Nice article Carl. The point about uploading things into the cloud really resonated with me as I have done a whole bunch of interesting things relating to vertical jump with my athletes over the years. Some worked, some didn’t, but the problem I have is that most of my logs are handwritten. It is only recently that I have started to keep track electronically. With the technology of Ipads etc really making portable web based documentation more readily available and user friendly it will hopefully allow better sharing of ideas and analysis by other coaches who can help provide insight to what you are doing.
There are going to be a lot of interesting and cool applications to being able to quickly share training logs, training videos etc. I can see coaches being able to be mentored by those more experienced remotely as well as getting feedback from others as well.
Potentially it does bode well for raising the knowledge levels of coaching generally. I attended the NSCA conference here in Nashville and watched as my friend Shawn Myszka answered questions for hours after his session with a lot of those questions being along the lines of “I am working with an athlete and we are doing xxxx what are your thoughts?”
Wouldn’t it be great if in that circumstance he could have seen the training logs of the athletes in question, maybe watched a few videos to assess form or readiness, and got that level of background information before answering.
Now obviously coaches are busy people but I don’t know too many that don’t genuinely like sharing their time to help and provided those demands weren’t excessive, and the relationship was clearly defined (paid mentorships for example – a retainer type situation maybe) then you could certainly get a lot more value adding from the input.
Anyway just thought bubbling here.