Coaching, yes or no?

I've been swimming with a team for about a month now. At first it was 2x/wk, then 1x and now I'm not so sure as I get more out of my workouts (with much help from swim friends from afar) than I do with the team. The issue is this: the coach brings a single workout, posts it at the of the lane, sits down and never looks up... BethAnne, This is exactly the kind of situations that are very irksome. We had a "coach" like that a while back. He'd go hit on the female lifeguards he was old enough to have fathered instead of sitting around. We didn't even have the chance to ask him for help. While he was only our coach once a week if you swam in the afternoon, he did all the morning workouts, and they've since dwindled significantly. Not good. In certain situations, some of these guys are just not used to coaching masters and take some warming up. Most of our coaches have done the whiteboard-and-sit thing. However, after we slowly start introducing ourselves, ask for help and share our goals, they also start getting into it and getting on our backs about bilateral breathing, body position, 2-hand touches, etc. In our situation, we're much older than our coaches, which can be a bit intimidating, so it does help to be proactive from inside the pool. Unfortulately, it sounds like this guy isn't interested in warming up to you guys at all. Does this team have a Membership Board or program director? Perhaps you, along with other members, can suggest to your representatives some of your wishes for the coach. If he won't listen to your suggestions on deck, the board can either approach the guy and ask him to be more proactive or go out and hire someone new. In the meantime, it sounds like you've got an alternative. If you decide to go back to the team at all, perhaps you and some of your lanemates/lane neighbors can put your heads together to modify the workout to fit your needs. When we had that coach, we'd do whatever we could do do intensify the crap that was written on the board, things like: make intervals tighter (1:20 instead of 1:40 per 100), break up distance things (ie 4x200 instead of 800) when we wanted to work on speedier things, combine things (2x500 descend 1-02 instead of 10x100) when we wanted to work on endurance, do the freestyle sets IM and the shorter IM sets freestyle, do a short kick set pulling kick for a long pull set

I've been swimming with a team for about a month now. At first it was 2x/wk, then 1x and now I'm not so sure as I get more out of my workouts (with much help from swim friends from afar) than I do with the team. The issue is this: the coach brings a single workout, posts it at the of the lane, sits down and never looks up... BethAnne, This is exactly the kind of situations that are very irksome. We had a "coach" like that a while back. He'd go hit on the female lifeguards he was old enough to have fathered instead of sitting around. We didn't even have the chance to ask him for help. While he was only our coach once a week if you swam in the afternoon, he did all the morning workouts, and they've since dwindled significantly. Not good. In certain situations, some of these guys are just not used to coaching masters and take some warming up. Most of our coaches have done the whiteboard-and-sit thing. However, after we slowly start introducing ourselves, ask for help and share our goals, they also start getting into it and getting on our backs about bilateral breathing, body position, 2-hand touches, etc. In our situation, we're much older than our coaches, which can be a bit intimidating, so it does help to be proactive from inside the pool. Unfortulately, it sounds like this guy isn't interested in warming up to you guys at all. Does this team have a Membership Board or program director? Perhaps you, along with other members, can suggest to your representatives some of your wishes for the coach. If he won't listen to your suggestions on deck, the board can either approach the guy and ask him to be more proactive or go out and hire someone new. In the meantime, it sounds like you've got an alternative. If you decide to go back to the team at all, perhaps you and some of your lanemates/lane neighbors can put your heads together to modify the workout to fit your needs. When we had that coach, we'd do whatever we could do do intensify the crap that was written on the board, things like: make intervals tighter (1:20 instead of 1:40 per 100), break up distance things (ie 4x200 instead of 800) when we wanted to work on speedier things, combine things (2x500 descend 1-02 instead of 10x100) when we wanted to work on endurance, do the freestyle sets IM and the shorter IM sets freestyle, do a short kick set pulling kick for a long pull set