Why I Coach: Helping Athletes Navigate Information Overload

In this episode of the Training Babble podcast, host Dave Schell reflects on his journey into coaching and the importance of simplicity in training. He shares personal anecdotes from his experience with triathlons, emphasizing that effective training doesn't have to be complicated. Dave encourages athletes to focus on what truly matters in their training, to be skeptical of information overload, and to find a balance that fits their lifestyle for consistent improvement.

Takeaways

• The desire to keep coaching simple is crucial.
• Training for a triathlon can be overwhelming but manageable.
• More training doesn't always mean better results.
• Effective recovery is key to training success.
• Athletes should focus on what truly matters in training.
• Information overload can hinder an athlete's progress.
• Consistency and progression are essential for improvement.
• Skepticism towards training advice is important.
• Finding a personal training approach is vital.
• Coaching is about helping athletes navigate their journey.

Transcript

Dave S (00:02.23)
Welcome back to the Training Babble podcast. I'm your host Dave Schell and today I want to take a trip down memory lane. Recently I was talking to a friend and a fellow coach and we were talking about the reasons that we started coaching and what kind of transformation or what an athlete that opted to work with us would hope to achieve or would achieve. And as I started thinking about this, I was reminded

as she kept asking me questions, I kept having very similar answers about my desire to keep it simple and not to over complicate things and you know, to help athletes sift through the misinformation out there and things along those lines. And it was in talking about that, that it reminded me about the reason I started coaching in the first place. And so I was about to turn 30.

and I had been running for a while but I'd never done a triathlon and one of my friends had talked me into doing a triathlon for our 30th birthday and in my preparation for that I thought okay I need to swim, bike, and run so every day I tried to swim, bike, and run. I would go to the pool, the rec center

and I would do laps and then after that I would come home and I would ride for a bit and then after that I would run. And I did that for a month or two and by the time we got to the race I had the most horrible race. It was one of the most miserable experiences in swimming. I didn't think about the fact that it was going to be an open water swim and my kind of plan B or my escape clause was that if it got hard I would just flip over and do backstroke.

Well, I would do that and then I would remember or realize that I didn't know if I was moving or not. I didn't know if I was swimming in circles because I no longer had the roof to look at and see what was happening. I had no idea about sighting things along those lines. Then I got out and I did the ride on a very heavy mountain bike and that was miserable as well. And then got off on the run and there was probably a lot of walking and a lot of misery.

Dave S (02:24.586)
And we finished and we shared our war stories and everything else. And then the next day I started looking for other races because I was like, there's no way this thing is going to beat me. I am going to figure this out. And so I started signing up for other races as is typically the case with endurance athletes. We do these things and in the moment we hate them and swear we'll never do them again. And then later that night or the next morning we're signing up for the next one.

But anyway, as I really wanted to try to better prepare myself for these races, I started doing research and started finding any information I could possibly find on how to train for a triathlon and what the principles were and things along those lines. And what really amazed me is that it didn't have to be as complicated as I was making it.

And so rather than swim, bike and run every day, I was actually able to train a lot less and be a lot more effective. And so I started following this new plan and then I started getting faster and faster and faster. And that just made me realize that things didn't have to be as complicated as they might seem.

if we're on forums and things like that. And I was able to get faster by training less, which maybe isn't always the case, but I think a lot of times this is what athletes miss. We always think that more is better and we should do as much training as we possibly can. But I think what's missing from that is we should do as much training as we can effectively recover from and adapt to. And so that might be different for everybody else. So,

With this, I really think about my job as a coach is to help athletes sift through the information and really focus on what matters. And I think in the endurance industry, it's probably one of the biggest issues that I see. We're just inundated with information from articles, YouTube videos at the start line.

Dave S (04:47.318)
There's people standing around you telling you that you're running the wrong tire or that you're eating the wrong thing or you should have trained differently, things along those lines. And so I see my job as a coach is to really help athletes block out the noise and focus on the things that actually matter. And again, in my experience, it just doesn't have to be that complicated. A lot of the times, if we just focus on the things that are actually going to move the needle, then we can be a lot more effective with our training.

and get faster through consistency and progression.

So I would tell you that as you start to read articles or listen to other podcasts and things along those lines, always be skeptical. So always ask why. Don't just trust whatever you're hearing firsthand, but really dig into it more and find out why. Because in training, there's lots of different ways to do it. And I think the most important thing is that you're consistent.

And by focusing on what matters and taking into taking your life into context and figuring out what works in the context of your life, that's going to help you be more consistent and improve over time versus doing the flavor of the moment workout, whatever this athlete's doing or whatever you saw in Strava or whatever the Norwegian wet method is this week. Just really focusing on what's

stood the test of time and what is something that you can do in your life that's still going to allow you to go to work and have your family and still spend time with friends and things along those lines. So this is a super short episode, but again I would love to hear any thoughts you have on this and you can send me a text, should be in the show notes, or you can find me on Instagram at Kaizen Endurance.

Dave S (06:52.469)
Talk to you later.