BEHIND THE COACHING LENS - WITH SCOTTY FARRELL

One of the things I love most about working with a team of like ‘growth-minded’ individuals are all the incidental questions and conversations happening in the background. Whilst we’re all made from the same dough and have similar thoughts and practical methods… we’re all baked in a different oven, so the slight nuances in perspectives makes for great learning. The ability to ask a question, despite perhaps the fear of seeming ill equipped, is something we really want to promote and foster with our coaching team. And I’m a firm believer that if you hear coaches, businesses etc telling you they have the ingredients for the best secret sauce around… be warned.

Moving on… let’s dive in for a bit of a summary of some of what has been on the discussion boards this past couple of months.

1. One thing that comes up time and time again in threads: Consistency is king - you can have the fanciest, most creative, responsive, scientific coaching program in the world. But without consistently applying yourself over months and years, you are leaving yourself short of the mark (wherever you decide to set it - go big we say).
2. ASADA - Drugs in sport. A hot topic of late and one that our coaching team has been encouraged to dive into in greater depth. Key take-aways have been that supplement use is a huge grey area and ignorance is no excuse... if you don’t check everything going into your system, then don’t play the ‘I didn’t know card’, cause it won’t work. There are free e-learning ASADA courses available for coaches and athletes on the ASADA website. Get on it.
3. Putting together bike power plans for long course races - definitely some differing methods and opinions in this department. Some coaches opting for more of a negative split style execution plan with regards to power numbers, and another option for more of an even split power numbers/negative split RPE style approach. What we all agree on here though, is that each athlete is an individual and as such, their ‘plan’, should it be required, needs to be a N=1 approach. A good question further to this might even be… are race plans a requirement? Should the coach be laying out a detailed plan, or is this something the athlete should take more ownership of? Or both? Food for thought.
4. Heat training - with race season approaching, and some races, notorious for feeling like racing in a sauna, the question was posed… what’s new in this area? Bang… multiple responses, opinions and links to some good science articles provided. Key strategies included (and this might be a whole article coming soon I think): 2 weeks of consistent, daily heat stress training about 6 weeks out from your hot race, then one heat stress session per week to carry on the benefits. Methods included: training in the heat of the day; wearing extra layers; saunas post training; hot baths. Plus some more caveats and methods around it all. 

There you have a small sample of the kinds of discussions the coaching team partakes in on a regular basis. We will have more in depth articles coming out very soon on topics like the ones mentioned above, but we thought we’d share what we’re up to in the interim.

What’s coming up for the coaching team?
Next up, on the 7th of September, our coaching team are getting together in person for a morning of practical learning and development. We’ve got a returning NLP practitioner from last year’s PD day coming back to extend on ‘belief systems’, and another presenter who will be upskilling our coaching team on the finer arts of word sleuthing, content creation. Add to this our own discussions and team building work across the morning and voila… more tools in the kit.

Many of our coaches are also currently busy doing their own studies with Training Peaks Certifications, Triathlon Australia re accreditations and new accreditations, Swimming Australia re accreditations, HIIT Science, and more.

It’s a hive of learning and growth is the T:Zero coaching and athlete team environment and it’s super cool to be a part of… why aren’t you? ;-)

Coach SF


​

​With over 10 years of coaching experience and a Bachelor of Education, Coach Scotty is T:Zero's Director of Coaching.  

​Find out more about him here.