David Tilbury-Davis has coached world class triathletes since 1995, among them Lionel Sanders, Ashleigh Gentle, Skye Moench, Cody Beals and Matt Hanson. In this episode we cover everything that decides whether an athlete reaches their potential except the training itself: professionalism, how you design your life around the sport, the decisions you make week to week, psychology and mindset, and the coach-athlete relationship.
HIGHLIGHTS AND KEY TOPICS:
The single change outside training with the biggest upside, and the second one David adds straight after it, which most athletes with a job will find far harder than the first.
Professionalism defined as everything that performatively matters and is not swim, bike, run or gym, and the checklist David runs through when he wants to know how professional an athlete really is.
The difference between a support structure that is supportive and one that is merely tolerant, the conversation to have before committing to a season, and why David wants to interview the 5am-club influencer's partner.
Guardrails: the training window one of David's pro athletes drew around her day and refused to move, what he tells younger pros about procrastination, and the checks he runs before anyone turns pro.
Why self-doubt and imposter syndrome run high in almost every athlete he has coached in 30 years, what separates the ones who use it as fuel from the ones it consumes, and where he draws the line between confidence and arrogance.
Executing a session versus staying present and engaged in it, the athlete riding four hours in ERG-mode watching Top Gun, and the cue David uses for how wrecked a training week should leave you.
Attention as a resource you spend: structured swim sets on the watch, the athlete apologising for a warm-up five watts off, and the one split David actually wants reported back to him mid-session.
The 80 / 15 / 5 split David puts on coaching, what falls into the 5 per cent, and the pizza-slice session he invented for one athlete and then wrote to Professor Stephen Seiler about.
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