Advice for an aspiring Coach

When COVID travel restrictions from the UK to the US were finally lifted in 2023 I decided I would make the trip to beautiful downtown Wichita Falls Texas to attend a seminar and try to pass the platform evaluation. To that end, I signed up to the prep course. Since I’d been coaching using the Starting Strength methodology in one capacity or another since 2017, I thought that I had a pretty good handle on things and that my coaching and my knowledge were almost up to par. I was assigned to Mia Inman and was immediately proved wrong. She tore me to ribbons in my first few assignments and it was almost 18 months until I felt ready to take the trip and run the gauntlet. Here are some of the best tips I picked up along the way as I prepared to attend my first seminar and take the platform evaluation.

Don’t get landlocked

If you’ve ever watched videos of SSCs coaching on the platform they’re never standing still. This is for good reason. Good coaches move around their lifters constantly to gain new perspectives so they can better address what’s going on. This means looking at lifts from several different angles and elevations, not just from one or two different points of view. Some problems simply cannot be seen from certain angles and if you get glued in one place you’ll miss them.

Change your cues

This is a big one that took a long time to get through my skull. If your cue isn’t working, you need to change it. Standing next to a guy yelling “chest up” five times in a row as he fails to set his back in extension is not helpful. A good rule of thumb is that each cue gets one repeat, then you need to find another solution. This will be very hard at first, since you likely only have a few cues that you use regularly but as you practice, you’ll begin to develop a large rolodex of cues for every problem.

Don’t be afraid to stop the set

If your cues aren’t penetrating, or if you need more time to figure out how to say what you need to say there’s no shame in stopping the set. Depending on the situation you could just call out “freeze” and have them stand in place while you deliver your instruction, but sometimes you may need to have them rerack the bar. Your job is to help them move better, if they need to rerack the bar to hear something you have to say then that’s better than letting them carry on doing something wrong.

Get your hands on them

Newbie coaches are often afraid to get tactile. Clients are paying you for a result; if you need to grab and physically move them where you want them then so be it. Some people need tactile cues as their primary form of cueing if for whatever reason your words prove ineffective. Your fear of getting up close and personal is doing them a disservice.

Cut out the fluff

Your instruction during the teaching progressions and your cues during the sets should be sharp and concise. In the words of one of my mentors, “talk to them like they’re a dog”.

Make your cues specific

People who are not already immersed in the Starting Strength world have no idea what you mean when you tell them to drive their hips or to hold their knees out. These cues are staples in most aspiring coaches’ vocabularies but are meaningless to most ordinary people who haven’t read the book. Instead make the lifter focus on one specific body part and tell them EXACTLY what you want them to do with that part. Instead of “drive your hips” you say, “push your tailbone towards the ceiling”. Instead of “keep the bar on your shins” you say, “pull your thumbs behind your back”.  Get creative with it.

Get help

You’re probably not as good as you think you are and if you want to earn your stripes, you’ll need some help. The mentorship I received on the prep course and in person from other SSCs has absolutely transformed the way I coach, and all my clients are better off as a result.  Without their help my trip across the pond would have ended in almost certain failure. If you’re serious about becoming a better coach (and you should be), invest in learning from the best; it’ll be worth every penny.