Welcome back to another round of ‘Ask the Athlete/Ask the Coach!’
This time, we’re changing the format slightly, and we’re thrilled that world renowned athletics coach, Andreas Behm, is tackling our set of questions.
Andreas has been a coach at the legendary Altis program for a number of years, and has trained a number of World Record breaking athletes, as well as a number of Olympic medallists.
He also trained our very own founder and CEO, Alvina Chen, so we’re very excited to pick Andreas’ brain, and learn a bit more about what makes him tick as a coach.
Let’s get started!
- How does technology help athletes today? Are there any specific tools/apps/pieces of equipment etc. that really help the modern coach and athlete? What are they?
Athletics is a very numbers driven sport. You're really basically racing against a clock, or you're trying to jump or throw a certain distance. So it is very metrics based. Obviously, one of the primary tools we still use is the tried and true stopwatch, or a tape measure, just to measure things, in a very simple and quick and easy way. More advanced technology that we do use are such things as VueMotion, and Motion-IQ, which is an AI based app and software that allows us to measure speeds and body angles, and track athlete performance. We also use different resistance machines like the 1080 sprint.
So from that standpoint, we are able to resist athletes, but also get specific metrics and dial in speeds for the athletes. So it really is a combination of using some old school and new school technology, and getting performance data to inform our practice as coaches.
But we also always say the worst kind of data we can get is bad data. So we'd rather have no data, than bad data, because if you're making decisions based on bad data, that can really skew your training process in the wrong direction.
And so we are very careful that we try to collect data that is useful and valuable to us, from a coaching standpoint, to be able to help improve athlete's performance.
- Are there any areas in athletics, where you wish there was more innovation?
Well, I think in general, not even just from a technology standpoint, the sport is somewhat stuck in its ways, and hasn't yet figured out how to attract more viewership and create excitement around the sport itself.
It's a beautiful sport. It's the purest sport on the planet. I mean, there's nothing more fundamental to movement than, say, running, jumping and throwing.
Those are the basic human athletic movements, and it's unfortunate that they haven't been showcased in a way that seems to attract an audience and the attention that we feel like it merits.
So I think the innovation beyond just technology for the performance, is the display and showcasing of the event. So from that standpoint, I really wish there was more innovation and thinking outside the box.
- How do you think technology like Feldspar could revolutionise your life as a professional coach?
I think innovation is the name of the game. The goal is always to help improve performance from a training standpoint, from a recovery standpoint, and from a technology standpoint.
We're seeing a lot of innovation in shoe technology, we are seeing innovation in surface, which Feldspar is obviously a part of. It could push times to a level that we haven't seen before.
But then also potentially with such a surface, we might need to change the way we approach certain things in training, to coordinate athletes to this kind of new technology.
And again, I love the performance aspect. I love the data driven aspect, which in combination in real-time, really informs the coach as to what is going on and allows the coach to make in-session decisions around what is happening in training.
- We've spoken to a few athletes in this series, and I think all of them have mentioned injury prevention as being a big part of this. And if you, as a coach, could see the real -time data and something that you might not necessarily see with the naked eye, I imagine that could make a big difference to your training sessions?
100%. If we can see potential running asymmetries, whether it's from a stride length perspective or a force application perspective, and we can see those in real-time from rep to rep, then that definitely could have an impact on our decision making about the entirety of a training session.
It can also hopefully inform us on some potential, looking down the road, injury scenarios that we could avoid for the athlete, if we have that data instantaneously.
- How do you help your athletes deal with low points during their careers, whether it's injuries or losing big races, or perhaps an issue in their personal lives?
I'll start by saying that we think coaches are laymen psychologists, but with that, we also need to know our limits. And if there is something very serious, we will always refer out to the appropriate specialist in that case.
But obviously we have a lot of day to day interaction with each athlete, and I think helping athletes frame situations appropriately is probably one of our biggest jobs.
Athletes tend to be very impatient. They want things to happen now. And I think true in life, business and sport, excellence can be achieved, but it often takes longer than what we think it is going to take. So I think it is beneficial having athletes understand that, and understanding that success is not necessarily a linear process.
There are going to be ups and downs, and helping the athletes understand and navigate those and even understand that what may be seen as losses or failures, be potential lessons and stepping stones to a higher plateau of performance, is vitally important. And again, I think this is true in life and business. So a lot of this is something that athletes can incorporate into their daily life beyond athletics.
And I think that's a vitally important role of the coach. Also sometimes, you have to push and actually a little bit, you have to drag them along, maybe to see their own potential beyond what they believe they can achieve.
So all these things I think, in combination, are important from a coach athlete standpoint to ensure that an athlete has a well balanced and positive outlook as it comes to mental health.
- Who is your all-time sporting hero?
From a player and performance perspective, it's not even an athletics or track and field person. My all-time favourite athlete is Allen Iverson, the basketball player for the Philadelphia 76ers.
I just loved his tenacious play. He was really short and skinny, but he was fearless driving to the paint.
He was also a cultural icon in the world of basketball. I would love to sit down and have a chat with Allen Iverson at some point.
- Do you have a favourite race that you've coached?
There are quite a few of them, and sometimes they're not even involved in high performance. It might just be someone doing a lot better than what they thought they would do in that particular race, and seeing the joy that they achieved for themselves.
But I think the obvious answer to me is, I was fortunate enough to coach Aries Merritt for a long time and he set the still standing 110m hurdle world record at the Brussels Diamond League back in 2012.
We knew he was running fast, but we weren't necessarily expecting him to set the world record then and there.
It had been a long season and he was a little tired, but he ran free and loose and set the world record. And then just being in the stadium and watching the stadium explode after the time flashed up on the scoreboard, was something extra special that I'll definitely never forget.
- Andreas, your accolades speak for themselves, but has there ever been a time when an athlete has given you some advice, or imparted some wisdom that really stuck with you?
So I think early in my career, one lesson I learned from one of the first professional athletes I coached is, from Muna Lee.
We are at the Olympic trials and I'm a very young coach. I'm still in my 20’s at this point, and we're in the warm-up area before the prelim of the 100m, and I'm probably as nervous as she is, and I'm just kind of walking around the warm-up area.
And then at some point during the warm-up Muna comes up to me and she's like: “Andreas, I need you to stop pacing around. You're making me more nervous!”.
And that lesson showed me that obviously, my demeanor and my behaviour in that moment, or pretty much any moment, has an effect on the competition, the athletes and the training environment.
So just being a little more self-aware of how you are conducting yourself was a valuable lesson, and even if you're nervous, maybe try not to show it. Stop pacing around, and be mindful of how you are potentially impacting the athletes that you're coaching.
So I thought that was kind of a fun moment, and something I can laugh about in hindsight. But it was definitely a valuable lesson, at a big competition.
- How do you feel about the state of athletics in 2025?
In 2025, we're kind of back on our regular scheduled quad from Olympics to Olympics now, where before, everything was a little shortened due to Covid.
So, we've got a World Championships coming up this year, and that’s always a nice mix of veteran athletes, and young, up-and-coming talent.
The thing I'm particularly excited about is I feel like the sport is getting, from an athletes standpoint, more and more global. We see different athletes from smaller countries breaking onto the world stage, and it really is a global and international sport.
That's a super exciting part of athletics in general. And hopefully that leads to some more engagement and viewership from different audiences from around the world.
- How are Altis shaping up ahead of the new season?
We relocated back to Phoenix after a three year stint in Atlanta, and we're currently training in nice warm weather.
It's early March, so we've got sunshine and warm temperatures for training, and this year, we've got a small, but potent group. This season, we have really de-emphasized indoor events, simply because the World Championships in Tokyo are so late in the year, in mid-September.
We haven't really raced much, but we're looking forward to seeing all the training that we've been doing start to pay off, in races here, and within the next couple of weeks, when we open up our outdoor season and have an eye towards World Championships 2025.
Follow Andreas on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/coachsanandreas and you can follow Altis here: https://www.instagram.com/altis