Cameron Allan

Qualifications:

Bachelor of Applied Science (Human Movement Studies)

Bachelor of Nutrition and Dietetics

Level 1 ISAK Anthropometrist

Being an effective coach requires continuous learning from a lot of different sources, and applying that knowledge to the athlete's specific circumstances. Should you do workout A or B? The answer is almost always, "it depends"; and it depends on an awful lot of things.

It depends on overarching variables such as long-term goals and training history.

It depends on the short-term training plan for this week/month, and upcoming performance goals.

It depends on whether you're tired, or stressed, or you're about to take a sickie to do a long ride because the weather is finally awesome.

Even after we establish all of the above points (and more), it depends on whether you would personally respond to workout A or B better.

To design your program, I will look to:

Published scientific evidence
Your own training and performance history
Experiences of other coaches and athletes
Kinds of training which you personally find enjoying/satisfying.

My goal will be to combine these points into a program that will enable you to get faster, go longer, or achieve whatever specific goals you are aiming for.

A note on science vs personal experience:

On the one hand, I love science. On the other hand, the results of scientific studies cannot tell us exactly what kind of training is best for your body in your situation.

The knowledge we can gain from scientific studies is varied. One common kind of study in exercise and nutrition is where we test two or more ways of doing something on a bunch of people, and see which one is best. This may give us a clear-cut answer, but more often, we see that even if one way is better on average, there is substantial variation in how each subject responded. Even though one way was better on average - for the particular group of people tested - it may not be better for you, (or it may be fantastic for you).

Having this kind of knowledge - average response - is useful as a guide or starting point. However, to work out what is best for you personally, we need to think about where you've come from, where you're going, and how your particular physiology/strengths/weaknesses might give clues as to how best to apply this knowledge.

"Science" sometimes gets a bad rap. Can increasing knowledge through systematic observation and experimentation really be bad? What is often bad though, is how people (usually in the media) interpret the results of studies - and this media includes various popular resources on training, which, I'm guessing, most people would expect to be trustworthy.

My formal studies in exercise science and nutrition have given me underlying knowledge of physiological processes and training theory. However, I believe the most useful outcome is that I've gained knowledge on how to critically analyse both scientific studies, and anecdotal evidence from other coaches, athletes, etc. Maybe more importantly, I've developed a mindset to always think critically about new information and the trustworthiness of the source.

It also important to remember that new information almost always builds on our body of knowledge, rather than replacing everything that was learnt before.