How To Pick A Coach, If You Even Need One At All
So you are at the part of your journey where you are considering going under a coach, at this point, you know you want/need external help, but what is the best avenue for you and who is the best fit for you? Hopefully this will be a one-stop shop on everything that encompasses the topic.
I will try to make this as least biased as possible, as I have seen other people do this in the past and it is essentially a plea/pick me scenario about why they are the best fit for everyone. I know for a fact that I am not the best fit for everyone and I let my product speak for itself, something that took a while to get going but when it did, it did. Instead, I want to be objective about what YOU the athlete need to be looking for so you don’t end up spinning your wheels and wasting your money for a service that is less than stellar.
So to lay this out, here are the following things you need to look for and/or be mindful of before hiring your first coach.
What stage of my career am I in?
Are you a beginner? As in, you have only been lifting for 12 months or less? Chances are, you do not need a coach. Now, I will say there is always a benefit to starting on the right foot but I will be honest in that you can “stumble” into making great gains from year 0 to even as deep as year 2. Make sure you have a love for lifting before you delve into competitive services not the other way around.
Are you an intermediate? To me, an intermediate level lifter is a lifter who is on the verge of being in the top 10% of their weight class/size but has either plateaued OR does not want to continue running their own programs or cookie-cutter programs online. To me, if you are this level, you would benefit most from coaching services. I would say 60-70% of my current clientele are intermediate level lifters and I love working with this demographic because they’re malleable and always have a solid base. A lot of times, the limiting factor for intermediates is either technique, program concepts, or a mixture of the two. Many times these type of lifters will experience exponential gains pretty much right away by virtue of a proper progression and simple technique changes. If you are an early intermediate, love training, and want to take it to the next level in terms of competition, hire a coach, bar none.
Are you advanced? So to me, advanced is a spectrum because we are getting into minutia at this point. I will say for me personally, an advanced lifter has most of the following criteria: has done more than a few meets, has a total that qualifies them for a national level meet, and has been training consistently for the last 3 or so years. Again, this is a spectrum because within this there’s early advanced and late stage advanced level people. Early advanced probably means you qualify easily at for national level competition, late stage probably means you are competitive for medals at that level. Then from there you have elite which, again, to me, is competing for 1st place at these higher level meets. To me this level is a crapshoot, chances are you got there on doing what you have been doing so there is surely something to be said about that. However, there is also evidence within competitive lifters who were coach-less who made even more gains than before with a coach. Taking them from national level to potential national champion. You can argue both ways here, but to me, this level needs a coach, if for no other reason, to have someone there for them at these large meets to run their numbers.
Do I Care About Competition?
In short, some coaches only work with competitive lifters.
Is this a bad thing? No. Chances are these coaches worked with everyone at some point and are now afforded to choose their clients instead of fighting tooth and nail to just have a full roster.
Inquire about this if you do not have competitive aspirations, some people will take anyone on as long as they have goals that align with their services. Powerlifting coaches usually specialize in strength training, as in getting stronger. If your goals are even 50% strength related, inquire about this. Worst case scenario is they send you to someone they deem competent for your goals.
If you do not care about competition, that is fine, but do not be surprised when “high-level” coaches turn you down. By high level, I mean the people you see at national meets or that advertise and have many high level lifters under their wing.
To give an example, I personally will work with anyone who has strength related goals, people who are more focused on aesthetics and bodybuilding, I will not take on as my skillset does not match that goal.
Who do they coach, where are they in their coaching career, what are their services?
This is a lot but it all kind of blends together for me.
Does the person you are interested in working with have a built up rapport with their clients? How many current clients do they have? How long have they been coaching? These things flat out matter. Now, I was once a beginner coach so I know how hard it is to leverage yourself as competent enough to take on more people and even harder to build up the courage to monetize your services. In general, if you are a beginner level coach, try to work with beginner or early intermediate people first before you expand upon that. I will say I did not charge a time for a full 1.5 years and in that time I worked with 5-7 people and built up my skill in that regard.
In regards to who do they coach, maybe ask for a rough range of who they work with. Are you an extreme outlier for them? Meaning if this coach has only worked with 20-30 year old men and you are a 16 year old female, you probably want to look elsewhere as your needs will be different than them. Are you advanced and ready to medal at nationals and this coach has never been to or coached a high level competitor? Again, most likely want to look elsewhere. To me, the best coaches have a wide range of people on their roster. Older, younger, male, female, early intermediate, late stage advanced. Now, I will also say some people cannot help who chooses to work with them so take all of this for a grain of salt.
In regards to where they are in their coaching career, are they doing this part-time or is this their full-time job? Meaning, is their income driven mostly through their coaching services or is this something that they do on the side and keep exclusive. Coaching takes a ton of time and I will talk upon this point later, but they need to be compensated for the time commitment associated. Usually if a coach is full-time, it is for a reason, they make enough $$$ to stay afloat. You can also assume this coach has many clients and has been in the game for a while. If a coach is part-time, I would personally ask about how much time they devote to their clients and how many they take on at a time. If they have a full-time job on top of this, I would make sure that the services they offer align with what you need. If someone works 8 hours, trains themselves, and takes on 25 clients, chances are there is not enough hours in the day to give everyone equal time. If you need special attention or need constant feedback in real-time, consider working with someone who does this full-time.
Lastly, in regard to what their services are, this is huge and many times the biggest variable. Many good coaches will advertise on a site like this what exactly they offer. If something is not covered that you need, ask about it. For reference, if you need daily feedback, constant communication, and nutritional services, find someone who offers that! If you are going to invest, you might as well get the most value for your investment. You will have some coaches who offer programming ONLY options, coaching + programming, coaching + programming + nutrition, consulting, and/or meet day only services. First assess what you need then ask about it if it is not explicitly stated in their website or bios.
If a coach offers it, I would highly recommend taking advantage of any direct consulting they do to ask real-time questions. This will square away all questions in an easy, concise manner.
What is my price point?
This is a huge one and I am going to be straight in that I think some coaches are drastically underpaid and some drastically over-paid.
You need to decide what you are willing to fork out monthly and what makes sense for you when picking a coach to work with. If you take this seriously, then I will say flat out, you will probably have to pay more money than you are comfortable with, at least in a slight manner.
I will say for full coaching services minus nutritional services, you will be looking at a floor of $75 per month with a ceiling of $200 per month. Break this down for a moment. If a coach usually designs 4-6 week cycles that means you are paying just under $13 a week for a coach on the low end and $50 a week for a coach on the high end. To me, this is how you have to look at it. A lot of coaches who are full-time, they are going to charge closer to that $200 mark because not only do they need to make a living like you, they believe their service is worth it. Chances are, they are right. Cheap does not mean better but also realize cheap does not mean worse. Those like myself only carry a set amount of clients due to time constraints and have other sources of income so I try my best to make the time commitment away from other things worth it but also affordable for kids who were in my shoes who did not come from money but still want/need guidance in their journey. Now, I will also say this, if a coach charges $200 a month for full coaching services and you are not getting comprehensive, fully committed services, I would steer clear of this person as they either do this solely for money OR they simply have too many clients for the amount of time in a day, both are equally as dangerous for your finances.
Who are they as a person and how long am I willing to commit?
Who a coach is as a person, might reign supreme in terms of things to look for.
You need to make sure you gel with this person before you invest into them. A coach is there to make you better but some people go about that differently. If you are insecure about your lifts and your coach is giving critiques such as “that sucked” or “are you even trying”, you probably want to pick someone who is a bit more uplifting. The opposite scenario might be true where you need someone to call you out and X coach never does, it is always “good” or “looked fine”.
Beyond this, is this person a GOOD person and do they care about you? Again, if someone is working with well over 60-70 people at a time, I’m sure their intentions are good but realistically do you think they care about all their clients equally? They can pretend they do but I am willing to bet they do not. Being a good person is easy, caring is harder. Again, you might not care about this and just need a custom program and you are good to go, but if you need anything other than that, make sure your coach has the time to give you the feedback you need as well as what they advertise for and hold them accountable to that.
Briefly, I will also say that you should avoid choosing a coach because they are strong and have a big social media presence. Choose them in spite of that and for their services, not because they have a big total and are all over instagram. This is not to say these coaches are bad, actually quite the opposite I have so much respect for a lot of them who have big Instagram followings. However I think they will tell you themselves that the best coaches are not always the ones with a lot of followers, basically, if you are doing it for clout, good luck.
Lastly, if you are not willing to commit for more than 3 months, I will be honest in that you will probably spin your wheels. 12 weeks or so is usually the period where a coach can figure you out, 3-4 cycles deep they can see what works and what doesn’t. If you did not make gains within the first 2 blocks, that is because the coach is starting from scratch with very little info and needs to see trends in your performance to dictate the best approach. It is common that cycles and movements look varied month to month at this time but as you go on and the coach notices trends, things will look roughly the same cycle to cycle with minor refinements here and there. Is it not them being lazy, they just know what works for you. So if you want to test run a coach, give them AT LEAST 16 weeks, anything less you are not allowing them to learn your body and what works for you.
Do I even need one?
This one is for you fellow self-programmers out there. Decide hard on whether you want to put your training into someone else’s hands.
For me, I am not ready to do that yet and I have not stopped improving from the jump, so I do not deem it necessary
So there you have it, a comprehensive guide on how to decide on a coach. As a coach myself, some of these points are tough to put out into writing but they are the truth. Work with people you like and have a good rapport of testimonials from current clients and you will always end up improving at the very least. Message some people on their roster about them if necessary, don’t be shy or bashful. You are investing in a service and as such the service needs to reflect the investment, as long as you deem that the case, you will find a competent coach.
Other things to consider are proximity to you, what time zones they are in, whether they offer daily versus weekly feedback, how many clients they take on at a time, do they have a time commitment, when can you expect replies to questions, and what they charge for meet day handling services.
Hope this helped! Choose wisely.
Erik