Don't make this one coaching mistake!
Let's talk about one of the biggest mistakes a coach can make that I made for several years...
Yes, this title was in fact very clickbait. BUT, unlike other clickbait content, this post will NOT be a bunch of superficial garbage. Or, at least I hope…
WEEKLY WISDOM: DON’T GOOF THIS UP
As a coach, it is important that we reflect on our past coaching to get a sense of the good, the bad, and the ugly. Most importantly, we should look at the latter two as, like the cliche, the biggest learning opportunities come from failure. In the case of myself, after listening to a podcast by Steve Magness and Jon Marcus in which they reflected on their past coaching mistakes, I came to relate to them for one in particular. Specifically, this mistake is writing up an entire training plan with the full details before it’s even begun, something that I’m sure a lot of coaches, both good and bad, have done.
WHY THIS IS BAD
Although it certainly makes you feel good to have a training plan filled out from start to finish, this can be detrimental to an athlete’s success. Approaching coaching in this way directly opposes the truth of training being a rollercoaster that never goes perfectly to plan; in other words, writing out a full training plan before the athlete has even begun is making a bold assumption that the athlete will nail every day you prescribe. Granted, like I have done, you could do this and then make changes throughout based on how the athlete is doing and feeling, but here’s why you shouldn’t do this: You lock yourself and the athlete into that specific plan, making it harder to diverge from the path you’ve set out when the athlete hits a bump in the road (e.g., injury, excess fatigue, etc.). When there is a bump in the road, this often has a cascading domino-effect in which a handful or so of consequent weeks must be modified accordingly. And, if you don’t modify accordingly, you risk overtraining the athlete. Writing out the full plan can make it very difficult to change the plan when things inevitably go south as you’ve already gotten the training all written out. Think of it like a Rubik’s cube. For a newbie like myself, it’s a mental battle to make any moves when one side has a lot of one color as I feel like I’ve got to ruin all my progress to ultimately get closer to completion. Mind you, I suck at Rubik’s cubes and this may be a terrible analogy, but hopefully you get the idea!
WHAT YOU SHOULD DO
Instead of writing out a full training plan with all workouts, long runs, easy days, weekly mileages, etc., take training a few weeks at a time such that you’ve only ever got three weeks written down. Consider it a three week rolling program where, after one week, you then write up the third week out from the current day. So, if you have weeks one, two, and three planned out and week one is completed, you’d write out week four at that time. Then, once week two is completed, you’d write out week five, and so on… Although this may be more work for the coach, this will allow you to be a lot more flexible and adaptable to how the athlete is responding to training, resultantly ensuring that the athlete is being exposed to a healthy dosage of work from week to week.
However, it is important to note that this approach does NOT mean you should only think three weeks at a time. As suggested by Steve Magness, you should still have a full picture of the training block and jot down workout progressions so you have an idea of how far you want to go for each stimulus based on the athlete and race distance. As training progresses, you should check in with the workout progressions you wrote for the athlete to see if adjustments need to be made. In the case of training going slower than anticipated, you may want to dial back the workouts for a planned progression. On the contrary, if things are going well, you may want to up the intensity of those planned workouts.
EXAMPLE
Let’s say we have an athlete, John, who’s training for the 5k under the funnel periodization methodology with the goal of running under 15 minutes (3:00/km, 4:49/mile). Because we’re using funnel periodization, we have the following pacing classifications:
RECOVERY
Easy-steady paces
GENERAL ENDURANCE
Marathon pace
AEROBIC SUPPORT
Half marathon pace
DIRECT ENDURANCE SUPPORT
10k pace
RACE SPECIFIC
5k pace
DIRECT SPEED SUPPORT
3k pace
ANAEROBIC SUPPORT
1500m/mile pace
GENERAL SPEED
800m pace
NEUROMUSCULAR
Hill sprint, flat sprints, ...
Knowing this, we can then write out the workout progressions for each pacing classification. For the purpose of this post, let’s just do this for the general speed and general endurance classifications…
General endurance: Marathon pace (MP)
6x(4’ at MP, 1’ easy)
25’ at MP
4x(8’ at MP, 2’ easy)
30’ at MP
General speed: 800m pace (800mP)
4x(4x100 at 800mP w/ 200j) w/ 2-3’R bw sets
3x(3x200 at 800mP w/ 200j) w/ 3-5’R bw sets
3x(3x300 at 800mP w/ 200j) w/ 3-5’R bw sets
4x(3x300 at 800mP w/ 200j) w/ 3-5’R bw sets
John is in the beginning stages of a block, and as such, he’s focusing on building out his high-end speed and endurance for the next four weeks, emphasizing work at 800-meter pace and marathon pace, respectively. With the progressions above and a traditional Tuesday and Friday workout setup, here are his next three weeks:
Week 1
Tuesday: MP
6x(4’ at MP, 1’ easy)
Friday: 10kP (maintenance) + 800mP
4x400 at 10kP w/ 1’R, 2’R, 4x(4x100 at 800mP w/ 200j) w/ 2-3’R bw sets
Week 2
Tuesday: MP
25’ at MP
Friday: Threshold (maintenance) + 800mP
4x800 at threshold w/ 200j recovery, 3’R, 3x(3x200 at 800mP w/ 200j) w/ 3-5’R bw sets
Week 3
Tuesday: MP
4x(8’ at MP, 2’ easy)
Friday: 5kP (maintenance) + 800mP
4x300 at 5kP w/ 200j, 2’R, 3x(3x300 at 800mP w/ 200j) w/ 3-5’R bw sets
Once John has completed week one, you can then write up the fourth week and, depending on if week one went well or not, adjust as needed for the consequent weeks (which could mean diverging from the planned progressions!).
Regardless of how you coach, consider an approach such as this one to possibly level up both yourself and your athlete(s). Notably, I have yet to implement this approach as I only recently made this realization thanks to Steve and Jon, but I firmly believe it will make me a much better coach and I fully intend to incorporate this going forward.
If you have further questions, please ask me of course! See my contact information at the bottom of this post; I would love to help.
Next up on All Things Running… Long runs: Should they be done every week?
SUPPORT ME
Follow me on my other media through this link.
If you want personalized coaching and/or training advice, I’d be happy to help. You can email me at jacobreesmontgomery@gmail.com or send me a direct message on Instagram.