a fictional athlete looking to complete their first full distance event. It was tougher than expected but the work apparently paid off as I achieved 98%.

While everyone else was freaking out about Storm Ciara, I had a three-and-a-half-hour drive, mostly in the dark, up to Durham and back for a strength and conditioning coaching training. I am glad I did brave it as everyone else did, too.

Once you qualify as a triathlon coach, you can coach across all of the disciplines. However, if you want to coach strength and conditioning, you need to do additional training.

It covers physiology, integrating it into a club environment and triathlon programme, and how to do all of the standard exercises safely and correctly. Understanding how to break down a movement so that you can regress and progress people as appropriate is super useful.

The paperwork has finally come through for my triathlon coaching qualification. Happy days ahead.