Edrick Floreal (© Getty Images)
As the countdown to the inaugural World Athletics Ultimate Championship in Budapest continues, we launch a new series featuring some of the best coaches in the world behind the Ultimate athletes.
Up first is Canada's former triple jumper Edrick Floreal, the brains behind the likes of Julien Alfred and Michael Norman.
How would you describe yourself as a coach?
I’m more of a sports science guy, so it’s a lot of details. If athletes don’t buy into that, I’m wasting my time. The process of improving an athlete is not just one way – it’s multifaceted. But, it’s really on the athlete – you have to have a great athlete to buy into that plan. Athletes have to take the steps to do it. I can’t force coach you. I can yell, scream and shout and, if you walk away and don’t work on diet, hydration, sits-ups, it’s pointless. Coaching is so much about finding the right personalities that match – not every athlete will match a certain coach.
What makes a good coach-athlete relationship?
Let’s say you and I decide to drive to California. You have to map it all out: how much money for gas, planning out the route. The coach is kind of the planner of the trip and the athlete sort of goes along. If they’re a good athlete, they’ll go along. The best partnership between an athlete and a coach is that it’s 2am and the coach is behind the computer trying to figure out what to change to win the next gold medal and the athlete is sound asleep. If the athlete is doing the research, the partnership is broken because ultimately the athlete needs to sit in the passenger seat while I do the driving.
It’s not a one-size-fits-all methodology, is it?
My goal for some of them is not all the same and it can’t be the same. Some athletes I’ve got to convince to do less because they overwork and get injured, some athletes I have to convince to do more. Some athletes I have to convince them to have a balanced social life. You can’t go home and look at the TV, waiting for the next session. You have to find something – take a sculpture class, do something for a few hours that takes you away from the demands and frustrations of a bad or good session.
Is there such a thing as a typical training day?
Every day is a little bit different. If you take the sprints, some days you’re doing double days, maybe a lifting session in the morning and then another session in the afternoon. The lifting one is about an hour and five or 10 minutes max including warm-up and recovery, and the speed session in the afternoon is 45 minutes. You can’t do as much when you’re doing faster stuff, you’re never going to get a lot of repetition as the load required is so hard on the muscles. But then some days are complete recovery, physio, massage, hot tub, cold tub and that has to be taken as seriously as the speed session as that enables you to come back the next day and work hard again. I’d say recovery is probably the most important thing because on it all others depend. If you’re fatigued, you can’t practise, but a well-recovered athlete can be pushed.
Has coaching changed?
You’re a sports psychologist, you’re a mum, you’re a dad. The secret sauce is to know when to be who to who, when to decide that this athlete had a bad session, you know to go home and sort themselves out. Some days I have to let them figure it out themselves.
Is your coaching philosophy still changing?
I’m doing things now I said I'd never do. I’m more inclined to just rest and recover. When I was younger, I was more into the level of work. That’s changed. Take a workout where we’re supposed to do three 200s at X pace, but the athlete is flying on the first two so I stop. I don’t know what happens after that and I don’t want to find out. I have no desire to find out. What’s the point? As a young coach, I’d written it down, so I was going to do it but, as an old coach, I want to come back the next day, I don’t have to be stuck with what I wrote down.
How do you get an athlete like Julien Alfred to peak for a few days of the year, such as for the World Athletics Ultimate Championship?
Would I rather have her in the best shape of her life with injury or 95% because I was cautious on the line? Showing up to the line healthy is probably the most important thing – you don’t want an athlete in world record shape with an injury sitting at home. You can’t make an omelette without breaking some eggs. Maybe with Julien Alfred the last time in Budapest, I broke too many eggs. You’re pushing and shoving and sometimes you push too far. You have to go back as a coach and say, oh man, I wish I held back a couple of those sessions. Then I have to question everything because ultimately, I’m responsible because I made those decisions. When things go wrong with an athlete, it’s my fault. It has to be, it was all my decision: 200s, 150s, day-offs, meets. From year to year, I’ve got to keep reassessing.
How do you coach year-on-year success with an elite athlete?
It takes a certain athlete. I’m not devaluing coaches. If you stay too long in the Olympic moment, you find yourself not making the finals of the next championships. It’s easier for the athletes who’ve had disappointing years to then be successful. It’s tougher for the athlete who has had a great year. It’s not that they lack motivation but, if you’re starving, you’ll eat just about anything but, with the buffet line in front of me, you’re just confused.
Do you need humour as a coach?
At times, yes. I think it’s a balance. Some sessions, because of the danger of the session if you’re pulling someone at sub-world-record pace, we can’t be screwing around. One slight mistake, the season’s going to be over. But if we’re doing a recovery or lifting light, yeah, those sessions should be brought down. It should be light, fun, we should be laughing, joking and poking fun at each other.
Is there an ultimate workout where you know an athlete is ready for a major championships?
Those sessions are completely bogus. You can have terrible sessions and a great competition, and the other way around. It’s like a lucky pair of underwear. You really think red underwear’s going to help you win the Olympics?! You think that three poached eggs for breakfast will equal the world record?! It’s like dudes, it doesn’t really work like that.
Is it difficult that as a coach, you’re always striving for perfection but that’s never achieved?
If you run the perfect race, what’s next? You have to retire. You don’t want that perfect race. Almost as a coach you need things to go wrong to go back and fix because when everything is fine and an athlete runs, say, 10.99, you’re like that’s it, we’re done. You want to say the block was awful, the acceleration rushed, it was terrible here and there, then go back and work in practice. So, you’re chasing something they don’t ever reach and hoping to never reach as it’s the end game.
