As I’ve said many times in the past, god bless the internet. It’s crazy to think about how much you can learn from this thing. When you’ve got some spare time to sit down and surf the web, there’s almost no topic in our world that you can’t educate yourself about with lightning speed and ease. With all of this incredible information and knowledge at our fingertips, what do most of us use the internet for? Watching YouTube videos.

I could sit around on my days off and read up on the current research of one of the fields I work in, but instead I get on YouTube and watch videos of cops beating people up. The reason we all love YouTube so much is simple; there’s an unlimited ocean of cool stuff on there. And without a doubt, one of the funniest things I’ve seen in recent months is the video of boxing trainer Eric Kelly talking about the people he coaches. If you haven’t seen this, it’s basically a four-minute interview with Kelly where he rattles off a stream of profanity-laced insults towards his trainees. Quotes like, “I’m doing something I love, even though I’m training a bunch of f-----ing nerds with no coordination” and “These pieces of s---t want to come here and feel like men at the end of the day, I wish they would forget the address to the gym.” Keep in mind, these are the people who are paying him to coach them.

I’ve watched this thing at least ten times and I never stop giggling. I find it funny because it’s probably the most horrible coaching behavior in the history of sports, and I have to give Kelly a thank you because he gave me the idea for an article. I want to talk about professionalism in coaching. As always, I’m aware that almost everybody who reads Performance Menu is either a coach or an athlete who is being trained by a coach. Some of you have been doing this stuff for a long time and you’ve been with several different coaches. And obviously, those of you who are coaches have probably worked with many athletes. In other words, you’ve all got a lot of coach/athlete interaction under your belts. You’ve seen the kind of unique relationship that exists between athletes and the leaders who are responsible for teaching and guiding them. Throughout these experiences, I’m sure you’ve learned that coaches have very distinct, individual styles.

Some coaches are loud, and some are more reserved. Some are intimidating and serious, while others are more relaxed and jovial. It’s interesting to watch the different methods and personality types that come across in the coaching world, and it’s clear that athletes respond to these styles in a variety of ways. I’ve seen athletes who would ram their heads through a brick wall if their coach told them to because their loyalty and belief in the coach is so overpowering. Likewise, I’ve seen opposite situations where the athlete doesn’t like the coach very much, but they tolerate it because they want to get results. What I want to do with this article is examine some of the fundamental elements of coaching behavior, how they blend with athletes, and what kinds of reactions you can generally expect people to have when they encounter your style. I hope all of you f---ing pieces of s---t get something out of this. Just kidding, that was my one and only attempt at an Eric Kelly moment. Coincidentally, it leads us to our first area.

Language, b****h!

When you’re a coach, the language you use with your athletes is one of the most basic components of your style. People remember your language, and it’s the quickest way to either turn somebody off or, conversely, get them to feel comfortable around you. I’ve got a female family member who actually shivers and scrunches up her face when she hears anybody curse. She doesn’t like swearing, so she acts like she’s getting a colonoscopy when somebody drops a four-letter word. I don’t spend much time around her.

For some reason, I’ve noticed all my life that a certain level of swearing seems to be a part of weightlifting. Maybe it’s the hardcore intensity element of what we do when we’re training. Maybe weightlifting just attracts a particular type of personality, the kind that has a little wild, nasty side. I’m not sure exactly what it is, but the weightlifting life almost always includes some blue language. I used the word “almost” in the last sentence because there are exceptions. Some people in the lifting world have church mouths, certainly. They don’t cuss at all. I haven’t known a ton of them, but they do exist. Most of the language puritans I’ve met, however, generally have a tolerant attitude towards cursing because they seem to figure out very early that they’re going to share the gym with some potty-mouths, whether they like it or not.

There are several ways of looking at this if you’re a coach. First, your own language needs to be considered. In my opinion, most good coaches have a level of control over their language. That doesn’t mean they completely abstain from swearing. It means they don’t use a constant stream of cuss words when they work with their athletes. Now, some coaches don’t cuss at all. Either they don’t do it because it’s just not a part of their life, or they have a switch they flip when they’re around their athletes, which they can shut off like a radio or TV. It all depends on the person. Obviously, all coaches reach a point where their mentality becomes, “This is who I am. People can take it or leave it.” This means they understand some people might be turned off by a curse word here and there, but they just decide they’re going to speak in their normal voice and everybody can deal with it in their own way.

Now that I’ve been a lifter for over two decades, I’ve come to the conclusion that almost any athletic endeavor is going to involve a little swearing at some point. Emotions run high in sports. People get worked up. When we all have our motors running at full-tilt boogie, there’s a high probability that our words can come out stronger than they would if we were chatting with an insurance salesman. I do think this should change when we’re working with young kids, however. I coach high school athletes for a living and I have to be much more cautious with my words when I’m working with them. There’s a reason why movie ratings like PG-13 are only allowed a certain number (and variety) of curse words. Adults can handle language more than kids can.

The bottom line is that it’s up to you how you’re going to set the language bar for your gym and the people you coach. My advice would be to use some moderation and responsibility in this area. I can’t tell anybody to completely abstain from swearing, because I don’t do it myself. But I don’t think most high-achiever type of people average four F-bombs per sentence.

Being a dictator…

For those of you who never read 1984 by George Orwell, “totalitarianism” is a political system where the government basically controls every aspect of public and private life. People have no freedom of any kind, and the state determines every move they make through brainwashing and the use of force. This term has been used to describe the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany.

Common sense, along with history, tells us that this type of system is destined to fail. In connection with our discussion, we can look at the level of control coaches use with their gym and their athletes. Now, I’ve written before that I think most good coaches are control freaks. This has certainly been my experience with most of the highly successful coaches I’ve worked with in my career. Strong programs are built around strong leaders, and strong leaders have a system that they believe in. They’ve spent years developing their methods, and at some point they’ve come up with an approach that produces success consistently. When coaches are in the process of using this approach with their program, they don’t like to be meddled with. In weightlifting, football, track and field, and all the other sports I’ve been involved in throughout my life, the coaches with the best records are the ones who run their show the way they want it, and they’ve got a low tolerance for interference.

However, the age level you’re working with has something to do with this. As with the language issue we discussed, there’s a difference in this area between working with young kids and adults. When you coach young people, being a dictator is a job requirement. Their brains aren’t ready to operate on their own. If you don’t exercise a lot of control with them, you’re doing them a disservice because they won’t know what to do. When they don’t know what to do, they’ll probably do something wrong. I suppose it’s a lot like raising children. You have to be on them all the time; otherwise they’ll run wild.

This same approach can’t be used with adults, not exactly. With older athletes, the area where the coach should be a dictator is in teaching technique, workout routines, etc. Even though the athlete is a grown-up and they don’t need to be treated like a child, they’re still in a learner position with their lifting. The coach needs to be strict and precise when developing their snatch form, getting them to follow their workouts, and things like that. That’s what they’re paying you for, to apply your knowledge in a way that will make them better. That’s what we call strong teaching. But there’s a difference between being a strong teacher and barking orders at people, or having a condescending attitude where you act like you’re the only authority figure in the world on every subject known to man. That type of personality turns most people off, and your business will probably slow down quite a bit if you push that “lord and master” thing too hard. This is just a basic run-down in how to have good relationships with people, which leads us to another area.

Being Buddies With Your Athletes…

Hmmm…interesting little pickle we have here. Now we’re talking about how close the coach gets with the athletes. Do you talk about personal life with them, both theirs and yours? Do you socialize with them outside the gym? Do you invite them over to your house, or accept invitations from them to go to parties, paintballing, dinners, etc.? Believe me, brothers and sisters, this is an area that you need to have a clear stance on because I will absolutely guarantee it’s going to come up at some point.

Think about it, seriously. We’re spending a very important part of our lives together. When you’re in the coach-athlete relationship with somebody, it’s a powerful bond. The athletic pursuits of your life are where a lot of your thrills and fulfillment come from. Once the basic requirements of food, shelter, and family have been taken care of, what are we supposed to do with our time on this earth? We’re supposed to find something that adds excitement and challenge, and becoming a weightlifter is a damn fine way to do that. This is why we love what we do so much, and why our connection with our coaches and teammates is so significant.

When we have this kind of closeness with people, we often want to take it a step further. Coaches and athletes like each other, and they want to spend some fun time together, outside the training environment. This is definitely a chance for some good bonding to take place that will make our experience even cooler, but it’s also a chance for some mistakes to be made.

Here’s what I mean by that. As a coach, I personally think it’s a good thing to have some closeness with your athletes. Aside from the fact that it’s just nice to develop tight bonds with people you care about, I also think there are some rewards on the platform. When we all feel like there’s a connection between us that’s about something bigger than just lifting weights, we’re more invested in it. When you’re more invested in your training, you’re going to make more progress. The best athletes I’ve coached have been the ones who wanted to be successful not just for themselves, but for me, too. They wanted to make me proud of them. And likewise, I busted my ass to make them better not only because it was my job, but because I cared about them and I wanted to see them succeed. This type of mutual respect and admiration is what it’s all about, people. However, I think it’s wise to throw in a few words of caution too.

You can get too close with your athletes. The most obvious example of this is becoming romantically involved with them. Over the years, I’ve seen plenty of situations like this. My personal opinion is that it’s a bad idea. I could write a whole separate article about it, actually. For the sake of brevity here, I’ll just say that there are multiple ways this can go sour. First of all, it’s illegal and immoral if you’re working with underage athletes. That’s a pretty easy one to figure out. But even if you’re talking about a situation between two consenting adults, dating changes the whole coach-athlete relationship. If you’re the coach and you have to use some discipline with an athlete in the gym, it’s going to make things a lot trickier when you’re also going home with this person. Hurt feelings from the weight room get carried into the bedroom, and it doesn’t exactly lay the foundation for a pleasant night at home. Another issue is that it changes your relationship with the other lifters in your gym, and this is probably the biggest potential disaster. People start to get suspicious of favoritism, and with good reason. Plus, what the hell is going to happen if you break up with the person? How on earth is the gym supposed to function normally when everybody knows that the coach and one of the lifters were dating and now it’s over? I don’t see any way around that one, which is why my personal advice would just be to not do it. Coaches and athletes shouldn’t date.

Grey areas, as always…

Are there exceptions to this? Yeah, there are. I know of four coaches who married one of their athletes. Three of them seem to have worked out okay, and one of them didn’t.

There are exceptions to everything. No rule that I’ve put down on paper is carved in stone, without any possible challenges or debates. The world is a complex place with a billion combinations of personalities and circumstances. If there’s an overall message to any of this, I guess it’s that coaches have to maintain professionalism in their jobs. Professionalism is a vague term that’s open to several interpretations. Some of those interpretations are just blatantly wrong. Eric Kelly describing his athletes by saying, “all these mother----ers suck” is not good professionalism. I feel confident in that. Getting so carried away with your authority that you tell grown adults that they’re not allowed to use the bathroom while training…that’s another one. The interesting thing about coaching is that some people “have it” and some people don’t. The ones who “have it” are those who know how to get people to respond effectively to their leadership. They have an X-factor, the indescribable quality that just makes everything work. Even though it’s hard to describe in words what it means to “have it,” it’s not hard to see when you start working with people. Athletes know a good leader when they see one. If you’re a coach, make sure they see it in you.