Physical fitness coach: The key to the result is the athlete’s 100% trust in his mentor. It works in both the pros and the gym

Sergey Yakunin, a specialist in general physical training of professional athletes, a master of NUPESU and the founder of his own school for coaches, spoke about the main success factors, load dosing methods and non-obvious markers of an athlete’s readiness.

– First of all, tell us about your experience in the field of sports and how did your coaching path begin?

— Coaching activity began more than 10 years ago, when he studied at the University and finished his career in sailing. I was really lucky, let’s say, to get access to the athletes: I knew a lot of people in sailing, and I started working with them. After some time, representatives of other sports began to join. It was easy for me, because the general fitness coach performs general tasks, understanding the specifics of the sport, and does not deal with special training. The main task is to establish the process in such a way that the types of training do not contradict each other.

— Dosing load depends on many factors. Which ones?

– I think one conversation will not be enough to cover all the factors of preparation and describe them in detail. I will highlight the main ones, since I work with athletes of different levels, therefore the first points will be the age of the athlete and his level of results or training.

Key factors:

• preparation stage
• physical condition
• psychological readiness
• the main goals pursued in the short, medium and long term.
• the presence of injuries
• test results
• schedule of major and minor starts.

– Which of the points, in your opinion, are the most important?

Let me give you a simple analogy. Imagine that an athlete is a car. In order for him to ride, you need all the components. In other words, none of the points can be neglected. But still, there is one important point that I always focus on. The strength of a chain is measured by its weakest link. Therefore, I will slightly reveal the meaning of one of the points. When preparing an athlete, I always use arrays of data on his physical condition. One of the many indicators would be HRV. This is a measure of heart rate variability. Using the statistics of data for two months of preparation and more (the longer the better), you can identify very interesting patterns about the state of the athlete. Another interesting, and very important, will be the collection of heart rate data during sleep. When you have statistics for a long rebirth, you will definitely be able to understand the fitness of the athlete and the level of his recovery.

– How to use and why do you need heart rate readings during sleep?

– For example, an athlete went through a full sports season, in which there were, let’s say, two main starts and eight intermediate ones. As a rule, each subsequent season is similar to the previous one. Of course, it all depends on the specifics of the sport, the number of commercial launches and funding. But now I propose to ignore these factors.

When you, as a coach, record all the control results of an athlete, his tests, performances, know his peak and average results, you can measure his physical condition and the result shown by him in training, competitions or control tests. You will absolutely and certainly know the range of heart rate at night, what happened before the athlete showed a positive or negative result. Over time, you will know, for example: the athlete has completed all the checkpoints, coped with the load, has a psychological readiness and at the same time his pulse was in the range of 50-53 beats per minute. You can assume that it is this heart rate that will indicate that the athlete is ready.

Or do you know that with a heart rate in the 60 to 65 beats per minute range, the athlete feels unrecovered in the morning. Then you make a decision: either carry out a set of recovery measures, or plan to increase fatigue and accumulate more fatigue, pursuing training progress and hypercompensation in the future. Preparation is very multifaceted and only details can give a good result.

– That is, given the heart rate at night, can you predict the performance of an athlete?

– No. This is just one of a large number of metrics that a coach must consider. For example, an athlete can have everything at the highest level, except for one thing – psychological readiness for a certain start. How many times have we seen a well-trained athlete who, due to the psychological aspect, could not show his full potential, or when, on the contrary, an athlete of the middle class who makes the upset of the year. Of course, it all depends on the sport: in some, psychological readiness is more important for the result.

– What factor, in your opinion, is important regardless of the sport?

– A good question, all training is based on this, regardless of the level of the athlete, sport and age. This is respect and 100% trust of the athlete to the coach. In my opinion, this is the most important thing. This is something without which no good result will develop. The best coach and phenomenal athlete will never achieve high results if there is no connection and absolute trust between them. On the other hand, we have seen many examples when, let’s say, an ordinary coach, who receives the absolute trust of an athlete, achieves excellent results and victories with his ward. This is the most important thesis of our conversation about load dosing. Without trust, it makes no sense to dose the load.

— What can you recommend to novice coaches?

Read, study, try. Start working with everyone who wants to cooperate with you. And most importantly, without which the first two points will not work, outline and find patterns that allow you to draw conclusions. Well, preferably, never try to repeat someone else’s training process. Create it yourself.