Why aren’t sports trainers for world-class players as good as the people they train?
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If they were as good as the people they trained, they’d be competing too, not training.
Roger Federer didn’t need a coach to tell him how to be the best tennis player in the world. The point of Roger Federer having a coach is so that there’s someone who watches him and identifies his weaknesses. Someone who can help him turn those weaknesses into strengths. It can be very hard to be fully in tune with your own body while you’re playing a sport – and even watching video of yourself is difficult because you can’t get immediate feedback. Hence the need to have someone external to watch you.
For the same reason a great mechanic isn’t necessarily a world class Racecar driver. They are different skills. Sure the Mechanic would probably be a good driver by virtue of their other skillset, but there is no reason to think he/she would be great at one because they are great at the other.
The greatest coaches and trainers in the world can observe and teach a world-class player how to improve, but that mental ability almost never translates to having the physical gifts that the athlete has.
Mike Tyson answered this, “I don’t have the time, I have business to do, I don’t have the time to be in the gym every day all day, that’s what a trainer does he’s in the gym that’s the job, every day, all day in the gym. So I’d rather be paid $8 million somewhere than be in the gym every day. Listen when you’re a trainer, you’re a psychiatrist you’re a mother, you’re a father, you’re a step father you’re everything.”
You also don’t need to be as good as the person you’re coaching. The athlete needs to be able to take instruction and execute on it. That means practicing the movements until they’re ingrained and optimizing your body to be able to do those movements at the correct time. The coach needs to be able to recognize what the athlete is doing well and badly and articulate how to improve. They’re two different skill sets.
Few top people in any discipline understand the actual reasons why they got on top, what made them better. They often think they do, until the competition figures it out and emulate the one on top, and catch up/pass them. To get a real understanding of your strengths and weaknesses, you need an outside unbiased point of view.
Different jobs also have different skillsets. A trainer’s job is to have a sharp mind, and keep you focused. You can be the best tennis player in the world today, but if you want to stay on topo for longer, you need to stay in top physical shape, which requires highly specialized training regimen which most athletes don’t have the education (biology, among other things) to figure out.
Trainers also keep you focused. When things go wrong in your life, thy help you not letting that get in the way of your training. when things go really good, they try and help you resist temptations and overconfidence.
Because it is a whole different job than being an actual athlete, none of these tasks requires the coach to be able to do what the athlete does.
To be a world class player you need to have good mental, physical, tactical and technical attributes. A trainer can help you get better in all of these, but some attributes (e.g. height) cannot be trained and others (e.g. speed) can be improved but there are hard limits that are defined by a person’s natural phisique.
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