Choosing a coach – what matters more; qualifications, results, experience or the coach-athlete relationship? As you might expect, the answer, so often is not clean cut and usually ends up being a combination of all of the above. However, I thought it would be interesting to share my thoughts on these four factors that people use to help choose a coach and how as I coach I consider them to be important. Qualifications: I have studied for and completed a wide range of qualifications during the last 15 years I have spent coaching. Early in my career coaching qualifications were important, they gave me credibility to what I was able to do when my experience was not so strong. As I have continued

There are five elements which I believe are at the heart of performance and each has its role to play in contributing to an athlete’s success; physiology, psychology, technical and neuro-muscular strength, tactical understanding and finally an athlete’s lifestyle. In the last blog of this short series I'll consider the area not always immediately connected with training but very important; lifestyle. Element 5 - Lifestyle For all athletes,whether age-group or elite, recognizing there are other aspects in life aside from triathlon such as family, relationships, work and other pastimes is very important. The number of aspects and importance of these obviously varies depending on the individua

There are five elements which I believe are at the heart of performance and each has its role to play in contributing to an athlete’s success; physiology, psychology, technical and neuro-muscular strength, tactical understanding and finally an athlete’s lifestyle. Over the next few blogs I’ll continue to briefly introduce my reasons for including each one of the five elements, some will of course, be obvious, whilst others might not be at the top of your list. Element 4 – Tactics It is possible to argue that each of these five elements is the most important one. In reality their importance varies at different times with different athletes. However, some might say the tactical element influen

Welcome to the first Endurance Sports Coaching newsletter. This will be an infrequent newsletter which shares information about what's happening at Endurance Sports Coaching, thoughts and training tips from the world of triathlon and any offers you might find beneficial from us our chosen partners. The intention is to enrich your inbox, not fill it with junk! Anyway, this newsletter includes our February training camp, gifts options for Christmas, a message from Muscuro (our Soft Tissue Therapy partner) and some top tips from Twitter. We hope you enjoy it! And we're off!! - Training in sunny Spain in February! We're off to South East Spain again for a week of quality coaching and trai

There are five elements which I believe are at the heart of performance and each has its role to play in contributing to an athlete’s success; physiology, psychology, technical and neuro-muscular strength, tactical understanding and finally an athlete’s lifestyle Over the next few blogs I’ll continue to briefly introduce my reasons for including each one of the five elements, some will of course, be obvious, whilst others might not be at the top of your list. Element 2 – Technical and Neuromuscular strength Technical and neuromuscular strength begins with the process of learning techniques and skills which involves the brain telling the muscles what they need to do via the nervous system . W

There are five elements which I believe are at the heart of performance and each has its role to play in contributing to an athlete’s success; physiology, psychology, technical and neuro-muscular strength, tactical understanding and finally an athlete’s lifestyle Over the next few blogs I’ll continue to briefly introduce my reasons for including each one of the five elements, some will of course, be obvious, whilst others might not be at the top of your list. Element 2 – Psychology Ever heard of the saying ‘hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard’? For me this is the basis of why psychology plays such a strong role in creating performances we can be proud of. The basics of train

There are five elements which I believe are at the heart of performance and each has its role to play in contributing to an athlete’s success: Physiology, psychology, technical and neuro-muscular strength, tactical understanding and finally an athlete’s lifestyle. Over the next five blogs I’ll briefly introduce my reasons for including each one of the five elements, some will of course, be obvious, whilst others less so. Element 1 – Physiology First up; Physiology. Why is it first? Well, it’s probably the element that for the majority of people receives the most attention. We all know triathlon is fundamentally an aerobic sport. It’s why we put in those hours of lower intensity training, to