T or F: Convincing an athlete that their training is the best is more important than the training actually being the best

PS. Mueller's story reminds me a bit of Weldon. Weldon was so annoyed he never broke 30:00 he kept running after college. Then he got reunited with the actual best coach in the land - John Kellogg - and 28:06 was born.

its a false dichotomy, like asking if nature or nurture is more important. Yes psychology matters for running, but so does physiology. Taken to an extreme this philosophy is your typical bad coach who uses an eggs on the wall approach and then takes credit for those who happen to do well. Yet for a minimalist coach it would help to get the most out of the least.

The best policy is honesty.

I would absolutely never have a coach who was not being honest with me.

Reminds me of that thread success without intervals. One of the most important threads I've ever read on letsrun.
http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=309865

True. 90% of this sport is half mental

I have seen proof of this. There are high school football coaches that go from football clinic to football clinic to learn all they can about offense and defense. They can be very good at making chicken salad from chicken poop. They are great at motivation. Just get the kid to believe. Jake Johnson from Allen high school went from football coach to football coach but was motivated right. Now he is a steeplechase runner for Texas. Cade Bethman 1500 runner at ole miss (3:4?) had 5 different coaches his last 6 years. His last high school football coach had him just believe in himself. Jake Merrill from the panhandle of texas going to Baylor . Throws a 85 mph fastball. Lettered in four sports. Ran 1:51 in hs but May have run faster this summer . When I first saw him run in a meet at Jesuit his coach had no idea on what heat of the 1600 to put him in. He was running with 4:45 guys and ended the season with a 4:17. My high school football coach got Bobby Beck down to 8:52 indoor 2 mile and 4:07 outdoor on a wet track just four weeks removed from a week stay in the hospital. Bobby had pneumonia. I think his only regret is he went to lsu over Arkansas . Coach Roper motivated me to run the 2:18 . He always told us he was just a bus driver. We knew he was being humble. He met my son a few months before he died and told us that he really didn't know what he was doing that he just wanted us to believe in ourself.

To quote tinman:
I have come across a few stories over the years of successful runners who were mediocre at best prior to changing to a non-traditional training approach. Conventional theory states that one must do mileage with intervals/hill reps/hard fartleks to succeed. Some runners fail to arrive anywhere near their potential with such an approach. I recall one runner in particular who dropped his time in the 8km cross-country from 25:45 to nearly 24 flat in a year by changing to no interval work and moderately-fast 10 milers every day, no more, no less. It was the Norm Green approach, a pastor turned runner in his late 40s up to 60 that tore apart the master's road circuit. Green ran 10 miles per day, 6 days per week, all of it about 40-50 seconds per mile slower than 10k race pace, never slower. It is an interesting situation, I think. One guy that I know ran 24:30s for 5 mile xcountry, 14:10 for 3 miles indoors, and raced very competitively in championship races despite running just 35 miles per week, the same 5-mile route every single day at a solid effort, typically about 5:20-5:40, never slower; no interval work, ever. He had injured his feet by stepping on broken glass as a youth and could not run far without pain, nor could he tolerate running in spikes. He avoided the track unless he was racing because the turns hurt his feet. Have you ever come across runners who succeed with unusual approaches?

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=309865

I still love that Cornell hired you

This is just proof that tinman is a salesperson, not a coach. tinman has always been running a hype machine for his own coaching.

all he does is brag about how good he is and how great his program is but if you run bad, it's not tinman's fault, it's YOUR fault - there is something wrong with YOU. For example in an interview he said drew hunter really wasn't talented. trying to say tinman training can take any kid with no talent and turn him into a sub 4 high school miler.

tinman is coaching a TON of athletes....yet we only see a few running very well. what happens to all the others? Hint: they aren't getting faster.

groove and attitude beats science.

of course the training should be catered to your body type, recovery span, and so on but.
believing and motivation is number one. enjoying the spartan part of it.
the program could be in error bit and that is no big deal, but not over train.
keep it simple, eat good. lose morons in your life all.

i'd tend to quality for sure. no one has done much without quality work. just ask them.

i'd go with salazar, elg, coe type programs, and take a look at similar athletes with success are doing.

the best have it all working for then though, at least for a while, get on the podium, set records and what not.

the thing i would want in a coach is attention, and a guy with a head on his shoulders who at least know the basics.

from there the coach can develop, like coe's day, lydiard and cerrutti were self taught as well, and rushdia's coach, and Niekeriks

in fact, some of the name coaches are way over rated, the good athletes come to them, then it's a lotto.

there is no formula, but there is your judgement at the time.

coe;s dad was the guy who figured out the jump from 143 to 141.
they screwed up in getting down to 324 for the 1500. they were looking for something like that.

Niekerk's coach i''m not sure, but she came out of no where

rush d's coach was a minister who figured it out.

personally, i think there is a lot to be learned from horse racing training techniques.

i'd raise the quantity and lower the quantity.

the long run for the 800 meter guy i'd throw out the window, as well for the 1500m guy.
but i might have the 5 k guy run 3 x 8 km at 3/4 effort with 20 minutes between on a sunday instead.
that is in the build up phase, where you do need volume of some sort irregardless of distance,
unless you talking real novelty.

still, when you're going good, you can do a lot of word.

the secret is to measure when you're ready to go again.

coaches are dumber than a doornail on this one.

everybody except a few got into deep fatigue, which threatens mental and physical health, short and possibly long term.

typo above
, bed time.

i'd raise the quality and lower the quantity.

i'd spend all my coaching time figuring out my athletes recovery time and how to enhance it.

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Lawrence Peter wrote:

True. 90% of this sport is half mental

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Lawrence Peter wrote:

True. 90% of this sport is half mental

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Clearly Tyler Mueller is extremely well educated. ** That aside, I "sort of" agree with him, albeit in a contrapositive way.....Doubting one's coaching is extremely detrimental, but all the belief in the world won't overcome bad coaching.

** Disclosure: Like Mueller, I am a former Lehigh runner.

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Joseph McVeigh wrote:

Clearly Tyler Mueller is extremely well educated. ** That aside, I "sort of" agree with him, albeit in a contrapositive way.....Doubting one's coaching is extremely detrimental, but all the belief in the world won't overcome bad coaching.

** Disclosure: Like Mueller, I am a former Lehigh runner.

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Great to see Tyler getting some press!

This is INCREDIBLY true at the HS level. Buy-in is everything… especially because most athletes are pretty early in their improvement curve and will see improvement anyway. Keep them out, keep them working, and keep them confident. Physiologically sound training would be better, but the key element is psychological motivation.

I think the that the higher level of the competition is, the more it matters that the training is physiologically sound too. No pro is going to do well long-term on mediocre training they believe in wholeheartedly. Doubtful that high level college runners would either. You'll be competing against motivated high-level athletes who do have physiologically sound training, so long-term you'd be at a disadvantage.