The education industry underwent a technological revolution in the past ten years. Pencils and typewriters were replaced by interconnected computer networks and the ‘University of the Internet’. While some worried that technology would forever doom the book to obscurity, the actual result has been an increase in production, distribution and availability of written words. Technology increased the speed with which ideas could be shared and exchanged, giving people access to more information to make them more curious and hungrier for even more information. When I look at the coaching industry, I see the emerging technological advances having much the same effect. Coaching will go from a privilege once available only to few to a service relied on by many.
Coaches now have a wide array of tools at their disposal. Back in the ‘old days’, and those were only about a decade ago, coaches (for the most part) relied on knowledge, practices, and techniques handed down to them from previous coaches. Many of us started the same way: An older, more experienced athlete helped us when we were young and years later, as high-level athletes ourselves, we were sought out for advice by younger, less experienced athletes. We passed along whatever advice and help we could because someone had done the same good deed for us years earlier. Some of us realized we loved developing future talent as much as we had enjoyed developing our own, if not more. We started working with as many athletes as we could, but were limited by our geographical locations, available pools of local talent, and finances.
Perhaps more important than the sometimes sparse athletic population available were the lack of quality coaching education and the limited accessibility to established, top-level coaches. We were left to coach primarily by feel: prescribe training like we had been prescribed and then adjust accordingly. We learned the hard way that the training that worked for you as an athlete does not necessarily work for athletes you coach. Over time we gained experience and refined our coaching styles. We studied and exchanged ideas with coaches we encountered at various events: Nationals, Worlds, and Olympic Trials. But the information exchange was relatively slow and there was as much poor information floating around, as there was good.
Technology has already done great things for the coaching industry. Biofeedback tools that were once available only in laboratories were adapted for use in the field. The flood of data was incredible and had wide-ranging effects on coaching. We had real-world data to correlate against real-world performance, and we had the files to derive theories from and ask other coaches about. As the cumulative collection of data grew, the most successful training techniques and theories were validated and the ones which failed to produce repeatable results perished. The quality of coaching available improved drastically, but there was still a problem of access.
The emergence of the internet changed coaching in much the same way it changed education, as it should have. After all, coaches are educators and coaching should be an educational experience for both coaches and athletes. The problem was the availability of athletes to work with and learn from. I believe in exposing coaches to a wide scope of talents, motivations and challenges in order to provide them an ever-growing library of information to draw from as they continue to work with athletes. In the past, it was difficult for coaches isolated in small communities to gain the experience necessary to continue developing as coaches. There were simply too few athletes to work with. The internet enabled coaches to reach and interact with more individuals, broadening the scope of their experience and thus improving their base of knowledge.
A classroom education does not automatically produce a quality coach. Knowledge is a great tool, but you can’t produce champion athletes unless you apply that knowledge properly. The difficult part is that the definition of “proper application” changes from athlete to athlete. With the ability to work with more individuals, the learning curve for coaches has become much steeper in recent years. Young coaches these days are far more knowledgeable than we were years ago because of the increased availability of good information and athletes to apply it to.
The greatest effect of improved data collection and communication tools is the emergence of coaching as a viable career path. Men and women who had to balance their dedication to coaching with a job that paid the bills are now able to devote themselves to coaching alone. People who choose coaching as a career are more likely to devote the time to stay up to date with the latest research in physiology, sports psychology, nutrition and energy management, altitude training, biomechanics and equipment. In the long run, the entire coaching industry and the athletes it serves will benefit from a stronger core of top-quality, dedicated professional coaches.
From there the scope of the population which coaching can help expands in many directions. Some professional teams in seasonal sports have realized the benefits of year-round coaching for their players. I believe this trend should filter down into amateur, collegiate and scholastic sports programs. Making long-term coaching available to these athletes will help prevent many injuries currently caused by throwing young athletes with drastically different fitness levels into team practices and competitions. The fit are inadequately challenged and the unfit are in over their heads.
So far, the majority of coaches’ efforts have gone toward helping athletes pursue victories and records. As we move forward I believe coaching will find increasing relevance outside the competitive arena. The concept that coaching is only applicable to competitors needs to go the way of the dinosaurs and bio-pace chain rings. People deserve education about improving their fitness and their ability to take part in an active lifestyle, regardless of whether they feel the desire to test themselves in competition. A person’s goal or reason for seeking knowledge should not preclude him from obtaining it.
At the opposite end of the spectrum from competition, coaching has applications for the health care industry as continuing care for post-rehabilitation patients. The health care industry can return an injured person to functional condition, but what is it doing to prevent those patients from re-entering the health-care system? One purpose for coaching is to improve human performance: begin with a sufficiently healthy person and optimize his or her ability to lead a continually active and enjoyable lifestyle.
Technology increases the rate and range of progress. When applied to coaching, I believe the integration of accurate and meaningful data with efficient communication tools will greatly broaden the spectrum of people who will have access to services they deserve and will benefit from. This proliferation of good solid information has and will continue to produce wonderful and dedicated coaches.
Chris Carmichael is the founder and chairman of Carmichael Training Systems (CTS). Chris' athletes include 3-time Tour de France Champion Lance Armstrong and his US Postal Service Teammate, George Hincapie. To order CTS coaching, log on to the CTS web site.
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