Peach Strength and Movement

This is a wordy post and maybe I’ve tried to cover too many things, but oh well hope it’s a teeny bit useful.

If someone is coming in with established habits accessing targeted coaching for the first time, this process is pretty straightforward for getting started towards meaningful technical progress.

Where it’s more interesting is with experienced and skilled athletes where the issues are less glaring, but more ingrained, and have to be managed alongside small inconveniences like competition. At that level we get more into repeating cycles of ‘let’s spend some time on this’ as and when is feasible between meeting the physical preparation needs of competing and ongoing physical development.

For those athletes the coaching skill is decision making around what can be done to support improvement in the short term, balanced against moving towards longer term targets, taking all of technique, physical condition and mental preparedness into consideration.

When I used an offer like this (in a different field) and got a lot from it, it immediately became important to me to try the same thing in mine one day. So here it is.

I have absolutely no idea how this is going to go- if there will be any interest, if it ends up being more work than I anticipate, if it will be a useful thing to anyone who takes up the offer.

If it’s a swing and a miss that’s fine, the question has been answered. If it sounds like a solution you’d like to try, please send me a message. And if this post has made you realise actually nah you want the full coaching gig, you can message me about that too.

I’ll edit if and when the offer’s no longer available.

I don’t love talking about how I’ve got better because it admits I wasn’t as good as I am now in the past.

Which is clearly ridiculous and an unavoidable reality of improvement.

Anyway had a photoshoot with myself when I stayed in a sick hotel room a while back and stoked to now find a use for this photo.

Get coached by me it’ll be normal I swear

Should you change your set up position?

Should you add pauses in your jerk warm ups?

Should you start squatting every day?

Should you cut a lifting session from your programme and go swimming instead?

Decision making around what we’re doing is led by knowing WHY we’re doing it and what we expect to change as a result.

Effective coaching includes being able to explain the reason behind those decisions.

I think about this a lot, particularly when I give the same technical exercises to different athletes for different reasons, or different cues to different athletes with the same intended (hopefully lol) outcome.

I actually can’t stand words like perfect and best so let’s say optimal. Optimal is going to vary both between individuals, and over time for the same person. Everything exists in context. This is what makes coaching fun and exciting and challenging, and equally frustrating, confusing and annoying.

It’s why I can post something and one person might say “omg you nailed it, best coach ever” while another thinks “wtf ur dumb”. And to an extent they’re both right.

Why is this important? Mainly I just want to point out that quality coaching is going to take your personal current context into account, which will greatly increase the chances of your receiving an optimal solution, and that’s why it’s worth investing in.

But also please keep liking my tech tips posts it makes me feel good.