Top Ten Habits of Highly Effective Coaches

From Sports Coaching Brain

Great coaches realise that success is a moving target and to stay relevant they must be committed to life-long learning, honest personal and professional evaluation and continuous improvement.

Example: A swimming coach realised that two of the athletes in his team had the potential to be world record holders but that he had not coached world record holders previously. He raised some money and invited two world class coaches from other nations to come and honestly review his coaching and his program regularly to ensure his knowledge and skills were also world class. Result: One world record.

Max Heart Rate: Fitter = Lower

From Joe Friel

So as you become more fit in the lead-up to your race you might expect to see lower heart rates at the high end. The reverse of this is also true. As fitness declines MHR increases. The review reported 3% to 7% shifts with training and detraining. So, for example, someone with a MHR of 200 at the start of the Base period may expect to see their MHR decline to 186 to 194 by the time of their first race.

Drop the Garmin

From Running Times

"After I had got over the withdrawal symptoms of being without my monitor I noticed that I was tuning in to my body a lot more. I thought I was already very aware of what was going on, but it became apparent that I had 'delegated' oversight to the monitor. Without an external time/distance read-out I was forced to tune in to my pace, breathing, energy level, how my legs felt -- all of that -- and adjust things minute by minute to stay comfortable. Some days I found I was running very slowly, but it turned out that useful work was still getting done. Previously I would have been looking at the monitor and have been desperately trying to stay out of the so-called 'junk miles' zone."