Relationships are risky. I don’t think I really understood this until I was older, but it’s true. When you get into a relationship with somebody, you’re giving that person some importance in your life. That means you’re giving them a certain level of control. Because they’re important to you, they’ve got the ability to affect your happiness, at least to some degree. They can piss you off, thrill you, inspire you, and disappoint you in ways that are impossible for strangers or people you don’t give a damn about.

This is true for spouses, boyfriends, girlfriends, and even just close buddies. I once read a quote from a famous writer that said, “There is no way to take the danger out of human relationships.” True words, I think. Because once you give somebody the ability to affect your happiness, you’re also giving them a chance to hurt you.

In my 43 years of life experience, I’ve personally found the coach-athlete relationship to be one of the most powerful connections imaginable. Every coach I’ve ever had has impacted my life on a pretty serious level. Some of the conversations, advice, and personal moments I’ve had with my coaches are more important to me than almost any other interaction I can remember with another person, including my family. I suspect many of you feel exactly the same way.

Personalities have to click for these relationships to work. That doesn’t mean there has to be a constant stream of happiness and content at every moment, however. That’s not realistic. Getting occasionally pissed off at your coach is just part of being an athlete. Being occasionally frustrated with your athletes is just part of being a coach. There’s no way to avoid these bumps, and you shouldn’t chuck the whole relationship into a dumpster every time they happen. The idea that “personalities have to click” carries the understanding that difficulties are a normal part of the process, but you’re willing to hang in there and stay in the relationship because the strength of your connection with this person is high enough to surmount the bad times. Your personality clicks with somebody when you value a lot of the same things. You want to know one of the biggest things I value, as both a coach and an athlete? Loyalty.

We all know what loyalty is, so I’m not going to explain it. But there are some different things you need to understand about loyalty between coaches and athletes, because sometimes it can get tricky. It would take a hundred articles to cover all the different possibilities involved with this subject, so I’ll narrow it down to a specific one here.

We’re going to talk about the idea of coaches letting their athletes work with other coaches. These are situations where you’ve got a coach and an athlete who are in a committed relationship. It’s not a casual thing where they just work together on a regular basis without any concrete connection or understanding. No, this is a very clear arrangement where there’s one-on-one commitment. And at some point in the relationship, somebody puts forward the idea of the athlete spending some time working with a different coach. Nobody is walking away from anybody. We’re simply talking about some additional work on the side with somebody else.

Whoa mama…there is a lot of potential for things to get ugly here, if it’s not handled right. Many of you are coaches, or you work with a coach. So you’re on either end of this dynamic. Allow me to give you some input about how to navigate this area without damaging (or destroying) the groundwork you’ve laid with this other person.

First, understand where the other one is coming from…

Coaches: Coaches are often territorial. When they work with athletes, they like the idea of being in control of those athletes. Obviously there are individual levels to this. Some coaches are highly territorial, while others are mildly territorial. I suppose there are some coaches out there who aren’t territorial at all, but I don’t know many of them. Most of the serious coaches I’ve known in my life have at least a small streak of this in their personalities. And when you’re dealing with coaches like this, they aren’t going to be overjoyed about the idea of a different coach working with their athletes. In their minds, they’re losing some control. They also might start to worry that the athletes are looking to make a permanent switch. In a nutshell, some coaches would see this situation as a sign of disloyalty.

Athletes: Athletes are concerned with one thing above all else…their careers. They want to become better weightlifters. Now, these athletes hook up with coaches and get into committed relationships because they believe the coaches can further their careers. That’s the bottom line. Athletes are loyal to coaches because they want the coaches to take them to the top. And some personality connection comes into this as well. Often, coaches and athletes develop strong bonds of friendship during the training process, and that deepens the relationship. However, you can never lose sight of the fact that an athlete’s first loyalty is going to be to his/her career. There’s a selfish element to it, but that’s just part of this business.

So now we have a situation where a coach and an athlete have developed a strong bond. There’s no ambiguity to this. Everybody understands the situation. These two are committed. Then, at some point, some interaction happens between the athlete and another coach.

First of all, every coach should understand there’s an unwritten rule in sports…you don’t walk up to an athlete who’s clearly being coached by somebody else and start trying to work with them. You’re stepping over a line when you do this. Fortunately, it takes a serious idiot to even attempt it, so it’s rare. I’ve seen a few situations like this where a confrontation followed that almost resulted in a fist fight.

But let’s say we’re talking about a relatively innocent encounter. Let’s say an athlete has a random conversation with an outside coach one day at a meet when the two just happened to bump into each other. Through this conversation, the athlete starts to get interested in getting some help or input from this coach. Keep in mind, the coach didn’t step over the line. There was no attempt to infiltrate or manipulate this athlete away from the regular coach. It was an honest interaction, but the athlete walked away with some curiosity… “maybe this other coach could help me get better?”

Where do we go now?

Some coaches are okay with their athletes working with other coaches, and some aren’t. If you’re an athlete, there’s a pretty good chance you’ll get to know other coaches in your career, and some of them might have some advice or input they want to share with you. This is a delicate situation, and it needs to be handled really, really well.

For you athletes, make sure you know there’s a decent probability your coaches will get angry if you ask another coach for help. Your coaches might think you’re telling them they’re not good enough, and you need guidance from somebody else because they’re not getting the job done. This isn’t the way you meant it to come across, but that’s how it played out. This is where a loyalty problem could easily get started. The coach thinks he doesn’t have the athlete’s loyalty, and the seeds of doubt have been planted. Even if you’re not intending any kind of disrespect or disloyalty, it still might come across that way.

Let me tell you a little story. I was at a big national meet once, lifting in the warmup room a few days before I competed. I was doing some clean and jerks, and my coach was on the other side of the room chatting with somebody. It wasn’t a heavy workout, so he wasn’t giving me complete attention and that was totally fine with me. I was just getting my work done and I didn’t need his eyes or anything. But at one point, a different coach walked by my platform and saw me lifting. Apparently he noticed a problem with the way I was jerking, because he gave me a quick technical comment about what I needed to fix.

Was this coach out of line for offering me unsolicited advice, knowing I already had a very committed coach? Maybe. But he wasn’t trying to recruit me or undermine my coach. I knew that. He was just an enthusiastic person who tossed a technique cue at me when he walked by my platform. And the comment he made clicked in my brain a little bit. I didn’t fully understand what he was telling me, but it sounded like there was some value in it.

At this point, I walked across the room and approached my coach. I asked him, “Hey coach, that guy over there gave me a little technique pointer about the jerk. Do you mind if I ask him a question about it? Is that out of line?” My coach said, “Sure, go ahead. I don’t have a problem with that.” So I walked back across the room and had a three-minute conversation about the jerk comment with this other coach. And it actually turned out to be a piece of advice I’ve remembered my whole career, and used a lot as a coach.

You see…this other coach wasn’t trying to make any shady moves. He wasn’t looking to coach me or steal me away. I asked my coach if it was okay to chat with him, and he gave me permission. The guy gave me some good advice, it didn’t damage my relationship with my regular coach at all, I didn’t develop any doubt in his ability because this other guy told me something he hadn’t told me, and nothing bad come from this. I got better, and my relationship with my committed coach rolled merrily along.

This was a good encounter. If the situations you run into, as either coaches or athletes, are like this, go ahead and take advantage of them. No harm, no foul, no hard feelings.

Ask permission, but be wary of motives…

If you’re an athlete and there’s an outside coach you want to get some advice from, ask your current coach if it’s okay. It might be no problem. Some coaches are fine with their athletes getting advice from multiple places. This is especially true if we’re talking about an athlete who trains for a rookie coach, and the outside coach is more of an experienced expert. If you’re a beginner/intermediate coach and your athletes ask you if they can get some advice from an Olympian, you should probably say yes. It’ll look foolish if you say no.

However, let’s say you’ve got a coached athlete who wants to do some outside work with another coach, and the two coaches are basically equals. This is a thin-ice situation. Many successful coaches are control freaks, and they don’t like the idea of their athletes working regularly with somebody else. There’s a lot of potential for awkwardness, especially if the outside coach is going to try to undermine the current coach, sneaking in a lot of comments that start with, “Well, I know your coach is telling you to do this, but maybe you should try something else.”

By the way…coaches, the type of behavior I just described is unprofessional, and I can guarantee it’ll come back and bite you in the ass if you do it. Weightlifting is a karma sport, so make sure you’re not the one weaseling around in the background, trying to hamstring other coaches by cozying up to their athletes. If you develop a reputation as a chickenhawk coach, hovering around in the sky and waiting to swoop in and snatch away an athlete from somebody else, your days are numbered in this business. Trust me, it’ll come back and nail you.

Look at it this way…many of you are in committed romantic relationships, yes? You’ve got spouses, boyfriends, or girlfriends. Okay, fine. Let’s make sure we understand that even though we’re in love with these people and totally committed to them, we’re still going to meet other people we’re attracted to in our lives. It’s not like your human instincts all go completely dead when you marry somebody. Even if your relationship is fantastic, there are still going to be times when you meet people who get your motor running. This is basic nature, and it’s the same way if you’re an athlete. Just because you’re committed to your coach, you’re still going to meet other coaches who impress you, and maybe even interest you.

At that point, both the athlete and the spouse are in the same situation. Do you throw away something great and productive to take a chance with somebody else? Think about all the collateral damage that could include. Think about the risk. Think about all these things before you make a hasty decision. There are always going to be times when the grass looks greener on the other side. But if you’re in a successful relationship that clearly works, you need to think nice and hard before you put some cracks in it. There’s no way to take the danger out of human relationships, but there’s always a way to survive that danger if you make the right choices.