Coach Success Stories
Coach Ruben Bacon
Delivers personalized coaching, eliminates guesswork, and helps athletes push their limits.
Ruben is a young cycling coach who has poured his heart into endurance sports from an early age. He raced as a young athlete, studied exercise science in college, and dove head first into coaching in 2020. He was eager to get started and put his knowledge and experience into practice. From the start, Ruben knew he didn’t want to be a surface-level coach. He wanted to bring real value into people’s lives, and help them not only reach their goals, but tap into their true potential.
Today, as the co-owner of PACE, he draws in athletes spanning from 15 to over 60 years old, making it a priority to coach each individual where they are.
TrainingPeaks pushes the package in terms of modern coaching. It’s a very planned, analytical platform, while still allowing me to be very personal in my coaching.
Ruben Bacon
CEO & Personal Coach at PACE
The Challenge
As Ruben’s clientele grew, he didn’t want the physical distance between him and his athletes to impact his coaching. He needed a way to build meaningful relationships with his clients, even while coaching them remotely.
Ruben wanted to make sure he always had a full understanding of his clients’ progress and unique needs. With the goal of being the best possible coach he can be – from ensuring his clients are prepared on race day, to helping them live healthier lives – he knew he needed a platform that allowed him to achieve three essential things:
- Recognize his clients’ individual needs, and always remain one step ahead.
- Provide customized coaching that kept each of his clients at optimal health and performance.
- Deliver effective training that allowed his clients to achieve things they never thought possible.
Tapping into the powerful metrics and analytics in TrainingPeaks, Ruben has been able to bring his coaching to a new level.
“As a coach, that’s the best feeling of all.”
The Result
Armed with the powerful tools in TrainingPeaks, Ruben can deliver a personalized experience to his clients while helping them push their limits.
- Custom Metrics – Advanced data means Ruben can eliminate guesswork and feel confident with each decision he makes. He always has a clear picture of each athlete’s progress.
- Performance Management Chart – With powerful visuals, Ruben can reassure his athletes that they’re on the right track and that their training will help them reach their goals. He never has to convince his athletes that they need to rest, or that they can push harder.
“The Performance Management Chart in TrainingPeaks is the biggest, baddest, best visual to share with athletes. You can’t argue with it.”
- Post-Workout Comments – Ruben can review the comments alongside an athlete’s data, showing him the full picture of their training. He can immediately recognize any red flags, and make necessary adjustments.
With the tools in TrainingPeaks, Ruben can set his sights on bigger goals moving forward. The sky’s the limit, and he has the data to prove it.
“I wouldn’t trade TrainingPeaks for anything in the fitness world. It makes my life as a coach really easy.”
Coach Natasha Van der Merwe
Scaled her business, preserved her high standards, and built an engaged community.
Natasha Van Der Merwe first entered the world of triathlon in 2009, and turned pro shortly after. Those who witnessed her career as a pro athlete started to seek out her help and guidance. In the years that followed, she coached elite athletes in a variety of settings. After gaining more exposure in 2020, she made the decision to scale her business. Inquiries started pouring in from athletes who wanted to reach a higher level of fitness.
Today, she is a highly sought after endurance coach. In a span of three years – from 2020 to 2023 – she built NVDM Coaching, a booming coaching business with 16 coaches on staff, serving nearly 900 total athletes by the end of summer 2023.
After first diving into the world of endurance coaching in 2010, Natasha began working with an elite triathlon team, using another well-known training platform. After several years with the team, she realized she was missing the level of personalization she craved.
“TrainingPeaks is the software that made this all possible.”
Natasha Van der Merwe
Founder and Head Coach at NVDM Coaching
The Challenge
With her current setup, she felt she was unable to instill her coaching philosophy and coach her athletes the way she wanted.
Natasha had three unwavering goals:
- Deliver high quality, personalized coaching in a remote setting.
- Maintain authentic, consistent communication with clients.
- Build a community that left clients feeling they were part of something bigger than themselves or their coach.
It was nonnegotiable for Natasha to preserve all the elements of her coaching that set her apart from the competition, and provide the most impactful coaching possible. She had to ensure the athletes she served continued to reach or surpass their goals. What she needed was a comprehensive platform that allowed her to achieve these ambitions.
When she decided to scale her business in 2020, Natasha turned to TrainingPeaks as her trusted platform. With the advanced communication tools, athlete library, and personalized metrics, Natasha could now deliver a coaching experience that matched her exceptionally high standards.
The Result
With the use of these TrainingPeaks features, Natasha and her coaches have been able to deliver a superb, high touch experience that their clients have come to love and expect:
- Workout Builder – Coaches can easily provide detailed, specific instructions on how to attack each workout, based on the metrics they see in TrainingPeaks.
- Email Notifications – The team can provide detailed feedback to each of their clients within a day of their completed workouts, incorporating important details and making necessary adjustments to an athlete’s training.
- Performance Management Chart – Instead of relying on athletes to “trust the process,” Natasha and her team use the PMC to initiate meaningful conversations and give their clients a clear visual of their progress.
With TrainingPeaks, Natasha can manage a larger number of athletes, and still check in on each of their workouts every day. Using the communication tools and metrics, she can have the meaningful conversations that set her coaching apart.
“TrainingPeaks allows us to give athletes what they need and what they’re missing from other coaches, and that’s communication.”
Coach Like A Pro
The 2023 season is done and dusted, so now is the time to reset your coaching strategy for 2024. TrainingPeaks Coach Edition empowers you to level up your coaching game by planning, tracking, and analyzing your athletes’ training all in one place. Give your athletes a training experience they’ll love so that you can spend more time doing what you love — coaching.