Wherefore Art Thou Running Coaches?

Approximately 77 million people in the United States have a gym membership. Around 25% of those gym goers have  reported to use personal trainers. If we add in small-group training, that number grows to about 32%. Before we start doing math here that is about 17 million to 22 million people using a personal trainer or taking some sort of class. The numbers here are weird because not everyone prefers to be called a personal trainer and/or have the necessary requirements to use that title. Anywhere from 90k to 1.1 million people were hired as personal trainers, fitness instructors, or some other derivative of it.

On the flip side, you have runners. While the gap between runners and gym goers isn’t so large, the coaching data is. Approximately 50 million people went running or jogging last year. Roughly, 50% of those folks registered for a race last year. There are in the neighborhood of 18,000 certified running coaches in the US. Most of those coaches are sought by the 600k+ marathoners. That is about 3% of total marathon runners. This number does not include recreational runners, or distances less than the marathon. The RRCA, USATF, and UESCA are the certifying organizations that I’m talking about but there are other companies that certify running coaches as well. Lastly, trail runners, for however many of those there are, report 13% of them use a running coach. Regardless of how you cut it, people are more likely to use a personal trainer than they are to use a running coach.

So what. Who cares? Maybe that is what you are asking right now. I asked myself the same question but as I looked deeper into the data it just seems odd. While I won’t cover this particular data here, runners probably run as often as gym folks go to the gym. Here is the thing. If one were to decide to learn Brazilian Jiu Jitsu said person will not just buy books and start taking down their significant other in the kitchen. The weight room can be daunting for the uninitiated, can’t it? I mean what exactly is a “peck deck” or a “single arm dumbbell snatch”? Maybe you know, maybe you don’t but either way, a gym, a dojo, a spin class, feels as though one needs a tour guide in order to partake. We likely look at the aforementioned items as learned behavior or systems. Most people look at running as intuitive.

Chris MacDougall in his book, “Born to Run”, argues that footwear is the cause of the change in foot strike. Research backs his claim and what I’ve learned over the years is that the human body experiences neural adaptations before structural adaptations. The human body, like the canine body, the feline body, or the shark body, is designed for survival. I am not looking to debate the topic here that we are designed to run but the moment we place shoes on our feet in childhood, neurologically we start to adapt. As we experience injuries or growing pains, we begin the adapt. Over time, these adaptations become noticeable changes and we walk and run differently. We have all heard the phrase, “old man strength”. Of course, it’s archaic but it is rooted in the idea that a person will begin using their hands in their youth and over time the ability to lift things, grab stuff, and firmly hold becomes… intuitive. It just becomes easier. There is a reason why a farmer has a different work capacity than that of a wall street banker. 

All of that said, we don’t know what we don’t know. Many of us will gut out runs and just do what our body naturally does. In some instances, people that have natural motors are less likely to work on their running gait because it is just easy to run hard and fast which ends up being harder and faster than the person they whisk by in the park. It is obvious when you walk into a dojo that you don’t know how to do a “tomo nage” or a power clean in the gym. How many people know if they are a heel striker, or have a left hip drop, or too much vertical oscillation? Who cares? Probably many of you out there do not. When we watch running on television it is either the fastest sprinters in the world or marathoners who run 4:47 for 26.2 miles. We can’t relate, we don’t look like that and we feel as though they are naturally born to do that. 

You’re right, genetics play a huge part in the ability to run a sub-2:10 marathon or a sub-10 second 100 meter dash. Those same gifts exist in the person that can deadlift 1000 lbs or do a double leg takedown faster than the average person can clap their hands. The most elite is just that… the most elite. For the rest of us, we need help and we need to learn how to get our body to do things at an optimal level. But why? I would say most people want to be better at what they do. It sucks to suck so folks will seek help but when a runner is out there for an hour on a long run no one is watching it is hard to evaluate oneself. Running is natural, so is lifting things. How well we do these things can be taught.