Remote Coaching- for athletes
Not sure on the ins and outs of remote coaching and how it works? Here’s your explanation.
I started remote coaching in 2021 (how pandemic of me) and currently coach 10 or so athletes remotely. January this year I became a remote athlete myself when I started working with Caity, who lives in Australia. Understanding what it was like to be a remote athlete wasn’t why I wanted to work with her, but in doing so I’ve learnt a lot more about the process and am very grateful to now understand it from both sides.
First point is to know why you might start working with a coach remotely. In my mind there are only two reasons; either you don’t have the ability to work in person with a coach (due to location or schedule), or the best coach for you lives elsewhere and moving isn’t an option for either of you.
If this is your situation, the next thing is to understand that being a remote athlete means you’re going to have to do some of the work you might normally consider a coaches responsibility, like;
Problem solve- Coach isn’t there to give feedback or make decisions in real time, that sits with you
Accountability- Coach isn’t there to make sure you do your warm ups or accessory work, take smart jumps or stick to the programme. It’s all you, for better or worse…
Recording and feedback- Coach isn’t watching you do it so you need to make sure you fill in your programme spreadsheet or app, and share your thoughts (especially questions if anything is unclear)
Open up- Coach isn’t there to notice something’s off and ask questions, it’s on you to let them know
There are elements of this that I actually think sets athletes up very well for high performance- awareness and ownership of self is a pretty big necessity in order to get to the highest possible level. But absolutely it can be a shock to the system if you’re used to having your hand held a bit more.
The other big thing is videos. You gotta record those sets and yes this can feel like ADMIN, and, depending on where you’re training can also be incredibly awkward if not an outright issue. Unfortunately it is a non-negotiable. If you’re not sending in videos then you are paying for programming, not coaching.
Next step is feedback. Frequency and amount of feedback you receive is very much going to depend on the coach and their systems. If you’re used to debriefing with coach after every set, remote coaching will definitely mean less feedback overall (although it will be summarised and targeted which could mean more useful). Equally I am aware of situations where athletes have moved from team training to remote coaching and actually find they’re getting more feedback as a result. Part of the journey with feedback will be you as the athlete learning what you need in order to make sense of the information and use it to benefit subsequent training.
Working with a remote coach does not mean needing to train on your own; get amongst a team training environment as much as you can. In my mind it doesn’t matter if the programmes vary athlete to athlete, the benefits are in the shared effort, connecting with others who understand what you’re doing, using each other to motivate and push, receive more and varied feedback, and support technical development through observation. Especially if you’re also not going to be able to work with your coach in competition; you’re going to need that team to run you and the more they know you in training, the better they can support in comp.
Side note- if you are a competitive lifter who prefers training on their own this is still important, because that’s what the back room is my dude. You don’t need to enjoy it but you will need to be able to max out in it because that’s what competing involves (noise, other people, chaos).
Willing to do the work or not, remote coaching isn’t a great option for everyone. Most beginners would be much better off starting with an in-person introductory workshop or virtual PT sessions (you in the gym with coach on a video call) to cover the basics, and even at the elite level it just might not be a process that gets the best from athlete or coach.
As always it’s going to be about individual context and finding the best approach within that. If you want to know more I’m happy to answer any questions, please get in touch. Better living everyone.
