Who needs a coach anyway?

[SciencetoSport]

Stricker, you are basically saying why should you pay more for more "interaction" if less interaction could yield the same result. It is simply too individual to try and quantify. 

 

There are some individuals which may not need the additional interaction. There are also certain personality types which really need it and gain allot from it. Ask yourself; why do I want a coach? If you want a coach for the full interaction (as detailed in the article), then you are going to get full value from a category 1 package. If not, then you can save allot of money and get a category 3 package (personalised program with monthly feedback) for R750. 

 

But please do read the article again, it really seems as if you are trying to argue without a full appreciation of the content of the article we wrote. The primary aim of the article was really to give the reader a broader understanding of what coaching entails. 

[Patchelicious]

With the Internet, my passion for cycling and experience, I am confident that with enough effort and reading that I could come up with a good raining plan for myself.

 

However I prefer spending that time on my bicycle, so I am ok paying someone else to do that work for me.

 

Then more importantly what I have found useful with a coach is the ability to bounce thing off them. Chatting about races, what went wrong and how to fix it has been where the real value has been.

 

There is value in getting a coach, 100%, you just need to be sure that you are aligned with expectations.

Edited October 10, 2016 by Patchelicious

[nonky]

With the Internet, my passion for cycling and experience, I am confident that with enough effort and reading that I could come up with a good raining plan for myself.

 

However I prefer spending that time on my bicycle, so I am ok paying someone else to do that work for me.

 

Then more importantly what I have found useful with a coach is the ability to bounce thing off them. Chatting about races, what went wrong and how to fix it has been where the real value has been.

 

There is value in getting a coach, 100%, you just need to be sure that you are aligned with expectations.

 

This, as with anything in life:

 

"...you just need to be sure that you are aligned with expectations."

[Tubehunter]

Stricker, quick question if you don't mind please. How many hours of training are you currently committed to doing a week? A weekly average for the past 2 months will be rad please sir! 

[Stricker]

Stricker, you are basically saying why should you pay more for more "interaction" if less interaction could yield the same result. It is simply too individual to try and quantify. 

 

There are some individuals which may not need the additional interaction. There are also certain personality types which really need it and gain allot from it. Ask yourself; why do I want a coach? If you want a coach for the full interaction (as detailed in the article), then you are going to get full value from a category 1 package. If not, then you can save allot of money and get a category 3 package (personalised program with monthly feedback) for R750. 

 

But please do read the article again, it really seems as if you are trying to argue without a full appreciation of the content of the article we wrote. The primary aim of the article was really to give the reader a broader understanding of what coaching entails. 

Morning,

 

No argument from my side, just a few items my small mind find hard to comprehend. 

 

In MY perfect world , I would have liked to have monetarily values attached to performance gains, after all, when you wipe out all the cream , chocolate and other stuff ..that is why we get a coach is to make gains.

 

As stated above, would have loved to be on a structured program written by a professional coach and dissecting every element of my training to ensure I make the most GAINS in shortest amount of time.... maybe next year

[Tubehunter]

Stricker, the rationale behind your argument does not make sense. If you apply your argument to anyone providing any service and ask what percentage improvement you get, you will be told that if you use the advice and knowledge that you will be empowered by from taking up their service only then will you see the real benefits. It means that you have someone to be accountable to, holding you to the goals that you have discussed after having baseline tests done to work out what is realistic given your own unique set of lifestyle \ time commitments, then fine tuning a performance based program entirely specific to where you are and what goals you have. The top line package will obviously have a significant amount of interaction to make the process even easier, whilst the more budget options will rely on you to be more self sufficient. Either way you have someone in your corner, ensuring you stay on your program and giving you feedback through monitoring your scores on whether you are seeing the expected improvements or whether something is going wrong somewhere and then tweeking things to avoid you reaching a plateau. It's really not more convoluted and complicated than that.

Edited October 11, 2016 by Tubehunter

[Stricker]

Stricker, quick question if you don't mind please. How many hours of training are you currently committed to doing a week? A weekly average for the past 2 months will be rad please sir! 

Aug Avg 7 hours

Sep Avg 8 Hours

[Stricker]

Stricker, the rationale behind your argument does not make sense. If you apply your argument to anyone providing any service and ask what percentage improvement you get, you will be told that if you use the advice and knowledge that you will be empowered by from taking up their service only then will you see the real benefits. It means that you have someone to be accountable to, holding you to the goals that you have discussed after having baseline tests are done to work out what is realistic given your own unique set of lifestyle \ time commitments, then fine tuning a performance based program entirely specific to where you are and what goals you have. The top line package will obviously have a significant amount of interaction to make the process even easier, whilst the more budget options will rely on you to be more self sufficient. Either way you have someone in your corner, ensuring you stay on your program and giving you feedback through monitoring your scores on whether you are seeing the expected improvements or whether something is going wrong somewhere and then tweeking things to avoid you reaching a plateau. It's really not more convoluted and complicated than that.

Yes I understand that.

What happens when you do that , follow program to the T and have no gains?

[Bloukrans]

Yes I understand that.

What happens when you do that , follow program to the T and have no gains?

In that case, take up knitting

 

Just kidding - ask for a refund

[Jurgens Smit]

Yes I understand that.

What happens when you do that , follow program to the T and have no gains?

 

Physical adaptations take a while to set in, so if you're expecting a coaching program to give you a growth of 20% monthly you are fooling yourself, BUT if you can be realistic and expect say 20% growth in 6 months (depending on skill level) and justify spending X amount on that then go for it. Else buy yourself the book from Hunter Allan and try self coaching

Edited October 11, 2016 by Jurgens Smit

[Patchelicious]

Yes I understand that.

What happens when you do that , follow program to the T and have no gains?

What happens if you follow the program and get bigger gains than expected?

[Tubehunter]

Yes I understand that.

What happens when you do that , follow program to the T and have no gains?

 

If you follow it to a T, it's near impossible to have no gains! That aside though, if the improvements are not meeting the expectation, then the coach re-evaluates and taps into his network of knowledge to find the most correct method of dealing with the issue at hand, so that the expected improvements are achieved. When you take up a coach, you are letting all the science behind how to tune your program and why to perform certain activities to a specific intensity and frequency, along with all your nutritional and recovery components come together without you having to radically upskill yourself in any of these complex areas collectively. You get to draw on all of their resources and they typically have a team of subject matter experts to draw from. You simply cannot compete against that volume of knowledge on your own!

Edited October 11, 2016 by Tubehunter

[Slowbee]

Morning,

 

No argument from my side, just a few items my small mind find hard to comprehend. 

 

In MY perfect world , I would have liked to have monetarily values attached to performance gains, after all, when you wipe out all the cream , chocolate and other stuff ..that is why we get a coach is to make gains.

 

As stated above, would have loved to be on a structured program written by a professional coach and dissecting every element of my training to ensure I make the most GAINS in shortest amount of time.... maybe next year

Paying a coach to take you from the alphabet soup of seeding to being the lead out man for Peter Sagan may be a tad un realistic.

 

You need to match realistic gains to realistic expectations.

 

However, if you still feel that for the R2500 you spend and you expect it to take you to winning the Argus, perhaps you should ask the coach for Mr Armstrong's doctors contact details.

 

Apologies for the 'orrible gramer.

[Tubehunter]

Aug Avg 7 hours

Sep Avg 8 Hours

 

If you answer honestly what is the maximum amount of time you could commit to a training program per week, without compromising on a necessary sleeping schedule that ensures you still get the required amount of rest to recover properly? How many additional hours can you take from other activities you currently do and switch these to training? e.g Give up time on the couch in front of the box. What are no go stuff? e.g Drop a child off at school in the morning and do a pick up in the afternoon.

 

The point is moving towards a place where you are using up all that you can allocate to training and then seeing no improvement. That is the perfect place for someone like you to start engaging with a coach so that the time you are investing in training will reap the greatest rewards. For others, their needs for coaching may be different. They may need that to simply establish a training program and because of their goals that is enough. Are you getting where I'm going with this?

[Stricker]

So we all agree that the % gains will be based on expertise of the coach?

 

So pro- 1% improvements

Year 1-3 cycling - 10%

year 0-1 Cycling 20%

 

something that can be discovered after doing initial questionnaire with some base line test

[Tubehunter]

The room for improvement is fairly steep and then flattening out on a curve, just as your numbers suggest. The closer you are to being a beginner the greater your gains could be, but that is heavily oversimplifying things! It really is unique to each person and what their history is, ATTACHED to what their specific goals are! This is where the coach really adds the value. They assist you throughout the whole process. Baseline tests are not questionnaires. These are proper tests that give valid and current fitness scores! Training is then adapted to explicitly use these values to move your program forward against the short, medium and long term goals correctly with ongoing monitoring of these values using the level of interaction you take up!

 

If you want more detail than that I suggest chatting directly to the OP and the coaching crew who have participated.

Edited October 11, 2016 by Tubehunter