Long Distance Coaching?

I mostly agree with Alan. I coach both local and satellite athletes. Even with local athletes there are occasionally times when I ask them to video themselves swimming or running and email it to me for technique analysis, because I'm having trouble fitting into their schedule for a face to face session. The only time it's an issue is if they're a completely new swimmer and need a lot of hands on technique instruction. In those situations we get them together with a swimming instructor locally for those sessions, and I continue to manage their overall program remotely. With today's technology, being 2 1/2 hours away or only 2 1/2 minutes is of little difference. BTW, where's Nisbet?

Edited by TriMyBest 2012-11-22 2:59 AM

I have a face-to-face coach.  She was my second coaching experience (the first refused to coach me to an IM and wanted me to do one year of sprints, one of olys, and one of halfs first).  I did online only with her the first month and hated it.  Since month two I do face to face and I'm hooked on it.  I meet with her and groups of 3-5 for 8.5 hours or so a week, sometimes one hour less, for various workours (3 strength, 3 swim, 1 indoor trainer interval session, and most times than not track workouts).  Now that I've developed a coaching relationship with her, if she moved or I moved, I would keep her.  I would ask for trainer interval, track, and strength workouts on my TrainingPeaks to do and I'm now in a position where I could transition into a Masters swimming team if need be.   So my preference is face to face but I will live with online only if I have a coach I like and they're not in the same city.

The effectiveness of coaching depends on the effectiveness of your coach, not on where they are located. A good coach will help you improve because of how they structure your training program and help you build fitness toward meeting your goals. The biggest challenge is with swimming, especially if an athlete is new to swimming as technique is critical to swimming well but good coaches will address this either through having athletes swim with a masters program or through video analysis.



I coach age group athletes; there are a few that are local and several that are not; I do not regularly see any of these athletes although I am in constant communication with them. This communication takes many different forms depending on the athlete but the key thing in a coaching relationship is communication.

I also coach youth and junior development athletes; this time of year, I see our provincial athletes about once a month for a weekend; we will do a training camp and then stay in touch through the rest of the month as they work through their training. In the spring and summer, we see each other much more often for racing and training (at least one session a week) but they are still doing many workouts on their own.



Yes but even for the best athletes, it is unlikely their coach will be there for every workout and in many cases, most of the coaching of elites is done at a distance as well. Even if the athlete and coach live in the same place, the coach probably isn't riding alongside them through every long run or driving a support car for every long ride; they will typically be there for key workouts and the rest they will review via workout data files.

Shane

All my athletes are long distance.  In fact I haven't met any of them in person.  The key is constant communication though.  Any coach who tries to limit contact or only allow you x amount of phone calls or emails a month is not someone you should want to work with.  Coaching should feel more like a relationship then a business transaction.  Long distance can definitely work just make sure you find someone who takes the time to get to know you, your goals, limitations and anything else that is relavent to what you are trying to accomplish in the sport.

Oh! Yeah, you are out in the hinterlands of Pennsyltuckey! I get up that way a couple times a year, because my father has a place in Potter Co. It's definitely pretty rural.

But on the plus side, I can train HILLS for both Black Bear Oly and Hunter Mtn HIM.

I am coached by a guy who lives over a 1000 miles away from me. I have met him in person three times at three different races. Not being able to meet up face to face has not hurt my experience with him as a coach. He has me log all of my training daily and is constantly monitoring it and giving me advice and updates. I do frequent physiologic testing (run, bike and swim) and download the data to him and then my training is created based on the paces/power I generate in the tests and worked around my schedule.

I have made very good gains on the bike and run and continue to improve dramatically. I have not seen the same type of gains in swimming and this is probably because swimming is technique, not effort, driven. I have actually used a local swim coach to help me with technique as this is the one place that long-distance coaching just cannot do what local coaches can (IMO). I get all my swim workouts from my long-distance coach but he just can't be there every day fixing my stroke...

I would like to echo what someone else said about limiting emails and phone contact. When I see a coach that says in their plan, "allowed one email contact per week and one phone call per month'" it totally turns me off. I just don't like that. I probably have never hit those kind of numbers as far as phone calls to my coach but I would be irritated at paying someone to train me and they won't take my calls. Just my 2 cents.