Coach Day in Russia Date in the current year: October 30, 2024

The roots of professional sports coaching in its modern sense can be traced back to 19th-century Britain. Back then, students at the University of Oxford used the word “coacher” (derived from “coach”, a type of horse-dawn carriage) to refer to a private tutor who helped less able students prepare for their examinations.

As sports gradually became professionalized, the role of a sports “coacher” (later shortened to “coach”) took its shape and became well established by World War I. During the war, many military units had coaches who supervised physical conditioning and developed morale-building teams.

Today, all professional and some amateur sports teams in association and American football, baseball, ice hockey and other team sports have a coach and several coaches. Athletes in individual sports also usually have a coach (although some train on their own), and national teams usually have a head coach as well.

Although the head coach of a team or an individual athlete is usually the one that gets the most publicity, he or she typically is part of a professional team that also includes assistant coaches, often responsible for different aspects of the training process (for example, figure skating has coaches that specialize in skating skills, jumps, choreography, etc.), professional fitness coaches, athletic trainers, physical therapists, nutritionists, etc. Although not all professionals on the coaching staff are coaches per se, they definitely deserve congratulations on Coach Day.

Coach Day is also considered to be the professional holiday of all fitness instructors and personal trainers working in fitness clubs and gyms. Regardless of whether a trainer works with clients individually or teaches group classes, they help their clients achieve any goals they’ve set for themselves, be it to lose weight, to build muscle mass or to just live healthier.

A good trainer creates an effective individual training program (or plans group classes taking into account the peculiarities and needs of a particular group of trainees), gives advice on proper nutrition, makes sure that people exercise safely, and, of course, encourages them and helps build confidence.

The origins of Coach Day are unclear, but it has been unofficially celebrated in Russia for about two decades. On this day, Russian coaches and trainers working in professional sports, high schools and colleges, sports clubs for children and youth, gyms and fineness clubs etc. are offered sincere congratulations, gratitude for their hard work and dedication, and special gifts.