Coaching Philosophy. Tomas Black, February 2025.

This document aims to list and explain the key principles underpinning my endurance sport coaching philosophy (mostly relating to how I’d like to manage the relationship between myself and the athlete). My training philosophy is ever-changing and I fear would become outdated quickly if I put it into writing, but the key ideas within my coaching philosophy are slightly more definitive. 

Before going into detail, it’s important to note that the vast majority (if not all) of the principles discussed below always relate back to fulfilling at least one of the athlete’s basic psychological needs. For higher levels of self-determined motivation - which are often linked to more positive outcomes - the athlete must feel they have sufficient feelings of autonomy, competence and relatedness, and it’s the coach’s role to ensure these feelings are satisfied.

Human First, Athlete Second

“It was about Jess being better at being Jess” - Tony Minichiello on his coaching goals with Jessica Ennis-Hill. 

Possessing a true care for the athlete, within and outside of sport, was cited as one of the most important characteristics in developing both a successful and healthy coach-athlete relationship (Hatchett and Jowett, 2024). I would like a true care for the athlete, beyond sport, to be at the heart of my coaching style. In his book “Total Competition”, Ross Brawn, former technical director of Benetton and Ferrari, discussed the immense amount trust and loyalty that can be developed when a leader is reliable and approachable beyond the sporting arena. I would like to be a coach that is both extremely loyal and reliable, both in and out of sport. 

Athletes are human and suffer the same stressors as anyone else (whether it be family issues or financial struggles, for example), which can effect sporting performance by altering immune function (Walsh, 2018) and increasing injury risk (Tranaeus, 2024). Of course, the coach may not be able to solve these non-sporting stressors, but the coach can alter training during stressful periods to minimise the risk of injury or illness (in the same way the coach would reduce the training load if the athlete was perceived to have very high-levels of training related stress). 

Above all, I want athletes to be happy competing in their sport (additionally, happiness is necessary in developing training consistency across a multi-year period). I’m unsure if I’d be fulfilled if an athlete had to sacrifice their happiness to achieve ego-oriented success, and for this reason, ensuring the athlete is happy (within training/competition and outside of training/competition) is the absolute priority. 

Non-Hierarchical Coaching 

I don’t believe an authoritarian or controlling approach to sports coaching neither provides the best opportunities for success over the long-term or creates the happiest athletes. In most cases, I like to view the coach-athlete relationship as a collaboration rather than a dictatorship. Instead of one person in the relationship being “above” the other, I prefer the idea of two people undertaking different roles to achieve common goals. I’d love for my relationships with athletes to sit at the centre of the coach/athlete-centred continuum, which should allow for adaptability in stages of instability (Jowett and Slade, 2022). By sitting in the centre of the continuum, it gives athletes an opportunity to have an impact on roles that are (or were) generally considered coach-dominant roles, like programming training, for example. Additionally, this non-hierarchical approach should allow for an enhanced learning process for both the coach and athlete with frequent collaboration and honest discussions of opinions.

This principle allows athletes to feel autonomous and as though they have a role in the process, rather than just following the coach’s orders. Ensuring the relationship is more of a partnership than a dictatorship allows for feelings of relatedness among the coach and athlete, too. The level of collaboration between coach and athlete will also depend on factors like the athlete’s personality or specific situations throughout the training blocks. There may certain personality types that prefer to follow the orders of the coach or specific situations may arise where an athlete’s emotional state may cloud logical thinking, which may require a “more controlling” approach from the coach. For example, if an athlete develops a small injury in the weeks leading into an important event, the athlete may want to push-through the injury to ensure they perform their best at the event. However, a coach who’s both able to put him/herself in the athlete’s shoes but also emotionally detach from the situation would be able to recognise that training through an injury may benefit the short-term but will likely harm the long-term training and racing process. 

Task-Orientation

“The Score Takes Care Of Itself” - Bill Walsh, three-time Super Bowl winning coach.

How an athlete perceives success can have substantial impacts on their motivation, anxiety and general satisfaction with the sport (Duda and Treasure, 2015). The two primary ways of perceiving success are through winning competitions or beating specific competitors (ego-oriented) or by improving on individual performances (task-oriented). Unless the athlete possesses high-levels of perceived competence (in that they truly believe they’re better than their competitors, for example), a task-oriented mindset tends to yield more positive outcomes. As a coach, my goal is to develop a culture in which task-orientation is the norm. Of course, there may be cases - especially with athletes with a high level of perceived confidence - where ego-orientation may be beneficial but an athlete will always be in more control of their own performances/effort over those of competitors, and focusing on individual performances (whether it be measurable like time or immeasurable like effort) will allow the ego-perceived success (winning competitions or beating rivals) to occur naturally. 

Embracing Failure

Failure provides an opportunity for learning that success cannot match. Additionally, providing the athlete with suitable amounts of autonomy may further enhance this learning process. Kolb (1984) suggests we learn best from “concrete” (our own) experiences, not the experiences of others. By creating a culture that not only provides suitable amounts of autonomy but also encourages experimentation (regardless of whether that experimentation results in “success”), the athlete’s own “concrete” evidence can be added to their numerous sources of information to aid future decision making (alongside the views of the coach and suitable research, for example). Of course, being able to comfortably recognise when one is wrong or made an error requires a safe environment between the coach and athlete, which is built upon trust and loyalty. 

Aside from the learning benefits to failure, Olav Aleksander Bu claimed that recognising errors in the training process is beneficial as it prevents the coach/athlete from persisting with a specific method that isn’t working. Outside of sport, the idea of failure is not feared amongst some of the world’s leading companies due to the opportunities of learning and innovation that it can provide (Friedman, 2014).

Joy at the Heart of the Process

Training frequency/consistency is one of the primary triggers for training adaptations, and ensuring the athlete is truly enjoying the training process will make consistency much easier to achieve. Every workout has a desired stimulus, but a stimulus can be achieved in a vast number of ways. Giving the athlete freedom to achieve the desired stimulus in the way they deem most enjoyable may be an effective tactic in ensuring consistent training occurs and training monotony is kept at bay. Of course, there will naturally be occasions where athletes have to complete training that may be deemed monotonous. However, this will be kept to a minimum and will only be completed if the potential long-term gain of the session outweighs the monotony of the session itself. For example, if one of the goal’s of the mesocycle is to increase training volume (with the idea of better handling large volumes of training further down the line), then the athlete should be given freedom to achieve large amounts of that volume on the terrain-type they deem to be most enjoyable (for some athletes, this will be the road, for others it may be technical mountain terrain). Closer to the “race season”, there may be a demand for more terrain specific training, but in the non-competitive period, I believe there’s room for adaptable (or more generalistic training) if it provides enjoyment and thus ensures consistency. 

Honesty

I would like to be a coach that not only shares a lot of information but is open to receiving a lot of information, too. I believe that sharing information and keeping athletes “in the loop” on all related topics prevents any inferences being made on the basis of no information. Katzmann (2020) referred to information as “virtual valium, or a relaxant”. Leaving athletes in the unknown will likely increase anxiety levels, but by providing honest information (even if an honest answer is “I don’t know”), the athlete can be more at ease with specific situations. 

On the topic of honesty, I’d prefer a relationship in which diplomacy is - in most cases - avoided. I believe that if myself and the athlete have developed a trust and true commitment to the relationship, then honesty allows for immense amounts of time to be saved in the long-term. If a problem arises, we can address it honestly and directly with the athlete’s best interests at heart, and move on. A relationship lacking trust (and thus the ability to be truly honest) may allow for specific problems to linger and develop into bigger issues down the line. 

By structuring daily physical training, the coach aims to “challenge” the athlete’s physical capacities in order to develop them. For not only the sake of my development as a coach, but to also make the collaborative coach-athlete relationship worthwhile, I would also like to be challenged if the athlete disagrees with an idea or decision of mine. This also reinforces trust within the relationship, and as mentioned above, makes the athlete a part of their own training process (thus reinforcing feelings of autonomy). I’d like to create a culture that allows for valid opinions, regardless of whether specific opinions go against my own. I believe that having the ability to openly accept opposing opinion is vital in generating both interesting and impactful discussions.

Long-Term Thinking

I feel a hyper-focus on short term results very rarely translates to long-term success. This is common in team sports, with Antonio Conte (football) and Eddie Jones (rugby) as primary examples. These coaches are able to produce success over a short-period, but never sustain and build multi-year success (and additionally, lead players feeling unhappy and unfulfilled). I don’t believe that sacrificing the long-term for the sake of “cheap” wins is the best way of developing an athlete. If anything, my coaching philosophy is focused on the opposite: we may have to sacrifice the short-term in order to develop sustainable success and happiness over much longer periods of time. Pep Guardiola or Jurgen Klopp are fantastic examples of coaches who sacrificed short-term success in order to create a dynasty in English football. This type of attitude is one I’d like to emulate in my own coaching style, but in an endurance sport context.

Summary 

To conclude, my coaching philosophy is centred around the health and wellbeing of the athlete, whether that be within or outside of sport (relatedness). A happy athlete is likely to produce better performances through increased consistency and training frequency. To help maintain happiness, I aim to ensure the training process lacks monotony and has joy at its core by providing athletes with freedom to achieve the goal-stimulus in the style they deem most enjoyable (autonomy). In most cases, I’d like to make the coach-athlete relationship a partnership, and refrain from an authoritarian coaching style. This allows for open and honest communication and debate to tackle issues in the most direct manner. This style of communication signifies that the coach has trust in the athlete’s abilities (competence).

References

Duda, J. L., Treasure, D. C. (2015). The Motivational Climate, Athlete Motivation, and Implications for the Quality of Sport Engagement. Applied Sport Psychology: Personal Growth to Peak Performance. McGraw Hill. 7th Edition.

Friedman, R. (2014) The Best Place to Work: The Art and Science of Creating an Extraordinary Workplace. Perigee.

Hatchett, L. (2024). Secrets To Build Strong Coach-Athlete Relationships. Available on Youtube. Accessed: 29/01/2025.

Jowett, S., Slade, K. (2022). Coach-Athlete Relationshps: The Role of Ability, Intentions and Integrity. Athletic Development: A Psychological Perspective. Routledge. 

Katzmann, M. (2020). Connect First: 52 Simple Ways to Ignite Success, Meaning, and Joy at Work. McGraw Hill.

Kolb, D. (1984). Experiential Learning: Experience As The Source Of Learning And Development. Prentice Hall. 

Tranaeus, U., Gledhill, A., Johnson, U., Podlog, L., Wadey, R., Wiese Bjornstal, D., & Ivarsson, A. (2024). 50 Years of Research on the Psychology of Sport Injury: A Consensus Statement. Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.), 54(7), 1733–1748. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-024-02045-w

Walsh, N. (2018). Recommendations to maintain immune health in athletes. European Journal of Sport Science.