Why AI cannot replace the Running Coach
28 APRIL 2023
Why AI cannot replace the Running Coach
My wife is a teacher. A few weeks ago, she came home and said that AI (Artificial Intelligence) was blowing up education. Underwhelmed by her claim, she then whipped out Chat GPT and, as always, my wife was spot on. She asked it to make a multiple choice quiz about the Tudor monarchs; She then asked it to write an assembly script on mental health awareness; Next was a Maths lesson on Pythagoras written in Shakespearean sonnet followed by a Spanish rap on climate change. Wow!
Possibilities and opportunities for the world of Personal Training
Immediately, I started thinking about possibilities and opportunities for the world of Physical Training. I started inputted demands for training programmes, stretches for various muscle groups, nutrition plans and injury reduction.
is this the end of the role of the running coach
After my initial state of shock and amazement subsided, this was replaced by sudden fear… is this the end of the role of the Running Coach!!
I blurted this out to my wife who smiled knowingly. She explained the staff in her school went on exactly the same journey or fear curve that I was experiencing. She said their pattern had been.
Amazement of the AI
Testing it and trying to “get one over” on the technology
Doom stage! Is this the end of the role of Homework.
Deeper in the doom stage! Is this the end of teachers and the role of teachers.
Then…
Re-think how we work, what we do and improve what we do through engaged and accepting the new technology.
She said to me that this technology is only at the start of its capability. It will only grow. But no matter how it grows, what it will never replace is the role of the human being in the classroom.
What we learnt through Covid was the need for the teacher as the tutor of emotional intelligence, the steer in morality, the nurturer of integrity and the conduit between the big bad world and the person trying to navigate it during maturation.
what is it the coach does?
This made me really think; if the tech can write a programme, what is it the Coach does.
The answer is simple really.
Whilst we can input a sequence of characteristics, data and facts about a person which is then calibrated into a programme, this fails to support the person and their journey.
A Coach will understand the lifestyle, the emotional resilience of a person and how this bends and flexes with the demands and challenges of life.
A Coach can push when needed, motivate when required and support when flat.
A Coach can look into the event to be undertaken, take into account the kit and equipment needs, the climb and descent, weather, navigation.
Every training programme I create is crafted from a wealth of understanding beyond the mechanics of generic anatomy. I don’t simply see a race and count backwards, and input standardised expectations. Instead, it moulds around so many factors, and makes me the critical friend that can push when needed, but also put the metaphorical arm-around-the-shoulder when things are tough, and encouragement is the tonic.
The ear and voice of advice when you have a niggle or develop an injury.
By all means, request and download a programme (it changes every time you. request one so not reliable) if you want bland and unpersonalised. But the Coach is there for the human, the person and not the robot.
Research has already questioned the plans produced by AI, and the elite sports scientists are keeping at arms distance, utilising for correlating results and figures rather than develop a ‘standard’ training plan. It will develop over time but will never replace the coach, but assist.
And……… just to clarify, this was all written by me! Not AI!