Olympic 1500 metre silver medalist Nick Willis told Sportal NZ that he has struggled to come to grips with the role a coach has in sport.
Willis, the latest in a line of middle distance stars from New Zealand who came under the influence of coaching legends like Arthur Lydiard and Arch Jelley, said it had taken him years to finally accept just how to use coaching to supplement his talent, but that advice has seen him avoid the rush to take up altitude training.
As a young man, Willis grew up playing team sports like rugby and basketball but struggled to come to terms with being told what to do and being left out of the pivotal positions.
"Dealing with coaching has been a challenge for me over the years. The biggest reason I stepped away from team sports has been the control over the team that the coach has had, he said.
"I've always wanted to be in control of the game, no matter what sport it may be. I didn't like to follow orders in that way.
"So, in the early part of my running career I found that I wanted to be in control of all that and it's only when I've struggled that I've gone back to trusting in a coach more.
"He's helped me to get to a certain level and my confidence in myself comes back and I rely on my own thoughts and beliefs, Willis said."
After all the internal anguish he went through as a youngster dealing with the coaches calls, he has finally found the right balance between relying on his own intuition and asking for the help of the qualified professionals around him.
"In the last few years, the jump I've made from being a good international runner to being the best has come down to sharing some more of that burden with my coaching staff and my wife, and having them keep me calm.
"It's hard to hold yourself accountable to all the levels of pain you need to be put through and continue to find that motivation, sometimes you need someone else to make you do it as well."
Part of his resolution to work more closely with his coach, Ron Warhurst, has been the decision to refrain from altitude training, something which the African runners absolutely swear by.
"Most of the top distance runners in the world have come from a background of training at altitude.
"From my event, the 1500, there have been many who have succeeded without doing so like John Walker, Peter Snell, Seb Coe, Steve Cram and Steve Ovett. All the great British runners didn't.
"The Africans think I'm crazy that I don't do altitude training because they believe that it does [make a difference] but the verdict is still out from what the scientists actually believe [as to] whether it makes a difference or not," he said.
"It might just be the years and years of generations living and training at altitude, and the slight adaptions that they've made through those generations, that might be the benefit as opposed to the actual training.
"My coach goes by the belief of, 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it.' There's a lot of variables involved in going to altitude - you could have more of a regression than a progression," Willis said.
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