Context Is Everything in Coaching

DEEP DIVE

Borrowing Training Methods

You see a coach getting incredible results with their athletes. Their methods look different from yours. Maybe they're doing something you've never tried.

So you borrow their approach. You implement their drills, copy their programming, adopt their philosophy.

Six months later, your athletes aren't improving. If anything, they're getting worse.

What went wrong?

Most coaches borrow techniques without understanding the environment they came from. That successful coach you're copying? Their methods evolved to solve specific problems with specific athletes in a specific setting.

Their sprinters might have been technically proficient but lacking power. Yours might be powerful but technically raw. The same solution won't work for different problems.

Or consider cultural context. Jamaican sprint training often emphasizes relaxation and rhythm because their athletes grow up moving efficiently. Try the same approach with athletes who lack basic coordination, and you're building on a foundation that doesn't exist.

Every successful method reflects the personality of the coach who created it. Their communication style, their values, their way of building relationships with athletes.

When you borrow their techniques but can't authentically deliver them, the methods lose their power. Athletes sense the disconnect. They respond to genuine conviction, not borrowed enthusiasm.

A demanding, high-intensity approach might work brilliantly for one coach's personality and completely fail for another's. The method isn't separate from the person delivering it.

What you see in successful programs is often just the tip of the iceberg. The visible training methods are supported by countless invisible factors.

Recovery protocols you don't see. Nutritional support you're not aware of. Technical work that happens outside formal training sessions. Mental training that's never discussed publicly.

You copy the obvious parts while missing the foundation that makes them effective.

Even when borrowing makes sense, most coaches expect immediate results. They implement a new method and want to see improvements within weeks.

But athletes need time to adapt to new movement patterns. Their nervous systems need time to reorganize. Technical changes often create temporary regression before improvement occurs.

Coaches abandon promising methods too quickly, concluding they don't work when they simply haven't allowed enough time for adaptation.

Successful training programs are ecosystems. Every element affects every other element. When you add something new, you change the entire system.

Borrow a high-intensity strength protocol, and you might compromise the recovery needed for technical work. Add more volume in one area, and something else has to give.

Most coaches don't think systematically about these trade-offs. They add without subtracting, creating programs that ask more of athletes than they can give.

The coaches who borrow successfully don't copy methods. They understand principles.

Instead of asking "What drill are they doing?" they ask "What quality is this developing?" Instead of copying programming, they identify the underlying logic and adapt it to their context. They test incrementally. They monitor not just whether something works, but why it works and for whom.

Most importantly, they maintain their core philosophy while selectively integrating elements that enhance it. They don't become method collectors. They become better problem solvers. Borrowing isn't about finding magic solutions. It's about expanding your toolkit to better serve the athletes in front of you.

The goal isn't to copy what works elsewhere. It's to understand what works for your athletes, in your environment, with your personality and resources. Sometimes that means borrowing. Often it means staying true to what you already know works.