Top Triathlon Training Tips For The Effective Mentor

Triathlete Coaching Tips

Becoming a triathlete coach is one of the most rewarding things you can do in life. Just like the athletes you train, you always need to be improving as well and these triathlete coaching tips just want the doctor ordered!

Want to be a better triathlete coach?

With the shocking rise in obesity in recent years, triathlete coaches who are mentors and positive role models are needed more than ever before.

If you want to be a great coach for someone interested in a triathlete, there are things you can do to become better.

Here are some tips for success.

Motivate Your Athlete Effectively

Motivation through fear is simple, but it can breed disloyalty and resentment over time. Incentives are a strong motivator for some athletes, but the motivation involved does not last a long time.

You should really focus mostly on motivation through purpose. Change the way your athlete thinks about their goals. If they can notice and see their own personal growth, it will be much easier for them to motivate themselves in the long run, making training much more effective overall.

Triathlete Coaching Tips for the Effective MentorThis can be done most effectively by focusing on your athlete as a person. Why do they want to run a triathlon? What reason can you give them to work hard?

They are an athlete for only a couple of hours a day, but getting to know them as the person they are the rest of the day can give you insight into what will drive them forward.

Run Yourself

If you want to be the best triathlete coach you can be, it helps to know what your runners are going through.

You don’t have to or even want to run alongside your athletes, but having your own triathlete background will let you speak from the voice of experience.

Not only will this keep you in an admirable and authoritative athletic state; it will also help you develop creative thinking skills for new, helpful training techniques your athletes will find useful and strengthening.

Shadow Running Coaches You Respect

The best way to learn to do anything is to learn from those who are good at what they do. It is incredibly valuable for triathlete coaches to find their own coaching mentors.

If you have the opportunity to shadow coaches who you respect, you can learn volumes that will help transform you into a better running coach. Try to look back to your own training days; what worked well?

What did your own coach do that did not work well?

Get Some Education

Education is a valuable asset in coaching. There are many educational paths you can take to become an effective triathlete coach.

Getting a degree in exercise science is very useful, as will an online master’s degree in coaching. You can also receive coaching certifications from respected organizations like USA Track & Field and the Road Runners Club of America.

These programs will help you specialize your training and optimize the training you can offer.

Learn As You Go

Learning to be a great coach does not stop when you graduate from school. The triathlete community is constantly upgrading what defines the cutting edge in training.

If you want to keep up, make sure to read magazines and explore information from online resources to stay up-to-date on all the latest developments in training regimens.

Ideally, you should learn and develop faster than your athlete, and even more than their opposition. Success is a moving target, and you should constantly improve yourself in order to remain a valid and trustworthy mentor.

Don’t Be Afraid to Say You Don’t Know the Answer

There is no faster way to ruin trust in any relationship than to lie, and this is very true in the relationship you have with your athletes.

If they ask you a question that you don’t know the answer to, don’t be afraid to tell them you don’t know.

You can always look up the answer and get back to them the next day, focusing on the things you do know as you help them stay motivated.

Give Your Trainee a Challenge

Since your athlete is training for a triathlon, they know the difficulty and scope of the goal they have to reach, but that doesn’t mean that you should gradually ease them to that goal.

Coaching is the time to go past any limits your athlete has and challenge them with a more demanding regimen.

After all, if they work to the point where training is easy, the actual end goal should feel easier, not like the next difficult step of their training.

Wrap-Up

Training runners is an incredibly rewarding pastime.

You can get started right away by volunteering in a school or running a program in your community. If there isn’t one, start one yourself to experience the joys of coaching.

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