[Vern Gambetta]

Vern Gambetta on January 31, 2008 at 11:40 pm #14314

Just because you are an elite athlete do you really need a stretching coach, a strength coach, a massage therapist, a technique coach, a speed coach and a conditioning coach? I came a across an article about an elite athlete the other day who was taking this approach. This is actually quite common. Isn’t this a little over the top? I wonder if they all have certifications for their specialt

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[Mike Young]

Mike Young on January 31, 2008 at 11:45 pm #68287

As Vern said this is actually a growing trend…especially outside of track. What you get is a bunch of very great bricks thrown together to get a huge pile of rubble. When everything’s on the same page (easiest when there’s only one coach) you can take that pile of bricks and create a house.

ELITETRACK Founder

[mortac8]

mortac8 on February 1, 2008 at 12:44 am #68288

I agree to a point but I think you need more than one person ideally…at least a coach plus a physio.

[Mike Young]

Mike Young on February 1, 2008 at 12:48 am #68289

I agree to a point but I think you need more than one person ideally…at least a coach plus a physio.

I agree. I can actually see having a multi-headed therapy team but when the coaching staff exceeds one things start to fall apart in most cases.

ELITETRACK Founder

[burkhalter]

burkhalter on February 1, 2008 at 7:34 am #68293

[quote author="mortac8" date="1201806869"]I agree to a point but I think you need more than one person ideally…at least a coach plus a physio.

I agree. I can actually see having a multi-headed therapy team but when the coaching staff exceeds one things start to fall apart in most cases.[/quote]

Seems to contradict common sense. In my business it would be like ten people talking to a customer about ten different services we may be providing them. Left hand won’t know what the right hand is doing and tends to confuse the end user.

I can understand a “strength coach” overseeing a track coach’s weights program and just following the track coaches workouts, etc. Especially a coach with many athletes and or many events to coach. Didn’t Lance Hooten do that for Dan and Art Venegas for John Smith?

[Mike Young]

Mike Young on February 1, 2008 at 10:13 am #68295

In the case of Dan I know for a fact that he would have preferred to handle the weights himself but the structure at UT and UF were such that he had to farm out the management of the weight workouts.

I’ve never been forced in to this type of situation but I really would fight it as hard as possible. I personally really like to manage both the technical aspects of the weight lifting as well as the loading schema. I often make changes to the prescribed workout on the spot on an individual-by-individual basis and these types of things might not be possible if I wasn’t present. I’m sure it could work if there was a good strength coach who bought in to what you were doing and had an open line of communication but from what I’ve seen and heard this is fairly rare.

ELITETRACK Founder