Coaching is a very rewarding pastime, job or vocation. I use these three terms as some coaches make their living from coaching athletics, whilst others do it entirely for free. I sit somewhere in the middle here by the way and supplement my income by editorial work and my social media coaching and in particular my YouTube channel of which more later.
Coaches absorb a lot from the athletes we coach. We try to motivate, teach and often council those we work with. Athletes can tend to be all about “me” whilst us coaches need to be all about “you”. Consequentially we absorb - as noted - quite a bit and just like athletes we can get a bit tired!
In the U.K. we have a national coaching week - this commences from the 3rd to the 9th June - and it’s that which got me thinking about this post..
It’s run by U.K. Coaching and they say “Together, during Coaching Week”, we’ll send a strong message that explains why it makes sense to support and develop coaches.”
Athletes can help their coaches and support them. Give a little back to your coach every now and again (as I know many of you donalready!). Think about how your coach stands track side and shouts you on , about all the thinking and planning they do to maximise your performance ... and the life skills and work advice they may also give you. Being a coach is very much also about mentoring.
You could simply ask your coach “How are you?” - and mean it! Us coaches generally really do care about how you are doing?
Remember too that your coach will also have days when they are not so on form ... just like you athletes we are human too. Accept this but know that your coach really wants you to succeed and that’s not just on the track.

Cool looking Track Gear & Track Valley Support

Speaking of support - I was recently approached by Track Valley trackvalley.com Track Valley makes great looking street and track wear such as hoodies and T-shirts. They asked me to help promote them and I agreed - in doing so you’ll help support my coaching in real-time and on-line. My YouTube channel has just surpassed 9k subs and has had over 1 million views of 2min duration in just under 2 years! That’s reaching a lot of athletes and I hope that they are benefitting. Well, you are judging by the many comments I receive - so thanks for that! Track Valley also give 10% of profits to support grass roots track in the US through UST&F.

YOU CAN GET A 7% DISCOUNT ON TRACK VALLEY GEAR BY GOING TO:

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in doing so you’ll be supporting my coaching channels and grass roots track and you’ll look cool! Check out the video to get an idea of what Track Valley does

I get quite a few requests to comment on athlete's techniques through my various social media and obviously due to time constraints I can't respond to them all. That's why I make occasional Q&A videos on my YT channel which give general and specific answers to questions raised and also why I do technique analyses of the odd jumper from around the world. Many athletes will have similar faults and it's possible that one will see what they do and be able to learn from the suggestions that I make in the video.
I was recently contacted by a young triple jumper from Italy Pietro who has jumped over 14.50m and I wrote a response to him. So, for a change I thought that I would post the video and my response on my website for change.
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My technical feedback
As you approach the board try not to dip (drop) on the second last step, keep your hips up and make only minimal adjustment... because of the dip, your take-off foot pushes out in front of you and this will slow your take-off down. It will also potentially make you hop too high. Your hop technique, having said that is pretty good, you hold the free leg and sweep it down long below the body. 
Your step, though is too rushed... get your arms longer in front of you and swing the free leg out of the hop contact and up, hold it and then try to lift it up some more.

Into the jump you begin to forward rotate - your free leg needs to go higher as the arms need to get overhead, this should get your torso up straighter. Because you don't get the free leg up into the jump with the arms high enough, your body starts to rotate forwards and your heels drop early. I'd perhaps not drop the jump take-off leg long below your body after take-off but would use a sail technique. Swing the free leg in, hold it in front with the arms over head (you'll go through the air in a sort of lunge shape). 
Your movement into the jump from the step is good.

You have the basis of a good triple technique and it just needs refining, particulary the jump phase and the arm action in the step.

The more to dive into learning something academically or for fun as a hobby, the more you realise you don't know - or perhaps more importantly, the more you realise you need to know! And this has happened to me with the hang long jump technique

I have taught many long jumpers the hang but when I first began coaching I was less familiar with this mid-air action. Now I realise that - as with the hitch-kick - there are multiple versions of the technique, classic hang, hitch-kick and variations in accompanying arm actions. And it has its "issues".

The mature athletes you coach will ask questions as to the effectiveness of a technique or whether a certain arm action may be better than another one ... so, you need to find out. You'll also begin to see patterns and problems emerge with certain jumpers and their employment of "their" hang. Although the basic mechanics of the technique may be the same, each athlete may perform their hang slightly differently. 

A couple of years back I made a video on the hang - you can click here to watch it, it's been successful on the YT channel with over 20k views. Over the intervening period I learnt more and began to realise that there were potential issues with, in particular the classic hang version (think Brittney Reese as a classic hang exemplar).
I had always favoured the hitch-hang and had limited classic hang coaching experience. It was only when coaching a classic hang jumper that I began to see some of the issues with the method and in particular limitations with holding the free leg after take-off and pressing the hips forward too soon at take-off. The later will create backwards rotation and a reduction in speed across the board.  Coincidentally this is an issue which can occur with the hitch-hang. So, I decided to revisit the topic and produce a second video on the hang for my YouTube channel - you can see this below. In it I address some of the issues that I note in this post and also suggest why the hitch-hick may be a better option ... Of course there will be those that suit the hang (try getting Brittney Reese to change styles), and also 'power/strength' jumpers may also find this a suitable technique, but there are some argument why I believe the adding of a hitch, whether as a hitch-hang or potentially preferentially as a hitch-kick may be the preferred technical model. Again, without going into too much more detail - as I cover much in the video - I see the added benefits as: 1. creating a longer take-off drive, allowing the jumper to move forward and up from the board, thus maximising take-off velocity and angle and 2; providing better counter rotational movement. Simply put more is done in the air to combat rotation and the actions also "fill" the flight time with more movement - thus thwarting the backward rotation's efforts to pull the jumper to the sand too soon.

Take a look at the video to find out more and do let me know what you think about the hang and its variants.

Recently the IAAF released its Consensus Statement on Nutrition for Athletes. There are 16 reports and they cover event group specific nutrition and also very focussed topics, such as travel nutrition, hydration and what supplements work. You can download all the reports by following this IAAF thread
https://www.iaaf.org/news/press-release/iaaf-consensus-statement-nutrition-for-athlet

As a coach I know how difficult athlete nutrition can be in terms of generating athlete understanding. There are those who are blissfully unaware of the consequence of good and bad eating... and then there are those who scrupulously 'eat clean'. And there are others who have a difficult relationship with food - these are the ones that may be more prone to RED-S (Relative Energy Deficit - Sports). The signs/symptoms of RED-S are disordered eating, loss of energy, reduction in bone mineral density (making stress fractures more of a likelihood), cessation of or irregular periods and loss of libido - males can and do suffer from RED-S. Body images issues too are potentially part of RED-S - and here males and females can look at their bodies through far from rose-tinted lenses. An athlete may have very low body fat and have a visible 6-pack ... this image and its subconscious manifestation can become more important than jumping far. You'll often see and hear athletes checking and talking about their abs - as if the 'reveal' is a badge of athletic honour. Having a 6-pack is not what makes a great athlete, being a great athlete is what makes a great athlete - speed, power, reactivity, technical refinement is crucial. Now, nutrition is not to be neglected and it is as central to performance as the aspects I've just mentioned - but it perhaps needs to be treated in the same way as physical training and this is what the IAAF I believe sets out to do with its reports and consensus statement. Visual manifestation in terms of body shape is what will optimally allow you to jump or throw is what matters, and that should be the focus, not how good you look in your crop top (another topic here: why does women's kit need to be so revealing?) 

Returning to where I started... I have so far read through in detail the travel and eating abroad IAAF report and not unsurprisingly  the Jumps, throws and multi-event one, and there are some highly illuminating and responsible details, points and considerations made. The reports are written by some of the top nutrition and sports performers world wide after all. I'm actually going to write a couple of articles for Athletics Weekly on these reports and their findings and kick-off with the Field events and multi-events ones in the May 16th issue. However, to whet your appetite and also direct you to the reports themselves here's a snippet:

Making weight
Power to weight ratio is key to a jump athlete everything else being equal and the IAAF report does tackle this subject with a reasoned scientific approach... 

Hyohydration is considered (the uncompensated loss of body water) and research is presented that indicates that it may actually be advantageous in that body mass is reduced resulting in an improved, albeit temporary, power to weight ratio. Note that many athletes are mildly dehydrated and that performance does not seem to be affected – hence the new advice for distance runners to drink to thirst rather than follow a prescribed drinking plan.
 
Following a low fibre diet in the lead-up to a competition could be worth exploring for similar reasons – although the report indicates that more specific research needs to be done. These diets do not affect energy levels and the report notes anecdotally that “… practitioners report typical weight losses of 0.5-1.5kg in elite athletes after following very low fibre diets over 48 hours.

The IAAF is to be commended on producing these reports on what can be a neglected area of athlete performance, particularly for us more everyday coaches. The guidelines, strategies and warnings make for informed reading and perhaps will enable us coaches (and athletes who read them) to become much better informed.

And returning to athlete body image ... nutrition is not about looking good but about performance and feeling energised and able to perform optimally through healthy (and sometimes not so healthy) eating ... put those 6-packs away!