Possible to be very good at lifting but zero ability and knowledge to coach?Like you can be benching 315lb squatting 500lb or deadlifting whatever weight but you can’t teach a newbie how to properly set up dumbbell bench press and use some machine at the gym?
Yep. I know lots of people that are good at all kinds of things, but passing it along is not one of their strong points.
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Absolutely. Subtleties can be hard to communicate. And some guys are strong without technique anyways.
One of the strongest guys I know is a rancher who does not weight train. He will occasionally go in to a gym just to see what he can do and, with terrible form and technique, move weight most people would train years for and maybe never hit. He wouldn’t be able to teach competition lifting best practices at all.
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Yup. Especially if you get so advanced you forget what being a beginner felt like.
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Happens all the time… i know several.
My experience has been the guys who had to claw and scratch to hit elite number’s make the best coaches.
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An elite lifter with zero knowledge or ability to coach? No. How does one become elite at anything without having been given coaching, advice, mentoring, guidance, etc.? The better question is, does being elite at anything make one elite when it comes to coaching? But the idea that someone who squats 500 pounds would have nothing to offer a person who is a beginning squatter is hard to believe.
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I guess the question might need to be rephrased.
To “who possibly, make the best coaches on average.”
I agree. But I’d argue that learning from coaching is different from learning coaching.
I’m a shitty coach. I’m a 6’4 Norwegian. What works for me doesn’t work for other people. When I was a personal trainer I had some failures and still feel bad that I might have turned some people off coming to the gym. I could dead 500 - they needed a 15 minute walk on the treadmill, and that was it.
I did have a ton of knowledge to offer them, but it wasn’t appropriate for a 50 year-old WTC survivor who had lung issues, or a 20 year-old who was obese, or a motorcycle-crash guy who couldn’t use one of his arms.
Making people drink from a firehose isn’t coaching, it’s lecturing, and will shut them down. Coaching is about empathy, not ambition.
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Not lifting, but there’s something to be said about the number of brilliant mathematicians who are horrid professors and advisors
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I tend to interpret everything literally, first. You said elite lifter. My first thought is a lifter who has attained an Elite total. You mentioned the Bench Press, the Squat, and the Deadlift. Those are the three powerlifts.
For anyone over 148lbs those numbers is far from an Elite total.
This is the original USPF classification totals chart for each weight class. (This chart was made before support gear was allowed, so they are raw totals.)
Those reaching Elite totals don’t accomplish this on strength alone. The Elite lifter must master technique to get these numbers.
As @zecarlo said, it is difficult to imagine that an Elite lifter would very little coaching knowledge on how to properly lift weights. Now he might not be a great coach, and maybe he doesn’t have the patience to coach. I am fairly knowledgeable around the weight room and I have very little patience. I quit when I see noncompliance. I would be a terrible trainer, as soon as the student falls short of my commitment requirement.
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But this like saying you wouldn’t ask a baseball player to teach you how to fly an airplane.
whhhhhhat? That’s crazy talk.
A excellent example
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This subject has came up many times on here.
I was a pretty mediocre powerlifter but had the opportunity to train on occasion with some national/world level lifters.
A lot of very successful lifters have very, very favorable leverages for the powerlifts and proper form seemed to come to them pretty naturally. Just something they kind of took for granted.
They could train harder, more often. Less wear and tear on the joints. Add a genetic disposition to put on muscle quickly and you got yourself a future champion.
For the first couple of years my squat was an ABOMINATION basically a leg press followed by a rounded back good morning. In terms of motivation and training advice working in with these lifters was invaluable but the advice they could give me on form, bar placement etc was limited.
This is true in any sport of course there is an old basketball saying “you can’t teach height”
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I suppose a baseline definition of “coaching” for context matters.
I can squat 500 pounds, and I certainly can give tips and pointers, but I wouldn’t be a great coach bringing someone from zero to hero. I can understand and explain bar placement, bar travel, bracing et cetera but wouldn’t really teach it like a good coach can. It would be like reading text, or having it read to you, vs. being genuinely taught.
I would not want the responsibility of creating a strength sport athlete because while I can give some tips and form corrections, I would not be adept at really teaching and bringing out someone’s best potential, and to me this is a coach.
Take Michael Jordan and Phil Jackson as an example. MJ was an amazing athlete, the GOAT in the NBA. He never would’ve filled Phil’s shoes. And vice versa.
Sometimes you get a combo deal, but it’s not typical. Maybe a team captain status from a star, but not a coach.
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I get where you’re going with this but it’s not the best analogy. Coaching a team of elite players, and if you are in the NBA you are elite, to win games is different from teaching a kid the skills and fundamentals necessary to potentially reach that level.
With that said, great hitters in baseball have made excellent batting coaches in MLB.
I believe it our human tendency to answer the question that should have been asked, as opposed to answering exactly what is asked.
OP used “zero ability and knowledge” to describe, what I will call, the “well accomplished” lifter in the powerlifts. This is an extremely low bar of ability and knowledge. And surely, it most every case, the well accomplished lifter has some ability and knowledge of the equipment in the weight room and how to use them.
One thing is certain: The well accomplished lifter can model how to use the equipment (though he might be abusing it). Just watch him. What you need to know is that a “certified” trainer, might have a certification, but that doesn’t mean he knows much about actually lifting weights to optimize your physique. From what I have observed, only about 10% of “certified” trainers would I place in the competent category.
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Yes, and maybe even less. Certified gets a trainer on the playing field, now let’s see your resume. Show me some client results.
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I never broke 80 for 18 holes in golf. But I fixed a couple of guy’s slices during my golf years. Go figure.