recommend me a cycling coach

Grifteruk

Just as I feared a simple request for recommendations for a coach based on experience of individuals is diverted off topic. I am never quite sure (and don't really care) why some people do this instead of actually reading the OP and contributing to the actual query raised. Anyway to those who actually answered the question raised, or at least tried to keep the post on track, thanks.

BenderRodriguez

Grifteruk wrote:

Just as I feared a simple request for recommendations for a coach based on experience of individuals is diverted off topic.

But this might well reflect the fact that your original posting was lacking specificity. Do you want a Peter Keen / Chris Boardman type coaching relationship? In which case you need someone local or at least easily accessible. Or do you just want someone to send you a 'training plan'?

Take away the advertisements and 'I have heard through the grapevine' posts, and I don't think that anyone has yet made a recommendation based on actual personal experience. Which might well be significant in itself...

P.s. with regards to my 'cynicism', I think that Michael Hutchinson was not that far off the mark when he suggested in one of his articles that it would 'the end of coaching' if it were more widely recognised that what really counts is not having the right coach or training plan but simply having natural ability.

http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/news/blo ... ing-116670

davoj

Take away the advertisements and 'I have heard through the grapevine' posts, and I don't think that anyone has yet made a recommendation based on actual personal experience. Which might well be significant in itself...

So has anyone gotten one of these training plans/coaching and if so how did they find them?

dzp1

davoj wrote:

Take away the advertisements and 'I have heard through the grapevine' posts, and I don't think that anyone has yet made a recommendation based on actual personal experience. Which might well be significant in itself...

So has anyone gotten one of these training plans/coaching and if so how did they find them?

I have used two of the coaches I listed and would recommend both of them.

All the other coaches I listed are spoken highly of by people i know.

Thats more than "heard through the grapevine".

I deliberately did not list certain other coaches because of negative experiences from people I know. (or because I've seen them post crap on the interweb)

top_bhoy

dzp1 wrote:

davoj wrote:

Take away the advertisements and 'I have heard through the grapevine' posts, and I don't think that anyone has yet made a recommendation based on actual personal experience. Which might well be significant in itself...

So has anyone gotten one of these training plans/coaching and if so how did they find them?

I have used two of the coaches I listed and would recommend both of them.

All the other coaches I listed are spoken highly of by people i know.

Thats more than "heard through the grapevine".

I deliberately did not list certain other coaches because of negative experiences from people I know. (or because I've seen them post crap on the interweb)

A bit disingenuous; that's not what you said in your original post when listing the coaches. You never corrected it later. Also, nothing particularly wrong with it and a sometimes legit source of good information but "spoken highly of by people i know" is not direct experience and is "through the grapevine".

Actually for me I'm happy just getting it wrong and making the same old training mistakes time and time again without a coach At least I can ride my bike whenever I feel like it, and I don't have to ride it when I don't want to !!!

Alex_Simmons/RST

BenderRodriguez wrote:

Grifteruk wrote:

Just as I feared a simple request for recommendations for a coach based on experience of individuals is diverted off topic.

Take away the advertisements and 'I have heard through the grapevine' posts, and I don't think that anyone has yet made a recommendation based on actual personal experience. Which might well be significant in itself...

The very first response to the OP on this thread made a recommendation based on personal experience.

BenderRodriguez

Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:

BenderRodriguez wrote:

Take away the advertisements and 'I have heard through the grapevine' posts, and I don't think that anyone has yet made a recommendation based on actual personal experience. Which might well be significant in itself...

The very first response to the OP on this thread made a recommendation based on personal experience.

But it was also effectively an advertisement (see above) and I think that the OP was hoping for some independent, unbiased testimonies from actual punters who had given their credit cards a kicking in order to pay for 'coaching' services / a 'training plan'.

Grifteruk

Bender,

My post did not lack anything; it asked for recommendations of a coach based on personal experience. You are the one who has decided this should be limited or in some way be specific to either training plans or a coach proximate to my location. If limiting my request regarding personal experiences/recommendations was something I wanted, I would have stated it.

You are trying to justify your desire to do exactly what I asked to avoid in the OP; debating whether a coach is worthwhile. This ultimately leads to your diversion of this post back down a previously trodden path on whether improvements are only related to natural ability plus your underlying cynicism that coaches are a waste of money which, whilst using a " " as a caveat, is patently obvious and frankly to my mind insulting to people like RST who have contributed greatly to this forum (and this specific post).

"I wonder, are those who use coaching services actually more successful than they otherwise would have been without coaching and, if they are, is that success actually due to the quality of the advice they received? To assume that this must be the case is actually an error of reasoning".

This has nothing to do with the OP. Similarly:

"I must admit to being somewhat dubious about the value of this sort of 'coaching', given that any ready-made programme, no matter how much it is 'personalised', will be based on general principles that may be of limited relevance to any given individual. Sure, the 'client' might still improve, but they might well have improved just as much if they simply increased their work load or did something different to what they had become used to"

This is not what the OP was about but yet again you ignore this in favour of quoting books, which arguably is you paying for the opinions of others on an even more remote and non specific way to long distance training plans/coaching.

I don't care about your views or opinions which, taking the above examples, appears to be based on no direct experience of your own. That is for me to decide upon, having positively asked people not to go into this topic within the OP.

Given the verbose nature of your posts thus far, it is reasonable to assume that if you had a recommendation based on personal experience you would have given it by now. As it seems you have nothing of any direct benefit whatsoever to add to OP, please can you take your desire to debate elsewhere.

Back to the OP - I do have enough names to go on now, so this post is now at an end. Once again thanks to those who contributed to the OP in a positive fashion.

Alex_Simmons/RST

BenderRodriguez wrote:

Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:

BenderRodriguez wrote:

Take away the advertisements and 'I have heard through the grapevine' posts, and I don't think that anyone has yet made a recommendation based on actual personal experience. Which might well be significant in itself...

The very first response to the OP on this thread made a recommendation based on personal experience.

But it was also effectively an advertisement (see above) and I think that the OP was hoping for some independent, unbiased testimonies from actual punters who had given their credit cards a kicking in order to pay for 'coaching' services / a 'training plan'.

I was an actual punter and I paid for all of my coaching by Ric before I was part of RST, as well as in the years subsequent to me joining Ric in a coaching capacity. I paid for all my coaching for many years, up until I "retired" from competition. It was instrumental to my success as a cyclist, and perhaps even more importantly, to my success in performing as strongly if not better after I recovered from a leg amputation.

I might also add that I have myself coached about half a dozen other coaches, some of whom have themselves coached elite athletes at national and international/Olympic level. Coaches themselves understand the value of coaching and are willing to pay for it.

I'd also like to point out that you make out as if everything we do is to "make a buck" or a similar sentiment of nefarious intent. While of course we do earn money from providing a professional service, we also provide considerable pro-bono coaching services and support in many and varied ways to deserving individuals and groups as well as contribute and volunteer our time and expertise in many other ways to help the sport. I regularly commissaire, or provide other volunteer support for bike racing for my club, and state and national cycling bodies, and cycle safety groups, and Ric is a very strong cycling safety advocate in his local area. We also freely contribute a lot of helpful information and advice in many fora. We also sponsor certain cycling activities and groups, although I guess you'd suggest that's marketing, and it partly is that of course.

If however you really believe that I have blatantly broken forum rules, please do report those specific instances to a moderator or the forum owner and let them make a call. Jeff Jones perhaps, who incidentally Ric coached to a world record and to become the BBAR champion, although, you already know that since you told the world about it in this post:
viewtopic.php?p=18569397#p18569397
so thanks for doing our advertising for us. It's appreciated ;-)

BenderRodriguez

To respond to the above, rather 'verbose', posts.

Firstly, it would have thought that knowing just what the OP was looking for in a coach was pretty much essential if any relevant recommendations were to be given.

Secondly, I would not argue that coaches are per se, a waste of time. For example, I think that Peter Keen played a very important role in many of the successes of Chris Boardman. Also, at the top level, where any 'marginal gain' can make the difference between winning in losing, a coach can play an important role, even if an everyday punter is unlikely to get, or be able to afford, a comparable level of support.

That said, I do think that many coaches are in the business of 'selling dreams' that very often unrealisable, with many people paying for coaching services in the belief that doing so will see them being transformed from 3rd cat also-rans into the 'hitter' they would like to be, with others being encouraged to think that their 'failure' can be attributed to them being too mean or not open-minded enough to pay for coaching services.

In a way, 'coaching' seems to becoming yet another component of the myth that anyone can be whatever they want to be, as long as they are willing to 'invest' enough / work enough. Sorry, that isn't the way the world works. The meritocracy is myth, the sporting elite are by and large just genetic freaks and high-earners the well connected who went to the 'right' schools and may well be closet sociopaths!

Anyhow, let me be the first person in this thread to recommend a 'coach' on the basis of my personal experiences and with whom I have no professional links, even if these were just limited to having blood lactate test done.

http://sports-lab.co.uk/

BenderRodriguez

Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:

Jeff Jones... who incidentally Ric coached to a world record and to become the BBAR champion, although, you already know that since you told the world about it in this post:
viewtopic.php?p=18569397#p18569397
so thanks for doing our advertising for us. It's appreciated ;-)

Ah yes:

If you want a change from the 'grind' of sitting on a turbo over the winter, why not try running? looking at the Time Trial Forum, this seems to be quite the 'in thing' right now. Even Jeff Jones, as coached by Ric Stern, is getting in to it!

I wonder, did Ric, as Jeff Jones coach, advise him to take up running, or did JJ do this on his own initiative? (In which case perhaps JJ's successes have less to do with the coaching advice he receives than some would have you believe.)

BenderRodriguez

By the way, I had thought that Ric, along with his fellow RST coaches, were firmly of the belief that, due to the principle of specificity, running is pretty much a waste of time, or is even counter-productive, when it comes to improving cycling performance.

For example, Ric said that the posts by his fellow colleague 'Andy' over on the Time trial forum pretty much 'said it all' with regards the relevance of running to cyclists:

If you still want to stay competitive as a cyclist then there is no substitute for cycling. It follows the principle of specificity. It sounds obvious saying that if you want to be a runner you shouldn't ride a bike and if you want to do a good 10 don't expect to get results by pounding on a treadmill but that's the bottom line. Running works the muscles at massively different joint angles and velocities comapred to cycling and aslo has a large eccentric component (muscles activated whilst lengthening, think of lowering yourself sown stairs slowly, what are your quads doing? that's eccentric). Running does activate a larger muscle mass (arms as well as legs) so fits the bill for the above comment but you can't do it for as long as cycling as it is high impact and casues lots of muscle damage.

http://www.timetriallingforum.co.uk/ind ... topic=7885

http://www.timetriallingforum.co.uk/ind ... topic=6863

Still, if Ric wants to 'coach' one of his star riders to go running, irrespective of the 'several thousand well-controlled scientific studies' which suggest that it is counter-productive, who am I to argue?

Alex_Simmons/RST

BenderRodriguez wrote:

Firstly, it would have thought that knowing just what the OP was looking for in a coach was pretty much essential if any relevant recommendations were to be given.

Correct, which is why we have a detailed process to make that assessment, and make recommendations accordingly. But thanks for telling us how to do our job.

BenderRodriguez wrote:

Secondly, I would not argue that coaches are per se, a waste of time. For example, I think that Peter Keen played a very important role in many of the successes of Chris Boardman. Also, at the top level, where any 'marginal gain' can make the difference between winning in losing, a coach can play an important role, even if an everyday punter is unlikely to get, or be able to afford, a comparable level of support.

OK, cool, so you are not anti-coach.

BenderRodriguez wrote:

That said, I do think that many coaches are in the business of 'selling dreams' that very often unrealisable, with many people paying for coaching services in the belief that doing so will see them being transformed from 3rd cat also-rans into the 'hitter' they would like to be, with others being encouraged to think that their 'failure' can be attributed to them being too mean or not open-minded enough to pay for coaching services.

Are you making that accusation of either myself, Ric or any of our colleagues?

BenderRodriguez wrote:

In a way, 'coaching' seems to becoming yet another component of the myth that anyone can be whatever they want to be, as long as they are willing to 'invest' enough / work enough. Sorry, that isn't the way the world works. The meritocracy is myth, the sporting elite are by and large just genetic freaks and high-earners the well connected who went to the 'right' schools and may well be closet sociopaths!

Again, are you making an allegation this "myth" is what we preach?

BenderRodriguez wrote:

Anyhow, let me be the first person in this thread to recommend a 'coach' on the basis of my personal experiences and with whom I have no professional links, even if these were just limited to having blood lactate test done.

http://sports-lab.co.uk/

You are not the first, but at least you have now actually answered the OP's question.

Mind you, how can you make a recommendation given you would have thought that knowing just what the OP was looking for in a coach was pretty much essential if any relevant recommendations were to be given? ;-)

Alex_Simmons/RST

Apologies to anyone else who's still following.

I've just ended another two days in the second highest court of the land fighting a big cycling safety legal case involving me personally but which has nationwide legal ramifications. It follows 7 days of hearing in the Supreme Court (well more like 10 days when I consider preliminaries and battle over costs so far). All done at massive personal financial risk but it's worth fighting for to improve the safety for generations of cyclists, or at least their legal rights.

So my apologies for answering a question and letting the OP know I and my colleagues coach cyclists. Didn't realise answering the question would turn into such a palaver.

Grill

Grifteruk wrote:

Ive decided to invest in a cycling coach to assist in my training over the next 6-12 months and possibly beyond. Im not worried about peoples views on whether a coach is worthwhile, but instead would welcome any recommendations based on experience. Im looking to complete the haute route next year plus improve in some of races in 2015.

thanks

I've just recently signed up for coaching with RST as I've bought as much speed as possible and now actually need to do some work. I chose RST based upon a couple of TTers I know that have put up some very impressive results after being coached by RST. I can't yet comment on whether it has worked for my until next season, but having structure and accountability help keep me focused over the off-season.

If people really want to make this about value for money, then they're barking up the wrong tree as road cycling is pretty much based on the principle of spending a stupid amount of money to save a watt. All these people buying power meters with no clue on how to intelligently leverage the data? Yeah, great investment...

BenderRodriguez

Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:

I've just ended another two days in the second highest court of the land fighting a big cycling safety legal case... So my apologies for answering a question and letting the OP know I and my colleagues coach cyclists.

Sorry, I didn't realise that the forum rules said ' No advertising, unless you are also involved in cycle campaign work'.

Anyhow, well done. As a cyclist I hope you win the case.

By the way, I am not making any specific 'allegations'. (Although I note that the front page of the RST site does say 'You want to win races?', implying that buying the services of RST will enable such a customer to do just that.) Rather, I was merely highlighting the prevailing social environment, which encourages people to believe that buying 'professional services' is a necessary pre-requisite to achieving 'success', and that such 'consumption' more or less guarantees a positive 'return'. My cynicism in such matters does not even have that much to do with sports coaching as such, but is rooted in my experience of working in the business and management-related education industry.

Grill wrote:

If people really want to make this about value for money, then they're barking up the wrong tree as road cycling is pretty much based on the principle of spending a stupid amount of money to save a watt.

Yup. But I guess some will think that spending £1,200 - £6,000 a year on coaching services in order to go from a 26.40 to a 26.10 in a '10', or get round a 'sportive' or whatever, 'value for money'.

Grill

BenderRodriguez wrote:

My cynicism in such matters does not even have that much to do with sports coaching as such, but is rooted in my experience of working in the business and management-related education industry.

Wow. So in your field do you feel that results are best achieved by trolling the internet for free content and anecdotal evidence of anonymous persons, or by having an expert in the field impart their experience and best practices? I suppose we should just get rid of teachers and leave kids to their own devices...

It's not about winning, it's about improving. As the adage goes "the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results". Having someone with a different paradigm challenge you will make you better.

Cycle coaching is a commodity, just like carbon frames. The difference is that one will make you faster.

And all this because you have some sort of hard on about forum rules. Nice one.

BenderRodriguez

Grill wrote:

So in your field do you feel that results are best achieved by trolling the internet for free content and anecdotal evidence of anonymous persons, or by having an expert in the field impart their experience and best practices? I suppose we should just get rid of teachers and leave kids to their own devices...

Obviously, not in many areas of study, but when it comes to 'management training', probably yes. Fact is 'managerialism' is scam, business education is an even bigger scam, and most people who do get MBA's and so forth don't apply any of the principles that they supposedly learned, instead using their 'qualifications' as a justification for imposing their own authoritarian rule on others. (To paraphrase the conclusions of people such as Alasdair MacIntyre.) Again, just look back to my earlier post that cited Rolf Dobelli (who also founded zurichminds.com) highlighting his view that there could well be little or no relationship between being successful in business and having graduated with an MBA, even one from what is supposedly one of the best business schools in the world.

Grill wrote:

Cycle coaching is a commodity, just like carbon frames. The difference is that one will make you faster.

Yup, and the word over on the time trial forum is that the Cervelo P2 is one worth buying if you want to go faster.

Grill

I didn't realise that I was being coached by the Gestapo... You're right though, I never should have paid to have someone with experience, pedigree and success coach me. Can you train me instead?

I work in a very specific niche of IT. I can't even begin to tell you what happens when people try and cowboy their way through a field they barely understand...

The point you're missing is that no one has suggested you should get a coach purely based upon what courses they took. I think RST have more than enough case studies to show the merits of their coaching model. If you actually spent time on TTF you'd know that instead of spouting drivel about the P2.

BenderRodriguez

Grill wrote:

I work in a very specific niche of IT. I can't even begin to tell you what happens when people try and cowboy their way through a field they barely understand...

Yes, that pretty much describes 'management theory' and perhaps even more so 'economics'. Banking crisis anyone?

As to coaching and 'sports science'. I would say that is yet another field where our knowledge is 'less then fully developed', even if some of the old myths ('lactate causes fatigue', 'sodium depletion causes cramps' etc.) are slowly being debunked.

BenderRodriguez

Grill wrote:

I didn't realise that I was being coached by the Gestapo... You're right though, I never should have paid to have someone with experience, pedigree and success coach me.

Gestapo? Where did that come from? Whatever, it is clear that many people crave being told just what to do (how many intervals today, coach?) and it is human nature to put undue faith in authority figures who supposedly 'know ourselves better than we do'.

I wonder how you know that your coaching 'worked,' in that you would have performed at a lower level without it? For example, do you feel that your training work-load was increased when you took on a coach? If so, that might have been the primary factor and your results would have been much the same had you just increased your workload yourself!

napoleond

First thing that I was told when I started being coached was how to manage my expectations and what the ceiling was likely to be based on lab tests. Then we looked at how to get to the best out of my physical wreck of a body. It was going REALLY well until another bad accident in a race in 2011. Then there was no point in continuing the coaching.

I have really struggled since but at the start of this year decided to go back to the coach who did the testing a few years back. Found out just how bad I was and what I needed to work on. He gave me a suitably vague training plan just to work on over 6 months and I'm about to see him again tomorrow. However I will actually look at proper continuation of coaching tomorrow. I have seen massive improvements in the last 6 months and in fact have done some of my highest power outputs ever and had some good results on the track.

I found that being coached really suits my personality. I like the back up moral support but I also found the extra motivation of showing the coach the workouts a big boost. I missed less workouts too.
This last 6 months has really been about getting back in to riding and racing. Next year I plan to build on this quite substantially. I feel coaching will really help that.

Just my 2p.

LegendLust

BenderRodriguez wrote:

Grill wrote:

I didn't realise that I was being coached by the Gestapo... You're right though, I never should have paid to have someone with experience, pedigree and success coach me.

Gestapo? Where did that come from? Whatever, it is clear that many people crave being told just what to do (how many intervals today, coach?) and it is human nature to put undue faith in authority figures who supposedly 'know ourselves better than we do'.

I wonder how you know that your coaching 'worked,' in that you would have performed at a lower level without it? For example, do you feel that your training work-load was increased when you took on a coach? If so, that might have been the primary factor and your results would have been much the same had you just increased your workload yourself!

No you're wrong. Most riders, like myself, use a coach to get the best out of the precious little time I have to train. So I don't want to be spending ages working out what I need to do etc, I want to wake up, know what I have to do in the hour and a half I have allotted and then get on with work, home life etc

I'm pretty sure if I had all the time in the world to p i s s about on the internet like you do, that I'd be able to construct my own plan, but most of us have life's to get on with. So for that reason I use a coach.

napoleond

LegendLust wrote:

BenderRodriguez wrote:

Grill wrote:

I didn't realise that I was being coached by the Gestapo... You're right though, I never should have paid to have someone with experience, pedigree and success coach me.

Gestapo? Where did that come from? Whatever, it is clear that many people crave being told just what to do (how many intervals today, coach?) and it is human nature to put undue faith in authority figures who supposedly 'know ourselves better than we do'.

I wonder how you know that your coaching 'worked,' in that you would have performed at a lower level without it? For example, do you feel that your training work-load was increased when you took on a coach? If so, that might have been the primary factor and your results would have been much the same had you just increased your workload yourself!

No you're wrong. Most riders, like myself, use a coach to get the best out of the precious little time I have to train. So I don't want to be spending ages working out what I need to do etc, I want to wake up, know what I have to do in the hour and a half I have allotted and then get on with work, home life etc

I'm pretty sure if I had all the time in the world to p i s s about on the internet like you do, that I'd be able to construct my own plan, but most of us have life's to get on with. So for that reason I use a coach.

That's a biggie.

Grill

BenderRodriguez wrote:

Grill wrote:

I didn't realise that I was being coached by the Gestapo... You're right though, I never should have paid to have someone with experience, pedigree and success coach me.

Gestapo? Where did that come from?

Where you ask? Here:

BenderRodriguez wrote:

Fact is 'managerialism' is scam, business education is an even bigger scam, and most people who do get MBA's and so forth don't apply any of the principles that they supposedly learned, instead using their 'qualifications' as a justification for imposing their own authoritarian rule on others.

BenderRodriguez wrote:

Whatever, it is clear that many people crave being told just what to do (how many intervals today, coach?) and it is human nature to put undue faith in authority figures who supposedly 'know ourselves better than we do'.

Thinking that you know it all is a sure-fire way to fail. As I said, approaching problem with different paradigms is more likely to get a result.

BenderRodriguez wrote:

I wonder how you know that your coaching 'worked,' in that you would have performed at a lower level without it? For example, do you feel your training work-load was higher when you took on a coach? If so that might have been the primary factor and your results would have been much the same had you just increased your workload yourself!

Your reading comprehension leave much to be desired. Remember when I said this:

Grill wrote:

I've just recently signed up for coaching with RST as I've bought as much speed as possible and now actually need to do some work. I chose RST based upon a couple of TTers I know that have put up some very impressive results after being coached by RST. I can't yet comment on whether it has worked for my until next season, but having structure and accountability help keep me focused over the off-season.

Increasing workload without proper direction makes no sense. Perhaps all football clubs should sack their coaches and managers and just have the players run around the pitch twice as long. Look at Barnett's results this season. Crushed all his PB's off of 5-6 hours a week of proper training. He has his coach to thank for that.

You have you to put forth a compelling, or even remotely considered contention as to why coaching is wholly unnecessary. You're blinkered view is just sad as it lacks any proper foundation.

BenderRodriguez

NapoleonD wrote:

I found that being coached really suits my personality. I like the back up moral support but I also found the extra motivation of showing the coach the workouts a big boost. I missed less workouts too.

Which is much what I said earlier..

Perhaps, having paid a lot of money for coaching advice, some people are simply more likely to train harder because they have faith in what they are doing, or because they don't want to waste their 'investment'.

BenderRodriguez

Grill wrote:

You have you to put forth a compelling, or even remotely considered contention as to why coaching is wholly unnecessary.

I never said it was 'wholly unnecessary'. For example, look at my previous post where I acknowledge that having a coach to 'answer to' might well encourage some people to train more consistently than they otherwise would. I have also said how much people like Boardman have benefited from the coaching they received.

I would also accept that the performance of most riders does improve after they decide to start using coaching services. The question is just why does this improvement occur?

As far as I can establish, it has yet to be proven that such improvements arise primarily because the typical 'training plan' offered by a 'coach' represents some sort of 'optimum' programme for the client which can only be put together with the guidance of 'expert' help. An individual's responses and capacities are just too varied, and the state of sports science so - as yet - undeveloped, that the best that can be hoped for from most distance managed' programmes is a set of general principles that may or may not suit a given individual. Given this 'knowledge gap' a plan based on self-knowledge and previous experience might well offer a better return than anything a coach could e-mail to you.

LegendLust wrote:

I'm pretty sure if I had all the time in the world to p i s s about on the internet like you do, that I'd be able to construct my own plan, but most of us have life's to get on with. So for that reason I use a coach.

Yes, 'not having time', or 'I can't be arsed', or 'I don't understand anything about the subject and don't really want to' are probably all fair enough reason to hand over your credit card details in exchange for a 'training plan'.

Grill

Perhaps you should check TTF and Slowtwitch to see what those who are actually coached are saying. Deriding the profession without first-hand experience is just silly.

NeXXus

How's it all going Trev?

LegendLust

BenderRodriguez wrote:

Grill wrote:

You have you to put forth a compelling, or even remotely considered contention as to why coaching is wholly unnecessary.

I never said it was 'wholly unnecessary'. For example, look at my previous post where I acknowledge that having a coach to 'answer to' might well encourage some people to train more consistently than they otherwise would. I have also said how much people like Boardman have benefited from the coaching they received.

I do, however, question to what degree the typical 'training plan' represents any sort of 'optimum' programme. An individual's responses and capacities are just too varied, and the state of sports science so - as yet - undeveloped, that the best that can be hoped for is a set of general principles that may or may not suit a given individual. Given this 'knowledge gap' a plan based on self-knowledge and previous experience might well offer a better return than anything a coach could e-mail to you.

LegendLust wrote:

I'm pretty sure if I had all the time in the world to p i s s about on the internet like you do, that I'd be able to construct my own plan, but most of us have life's to get on with. So for that reason I use a coach.

Yes, 'not having time', or 'I can't be arsed', or 'I don't understand anything about the subject and don't really want to' are probably all fair enough reason to hand over your credit card details in exchange for a 'training plan'.

Tell you what Big Bender, seeing as you've scoured the internet and I can't be arsed, why don't you coach me?