Introducing The Craft of Coaching Module 7: The Versatile Coach

Learn from Joe Friel and a handful of master coaches on how to become a more versatile coach, adapting training to the needs of each athlete you work with—from novice to elite.


Welcome to The Craft of Coaching Module 7: The Versatile Coach, in which Joe Friel and a host of coaches explore what it means to be a truly versatile coach. Athletes are real people—with real strengths and limitations, complications and quirks. For coaches, this means learning how to understand—and work with—different personalities, understanding what makes them tick, how best to motivate them, and how to help them achieve their goals, whether those are health or fitness-related.

This Craft of Coaching module will be released over the course of a week, with new content dropping each day. We’ll be hearing from Friel and five additional master coaches:

  • Coach Dave Schell, who shares his take on athlete-centric training, identifying 5 modern athlete personalities and how a coach can better communicate with each of them;
  • Coach Scott Saifer, who focuses on comeback athletes and those using endurance sports to recover and manage serious health conditions;
  • Coach Joe LoPresto, who first coached gym-goers and now draws on sports psychology to help athletes of all abilities overcome their personal barriers; 
  • Cycling coach and former pro Julie Young, who explores the impact mindset has on training and racing, lessons from the lab, and how to sell the benefits of year-round training; 
  • Coach Christine Schirtzinger, who works with a broad spectrum of athletes, from beginners to highly competitive athletes, sharing how micro events and group training can grow the sport and a coaching business.

Video Transcript

In this module, we’re going to hear from several masters coaches who have the same problems that you face on a daily basis. We’re going to learn how they go about meeting the needs of their athletes, perhaps give you some ideas on how you can do a better job of doing the same thing.

We’ll also talk about motivation. Can you actually improve an athlete’s motivation? We’ll also discuss how they write their workouts, how they write their training plans, to do a better job for their athletes, and how this reflects the uniqueness of their clients.

A common problem that you face, we’re sure, is what do you do about the athlete who wants to cram for an event? You know as well as everybody else does that it just doesn’t work out very well. So how can you convince the athlete to go into a year-round program?

Please join Joe Friel and the master coaches he interviews in this module to improve the success of your athletes and success in your business.