Coaches can be pretty protective over their training beliefs and methodologies. After all, these things are their strategies and systems that they use to help their athletes. I can’t just go giving away all my ‘secrets’, right? This is the information that separates me, the coach, from the uninformed general public. Gotta keep myself in a job, after all.
So you might imagine that when it comes to my programming, the numbers and the percentages and the RPE’s and the spreadsheets, I would keep that all safely locked away in my secret coaching vault somewhere, only giving special access to those that deserve it (aka hire me for coaching…) But this is not the case. You want it? Take it. I’ll happily send you all of my best ‘programs’ and you’ll be on your way to being stronger than you’ve ever been in your life!
Except that’s not the case. There is no secret set of numbers, there is no cheat code that you can enter into your squat spreadsheet that will culminate in you squatting a million. The numbers in the programming are merely one of many tools that I employ as a coach to get the best results out of my athletes. My value as a coach is not in writing numbers, and while I consider my programming strategies quite effective, what’s more important is not WHAT we use, but HOW we use it. My job is to take an athlete and tailor the strategy to suit what THEY need, regardless of what the spreadsheet might suggest beforehand.
-What movements am I putting in to suit this athlete’s strengths and weaknesses?
-How am I selecting volume, frequency and intensity to best suit the work capacity of my athlete to balance work and recovery?
-Do we need to make adjustments on a monthly, weekly or even daily basis in order to cope with other factors? Lifestyle, injury, etc
-What adjustments am I making along the way to training parameters throughout the training cycle to accommodate strength adaptations, whether it be faster or slower progress than anticipated.
-How am I able to pivot my strategy if it isn’t giving us the desired results?
If the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail…I’ll happily send you my program because in order for it to work you have to know HOW to use it. My value as a coach is in the years I’ve spent learning, analysing, experimenting, failing and winning. The reason my programs work is not just because the numbers are right, it’s because of all of the other parameters that I employ correctly. I’ve spent years adding tools to my toolbox rather than trying to smash everything with a hammer.
So I’ll send you my program. It will probably work once, maybe twice if you’re lucky, but do you know what to do with it after that? Coaching is about adapting and developing and learning. My goal is to build a relationship with an athlete so that we can continue to make progress long beyond a single 12 week training block. If that isn’t also your goal, then perhaps I’m not the coach for you, and that's cool too. I’m here to inspire and motivate my athletes. I’m here to fix movements and strengthen weaknesses. My role, and my value as a coach lies well beyond the percentages I select. Use the whole toolbox!
Yours in strength!
Dan