Team Sapphire,
As the founder of the Team, I have some words to say regarding people volunteering to do coaching for bike and run.
Firstly, I must say I am very very delighted to see your passion, drive and emotional inspiration that is filling all around the team. The small team of 5 have now doubled in size and even though the team is still quite young and in fact small in number, I take great responsibility in your safe-being and training adaptation. So please don't get me wrong, I am not discouraging anyone from doing anything beneficial for the team. I just need to voice this out as I felt strongly a sense of responsibility to do so, as a general concern of the team's safety in training. I sincerely hope gen will show this to Andre and there is no ill feelings for all of us (some may perceive this as a form of power struggle in my opinion).
Andy and Andre has volunteered themselves to be run coach for the team. As far as I am informed, they're doing sub 20minutes for 5km and sub 4:30 for 42km. As far as performance goes, they're astonishing to accomplish given that we're not full time athletes.
However, the point I hope to put through is these:
1) Being able to perform does not immediately grant rights to coaching
Explanation: Coaching and teaching is a completely different matter to self performance. When performing, you listen to your own body, you feel your own lungs and your legs movement.. you decide for yourself whether you should adjust your cadence and stride length and your rate of exertion according to how you feel at that very moment. And as long as you race often, with enough practice, you'll be able to come up with an optimum power output for the whole event and come up with a personal best with the best tactic for yourself.
Coaching and teaching requires, i repeat, REQUIRES the following:
- A coach to CONSTANTLY be able to try and feel what his students are feeling and adjust the training program (even when planned before hand) as the training goes on.
- He needs to ALWAYS ensure that the training is sufficient but not overkilling, is of great quality and not just of mediocre time chomping miles.
-He needs to have a love for ALWAYS reading up on the latest news and updates of running, AND MORE IMPORTANTLY, find out the supporting research that will support the believe. Upon finding out the researches, he has to find out the sample distribution size and also the subject types used for research (and their characteristics), and then determine if the research is thoroughly believable or is it just a thought and theory from a sole group of persons? From there, he has to determine if the updates and news can be used upon training for his own group of people.
-Having said that, he has to totally understand the people he is training and also their movement characteristics and possible gains/loss of Range of motion and then adapt that training into every single individual on how the techniques should be performed.
2) You have to fully understand the movement physiology of a normal person, and how joint damage/possible genetic (lordosis, scoliosis, etc.) issues should be handled.
Explanation: Human physiology of movement is the BASIS OF ALL SPORTS. Without muscles, joints and its range of motion, NO SPORTS can be performed in ANY circumstances.
- Only upon knowing the specific movement of joints (including the understanding of those damaged or not), can he fully adapt his training program to be SAFE. Exercise is an act of catabolism to the body's muscle fibres and the body's survival instinct will anabolise MORE muscle fibres to adapt to the load that the body is receiving constantly (that is why consistent training is KEY, without consistency, the body will always treat the training as SHOCK and not be able to adapt properly with proper growth). Thus in a way, training for triathlons is very hurtful to the body given the multiple amount of stress the body is facing. That leads to increased risk of injuries.
-Anaerobic, aerobic, training effects and specific training adaptations of all training that are planned have to be taken into consideration before, during AND after training planning and execution. How much rest and what timing to give for a 6x400 for a person? Reading what magazines tell you just won't cut it because everyone's different. and at the end of the day, you still have to mesh those individualism of program into one that EVERYONE can do together and benefit from it!
e.g: try making Andy swim on the same pace with lawrence or try asking sam to bike at the same pace with me with same amount of rest. FYI, Anaerobic exercises rest to work ratio is 1:1 or 0.5:1.
- We have to reduce those risks of injury through several ways:
i) Knowing what we're doing for ourselves. Our own joint's range of motion and working within that range of motion and stretching consistently to improve ROM if need be. Without the full understanding of our joints movements and muscle fibres connection and start and end of fibre directions, there is no way you can do this.
ii) Not doing a wrong technique that is stressful to joints/unnecessarily used muscle parts.
iii) Training with a structured program that is periodized with hard training and easy days.
- Having said the above point (iii), as a coach, you have to be able to cope with that power of yours and make sure you don't get overcame by your ego and pride that the training should always be tough.
- Also, exactly how easy is easy? When I am swimming at 1 min per lap and maintaining for 30 laps, that is easy to me. That isn't to anyone of you and thus I never design any program that causes a complete breakdown in strokes.
-On tough days, how tough is tough? You must be able to sense a breakdown of techniques and give extra rest or take away rest from individual/groups when the tough days seem to easy or vice versa.
3) On days where your team feels down, We as coaches have to change the designated program to become interesting to the people participating. THIS IS A MUST. because without enjoyment and understanding of what is being practiced, there is LITTLE to NO growth and thus 10 people's time (10hrs) is wasted.
4) Last but not least, with or without a NROC coaching license, we have to take responsibility that training a team of people means WE are responsible for their well being and if anything ever happens, WE take BOTH the Glory AND the Blame.
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I hope I made it very clear of what to expect of a coach. Yes, I do all of the above, for a living and also for you guys, for free.
All in the name of passion.
The reason I felt strongly for this the founder and the coach is because I've seen TOO MANY COACHES who were ex national or whatever divisional champion basketballer teaching what they felt is good for them and assumed it is good for the rest.
If you are really keen to join me in the coaching (shitty) department, I'd like to recommend the following 2 options (+ a compulsory point below).
1) That you plan the training with me, and from there, learn about the body physiology (and read books: SWIMMING FASTEST(Swim physiology), Fitness Instructor's Hand book (basic physiology and body system handbook), NSCA personal training book (inner understanding of human body performance) and triathlete&cyclist's training bible.. etc.) OR
2) Go take up fitness instructor course, that's the bare minimum.. :)
Compulsory: That you run the training with the best of your ability to do all of the above that I stated about coaching, AND give details to every single person in the most beneficial way and in the way that the person can understand (your expression of your thoughts have to be constantly improving due to every individual's different perception of every sentences we put through as a coach).
e.g: I can tell you the correct way about swimming is to pitch your hand in the 30deg angle from the water's surface before entry and then you have to make sure that the catch occurs at the front quadrant of your body upon the entry, at the same time cocking of the body's core upon catch before applying the push. Can anyone understand this?
Compared to this:
"Collect the water at the front as far out as you can, then push the water you collected as far behind as you can with a strong finish in the push." :)
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Having read the above, I'm sure some of you have doubts about who I am and whether I am really practicin what I preach here. So I'll declare the following.
I am a certified Swimming instructor, lifesaving instructor And a certified fitness instructor and has gone through the course of National Strength and Conditioning Personal Trainer. For those who are new, I picked up swimming from scratch(just 3 yrs back) and I remember the fear of swimming. I also picked up cycling late (last yr) and I remember how does it feel to be wobbly. Thus with those understanding, I am able to share with the beginners and understand their feeling thoroughly and from there give them confidence and teach a proper technique with minimal scientific expressions..:)
I sincerely hope this post does not portray an ill discouraging image of myself but an inspiration to what you can aim for if you are SERIOUSLY keen in picking up coaching. Especially gen who wants to pick up swim coaching license. I wrote this post 'cause I care about the Team's well being too.. hope you guys understand!
Love,
Coach KK
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