Desperately seeking Susan... the coach

Sometimes it is the big questions that keep us all awake at night like "Are we alone in the universe?" or "Will they ever make more Firefly episodes now that Joss Whedon can do no wrong?", but recently I have been asking big questions of myself like "Just how far can I push my body?". As someone new to sport in general let alone actually competing I have very little frame of reference other than elite professional athletes. "Can I do what they can do?".

Jason Khalipa 2012 CrossFit Games
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I have never been athletic. I have no formal education in sports training, biology or movement science. Anything that I have learnt about sports training I have picked up from the couple of coaches I have had personal experience with, in addition to blogs, youtube, podcasts and various websites.

When it comes to my physical training and sporting performance, as with most things in my life, I am completely self taught. I take inspiration in my training programming from my own personal experience, WOD's from CrossFit.com and my local box CrossFitCBD. While I am limited by the equipment that I have in my home gym I try and set myself an obstacle course centric program more tailored toward endurance work than strength training or CrossFit specific movements.

My diet is predominately Paleo, consisting of mainly lean meats and vegetables, little grains and fruit and almost no refined sugars. I cycle between eating enough calories for muscle building and recovery and an intermittent fasting routine for reducing my body fat percentage. As with my training program, when it comes to diet and nutrition I am self taught. I have learnt a lot from asking lots of questions of a couple of friends with formal education in dietetics but the rest comes from television, podcasts and blogs.

Paleo Diet
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Sometimes it is very difficult to know what to believe when it comes to diet and training advice online. Everyone has an agenda, everyone has a product or a program they want to sell you and the sports science waters have been muddied with so much "bro science" that it is difficult to spot legitimate science from the rest of the unscientific nonsense. I guess that is the way of the world, but it makes it really difficult to educate yourself on these topics.

As a self learner I have become accustomed to being able to find reasonably reliable information on almost any topic on the internet, and for free! While it is difficult to find free weight loss information, it is out there if you know where to look. However to date I have been unable to find almost any sports nutrition information from anywhere that I would consider a trusted source. For every article or blog post I read on low carb, protein heavy diets or supplementing to improve performance and recovery I can find equal number or more articles presenting the exact opposite opinion.

Does this sort of general information not exist? Does every athlete needs a customised diet and training plan? Are we really all special little sporting snowflakes?

Do you need professional help?
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Recently I have had a question rattling around in my head. "Do you really need a sports nutritionist and a coach to perform at an elite level?" I am starting to suspect that you really might. Take my current 10km personal best of 50min 23seconds for example. For example at the Winter Warrior Challenge in August the male winner completed the 12km course in 45 minutes. How do I get from 50min 23seconds down to 45 minutes? I have been improving by a few seconds each time I run a 10km, but 5 minutes is a lot of time to make up.

Is running faster or lifting more all about practice or could I see some major improvements by having a coach instruct me on technique? When I look at professional or world class athletes they all seem to have coaches, I presume they also have someone helping them with their diet. Are these professionals necessary or can you achieve the same results by yourself?

Can you get coaching on a suburban household budget? Is there some kind of athletic coaching handout scheme?