Difference between Strength Coach and Performance Coaching
From afar, one might think a performance coaching role is similar to the field of strength coaching. While the latter brings up different ideas about physical fitness, the former is a broad field beyond physical wellness to widely employ. On the one hand, strength training can also be an integral part of performance coaching for sports. Whereas strength coaching has also continued to gain acceptance in the professional sporting world.
What is Strength Coaching?
Strength coaching is the art of helping trainees build more strength in specific areas. But the truth is a good training and fitness coaching does more than that. Focusing on power alone does not do much to help the trainee or athlete. Instead, the performer needs to stay on top of the fitness game in all aspects of performance.
Strength is a skill the enables the individual to do physically-demanding exercises. But there might not be a comprehensive way to measure strength except it is put to appropriate use. However, there are traditional ways of mastering the body weight and evaluating the body’s strength. The overall power is related to the specific goals, needs, or the performance coach’s preference or demands.
Therefore, there must be a thorough and comprehensive adherence to good plans in a typical performance training exercise or coaching. For instance, some of the essential areas that a good trainer must focus on including the following;
- Strength
- Balance
- Mobility
- Work capacity
- Body composition
- Kinesthetic awareness
- Injury prevention and risk reduction
- Aerobic conditioning
- Recovery
- Sport-specific skill sets
- Endurance
However, note that the aspects above only refer more or less to the physical benefits of professional performance coaching. There are still other areas such as emotional, psychological, and environmentally-induced fitness needs. Consequently, if a coach focuses on the trainees’ physical fitness alone, he is a strength coach. On the other hand, an overall fitness performance coach covers every area of fitness.
What is Performance Coaching?
Performance coaching is a more comprehensive process in terms of fitness and health. It covers more than mere strength improvement, but now an all-encompassing performance coaching produces impressive results such as excellence in sports and goal achievement. When the demands of performance coaching become evident, the plan or structure must accommodate strength building and other essential skills.
Besides, the performance coach now bears in mind that his job is not to make the trainee stronger or healthier. It is an overall fitness game for psychology and emotions. In some sports, the general coaches focus on the surface aspects of everything. Whereas they may have to employ specific coaches for essential skill set to manage the game’s intensity and demands.
Impacts of personal experience in performance coaching
The question is, does personal experience have any impact on performance coaching? Or how much does personal experience affect performance coaching? High schools are often tempted to employ a former athlete or pro footballer to handle their teams. But except the coach has built additional experience as a coach, a successful performance coaching career takes more than personal experience.
In other words, a successful athlete does not necessarily make a great coach. For a start, you can maintain good strength and skill as a sportsman or athlete. Still, performance coaching includes creating successful programs, modifying exercise regimes, adjusting the intensity and volume of the coaching to maintain productivity, and reducing injury risk. Unfortunately, many of these retired athletes don’t quickly realize this need until they fail at one or two jobs as a coach.
Of course, it does not negate the need for former training to earn the license as a performance coach or trainer. However, the coach has to add professional experience to the acquired skills as an athlete. Besides, there are highly skilled skillsets for performance coaching to produce the expected results.
What Makes a Great Performance Coach?
One of the significant attributes of a great performance coach with excellent coaching skills is to practice what you preach. In the pre-workout interview, both the trainer and the trainee will agree on the specific needs. Following the agreement, the coach will also create a good plan that can achieve the set goals and be in a cycle.
In straightforward terms, performance coaching must cover the theoretical knowledge of the procedures and programming strategies and the technical cues for adjustments. So, the benefits of a trainer who has personal experience are that he will motivate others to do what he has done in the past. He also puts a specific skill set to use to help the trainee achieve the desired goals.
Building a solid performance training
Some of the core training skills in performance training include building core stability through effective routines. These procedures involve strong philosophies of building a stable and robust trunk and overall body movement and flexibility. Besides, these strategies come with an extra bonus of a reduction in the risk of injuries.
But regardless of the strategies you employ, there are general training schedules that have become more popular among professional performance trainers. Besides, some of these plans work more for some sports than for others. In any case, these strategies are not devoid of their own changeless and drawbacks that slows down the processing of achieving one’s dreams.
Therefore, all parties must put their hands on deck to remain persistent, diligent, and resilient to achieve all the set goals at all costs. More so, a performance coach adds to the physical benefits, mental strength, and ability to believe in one’s own ability to create the perfect condition of the mind. Physical strength is only an aspect of the over strength training that the trainee needs from professional hands.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the difference between strength coaching and performance coaching is that the latter comprises the former. While the strength coach depends on building the athlete or trainee’s strength, the performance coach focuses on setting a performance goal and gradually working towards achieving them. Some of the other skills may include resilience, speed, agility, and other sports-specific skills. Have fun!
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