The Case for Having Someone Else Program Your Workouts

In order to improve as an athlete, we often look for external guidance. Within each sport, there is a coach available to provide one on one assistance through the form of program writing. Here is a case for one to pursue this option.

I train as a crossfit competitor. I am nowhere near the level of the games athletes but I compete as a weekend warrior every other month or so. I have aspirations of doing well and winning these competitions each time I enter. In order to make this possible, I have my coach write individual programming for me that is different than the class programming. While I do this for crossfit, I feel that this is applicable in any sport and at most levels of competition.

Programming is catered to individual needs, not wants.

Within crossfit, and pretty much any sport, there are certain things I enjoy doing more than others. I love deadlifting. Any day, any time, tell me to pull some weight and I am down for it. Accessory work to improve muscle ups and other movements, boring and not fun. Yes I see the importance of it but god I do not wanna do another drill on them. Does not matter, my coach knows this is a weakness of mine and in order to become a more round athlete, I have to put the time in there. Sadly, this means I do not get to do the fun things I like all the time. Coach is there to remind me the importance and that the fun things will still be sprinkled in from time to time.

Without a coach writing up these drills and workouts, I may do them, but probably not to the degree I should. Tell a baseball player to plan batting practice and they will probably just wanna see fastballs and work on going yard with it. Batting coach definitely won't allow that because what happens game time when the batter is now facing a slider. The athlete may not be thrilled but to get better at the job, he or she better listen to coach.

Programming has a scheme.

Whenever it ends up being me writing a workout for myself, I always make an ugly one that is gonna leave me gassed and sizzling like bacon on the floor. If I did this three times a day, five days a week, I probably won't get any better. I may have a better engine for those workouts, but that is only a small portion of the big picture. I need a coach to write up workouts that are endurance based, lung burning sprints, strength necessary, and skill based. There is a balance of all of these that a coach can see better than most athletes. They see how this fits into the time of the year (season) and where performance levels need to be. Are we offseason and the goal is to get stronger and/or clean up deficiencies or is it mid season and we need to be recovering or ramping up for game time?

There are many factors that go into programming. I trust my coach to have a plan set forth that has me improving over time and not letting me falter in any aspect of my game. That is something, I would not be able to do for myself.

It is a motivator.

When I read my programming for a day, a bunch of things rush through my mind. First, will this be fun or miserable? Second, what is the purpose of this programming? And last, what is he expecting out of me for this one? A lot of my motivation for competing is intrinsic. However, since I know there is an end goal my coach expects out of me, he must have an idea in his head of how I will perform. This could be hitting new personal records or sometimes just surviving. I go into everything he writes with a goal of going all out so that I hit or beat his expectation. I don't hit this every time but I at least went into it with the drive to do so.

If I had written up the workouts, I probably have an idea of how it will go in my head as well. However, I am more willing to fail myself than I am my coach. It may be a sad thought but it is true and I imagine a lot of people feel the same way at times.

One on One Time

Most coaches, whether programming with direct or indirect contact, will spend time watching how you as an athlete performs. While this is not necessarily the programming aspect, they will use this to see where technical flaws are and to observe how you really perform versus what you told the coach. A good coach will then take this information to modify programming to spend more time working on correcting these issues and/or take away aspects that are being excelled at and thus need less practice. As an athlete, I would make sure to set up some way that your coach is watching you in some form. For many remote coaches, they will do this through video review on Facebook or some other source.

Conclusion

If you can afford the cost of a coach, there are many benefits. A coach can write programming that is well balanced and set up to eliminate any discrepancies in your performance so that you are the most prepared you can be come game day.