#039: Athletes Self-Coaching vs. Hiring a Fitness Coach

Show Notes

Outline:

1. My experiences with self-coaching & coaches
2. Advantages & Disadvantages of self-coaching vs. hiring a coach
3. If you are going to self-coach correctly, here’s how to do it.
4. If you are going to hire a coach, here’s what you should expect.

Advantages of Self-Coaching

• You take ownership for your own process
• You learn about through the process
• It’s free to hire yourself

Disadvantages of Self-Coaching

• You don’t know what you don’t know
• You are blind to the things you are blind to
• You’re development as an athlete will never exceed your development as a coach

Disadvantages of Hiring a Fitness Coach

• Price
•Potentially not taking responsibility for your own performance

Advantages of Hiring a Fitness Coach

• It’s someone other than yourself to keep you accountable, look at your daily habits, movements, skills, etc. through an objective lens
• You have time to take care of other aspects of your life and other aspect of your training (e.g. career, family, sleep more, food prep, mobility)
• Not constantly second guessing and rewriting
• You will do the things you know you should do but don’t if left to your own devices
•You will (1) push yourself harder than you would on your own at certain times (2) you’ll likely have time off scheduled into your calendar year for recouping & recharging

Successful athletes are both formally coached AND self coached.

One of the things you have to realize if you want to either become an elite athlete or help develop an elite athlete is you cannot do it alone.

“It takes a village.”

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Since a self-coached athlete also should have a coach, there’s aspects of coaching that they should (and should not) educate themselves upon.

Athletes DO NOT NEED to know…
• program design
• physiology 
• trying to predict workouts / types of events

They DO NEED do know…
• Standardized Routines: Warm-Ups, Cooldowns, Mobility, Skill Progressions
• Movement Mastery: the subtle “intangibles” of movement
• Individual Virtuosity: “Owning” your movement
• Pacing Strategies: By feel vs. planned break plan

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This is my job as a coach.

The programming is just one aspect of my coaching service.  It’s an important aspect, but it’s just one aspect.

It’s also about…
• Accelerating the athlete’s specific knowledge in the Sport
• Helping them navigate their competitive season
• Jumping on a call and mapping out a game plan for Qualifiers
• Navigating training through the holidays where routines are out of whack 

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If you’re someone who is interested in getting some information about 1-on-1 coaching, message me on Instagram or email me at ben@zoarfitness.com

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