online coaching

Do you mean a coach that is remote but giving you workouts and following your progress or do you mean a plan by say Dave Scott that you load into Training Peaks and follow, but nobody looks at your data ?

I would like to try someone who would look at my workout data and give me advice, and answer emails a few times a month.

that IMO works well. With a GPS watch and a Powermeter a coach who knows what he is doing can see as much as if he were there.

The only difficult part is swimming. A coach can prescribe workouts, again look at data, but nothing beats being on deck. This is where a masters program fits well with a remote coach.

There are tools for coaches to monitor your fatigue, your nutrition, heck, even your aerodynamics.

So the being remote is not the issue, if you find the right person at the other end.

Short story:
I haven't done online or long distance coaching

Long story:
I'm not an expert but I believe a lot of people don't ever actually see, or need to see, their coach. The majority of communication will be through email, text, phone, or skype. Maybe your local coach offers group training that you will find beneficial? I believe the most important aspect is having a coach look at your training files and adjusting your plan for maximum results. That can be done from anywhere. Psychologically you "should" be more inclined to do your workouts since you are now paying for them. Also hopefully your coach will contact you if they notice you skipping or slacking on your workouts too.

I've done a local coach's group plan which was created for the whole group and was not personalized for me. The benefit was that it included 4 group workouts that she hosted. I feel like I would have gotten a better value just by buying a training peaks plan + premium features for charting fatigue and other useful factors. But since I was a beginner at the time I found it invaluable to be around other triathletes to see what proper training looked like, and to also find local areas that triathletes typically trained.

PS: you don't have to do a big potentially impersonal online coaching site (remember no experience here so I might be wrong). Coaches will train you long distance like via the methods described above. So if you met one at a race that you liked contact them.

This very site offers a basic online coaching service that might interest you.
http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/Membership/Coaching

USAT certified coaches provide weekly training log review, general recommendations, and answer your training questions. They don''t directly plan your schedule, but can provide some recommendations as you customize the available training plans or build your own.

It's priced at $35/month on top of a BT premium membership (roughly $5-10/month), so it's one of the most affordable options I've ever seen to have a coach actually interacting with you. Most of the online coaching I've seen starts about $150/month and goes up quickly from there. The planning and logging tools available in the premium membership are quite nice too.

I am not using the coaching service so I cannot speak from direct experience, though I might consider it down the road as a step up. Maybe there are some other users who could provide a review if you are interested? I did just upgrade my BT account and think the planning and logging tools are fantastic.

Just one idea for you...

Edited by rframe 2015-06-09 5:29 PM

Hi there,

I'll be glad to chat with you to see what you are looking for, if you are still looking or needing a coach. I'm based in East Texas.

Details about me are here. http://www.williamtritter.blogspot.com/p/coaching.html

Cheers,

William

I had some communication with coach Mike Ricci between my two IM races last year with some questions on the training plans in the BT site. Mike was great and responded to all my questions and offered some good advice.

I wished I would have hired him as an online coach prior to my first IM race. A lot of knowledge and resources he has available.

While I agree with you for the most part, being in person can help not only swimming but cycling and running as well. Cycling to a lesser extent but seeing a person move in person can tell you A LOT about where the stand on the spectrum of performance.

Look through the interwebz to get a list of coaches. Find coaches that share a similar philosophy as you do. Narrow that down to coaches that have worked with athletes similar to you (Ability, age, goals, etc.). Ask for testimonials or speak to athletes that are currently coaches by said coach (if possible). Adding in the services they offer, cost, etc It is easy to take a list of 50 coaches and bring that down to 3-5.

My wife and I use an online coach. He writes our plans, reviews our files, modifies workouts for our schedules or injuries or whatever comes up, etc. We communicate via email, text, phone. He will analyze video for us for technique improvements. We like to workout together so he our similar workouts on the same days to keep us happy .

Her goals are different than mine, and our workouts are setup that way. We've only been working with him for about 3 months, so we are still getting to know each other. So far we are very happy. We don't need 24/7 access and face to face time so online is a good fit for us. Local coaching for us would be $500 a month, and we pay a fraction of that.

The advice listed above is great. I hope you enjoy the process as much as we do.

I had an online coach for my full IM who I used for about 8 months. He provided weekly workouts and modified them to my schedule and injuries, fatigue, etc. It helped a lot for me being new to the sport as you hear so many conflicting methods. Also, in going into an IM, I just didn't have the time to analyze and prepare a schedule that may or may not have been optimal. So for peace of mind, I got a coach. He was excellent at providing workouts and they were very highly customized as I travel a lot for work so they constantly needed to be changed and modified. I didn't get a whole lot of feed back however on data provided by the results or much in the line of form and things. A little on bike position and some tips on swimming, but no overly detailed analysis. I was ok with this as I have a swim background, which to me is the thing that needs the most work on form, and I ran for a number of years before coming into multisport, so I was ok with just the workouts. I don't think I ever received any feedback on the data from an actual workout. But make sure you set those expectations on the extent of feedback at the beginning. I am now going out on my own as I feel I've got enough of a handle on things. That, and I dropped quite a bit of money on triathlon this first year and I need to cut back a bit.

Excellent point, not just on feedback but expectations as a whole. Lots of athletes feel "cheated" or that they didn't get what they paid for and sometimes it was because the expectations were not set, and what as described to be provided was interpreted differently by athlete and coach.