Are We Becoming Better Coaches, or Simply More Comfortable?

There comes a point in coaching when things start to feel relatively easy. You know how to manage a class, your explanations flow naturally, you recognise common movement faults and you have a good idea of how different members will respond to different approaches. You no longer have to think quite so hard about every decision because you've made similar decisions hundreds, perhaps thousands, of times before.

And that's a good thing. Experience matters. The ability to recognise situations, draw on previous learning and respond without having to consciously work through every possibility is an important part of becoming a competent coach.

But I've been wondering about something. When coaching starts to feel easier, how do we know whether we're continuing to improve or simply becoming more comfortable with what we already know?

Experienced coaches continue developing by reflecting on familiar practices, exploring alternative approaches, seeking feedback and deepening their understanding of why their coaching decisions work. Improvement doesn't always require changing what we do. Sometimes it means becoming better at recognising when, why and for whom an approach is effective.

When coaching experience becomes familiarity

As we gain experience, we naturally develop preferred ways of doing things. We find teaching progressions that work, explanations that members understand and approaches to managing a class that feel effective. Over time, these become part of how we coach, allowing us to spend less energy thinking about the basics and more attention on what is happening in front of us.

The potential problem isn't that we develop these habits. It's that we can gradually stop questioning them.

Perhaps you've been teaching the squat in a particular way for years. Members generally understand your explanation, their movement improves and you receive positive feedback. Why would you change anything? Or perhaps you have a familiar approach to giving feedback that usually produces the response you're looking for. You know what to say, when to say it and how to deliver it.

None of that suggests you're doing anything wrong. But the fact that an approach works doesn't necessarily mean it's the most effective approach for every person or situation. And if we rarely explore alternatives, we may never discover what else could work.

How can experienced coaches continue improving?

One of the challenges of developing experienced coaches is that there may be very little obviously wrong with their coaching. Classes run on time, members enjoy themselves, movement is generally safe and effective, and the coach manages the group confidently. If we only look for problems, we might struggle to identify anything meaningful to work on.

But absence of an obvious problem isn't the same as absence of an opportunity.

Imagine a coach who consistently delivers clear, well-structured teaching progressions. Most members respond well, and the coach has developed a reliable approach that works across many classes. Rather than asking what they're doing wrong, we might explore whether every member is benefiting equally. Are some members ready to move on sooner? Could others benefit from a different explanation or an additional opportunity to practise? Does the coach recognise when their usual progression isn't producing the intended learning?

The opportunity isn't necessarily to replace something that works. It might be to develop the coach's ability to recognise when, why and for whom it works, and when a different approach would be more effective.

That requires a different kind of curiosity. Instead of asking only, "What could I have done better?", we might also ask, "What else could I have tried, and what might I have learned from doing so?"

Learning doesn't always feel like progress

There's another reason we can become attached to familiar approaches. When we're good at something, experimenting with a different way of doing it can temporarily make us feel less competent.

A coach who is comfortable giving direct, immediate corrections might decide to experiment with asking members to evaluate their own movement before offering feedback. Initially, the conversation might feel awkward. The questions may not land as intended, members might struggle to articulate what they experienced, and the coach may find themselves thinking that their usual approach would have been quicker and more effective.

They might be right, at least in that moment. But that doesn't necessarily mean the experiment was unsuccessful.

Perhaps the coach discovers that some members need more guidance before they can reflect meaningfully on their own performance. Perhaps they realise that certain questions work better than others, or that the timing of the conversation makes a difference. They might also discover situations where direct feedback genuinely is the better choice.

The learning isn't necessarily that the new approach is better. It's that the coach now understands more about when each approach might be useful.

Of course, experimenting shouldn't come at the expense of member safety or the quality of the experience we're responsible for delivering. We can choose appropriate moments, make small changes and reflect on their effect without turning every class into a testing ground.

Development doesn't always require discomfort

It's tempting to suggest that growth only happens outside our comfort zone, but I think that oversimplifies how we learn. Discomfort can be part of learning, particularly when we're trying something unfamiliar or challenging a long-established habit. But it isn't a requirement, and feeling uncomfortable doesn't automatically mean we're developing.

Sometimes development comes from refining something we're already good at. A coach might become more precise with their cues, more efficient with their explanations or better at recognising which members need attention. They might observe another coach and notice a small difference in how they manage transitions, then experiment with incorporating that into their own classes.

Sometimes the development is less visible. A coach might make exactly the same decision they would have made six months earlier, but now have a much deeper understanding of why that decision is appropriate. Their behaviour hasn't necessarily changed, but the quality of the thinking behind it has.

This kind of reflective coaching practice helps us continue learning from what we do, rather than simply repeating approaches that have become familiar.

How can coach developers support experienced coaches?

I think this is particularly relevant for those of us responsible for supporting other coaches' development. When a newer coach is struggling with something, identifying the next development priority is often relatively straightforward. There are visible gaps between what they're currently doing and what they're trying to achieve.

With experienced coaches, those gaps may be much less obvious. If our development conversations focus primarily on what went wrong, we risk reaching a point where there's very little left to discuss beyond telling someone they're doing a good job.

Developing experienced coaches requires looking beyond obvious mistakes and exploring the quality of their decisions, the effectiveness of their established approaches and the opportunities they may not yet have considered.

So we can become curious about the decisions behind effective coaching. Why did the coach choose that teaching progression? What did they notice that led them to intervene with one member but not another? Which part of the class required the most judgment? Was there a moment when another approach might have produced a different experience?

These conversations don't have to lead to a new development goal every time. Sometimes they simply help coaches make their thinking more explicit, recognise the strengths of their existing approach or identify something they'd like to explore further.

And importantly, experienced coaches should have a meaningful say in the direction of their own development. Our role isn't to keep finding things they need to fix. It's to help create the conditions in which they remain curious, reflective and willing to continue learning.

Are we still learning, or just repeating?

I don't think we should underestimate the value of becoming comfortable with coaching. Confidence, consistency and the ability to make good decisions without overthinking everything are things worth developing. Nor do I think every class needs to introduce a new challenge or every coaching practice needs to be questioned constantly.

But I do think there's value in occasionally looking at something that feels familiar and asking whether we've stopped paying attention to it precisely because it feels familiar.

Perhaps the next opportunity for development isn't something we're struggling with. It might be something we already do well but haven't examined closely for a long time. Something that works, but could work better for certain members. Or something we understand well enough to perform, but not yet well enough to adapt confidently to every situation.

So rather than only asking ourselves whether our coaching is going well, perhaps we should occasionally ask a different question:

Am I still learning from the way I coach, or am I simply getting better at repeating what I already know?

Because being good at what we do doesn't mean we've finished learning how to do it better.

Continue the conversation

If this way of thinking resonates, it is worth paying closer attention to how your coaching is landing across different members in your classes. Small shifts in how you respond can make a significant difference over time.

If you would like to explore this further, you can find more insights on coaching, communication, and coach development through the weekly Inspire Elevate Transform newsletter.

Find out more about coach, team and leadership development at Virtuous Coach Development.