A common thread I deal with coaches is the idea of burnout. I work with young coaches. I’ve always had a great affinity for the upstart coach that is bright eyed and bushy tailed towards S&C. If you’re game I have a whole second book coming out here soon going over that path. But with that youth, comes a certain level of unpredictability with how they manage the grind. 

The grind is universal in S&C. Team setting: the constant threat of losing your job or no control of your schedule. Private setting: the monotony of 52 weeks of training people with no clear outcome is exhausting. There is no escaping the pure intensity of schedule that S&C brings. 

I want to make a quick pause here to state a simple fact that S&C coaching is nothing like other professions. For one, it is highly personal. There is so much interaction between the S&C Coach and their athletes/clients. It is not a cop out, but there is a good chance that most S&C Coaches are introverted by nature. The connection between training and solitude is strong; you have control of the situation. Having a highly extroverted profession for introverts is exhausting. 

It is highly taxing physical work. Being an S&C coach is hard work. I would put ourselves against some of the most physically demanding jobs out there. Organizing a weight room is hard. The items in there are heavy. There is no easy way to move thousands of pounds of weight. Add to the idea that we are on the floor coaching, demonstrating, at times participating in, correcting, moving – every job on top of your primary job is extra demanding. 

But the real issue is that we are working against other people’s schedules. Our in season is the sport coach’s off season. We work when people are not working or are going to class. We have early days and long nights. We have to transition to the more emotionally taxing part of the year following the most physically demanding part of the year. 

So how do we manage burnout from all this? We have OKRs like anything else. The Objective is to maintain a level of performance and energy that garners high wages and rapport we need to function from our athletes and peers. The Key Results are anything that gets us there. My number one KR with S&C coaches is working out and reading. 

Why working out and reading? Simple, if you are motivated to do that on top of everything else you have going on, you are probably going to do a better job. What’s a good amount of working out and reading? This could easily be construed as selfish or self serving, but in reality it is not. It is part of your job to maintain a level of physical fitness and appearance. Not to mention to keep the sword sharp with constant level of education. 

My goal with my staff is to maintain at least three workouts a week along with at least reading 1 hour a week. Why three and one? Why not, really? The truth is that this is very attainable during all parts of the year. The other aspect is that it falls into something where people can generally reach a goal of some sort with this level of commitment. The idea of getting at least three workouts a week along with one hour of reading is based on the idea that if you are willing to do that, you will be a better strength coach. 

Think about the metrics that are based around readiness and performance. Things like Wellness (Mood, Soreness, Stress, Sleep Quality, Fatigue), HRV, RHR, Blood Pressure, Cortisol (saliva or dried urine), Force Plate, Grip, etc… are all based on the simple fact that if those are in place we should be performing more optimally. In a training context, we will have higher returns from that training. If we were working a cognitively or emotionally demanding job, we would be much more prepared for that stress. All readiness markers ensure we get what we want from the time we invest. 

Instead of focusing on readiness markers, which I do, I choose to focus on the output of those objectives. We always ebb and flow with the things that are tedious like tracking. Why make it more complicated? Just get to the things that are directly related to avoiding burnout – physical and mental performance. If we can maintain a certain level of training and education, we will more than likely be in a good spot when it matters most. 

To close this out, think about the worst times in your life. What were the two least possible things you would have done in that period of time? Probably working out and reading would be right up there. Taking the opposite of what we will not do when it is bad, why not focus on the things we will do when it is good. If we can compartmentalize all the stuff that is negative by having periods of time dedicated to ourselves, we will avoid burnout.