Dan Flanick and Rip: What is a Coach?

[Mark Rippetoe]

What is a "Coach"? | Dan Flanick & Mark Rippetoe

[greywar]

An interesting article... I have been struggling with the question of what to do when you aren't a coach, but people want you to be.

I am currently "coaching" a few guys through the SS novice program because they wanted me to do so and we don't have any SSCs here nor do we have a black iron gym besides the ones we built at home.

My shortcoming as a lifter, would-be coach, and probably a human being were never so much on display as when I tried to coach us through Power Cleans (which I have never really mastered or even "beginnered"). Other than running back to the books and the SS channel constantly, I am not sure what else I can do besides refuse to coach outright or quit everything else I do for few years, get certified, and tell people to wait until then.

[PrimalFish]

"The best coaches are students forever. Always questioning, always seeking answers – constantly questioning “the way it’s always been done,” trying to find and implement new and better ways of doing things. A good coach finds ways to learn from better coaches, trades ideas with his peers, and mentors the up-and-coming. Good coaches understand that when they begin to think they know everything, they have closed their minds to learning something new. They are not dogmatic in their thinking, and they use their knowledge and experience in both coaching and training as a filter for new information."

Rip, surely you did not write this.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Other than running back to the books and the SS channel constantly, I am not sure what else I can do besides refuse to coach outright or quit everything else I do for few years, get certified, and tell people to wait until then.

You don't have to be a Coach to coach. We all start somewhere. One of the points of the article is that you don't start with a certification.

"The best coaches are students forever. Always questioning, always seeking answers – constantly questioning “the way it’s always been done,” trying to find and implement new and better ways of doing things. A good coach finds ways to learn from better coaches, trades ideas with his peers, and mentors the up-and-coming. Good coaches understand that when they begin to think they know everything, they have closed their minds to learning something new. They are not dogmatic in their thinking, and they use their knowledge and experience in both coaching and training as a filter for new information."

Rip, surely you did not write this.

Obviously not, because I obviously already know everything.

[Scaldrew]

I feel like becoming a good coach for the clean and snatch is a more trying task. Not only are the movements dynamic and impossible to do slowly which makes them harder to coach in real time (i.e. during the execution), but fewer people seem interested in doing these exercises, as well. The people I know who squat, bench, and deadlift (and press, too, but they don't care too much about that lift) and I are the minority of the people in the gyms we train in. Of this group, about 3 people do these lifts on a regular basis or care at all to do these lifts. That number includes me, a guy nobody likes cos he's a dick, and a newbie who gets her coaching from me.

All in all, I'd say I've taught maybe 5 people how to clean and it really is a slower process taking several workouts spead out over 2 to 3 weeks where teaching people to squat and deadlift really well takes a week at most. I'm happy to report I'm at least getting better at coaching the clean. Yesterday, one of my lifting partners with several years of experience under the bar started doing hang cleans on a dime with the empty bar and I was able to shout cues to improve his form over the 8-rep set in a rapid fire manner, effectively turning his standing reverse curls into something more reminiscent of an actual clean. I doubt he's interested in really doing cleans, though, but I'll be around if he needs me to be.

That would be my advice to you, greywar. Just be around. It's like squatting, you just have to do it and get better.