How Do You Know if Your Coach is Any Good?

You just got yourself a new coach. Or maybe there’s someone whose articles you follow religiously on the internet. But how do you know if they’re any good? Sure they have flashy taglines and they’re jacked so that means they’re a good coach, right? Well, no. There’s a distinct possibility they are just huge and good at sales and talking but they’re not actually a knowledgeable coach. Here are some guidelines to figure out if your coach makes the cut.

1) What does your coach do in their spare time? Do they attend conferences, read journals, write articles? Or are they using the same outdated information because they “always know best?”. Find someone that is always trying to learn and make themselves better. Better yet, find a coach who writes articles, presents at conferences, and is someone that others in the industry look up to.

2) Does your coach say there is only one correct way and everyone else is wrong? A good coach knows that everyone is different. Every sport is different, every person is different. Different goals, body types, issues, injuries, and movement patterns. Therefore, they should not be using a cookie cutter approach. They should tailor each program and training session to the individual. If someone else has a different method or theory, they will assess and respond to that instead of dismissing it prematurely.

3) Where has your coach learned their stuff? Did they open up a gym after getting an online certification? Or have they had internships and learned from some of the best in the industry? You can’t learn how to coach without getting hands on experience and learning from more experienced individuals. Take a look at your coach’s resume. If they don’t have any real world experience, they’re not worth your time.

4) Who has your coach trained? Olympic athletes? Middle school kids? High school athletes?  You might be impressed by their roster of stellar athletes but let me tell you this, their strength and conditioning coach didn’t make them amazing- they came to them that way. The true test is in the mediocre athletes. Did they take a second string high schooler and send him to a D1 college? Or turn a awkward bumbling freshman into a varsity athlete? Those are the real coaches.

These are just a few points to help you assess your coach. If they don’t stack up, find yourself a new coach!
Coach Lily

Google Me!

Google Me!

   

Nic coaching the deadlift 

THE FACT IS every place: will tell you that they're the best;  that they're different(better) and that they will get you great results.  So as a person looking for a place to train I can understand how differentiating which facility is truly "the best" seems almost impossible.  The purpose of this blog is to educate you as to why you shouldn't listen to people when they say these things but look at what they have done instead.  

     GOOGLE ME!  It's such a simple and basic task.  Whenever I want to find out something about someone I just google them.  It doesn't give the whole picture, but it tells me enough to know if I need to look further.  When you Google our owner "JL Holdsworth, strength coach", you get pages upon pages of results for things he has done over the years as a strength coach.  Even when you Google our director of Strength & Conditioning Nic Bronkall, you get several pages of things he has done as a strength coach.  I could go on but the point is if you Google just our owner, no less our whole staff, you are going to get more results than you know what to do with in regards to strength and conditioning.  The reason is because we are the best, what we do is the next level of training, and our results are what set us apart.  This stuff isn't true because I say it, it's true because you can Google it.  

     GOOGLE THEM!  Although I don't worry myself about what our competition is doing, as I believe we have none, I do hear from clients what other facilities are saying and doing.  When I hear of one of these places claiming to know how to train athletes I start off by Googling the person in charge of the program.  The funny thing is I can only find results for their website, Facebook, twitter and Linked in accounts.  I can very rarely find anything that they have ever done in strength coaching or as a strength athlete themselves.  This boggles my mind because it seems so simple that a parent or potential client would Google the person in charge of a program but instead clients just take the persons word, on their website, that they know what they are doing.  If someone claims to have been in this field for 10 years and you can't find what  they have contributed to it by Googling them, you are not working with a quality strength coach.  

JL squatting w/chains

     Anyone can make a fancy website, anyone can say they are the best, anyone can say they get results, but not everyone can say: "GOOGLE ME to prove they are the best at what they do".  So next time a friend of yours says they have "the best" strength coach, have them Google it and then see if they still think their strength coach is the best.  I bet they will have a much different opinion.  

What to expect when you’re expecting... to be a strength and conditioning coach.

Ha. See what I did there?

 

Many people enter the world of strength and conditioning without knowing what to expect and then find out they’re not cut out for the job the hard way. Knowing what to expect can help weed out the weaklings. Here are a few things to know before you try your hand in the s&c world. If you want to do it, it’s the best job in the world. If you don’t, you will probably hate your life.

1. Your time is not your own: This is true whether you work in a private facility or not. People and teams reschedule, you need to write programs, you need to fix things around the gym. You never know what’s going to pop up early mornings, late nights, in the middle of the day, last minute. Whatever is written on your schedule, don’t assume that the rest of the time is free time because it’s probably not. This is great for people like me because now I have an excuse to not socialize and I can sit at home and eat oreos instead.

2. People will yell at you. You’re an intern for a reason. It means you don’t know much. You have a lot to learn. People will constantly be correcting you. Accepting criticism means getting better at things. If you didn’t want to get better at coaching you can go to 24 Hour Fitness and enjoy your name tag and bosu ball squats.

3. Just because you like lifting weights, it doesn’t mean you like coaching. Pumping iron recreationally (or even obsessively) does not mean you’re a good coach or you want to be a coach. Coaching is about the interactions you have with people and your ability to effectively communicate information, not the circumference of your biceps.

4. You won’t make great money (or any, to begin with). The majority of people who work in strength and conditioning don’t do it for the paycheck, long vacations, ability to sleep in, or ability to make their own schedule. But loving what you do day in and day out outweighs any of the other stuff. If you want to do it, you’ll make it happen. You’ll take an unpaid internship, move to undesirable locations, forego buying new things to pursue what you want to do. If you don’t want to work in the field, you’ll always be bemoaning the fact that you don’t have time or money to do other things.

 

 

In summation, working in strength and conditioning is kind of like having a baby (I assume). It has it’s drawbacks but if you want to do it, it is the best job in the world. Now back to my oreos.

 

Coach Lily