Coaching

[dave0010]

Who here uses a coach to improve there cycling? what sort of techniques and equipment do they normally use?

I'd like to improve my cycling and think this may be the way to go. I feel I fall into the category that although I may put the miles in I could be getting better results from them.

I have this place just up the road from me www.fletchersportsscience.co.uk its just quite expensive. what do people think, is it worth while or should I just keep going as I am.

[okgo]

dave0010 said:

Who here uses a coach to improve there cycling? what sort of techniques and equipment do they normally use?

I'd like to improve my cycling and think this may be the way to go. I feel I fall into the category that although I may put the miles in I could be getting better results from them.

I have this place just up the road from me www.fletchersportsscience.co.uk its just quite expensive. what do people think, is it worth while or should I just keep going as I am.

Morning,

I started using a coach in October last year - in terms of techniques, well this will depend largely on what sort of goals you have, mine gives me a mixture of training over about 10-12 hours a week which is the time I have at my disposal. This is orientated towards the pre-set goals I gave him for road racing and time trials. Obviously there is only so much he can do with regards to me actually getting the results as I have to ride a good race on the day, but he can get my fitness to a point where I should be up there. Equipment wise, all we use is my powermeter, I don't bother going to visit him, or lab tests or any of that stuff, I personally think its useless, filler, training to me should be on your bike with your powermeter. A well known coach in the South I suspect has either purposefully (or maybe just neglect) been having people take tests on an indoor bike that is spitting our spurious numbers to make people think they're improving faster than they are...In my opinion all you need is regular contact with your coach, files from your races and training to be shared and looked at, and goals to be evaluated etc as time goes on.

Obviously the big question is whether you should or not. Personally I was riding quite hard and doing a fair bit of riding for two years and got to 1st cat before I enlisted a coach. My personal thoughts around this are that coaches want to coach good cyclists, and as such I probably get a decent amount of attention and get answers to my questions quicker than someone who was a no hoper would do. Its not right, or fair, but I think that may be the way it is, and I've heard reports from others to suggest this theory, so if that were me I'd be careful about the sort of outlay I was willing to make, but of course you may find that place is very attentive and treat everyone equally.

The main thing really for me was not to be educated from sq 1 in terms of what I needed to do to get better, I knew what was required, however paying someone helped me motivate myself to do the hard sessions, and the most important thing was doing things in the right order and at the right time, AND taking rest at the right time. For me, the monthly fee I pay is worth it in that I don't have to think about it, he knows what races I have and I just get a plan to follow, its easy, and I must be honest, its working (when I've not been injured or ill, had some bad luck this last few months!).

[ewenm]

I don't know if it is the same in cycling but in athletics every UK Athletics affiliated club has access to qualified coaches and that access is usually free to members of the club. If there's a similar set up with British Cycling affiliated clubs that might be a more cost-effective route to coaching advice although it can be more generic than specific to an individual

Plenty of runners also use a paid-for coach to give specific, personal advice but then you need to work out how you get value-for-money and how to build trust between the athlete and coach.

[Bobley]

I paid a coach for a one off MTB day which was good but since then I've joined the local cycling club and now they've paid for me to become a coach myself. Its a long road and you can only learn so much at a time but its coming toegether. Club membership was £40 a year, BC membership with a race licence about £90? and the British Cycling level 2 course was about £400. I need to do some more specific awards for road and MTB and they cost £200 each (weekend+paperwork) but I'm enjoying myself.

I suppose it depends what level of coaching you want. Technique/skills or fitness/performance?

[dave0010]

I'm just looking to bring some structure to my training. I enjoy cycling and this had lead me into other areas such as sprint triathlons. I now realise I really enjoy swimming/cycling/running. I'm happy to do all in my own time or first thing in the morning just for fun but I would also like to become faster and stronger in each discipline.

I'm going to spend some time on google tonight and see if I can find a triathlon coach in my area that will cover all bases. If not my local pool offer one to one swim coaching and a local gym offer a running coach who is a friend of mine,

What I'd like to gain from it is the knowledge and understanding that the training that I am doing is worthwhile and also making me better. The last thing I want to do is find out down the line that If I had changed how I trained I would have been a much better competitor.