Do You Have a Cycling (or Triathlon) Coach, and is it Worth the Money?
Do you have a coach?
Often, while I’m out training (around the lanes of West Sussex, unless, we’ve ventured further afield) cyclists and triathletes will get talking to me (maybe i get talking to them?) and they’ll ask me a variety of questions about how to improve this, or that, or how to get faster in such and such situation. I genuinely love being asked training and coaching related questions. However, some athletes worry that coaching will be expensive and worry,is it worth the money? For the vast majority of athletes the biggest performance gains that can be had come from making the ‘engine’ (that’s you!) bigger and fitter, and so when you compare the gains that can be made versus say a set of fancy wheels or similar, the cost per gain with coaching is less expensive.
What is a coach?
A coach can fulfill a variety of roles to different athletes, or sometimes even the same one. Coaching covers a variety of different aspects, which include, but aren’t limited to
Tactical advice
Skills advice
Psychology
Managing life issues
Data analysis
Training programmes
With some of my athletes I perform all these roles, with others it’s more limited.
Who can a coach help?
Interestingly, when I read comments about who needs coaching, I’ll see one group of people saying it’s only for beginners, and others saying it’s only for people at the highest level. In reality coaching is for anyone who wants to improve. Of course, you don’t need a coach to improve, there are tons of athletes who improve without one.
Why do you need a coach?
People get coaches for a variety of reasons, from wanting to be faster, or improving their FTP, to losing weight, or learning how to ride a race. You don’t need to race to have a coach (you just need to want to improve). A good coach will help you in the area you want to improve whether this is improving your 30-second power output after 3 hours of racing, or learning to corner safely. With over 20 years of coaching experience and a solid understanding of the demands of a variety of events coaching will get you to where you want to be at a faster rate than the haphazard methods people often use when self-coaching. Too often, I see riders wanting to improve at say their FTP and then doing training that is inappropriate to building their FTP but doing it because it either hurts like hell (“so it must be good”) or just falling back on doing the training that they like to do rather than what they need to do.
Self-coaching
Some riders do this well, and I’ve had athletes come to me that have well designed programmes, but mostly, their training is a hotchpotch of badly designed sessions that have been strung together. For some riders having a coach takes the anxiety out of knowing you’re doing the right training and that you have someone you’re accountable to.
Without doubt, we’ve helped athletes get faster and better than they’d dreamed of. Or, some had dreamed it but not achieved it until we coached them (even when they’d previously been coached) such as Michael Freiberg (Australia) who won the 2011 UCI World Championship, or James Hayden who twice won The Transcontinental Race.
However, the biggest issue for most people is the cost. One to one coaching starts from £125/month. Bikes and kit are expensive, events can be expensive. To get the best out of your bike and the best out of your body coaching can frequently take you to new levels of fitness. If you want to reach these new levels, and in a sensible time frame then coaching can be a very worthwhile investment as you’ll not only be improving your ‘engine’ but also improving your health. Often the gains you can make are less expensive per Watt than buying kit (plus, you’re almost certainly improving your health at the same time, which is often priceless).
Recently, we introduced our Group Coaching programme, which is now making coaching available to all as it’s inexpensive. Starting at the equivalent of just £8.75/week (which is the equivalent of 3 cappuccinos, or 2 to 3 beers) you’ll get a training programme designed around your needs, daily contact with your coach, and regular Q&A with them too!
Full on coaching can seem expensive, but is no more (and often less) than any other professional service, and the introduction of group coaching has made it suitable for all.