Coaching coached kids?

For the most part, if a Kid has both a club coach and a team coach, the kid will either get injured or have to pick one.

I know kids that get injured all the time because they do workouts with their club coaches back to back with workouts they do with their Highschool coach.

If the kid wants to succeed they need to pick one or the other.

Otherwise they will get hurt.

You don't live in Nashville, do you? I understand this happens all the time there.

Not in Nashville, I guess this probably happens everywhere.

I agree with having to "pick one" and in my opinion, which is obviously biased, you should be picking the high school coach if you're training for the high school season. And I feel this should be understood and encouraged by the outside coach, hence the writing of this post.

I m an incoming college freshman this year and was an OK high school runner (17:48 xc 5k pr) and there was a kid a few grades below me that came in and he was supposed to be fast. He was privately coached and ran high 18's his freshman year and never got any better than that. The parents of this kid were jerks and yelled at our coach for not pushing their kid hard enough, when really it was the private trainer that burnt him out. A similar thing happened in my area where a stud runner was recieving workouts from a private coach and he burnt out towards the end of the season.

What kind of speed sessions are they doing? As long as it isn't all out and is focused more on quantity than quality, one speed workout a week is fine. My D3 coach has us doing speed work once per week in the summer and it is something like 8x200 at no faster than 800 PR pace or 8x300 at no faster than mile PR pace and eventually progressing to stuff like 12-14x200 at the same pace. If you really think it affects your program I would say to the kid that he has to pick one, he has to understand that your program will not work with other stuff incorporated. If he still wants to do both then tell him that he will no longer run in high school for you. A big reason why my high school xc team was never that great was because of a lack of culture and if you establish a "my way or the highway" that could work, especially if you have a program with a proven track record of success. That's just my opinion.

It's just poor coaching. If you're doing any part-coaching of someone, you need to know what other work they're doing. It's simple common sense.

Training should work as part of a global program with all parts working together. If you train with 2-3 different coaches, it can work as long as there is communication.

A 400 runner might have one person doing speed, another strength, another speed endurance. It all needs to fit together. The sprint coach might say "you're not using your glutes and hammies enough when you run. We're working on improving your form here on the track, but can you tell your strength coach that you need special focus on those areas".

Thanks for the feedback everyone. Pretty in line with what I felt, which is why I was so surprised by the actions and reactions of this other coach. He is experienced, well known in the running community, and I would think would have a better grasp of these things and how to act appropriately.

We have school/club leagues that run semi concurrently. I just ask the kids what they have been up to at the "other practice" and proceed accordingly I also tell them to communicate to the other coach what they did at my practice and hopefully that coach is sensible. Some I know, some I don't. In our case it's usually a win win since kids have practice options every day.

First of all, understand what you can and can't control. If all you are willing to provide is 3 workout sessions/week then expect your kids to look for more opportunities because they do want to get better and have access to limitless information and it sounds like a private coach as well who does spend more time than you with athletes so its natural for kids to become divided. When you .mention differing philosophies, that's a red flag that tells me you are not flexible. My best suggestion would be to offer the olive branch to the other coach and work together in the off skeason with an agreed upon plan if at all possible. New ideas and development through hard work shouldn't keep anyone from looking for ways to improve your team and results. Now, in my opinion, its going to have to be you that becomes the great communicator between that coach, the kids and their parents about goals, expectations and responsibilities of everyone involved. Start with the kids and open up the possibilities that could result from more help rather than trying to horde it all to yourself. As a matter of fact, unless you are willing to occupy their week and yours, you really don't have the kind of control you want. That will come when the season starts but until then you have to be flexible. Trust between all involved is what is required. If you can get that, your kids will leapfrog over other programs that aren't willing to work at it which is the majority.

I offer 5 practices a week, ask them to run on their own on Saturday and take Sunday off. June, July and August are all different phases of the base component of our program that are progressive with built in recovery weeks. June mostly easy mileage, weights and one interval workout on the track. July starts to increase mileage, add a fartlek run, tempo run and interval work in the grass. August continue to increase volumes and intensities for the start of the season. Keep in mind here, this is always voluntary by everyone because of summer activities and the fact that I want them to own their results and training behavior once the season starts. We started with six kids several years ago and are averaging 35 now while rotating through about 50. We'll have about 65 out for the season. Let me tell you, we have some of the fastest runners and the slowest runners in the state every year but what I choose to do in the summer makes every bit of difference for those that really do want to run and get better. Yes, I have to pull the reigns back on some and sure wish a few would see the light along with a bunch of slow runners every year but the bottom line is that it will always be their choice and their team. We are always competitive and have had a few close calls at winning it all but we are always at or near the top in 9-10, JV and varsity divisions in all of our meets. Since I have summer classes, vacations and family time as well I can't be there all the time either. But the plan is in place and the trust and ownership is as well so its really up to the kids to see that the numbers don't lie.

Be flexible, get help, earn their trust and have fun in the summer. Plan a few summer events that will give you some point to measure progress. Support their ideas but give your wise advise too. Help them own their experience. One that is guided but self driven so they understand the results of their hard work.

This is precisely why I am anti-private coaching (and get bashed here for it).

Legally when they are not at practice there is nothing you can do. They want to be coached outside and do speed work followed by 20 mile long runs they can. My best suggestion is to win them over. You be the better coach and offer something the other guy doesn't have... A team.

Should the private coach communicate with you? Professionally speaking... Yes.

Will they... Probably not.

I used to coach high school and I coach about a dozen runners right now. I like to think I mostly know what I'm doing and have had a lot of improvement with my runners but I absolutely won't work with any high school runners.

As others have mostly said, it's hard to serve two masters. Most of time, the private coach does it for the glory and/or the money. They will think their way is the best way and knock the other coach so they look like the real brains.

If the private coach doesn't work with your athletes in a way that benefits the team, they are hurting your team. If they are open with you, it could potentially be beneficial.

Regardless, it's a pretty slippery slope.

PS Rodeo expert... My guess is you do really well in September not peak too soon?

Three practices in the summer are ideal. (SOM meets only twice a week). Kids need a mental break from the grind of the season. If they can't run on their own or call up friends to go run then they don't have the inner drive it takes to be great.

Most private coaches empesize selfishness over team. They don't have an understanding of how to properly train so they just run hard intervals to get fast quickly. It works but they peak too soon. Plenty of HS coaches do this as well.

I'm with Donger on this one. You're not going to win over the other coach, but you can win over the athletes. My first question to you is do the athletes know what you'd like them to do on the days that they aren't running with you? If not, maybe provide some sample workouts that would be appropriate for the days they are on their own. Maybe all you want out of those days is easy running, but if they don't know that, then why would they refrain from doing whatever they're doing with this other dude? Talk to them about how training works. Let them know what you are worried about happening if they continue to do both your workouts and the other coach's concurrently. Let them know what you are going for with the training that you are providing. If they don't listen, and their seasons go to hell, you can explain what happens. If the ones that do listen have major success, you can shine a light on that. If your reasoning is clear and your training works well for those who listen, this issue should resolve itself, but it might take a full season.

This other coach isn't hired by the school, and as such you don't really have any say over what he does on his own time. If he wants to run whatever workout he feels like, that is his prerogative. You have already done all you can do on that front in explaining to him why you don't want your kids to do these workouts.

The option you have left, which you should have done as soon as you learned about this issue, is talk to the kids about why doing these workouts is a bad idea. If he insists on doing these workouts, and your kids continue doing them even after you talked to them (and hopefully their parents) and thoroughly explained the reasons why they shouldn't be doing them, THEN you have a real problem. If you do a good enough job explaining the reasons they shouldn't do these workouts to both the kids and their parents, however, it shouldn't come to that.

This should be easy:

"If you want to run on my team, you follow my training plan and check in with me about all outside races and training runs or workouts. Buy in to the program and the team or quit."

I take it that you have spoken to the kids and perhaps their parents. This is all you can do. Sometimes, kids need to learn the hard way. As bad as it sounds, let them get burnt out/overtrained and figure it out. Enjoy your summer and don't sweat it. Lessons learned through failure stick with you forever.

PrettySimpleReally wrote:

This should be easy:

"If you want to run on my team, you follow my training plan and check in with me about all outside races and training runs or workouts. Buy in to the program and the team or quit."

No state that I have ever coached or competed in allows coaches to be in charge of summer training. You can provide a training program. You can host optional workouts. But threatening to kick kids off the team for what they did or didn't do over the summer would be a pretty major violation. And the kind of parents who pay for private coaching are the same kind of parents who would do everything in their power to bring down a coach who took such actions.

The coach's job is to instill confidence. Market your plan. Show that it works. Ultimately, you just need the athletes to realize on their own that there's no benefit to seeking outside coaching (if this is truly the case).

Don't be so over-protective. They aren't YOUR kids.

Over-protective Coach wrote:

Don't be so over-protective. They aren't YOUR kids.

Obviously you've never coached anyone in your life. They aren't his kids but when you put a lot of time into something you expect to not be undermined.

There's multiple guys in Michigan who poach runners from high school teams (usually only the talented ones...of course) and it's very annoying to see these hobby jogger coaches act like they know something.

Ajajjsjdjdjd wrote:

Over-protective Coach wrote:

Don't be so over-protective. They aren't YOUR kids.

Obviously you've never coached anyone in your life. They aren't his kids but when you put a lot of time into something you expect to not be undermined.

There's multiple guys in Michigan who poach runners from high school teams (usually only the talented ones...of course) and it's very annoying to see these hobby jogger coaches act like they know something.

This is exactly how I feel about high school "coaches." The vast majority are teachers with no true coaching qualifications. Allowing them to coach would be like hiring me to teach Calculus on the basis that I have a Level II USATF Credential and need some extra cash. (And then of course when these kids go for tutoring because I'm not really qualified to teach anything, much less calculus, I would freak out about having MY toes stepped on and demand exclusivity.

I would be interested in hearing how many of the high school coaches posting here have Level II or above.