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Teaching AI how to Coach with Prompt Engineering

75+ New Coaching Features Are Now Live 🔥

The single biggest breakthrough we’ve made with CoachCat didn’t come from new code, new APIs, or new UI.

It came from prompt engineering: the process of teaching advanced AI models how to think, reason, and coach like a seasoned human expert.

Over the past several months, I’ve been translating more than 20 years of coaching experience, training principles, training plan design logic, intensity rules, strength integration, recovery reasoning, athlete psychology, and the hundreds of coaching “if this, then that” nuances directly into CoachCat.

And today, that work is live for you to try out!  

More than 75 new coaching capabilities and behaviors are now active inside the app, making CoachCat smarter, more personalized, and more aligned with how coaches think and communicate.

This is the largest leap forward since the day we launched CoachCat.


Why Prompt Engineering Changes Everything

Prompt engineering is how we “teach” AI models. It’s not simple instructions: it’s a full coaching brain built into the system:

  • How to adjust training around life

  • How to interpret recovery data

  • How to protect athletes from overtraining

  • How to balance intensity, volume, and rest

  • How to give feedback that actually helps you get faster

All of this now lives inside CoachCat.

It’s the closest thing to transferring decades of coaching experience directly into the app, and athletes will feel the difference immediately.


What’s New in CoachCat? (75+ Upgrades)

Below is an overview of the major enhancements now live in the CoachCat app:

1. New Training Plan Editor 

CoachCat can now intelligently adjust your training plan:

  • Move or swap workouts

  • Shorten or lengthen sessions

  • Handle travel weeks

  • Create clean holiday/vacation gaps

  • Adjust intensity for fatigue or illness

  • Convert 5-day weeks to 4-day weeks

  • Shift long-ride days

  • Protect recovery weeks

Go ahead and ask for a training calendar revision!!

2. Improved Power Analysis 

CoachCat now gives coach-level insight:

  • Power PRs

  • OTS achievements

  • Level movement

  • Total work

  • Whether you executed the workout properly

  • Streak / Consistency Calendar progress

And importantly — individual interval analysis is next! (we are actively working on)


3. Personalized Coaching Personas

CoachCat now adapts to your style:

  • Supportive

  • Tough Love (respectful)

  • Funny

And remembers it.


4. Expanded Knowledge Base With Links

CoachCat now explains, in simple language:

  • OTS

  • xPower

  • Level

  • Strength training principles

  • Sweet Spot theory

  • Recovery and HRV science

  • Nutrition fundamentals

And offers supporting links when you want to read more.


5. Clearer Morning Recovery Analysis

CoachCat now evaluates:

  • Your sleep

  • Today’s HRV compared to your baseline

  • Your Recovery Status (Green / Yellow / Red)

  • The proper training decision for today

You’ll get clearer morning direction and less guesswork.


6. Clear Guardrails for When to Call a FasCat Coach

CoachCat now knows exactly when a request crosses the line into human coaching territory.

And when that happens, it clearly tells you, with direct links to:

  • In-app chat

  • Live call scheduling

No confusion. No gray area.


The Big Picture: Consistency Through Personalization

All of these changes support one goal:

A training plan so personal and so aligned with your life that you are able to follow it so succesfully that you improve beyond your imagination.

Because when you follow a well-designed plan consistently:

✔️ You get faster
✔️ You stay motivated
✔️ You avoid burnout
✔️ You hit your goals

That’s the power of combining advanced AI + 20 years of proven FasCat coaching.


Go Try CoachCat’s New Brain

Open the app and:

  • Check your morning analysis

  • Upload your next ride

  • Ask for a plan edit

  • Look at your Level

  • Try out your chosen coaching persona

You’ll feel instantly that you’re working with a smarter coach.

Not on CoachCat yet? Try a FREE 30 day trial here.  Build a custom plan start improving today!

About Frank Overton

Frank founded FasCat Coaching in 2002 and has been a full time cycling coach since 2004. His educational background includes a Masters degree in Physiology from North Carolina State University, pre-med from Hampden-Sydney College. Frank raced at a professional level on the road and mountain bike and currently competes as a "masters" level gravel and cyclocrosser. Professionally Frank comes from medical school spinal cord research and molecular biotechnology. However, to this day it is a dream come true for Frank to be able to help cyclists as a coach.

Hire Coach Frank!