Analysis, especially for advanced lifters, isn’t a solo project. Unfortunately, to get to the advanced level, you do need to do at least some analysis on your own. Otherwise, you’ll never really learn to listen to your body. So, as you progress, the role of your coach needs to progress as well.

Stage 1: The Coach Leads, and the Athlete Follows

When you’re just starting out, or as long as you consider yourself a beginner, I think a coach is pretty important. You can absolutely make it through this stage on your own, but it will take longer — in many cases, a lot longer. The coach plays a really vital role here. He or she is responsible for:

Designing an appropriate program

Teaching basic technique

Evaluating capabilities, strengths, and weaknesses

Of course, there’s a lot more that a coach might contribute: handling at meets, motivating during difficult times, and even teaching the basics of gym etiquette. But I see the above points as the most important for progressing from the beginner stage to the intermediate one.

Stage 2: The Athlete Leads, and the Coach Follows

At some point — usually after an athlete has one or two meets under his or her belt — comes what Dave Tate calls “the dead zone.” I’ve written a lot about the dead zone already, and discuss it at length in Unf*ck Your Program, so I won’t go into more detail with that here. Instead, I’m going to focus on the changing coach/athlete relationship as you move through the dead zone, and I’m going to start, again, with a quote from Dave:

Only you know yourself best. Beginners and intermediate lifters don’t know this yet... but should be learning.... At some point in time, a lifter realizes this. They begin to use coaches as consultants. This allows them to use what they know to be true from their experiences and fill the gaps of what they don’t know with the coaches.

The main thing to keep in mind here is that the only way to get through the dead zone is, ultimately, by learning how your body responds to training. Obviously, there are hundreds of different ways to get there, but the end result is the same. In many cases, a coach will make this more difficult! That’s because if a coach is making all the decisions — even if they’re explained at length — the athlete never has to go through the problem-solving process for himself.

This is pretty similar to what many experience in college: you can read books, study for tests, and ace group projects, but unless you’re an absolute savant, you’ll never be as capable at investing, molecular analysis, or art as someone who’s worked in the field for a few years. In part, that’s due to the latter person simply having more experience — but it has more to do with the quality of that experience. In the work world (assuming you’ve got a challenging job), your environment is often less structured than it is in school. That lack of structure requires more independent thinking, more trial-and-error, more mistakes, and ultimately more learning.

That said, a coach can still be extraordinarily helpful at this stage — but they should be seen almost as a last resort, when an athlete is really struggling to make progress, motivation is waning, or lifting ceases to become a priority for reasons unrelated to the gym. As frustrating as it can be to go it alone, dealing with at least some frustration is necessary at this stage.

Stage 3: Collaboration

Once you’re past the dead zone, you know your body to such an extent that you can already fill many of the roles that a coach plays in the beginner stage, and then some. For example:

You can design your own optimal program

program You can begin to refine your technique to take advantage of your individual leverages

your technique to take advantage of your individual leverages You can identify and address your own capabilities, strengths and weaknesses — both physically and mentally

While it might seem counterintuitive, though, a coach becomes more important than ever at this stage of the game. That’s because once you’re at the advanced level, you’re in uncharted territory. As a beginner and intermediate, even if you can’t rely on a coach, you can at least reach out to others who have been in your shoes before. Other lifters at your gym or at meets have probably struggled with the exact same issues as you have.

As you get stronger, that becomes true less and less often. I’m going to use myself as an example: who could I turn to for advice on cutting weight? Not a lot of powerlifters try to cut 20% of their bodyweight before a meet (and, for the record, I don’t recommend you try it)!I could reach out to some MMA trainers, maybe, but the demands of that sport are much different than the demands of mine. So I’m pretty much on my own — unless I have a coach who’s worked with me long enough, on enough smaller cuts, that he can give an informed opinion about how my body might respond in a given situation. Neither of us will know exactly, but in that uncharted territory, having a second (and probably more objective) opinion can be enormously helpful.

This is exactly where that "consultant" aspect of coaching that Dave discusses above becomes paramount.

Handling at meets is another great example. At the beginner level, the differences in performance from meet to meet will probably be fairly predictable. Small variations in a lifter’s demeanor, energy level, and environment will play a much smaller role at the beginner stage than will raw strength. At the elite level, those small variations can make a much bigger difference — not in terms of absolute weight lifted, but in achieving goals. Oftentimes, a .5-kilo difference will determine whether an athlete sets an all-time world record or falls short. Again, with that razor-thin margin of error, having an objective opinion from someone who has worked with you for a long time is invaluable.

You probably noticed that several times I mentioned having a coach who knows you and who’s worked with you for a while.In my opinion, that’s vital to any successful coach-athlete relationship. I know a lot of lifters who hop from coach to coach just like they hop from program to program, and that’s just not a smart strategy. No coach is magic: it will take time for them to learn how you respond to different things, just like it will take you time to learn the same. Now, that said, you certainly shouldn’t stick with a coach that you don’t enjoy working with and trust, either. That’s a recipe for disaster.

Finally, keep in mind that while I’ve outlined some pretty clear stages of progression here, in reality, they are far from clear or even logical. No one can tell you when it’s time to start programming for yourself, and in fact, just because I say that you must do so to become advanced doesn’t make it true. I’m positive there are hundreds, maybe thousands, of exceptions to that. But in my experience, it’s true more often than not.At the very least, I hope that it helps some of you, or provides food for thought.

If you think it’s time to learn to program for yourself, but you’re struggling, then I do recommend you look into Unf*ck Your Program. That’s exactly why I created it, and I really do believe that it’s the best solution for many lifters. And if you have any questions about programming for yourself, feel free to reach out to me, and I’ll do my best to help.

Until next time: think strong and train hard!



Ben

P.S.: If you're less interested in maximal strength, and looking more for a balance of strength and size, be sure to check out the new powerbuilding program – it's built on the same principles as Unf*ck Your Program, but includes a lot more hypertrophy and assistance work than the typical powerlifting routine. I think you'll like it.