Coaching Rep Variance & Why Coaches Should Leave the Weight Room

November 17, 2025

Every strength coach should be familiar with the strength speed curve; essentially, the idea is that maximal strength expression comes at the expense of maximal velocity expression and vice versa. Strength and speed are inversely related; it's a fairly simple idea. In a similar way, one idea that I have (anecdotally) experienced in my own career as well as discussed with other strength coaches and seen echoed in various ways in research is that a similar inverse relationship exists in coaching (and maybe even wider human behavior). Essentially, a strength coach is at any point the balance they hold between their competence in "hard skills" (technical knowledge, theoretical insight, etc.) and their "soft skills" (ability to connect with others, "man management", etc.).

Most people in athletics can recall times they've seen a coach so extremely comprehensive in their knowledge of techniques, variations, adaptations, and everything else than translates from a textbook, research article, or classroom into the weight room and yet at the same time is so inept in their ability to understand and relate to their fellow coaches, athletes, etc. This person is extremely well developed in their hard skills and not their soft skills. Even if they have every fact known to man stored up in the brain they struggle to effectively get it out to the people they serve.

The opposite exists too; a strength coach who could get their athletes to run through a brick wall for them and yet is basically "making up" their programming decisions as they go along. In my own experience these coach's incompetence in their "hard skills" is masked by their superior "soft skills" much greater than someone on the opposite end of the spectrum as them. I can't prove that and I wouldn't know why that is, although perhaps I'll investigate that one day.

Back to the idea of the strength speed relationship: it's fairly easy to use variable loading conditions and a method of measuring speed (such as a force plate (indirectly) or an accelerometer (directly)) to create a regression in order to analyze an athlete's strength speed relationship. From this data, a coach can extrapolate an athlete's estimated maximal strength expression at low velocity and vice versa as well as at what point along the strength speed relationship that athlete will be able to optimally express power (force within the context of time). In a similar way, how can a coach do the same thing between the variables of "hard skills" and "soft skills"? Furthermore, if a coach could accurately plot out the relationship between the two, how would that coach then address a lack of development in either variable (for example, how would a coach lacking in their soft skills go about developing those skills)? In this example and going forward, whereas power in the strength speed relationship represents the optimized relationship between it's two components, "optimized coaching" will represent the optimized relationship between it's two components.

QUESTION #1: How does one go finding out their hard skills vs. soft skills relationship?

It is well documented across the literature that coaches, whether they be S&C, sport, or beyond, are generally poor evaluators in terms of appraising their own skills and practices with any type of validity, so self reporting is out. What could work is systematic observation, which is essentially the act of having an external observer document and classify everything that a coach does while coaching. This, of course, will never portray all of what a coach does within their remit nor will it be 100% accurate in terms of expressing the significance of each action a coach undertakes, although it's a start and well backed in research and practice. Furthermore, a coach could use questionnaires given to their athletes, fellow coaches, and members of their multidisciplinary team to gain further quantitative data that describes that coach's ability to demonstrate both hard skills and soft skills. Beyond that, I'm sure other measures exist to examine a coach's ability and skill distribution, although they are either qualitative and therefore not very helpful at the moment or I am not aware of them.

QUESTION #2: I have the data on my skill distribution and now understand further how I coach; now what do I do?

Pretty simple; if there exists a large gap between soft skills and hard skills, close the gap by strengthening the weaker variable. What should a soft skill dominant coach (someone who is excellent at communicating, understanding people, and developing relationships) do to make up for their lack of hard skills? Develop those hard skills through reading, classes, seminars, conferences, certifications, studying, and the general practice of critically assessing training practices. Conversely, what should a hard skill dominant coach (someone who is excellent in programming, strategic thinking for performance, and understanding concepts of training) do to make up for their lack of soft skills? Develop those soft skills through coaching seminars, deliberate practice, and observing great communicators. REMEMBER: It is always an option to combine one's imbalances in coaching with another coach who is inversely imbalanced to create a complimentary coaching team. Anecdotally, I know for a fact I have done a lot of my best coaching when the coach I shared the floor with could do the things I wasn't great at and I could do what they weren't great at; it's all about giving the athletes the best experience possible.

Furthermore, if both variables are relatively similar in strength, then increase the strength of both relatively equally to one another. Every great practitioner knows they can always get better.

The goal is not a perfectly balanced coach because no such person exists. One's goal in assessing all of this should be to 1. address deficiencies and 2. optimize their coaching to fit the context they operate within. Just as there exists an optimal point on the strength speed curve for any given sport to be performed at, there is an optimal point on the hard skill soft skill curve for a coach to operate at relative to the context they work within. Optimal coaching is context specific and does not look the same at every level or in every environment. Bill Belichick can win all the Super Bowls that he wants, but until he is able to coach a plucky and hard nosed gang of twelve year olds to a peewee football title with the same no nonsense "do your job" coaching style as he used at the Patriots I will still prefer the neighborhood dad who understands his kids really well and the game only pretty well. That's an oversimplification to say that a coach's balance between skills matters within context to some degree, with contextual factors being population, level of competition, etc.

HOT TAKES

Now is the part where I lose the few remaining people who actually bothered to read this far. Keep in mind that these opinions are informed by my experience and therefore are not strict rules for reality.

Hot Take #1: It's a lot easier to develop hard skills than soft skills. One can be taught to do a job, although it is extremely hard to teach someone to be a good person. This is echoed in the book Legacy, which is about the New Zealand All Blacks and why they're so successful, when the book outlines basically how the All Blacks recruit "great people first, great rugby players second". I find that since coaching is such a socially driven job and success is often determined by a coach's relationship with their athletes I would therefore so much rather recruit a soft skill proficient coach and train them along the way in hard skills than to do vice versa. A career or learning plan can be periodized while a lifetime of experience that colors a person's soul cannot be. There is no plan when it comes to developing a personality or moral compass besides continuous exposure to life. (insert other esoteric saying here)

Hot Take #2: A strength coach should be concerned with living a good life above all else. I've found that I can relate well to my athletes in part because I too am an athlete although more so because I've lived a pretty fun life. I might not know what it feels like for one of my athlete's to be competing for a national team spot although I can relate to them being tired from working a dead end minimum wage job because these first 25 years of my life have been filled with those. I can't always clearly express the complexities of adaptation in the moment as I want to although I can relate to my athlete's being hungry to see the world because I've felt that same way for my whole life. I've learned more about coaching from all of the things I've done outside of coaching than from the coaching itself. Being an RA during undergrad taught me the importance of emotional first aid; being a volunteer teacher for a year taught me how to find the strength to overcome any barrier; road tripping around the world with little to no money to my name put miles on my character that most people don't get access to if they're to busy climbing the career ladder. Only through living a meaningful and valuable life can one hope to impart meaning or value onto the lives of others.

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