Technology (The Monkey and the Football)

Clearly, when it comes to using gizmos and gadgets like power meters, GPS systems and software designed to track training stress, I am as excited as anyone you will find. I do not, however, believe that any tool or program is a substitute for speaking with an athlete directly.
Whether it be on the phone or preferably, in person, there is an "art" to really listening to what the athlete is saying regarding their physical and mental well-being. The tools are simply a measure of training imposed stress. They cannot track how a virus affected an athlete's performance or how a failing relationship diminishes another athlete's desire to train at all.
In fact, given the choice of either all the tools and never speaking with an athlete or no tools and seeing the athlete daily, I would choose the latter.

I bring this seemingly counterintuitive notion up to make a point regarding a tendency I see emerging lately in the multi-sport world. It seems all anyone must do to become a coach or a bike fitter is to take a two day seminar, receive a piece of paper and hang a shingle. It reminds me of the film Field of Dreams..."if you build it, they will come." These newbie coaches and fitters purchase some software and buy into "the system" and receive instant credibility. In my estimation, the problem arises because too often the newly certified have zero practical experience and prey on unknowing athletes that are desperate for help.

Let me make my point like this: If I had a choice to have Andy Pruitt fit me using only his eyes and a few simple tools or someone that had fit maybe a dozen people using software he just took a seminar to use, I'll take Andy...hands down. Andy has fit many of the fastest (and orthopedically healthiest) triathletes and almost all of the best cyclists living in the USA.
Andy does have the bells and whistles, too. In his hands they are additional tools that for him save time...they aren't a substitute.

To use a coaching example, early in my coaching career I asked Allen Lim (think guy that wrote doctoral thesis using Power Tap, coach to Floyd Landis, Christian VandeVelde, Scott Moninger)
if he'd coach an athlete without a portable power meter. You see, I had been coaching a number of cyclists and a few triathletes and had begun embracing the added understanding the tool gave me as to what was going on with the athletes. I was a convert...how could I ever go back to the dark ages? I thought I understood his answer then, but realize only now that I've come to feel the same way, just how profound what he said was. He said that "sure" he would, that a good coach is like a chef. A good coach can create a great meal without knowing exactly how much of each ingredient he put in and even without knowing the temperature of the oven...but added that he can make it a little better next time or reproduce the recipe again and again through knowing these details.

I'll leave it to the reader to connect the dots regarding the monkey and the football reference in the title. I've got to run...I'm bidding on a MRI machine on Ebay and need to read up on meniscal tears.