Two years ago I wrote about the onslaught of devices offering some sort of coaching ecosystem. My Garmin watch tells me how far I should bike or run. My Stryd running power meter suggests workouts and offers canned training plans. My Form goggles do the same, albeit only for pool swimming, which I never do. Honestly, I am surprised Shokz doesn't offer workouts to go with their headphones. (Don't get me wrong, I love my Shokz.)
As far as these plans go, they are an improvement over traditional canned training plans in that to some degree they adjust based on how the athlete progresses. For the single sport athlete who just wants to have fun and is strapped for cash, this can be a good fit. It is easy to imagine how frustrating it can be for a triathlete to try using these options, as each one only knows about what you have done in that sport, and nothing about the other two. Been there, done that.
You might think that paying for a coach will overcome these limitations. Not so fast. Many coaches set up their business using a pyramid design. A large base of athletes get canned plans and a monthly group call. Some pay more and get a weekly review Email and maybe a few adjustments. A few pay a lot more and receive daily reviews and unlimited communication. I am not saying that all traditional coaching plans are bad. What I am saying is that, in the new device paradigm, coaches need to change their role in the coach-athlete relationship. An athlete looking for a coach needs to be aware of this change.
Around the same time that I wrote that piece on devices masquerading as coaches, we started to see AI-based coaching services springing up. This was the start of the coaching app craze. These first-to-market products were not truly AI. They relied on a bunch of conditional branch programming, which looks something like this:
if ( sevenDayCompletionRate < .5) {lowerIntensity} else {keepIntensity}
If you can understand that expression, congratulations, you may have a career in coding!
A carefully constructed set of conditional statements, combined with a useful set of data, can produces a result that feels a lot like what a coach does during a weekly review. That is because many coaches gravitate to that kind of review. They pull up TrainingPeaks, or perhaps WKO, and run through a routine that includes things like
- How well did the athlete complete the work assigned?
- How did their heart rate respond during the high intensity interval session?
- How much heart rate drift is there on the long run and long bike?
- Are there indications we should change their FTP?
- Is their Form (TSB) on the Performance Management Chart where it should be (typically -30 to -10 while training)?
An informed review of data such as these is invaluable, yet it only tells part of the story. I hope it is glaringly obvious that what is missing in this methodology is how the athlete feels.
TrainingPeaks has two valuable tools to help capture and communicate the soft, squishy data that wearables and devices cannot capture, the post workout comments, and the daily check-in.
After every workout the athlete can pick up their phone, open the TrainingPeaks app, and answer two questions: How did you feel, and Rating of Perceived Exertion. They can also add free-form text comments. Oftentimes this soft data is far more valuable than the hard data coming from the wearables.
The daily check-in consists of a long list of metrics that the coach an athelete can choose fom to create a custom checklist. Most of the answers involve selecting from a range of choices, and some ask for specific values. For example:
Fatigue - Not Selected, None, Very Low, Low, Average, High, Very High, Extreme.
HRV [value]
Sorness - Not Selected, None, Extremely Low, Very Low, Low, Moderately Low, Moderate, Moderately High, High, Very High, Extreme.
Weight [value]
There are over sixty metrics to choose from. I doubt that anyone uses all of them. Which ones to include in the morning check-in should be reviewed periodically, at least annually.
Out of those sixty-plus soft metrics, the one that is the softest and most beneficial is Notes. Simple, free-form text. A diary, if you will. This metric has the potential to start valuable coach-athlete conversations, and it is through those conversations that the coach can begin to interpret the hard data that may shed light on what the athlete is saying.
Many coaching plans limit the amount of coach-athlete communication. Details vary, from two Emails per training plan to, for example, one phone call per month. Communication between coach and athlete is much too valuable to impose such limits. I am not always instantly available but I will respond in a reasonable amount of time. How is this possible? By using the best technology available today to analyze athlete data provide communication. Using WhatsApp allows me to keep all of my athlete conversations in one place, separate and apart from the noise of email while eliminating phone tag, or the need to be free at the same time for a prearranged phone call. Or, ever more limiting, at the same physical location. I confess, I do enjoy meeting over coffee as much as the next guy, but busy people cannot always afford that time on a regular basis. Besides, in today's world, many of my athletes will be somewhere far away.
By leveraging technology to save time and improve communication it is possible to create a personalized coach-athlete relationship that goes far beyond what is possible from smart devices and AI-driven platforms.