Book Lessons with Coach Michelle

I dreamed about pursuing a career in coaching from the time I was 4 years old. Coaching is my greatest passion and I have enjoyed the evolution of my coaching career, starting back in 2011!

I have been involved in competitive sport since age 3 when I joined my first swim team. Whether it was swimming, soccer, or running I always sought ways to improve and be competitive at the highest level. My experience as an athlete through the college (track and field) and professional (triathlon) ranks has provided me a unique perspective as a coach over the years.

These experiences allow me to relate to my athletes, and understand what they are going through, both physically and mentally, on a deeper level. This helps me acknowledge the external stressors, life demands, and pressures that revolve around sport at various ages/stages and adapt training accordingly to avoid burnout, plateaued performance, and injuries. If there is anything I've learned through sport, it is that sport is never trained for nor competed within a vacuum. An athlete's physical, mental and emotional fitness all play a role in an athlete's success!

As such, I take a highly individualized approach to coaching and programming. I seek to understand the athlete as a person first, then as the athlete within the realm of sport to provide them an optimized training program.

I help athletes improve movement patterns to make their running (or cycling/swimming) form more efficient and lifting form more effective in neuromuscular recruitment, while reducing injury risk. Through "unlearning" old habits, and retraining the mind-body connection, I am able to help athletes correct muscular imbalances, develop strength, speed, stamina, and endurance.

A first session will always include a sport-specific movement assessment to provide insight on opportunities for improvement. We will then use this assessment to monitor progress over time in future sessions.

Within each session athletes will move through targeted mobility and form work, followed by muscular activation exercises. We will prioritize specificity of training in these warm-up routines to engage the mind and body for the remainder of the session.

From there, we will proceed through sport-specific strength and agility training to work on technique, power generation, core work, and overall strength. Form technique work will focus on repetition and building habitual movement patterns.

The session will end with cardio training/interval work/etc*

*Note: The cardio/interval training is dependent upon the sport of focus and desired outcome of the session. Not all sessions will include this section. Some sessions will be isolated strength and agility specific.

2009-2013 Member of the Cross Country and Track & Field Teams at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

2021 NJCAA DIII Assistant Track and Field Coach of the Year

2022 World Triathlon Overall Age Group Draft-Legal Sprint World Champion

2025 Ironman 70.3 Professional Female World Championship Qualifier

The best coach I've ever had is actually my current coach, Ryan Bolton, the USAT Director of High Performance. Ryan is extremely knowledgeable and has elevated my performance over the last 4 years of working with him. The reason Ryan has been the best coach I've ever had is because he is not afraid to challenge me on a mental and physical level. He has helped me raise the bar of my mental game which has translated to physical results. His belief is unwavering and he demonstrates perfectly how an athlete's worth is not linked to their results.

Many of Ryan's training philosophies and qualities have melted into some of my existing coaching philosophies and coaching qualities.

My #1 priority as a coach is to provide my athletes with a safe and supportive environment that allows for growth. I encourage athletes (and parents) to ask any and all questions! I am an open book and want to educate on the "why" behind the programming. I am a firm believer that if there is no appropriate "why" for a drill, movement, exercise or workout, then an athlete shouldn't be doing it.