Former international triple jumper takes us through a coaching journey spent in the pursuit of knowledge and guiding a number of Britains finest athletes

When Katarina Johnson-Thompson was crowned world heptathlon champion for a second time last summer, she was quick to identify her work with Aston Moore as one of the key reasons for her victory.

The two-time Commonwealth triple jump medallist has spent the majority of his life leading some of Britains best to international success, mainly in the horizontal jumps but also combined events. The likes of Johnson-Thompson, Ashia Hansen, Phillips Idowu and Jazmin Sawyers, not to mention Paralympic long jumper and sprinter Olivia Breen, have all benefited from the 67-year-olds coaching.

How did you start coaching?

I started a little bit as an athlete, just helping out youngsters in the squad. When youre the elder statesman in the group you see youngsters coming through and initially you start with just giving them a little bit of advice here and there.

I was also a student of my sport and within the squad itself I took a lot of responsibility eventually for the planning and execution of my own training albeit overseen by another coach, which at the time was Kevin Reeve.

I then decided at the age of 30: Thats it, Im retired now. I cant take the sport anymore in terms of competitiveness. So some of the athletes said: You can you look after me, and I found myself coaching.

Did it evolve, then, rather than being like a calling?

I think it had its roots in me going to the Montreal Olympics as a 20-year-old. At that stage I thought I could conquer the world but I had a disastrous Olympics. That was mostly because I just was not prepared not so much physically, but emotionally and strategically for the event. I treated the preparation as if it was the AAA Championships at home and then found that it wasnt!

I made a promise to myself that something like that wouldnt happen again to another athlete and so I became evangelistic about the preparation. Thats when the seeds were sown and I became interested in other people not making the same mistakes as I did.

Did the educational side of things interest you? That capacity and interest to learn?

I think, if you become a coach, it becomes a lifelong thing. Youre always looking for better ways of doing exactly what youve always done. As an athlete it eventually dawned on me that: Im actually quite good at this thing. So my search then was: How can I get better?

As you gather information about how to do things better, you become more and more interested. You get more into it. A lot of people that I know who went into coaching were very, very interested in their events when they were athletes. They became students of their events.

How would you define the role of the coach and the part he or she plays in developing an athlete?

Thats an interesting one, because I think that relationship changes over time. At the beginning of the process, Im pretty much leading it and saying: This is what has to happen because this is new to you, so just listen to me.

Then, by the time an athlete starts winning medals, for example, youre travelling that journey either together or maybe even being slightly led by the athlete.

The more proficient the athlete, I respect their opinions about what is good for them or what they feel is going to be good for them. Ill marry what they say with my own feelings about what I think should happen and then come to a consensus as to what direction we should take.

So, in a sense, Im a little bit of a chameleon, depending on the athlete I have in front of me. I change to meet the specific needs.

Do you think the role of the coach has changed during your time of being involved?

The emphasis has always been to get the athlete ready for competition, to get them ready to be the best they can be.

When I first got into coaching I could be a little bit more autocratic. But one of the things that I have certainly noticed over the years is that the athletes coming my way arent as robust as they used to be and so that changed my style as a coach.

Theres much less volume in my scheduling than there used to be and again thats pretty much me adapting to the athlete in front of me and realising they are just not able to cope with the same volume of work. It could very well be that I was over coaching back in the day anyway, of course.

But what was important to me then is important to me now. It just comes down to the athlete in front of me and the goal that we decided were going to chase, deciding that together and then coming up with a plan.

Ive grown as a coach over time. Im much more chilled about the way I see and do things. Im known as somebody whos reasonably relaxed around athletes and even around competitions but thats something that you learn over time and if you dont learn it then you dont become a good coach. You just become neurotic and burnt out long before you actually get to work with some of the best athletes.

Could you sum up your coaching philosophy?

I coach the person. Of course, all of this is with the underlying expectation that I am a knowledgeable coach on my events, that I understand them well and Im able to implement what I think are good strategies. Thats a given, so all thats left is me literally coaching the athlete in front of me and Im looking to see what their unique issue is or the unique thing that they need to develop to be better than they were.

Then well deal with that specifically and, even within a training session, where everyone will be lets say running or doing a sprint session, each athlete will be working on something slightly unique to themselves that Ive identified. Thereby they will get much more out of the session, rather than me just holding a stopwatch or whatever it is. That is very important to my coaching.

Is the old adage of failure being the best teacher true?

A lot of the time, yes, but you also try to drag as much out of successes as you can. Say an athlete does something particularly well in training, the first question the coach should ask is: How did that feel and can you play back to me what you thought you did to make it work that way? If they can feed back the right things to you then thats a one-time learning and its great.

But athletes spend a lot more time failing than they do succeeding so failure is probably the greatest teacher for success. The trick is to get the athlete to fail without consequences. One of my ploys is to make training a case of: Lets have some fun. Were going to try this thing today, now lets see how wrong we can get it. Lets not be concerned with being a perfectionist. Lets fail a little bit and in that failing we actually get to understand where we need to go to get the successes.

What are the most common mistakes you see younger coaches making?

I suspect that a lot of them are trying to cope with the emotional side of being a coach. They will have athletes who will probably not be achieving what they hoped they would achieve in the timeframe they set, and a lot of coaches take that on as being almost their fault. They take it personally and thats a good way of burning out quickly.

The better you are able to handle those emotional situations as they arrive, the better you are able to move on and develop.

How will you watch an athlete in competition differently as a coach compared to the way a spectator might?

Youre trying to help the athlete deliver the best they possibly can on the day. But within that you might notice that they continuously do a particular thing. If its good, I never bring it to their attention. As soon as you bring something thats good to an athletes attention, thats it, youve destroyed it. It needs to remain in the subconscious. It works and just leave it working until it isnt.

If its bad, and you feel its an easy fix then you deal with it on the day or you take it to the next training session and try to fix it there. If its a longer-term fix, it becomes something that you jot down in your notebook for next years development or the longer-term development of the athlete.

Whats the most valuable lesson youve learned in your career and whats the best piece of advice youve been given or would pass on?

Dont believe in your own bull***t too much. I do know my contribution to an athlete but the first thing as a coach I have to acknowledge is the ability of that athlete standing in front of me. They clearly needed to have that ability first before I brought that out at a particular time and place. A lot of coaches think its all them, the great I am and thats death if youre going to start thinking that way. 

In terms of advice Ive been given, when Charles van Commenee was working in the UK as technical director he said to me: Take time out to get to know the athlete youre working with. If you can, spend some time with them outside of the sport.

He encouraged to me to take the athlete out for lunch and just talk about life, talk about stuff. Sometimes, from those circumstances, you get to understand what actually drives this person.