What standard do you look for in a coach ?

Pacing Mule

The question of coach credentials was touched upon in another thread recently and it interests me enough to discuss it further.

Do you feel a coach needs to have set a certain standard themselves ? If so what is that standard ?

Perhaps you don't need to have hit good times yourself to be a quality coach ? Jose Mourinho widely regarded as one of the best soccer coaches in the world isn't a great soccer player himself for example.

rom

- knowledge of training techniques. This goes without saying.
- Being able to put themselves into the shoes of the athlete. Jose Mourinho when he worked as an interpreter for Bobby Robson learned this skill. Getting this level of access would be something not even the assistance would normally get as he would be there and mentored for the role. You could say the same about Joe Schmidt. Never played at a high level. I would expect that someone that is a leader and good at motivating people would motivate those in any sport or profession.
- An athlete needs very little training when everthing is going well other than holding them back if needed but when their head is not in the right place etc then a working with life problems that can get in the way. In reading Roy Keanes book the sport at times is almost secondary as normally its the external factors that impact on the sport other than an injury.

Chivito550

I'd like to do some coaching in the future, but not until I get to a certain level of performance with my own running. The most important thing with a coach-athlete relationship is trust and respect. Far easier to gain an athletes trust when you have trained hard and smartly for the event yourself. Both coaches I have had were good runners themselves back in their day.

You don't need to have been a great runner to be a great coach, but you most certainly need to have been a decent one IMO. Easier to gain respect that way. Your athletes knowing that you have gone through the exact same sessions as them is important.

average_runner

Chivito550 wrote: »

I'd like to do some coaching in the future, but not until I get to a certain level of performance with my own running. The most important thing with a coach-athlete relationship is trust and respect. Far easier to gain an athletes trust when you have trained hard and smartly for the event yourself. Both coaches I have had were good runners themselves back in their day.

You don't need to have been a great runner to be a great coach, but you most certainly need to have been a decent one IMO. Easier to gain respect that way. Your athletes knowing that you have gone through the exact same sessions as them is important.

Agree totally with the above, the coach must understand his runner, how the runner works, how he ticks and what's affecting the runner. A real personal relationship is needed.

I might go down the route next year with a coach to get a training plan that's a bit different, finding it hard to attend my club sessions with family life.