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This article is an introduction to how Factor 9 coaches it's athlete's...

The initial article in this series about Factor 9 Coaching was titled "Factor 9 Training System".  However, I have been thinking about how Carmichael has his system, how a certain diet has their system (i.e. weight watchers or atkins), or how business's have systems (like McDonald's or Starbucks).  And I realized that I have trouble describing how I coach as a "system".  Really, it is much more of a philosophy.

I like how Wikipedia describes philosophy:

Philosophical investigations are based upon rational thinking, striving not to make unexamined assumptions nor leaps based on faith or pure analogy.  The word "philosophy" originates in Ancient Greece, meaning literally "love of knowledge," 

This ties in nicely with what Factor 9 is all about (how the 9^th factor of performance is knowledge and how that is the coaches primary responsibility to pass onto the athlete).

I coach by following this philosophy.  To fully explain that philosophy would take a number of articles so I will leave that for another day as I am sure it will bore you to tears if I just spit it all out on paper.  Likewise, I am not going to overview all the training principles I follow.  If you have been reading my blog for some time then you probably understand many of those principles already.  I will give you a sneak peak though since a couple of things are on my mind.

Personally, I enjoy coaching individuals.  I like trying to figure them out and making specific plans for each of them.  Everyone is so different and their time demands are equally as different.  Also, and probably most importantly, everyone has different motivations.  Hence, some people improve faster doing certain workouts while others improve faster doing other workouts simply because they are motivated in different ways.  This is all important to my coaching philosophy.  Plus, I truly believe that some people do better on certain programs than others based on their current physiological profile.  So, to put everyone in the same corral and give them the same program with slight adjustments in volume or intensity is not what I am good at and is not really what I want to do for a career.

With that same thinking in mind, you will never see me say that volume based training is the best way to train, or quality is the best or threshold training or ...  What people need in order to optimize their training changes over time.  Some people may need drastic changes.  Other people may only need to tweak what is already working for them.  The fact is that all those aforementioned training systems work.  It is just some work better for some people than others.  In the end, you need speed, strength and endurance to finish at the top of a triathlon podium. 

I am not knocking those who want to train in groups or on teams.  That is a different ball of wax.  There are ways to be on an individual program within a team program.  And, some people will do their best on a generic team program because that is the aspect that is motivating them.  To say otherwise would go against my philosophy.

Some quick principles I follow?  To name a few: patience, hard work, ego management, progressive overload, recovery and being smart about everything you do.