Advice for An Aspiring Coach

by Jack Bissett, SSC | June 10, 2025

When COVID travel restrictions from the UK to the US were finally
lifted in 2023 I decided I would make the trip to beautiful downtown
Wichita Falls, Texas to attend a seminar and try to pass the platform
evaluation. To that end, I signed up for the prep course. Since I’d
been coaching using the Starting Strength methodology in one capacity
or another since 2017, I thought that I had a pretty good handle on
things and that my coaching and my knowledge were almost up to par. I
was assigned to Mia Inman, and was immediately proved wrong. She tore
me to ribbons in my first few assignments and it was almost 18 months
until I felt ready to take the trip and run the gauntlet. Here are
some of the best tips I picked up along the way as I prepared to
attend my first seminar and take the platform evaluation.

Don’t get
landlocked. If you’ve ever watched videos of SSCs coaching on
the platform they’re never standing still. This is for good reason.
Good coaches move around their lifters constantly to gain new
perspective on the movement, so they can better address what’s
going on. This means looking at lifts from several different angles
and elevations, not just from one or two different points of view.
Some problems simply cannot be seen from certain angles and if you
get glued in one place you’ll miss them.

Change your cues.
This is a big one that took a long time to get through my skull. If
your cue isn’t working, you need to change it. Standing next to a
guy yelling “chest up” five times in a row as he fails to set his
back in extension is not helpful. A good rule of thumb is that each
cue gets one repeat, then you need to find another solution. This
will be very hard at first, since you’ll likely have only a few cues
that you use regularly, but as you practice you’ll begin to develop
a large rolodex of cues for every problem.

Don’t be afraid to
stop the set. If your cues aren’t penetrating, or if you need
more time to figure out how to say what you need to say there’s no
shame in stopping the set. Depending on the situation you could just
call out “freeze” and have them stand in place while you deliver
your instruction, but sometimes you may need to have them re-rack the
bar. Your job is to help them move better, if they need to re-rack
the bar to hear something you have to say then that’s better than
letting them carry on doing something wrong.

Get your hands on
them. Newbie coaches are often afraid to get tactile. Clients are
paying you for a result; if you need to grab and physically move them
where you want them, then so be it. Some people need tactile cues as
their primary form of cueing if for whatever reason your words prove
ineffective. Your fear of getting up close and personal is doing them
a disservice.

Cut out the fluff.
Your instruction during the teaching progressions and your cues
during the sets should be sharp and concise. In the words of one of
my mentors, “Talk to them like you’re talking to a dog.”

Make your cues
specific. People who are not already immersed in the Starting
Strength world have no idea what you mean when you tell them to drive
their hips or to hold their knees out. These cues are staples in most
aspiring coaches’ vocabularies but are meaningless to most ordinary
people who haven’t read the book. Instead make the lifter focus on
one specific body part and tell them EXACTLY what you want them to do
with that part. Instead of “Drive your hips” you say, “Push
your tailbone towards the ceiling.” Instead of “Keep the bar on
your shins” you say, “Pull your thumbs behind your back.” Get
creative with it.

Get help. You’re
probably not as good as you think you are, and if you want to earn
your stripes you’ll need some help. The mentorship I received on
the prep course and in person from other SSCs has absolutely
transformed the way I coach, and all my clients are better off as a
result. Without their help my trip across the pond would have ended
in almost certain failure. If you’re serious about becoming a
better coach (and you should be), invest in learning from the best.
It’ll be worth every penny.

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