A while ago, we touched on the topic of goal-oriented fitness. The main form of this is when people are trying to get that “summer bod” or “Carnival body”, but those aren’t the only goals out there. One of the big goals out there is sport performance. In this series, we’ll take a look at training for sports — the approach to it and a few definitions that you may find useful.

In this article, we’ll examine the difference between coaching and training. Wait… there’s a difference? *gasp* Yes, there actually is. For many sports, the lines blur, but there is still some kind of line (even if the coach/trainer doesn’t recognise it). In whose cases, you often find that the coach and trainer are the same person and they either have a clear idea of what a training session should look like and what a coaching session (aka practice) should look like and they structure their sessions to suit. Many, however, combine the two techniques (sometimes deliberately, but often because they don’t have the information to delineate the two) into a single session. Is this bad? It depends on the sport. So let’s define the two, now.

Coaching — To put it simply, coaching is skills-focused (thus the use of the term “practice” above). A coaching or practice session would involve heavy emphasis on perfecting skills, improving accuracy — becoming better at playing the sport. A football coach may run passing drills, a sprint coach may do A-skips and B-skips to improve stride, and a mixed martial arts coach (mma) may focus on punch/kick combinations. His/her goal is to ensure that the athlete has the necessary skill-set to be the best. When the athlete goes into a competition, he/she has all the knowledge needed to excel.

Training — Training, on the other hand, is fitness-focused. This is to ensure that the athlete has the physical ability to utilise the skills learned (and perfected) in practice. A trainer needs to understand the sport so that he/she can determine the components of fitness most utilised, the type of muscle most needed, the muscle groups most used, etc. — basically, all aspects of fitness that will help the athlete to achieve his/her full potential. A football trainer may run speed and agility drills (to ensure a footballer can sprint and manoeuvre quickly), a sprint trainer may focus on squats and deadlifts (to ensure that the sprinter has the power to start quickly, accelerate quickly, and maintain that pace to the end), and an mma trainer may focus on flexibility and reaction time (so ensure that the fighter can move into and out of situations and avoid getting hit or taken down in the ring). His/her goal is to get the absolute best out of the athlete at all times so that the athlete will be able to maximise on his/her skill-set in competition.

Mixing of the two — With these two focuses delineated above, one may wonder why there isn’t a separation in all sports. The reality is that some sports may not need one — a single person may have all the knowledge needed to facilitate both sides of the athlete development. Some sports may have never developed that separation of duties on a large scale, so you would find that it is just natural for a single person to adopt both duties. Some athletes/clubs may not be able to afford two persons/teams and would therefore try to find one person/team to meet all of their needs. There are many possible reasons. Is it the wrong approach? I don’t think so, as long as the coaching trainer has a clear idea of how to get the best out of the athletes.

What would I recommend, though? I would always believe in separating coaching from training. This gives the athlete the ability to have single-minded focus in each session and would therefore give him/her the best possible chance of success in his/her chosen sporting activity.