The number of people who run regularly as a life habit has grown spectacularly over the last five years. And it's not a fad, it's a rediscovery of an activity for which we are born ready and programmed and which gives us enormous health benefits.

With such growth, there has also been an increase in the number of people offering themselves as athletics coaches, many of whom put athletes at risk because they lack formal training and have no methodology other than what they have learned themselves by running every other weekend.

Here are five clues to help you know when you're dealing with a coach of questionable background:

1. He promises you'll achieve your goals.Any "coach" who guarantees you'll achieve your goals is a bad coach; first because there are no formulas that guarantee success 100% and second and more importantly because goals simply don't depend on him, they depend on you as an athlete. The most a responsible coach will tell you is that the goal is possible and that he'll guide you toward it with this or another method.

2. He doesn't charge you.I know there are special cases, friends or family members who, because of their closeness to the coach, will receive a good discount or a free plan. But in general, a coach who doesn't charge you or charges too little is because he doesn't value his time, his work, and his knowledge, and that speaks poorly of his preparation. A coach who has read, studied, and trained himself will value his effort and will charge you what he considers fair for putting that knowledge at your disposal.

3. He skips basic questions.To develop a training plan that fits the athlete's characteristics, it's necessary to know, at minimum: what are your short, medium, and long-term goals, how much time are you willing to invest to achieve your goals (days per week training), what is your recent exercise history (at least the last three months), if you have any health problems or limitations for exercising. This is the minimum, that's where you start. But if he doesn't even bother to find out what you've done recently, it means he's going to prescribe a plan pulled from anywhere, without adapting it to your needs and characteristics.

4. He doesn't follow a process.Training is an adaptation, and adaptation is a process of stress and rest that must be respected. If your coach has you running a lot too soon, he's not following a proper process and will easily lead you to an injury.

5. He doesn't care about how you're doing.The coach should be interested in you, ask you how you've felt during the workouts, the sessions that are hardest for you, the ones that feel easier, etc. This athlete-coach communication is essential for refining the program so that it increasingly adapts to your characteristics, which are unique.

6. He's not flexible.Stretch like this! Warm up like that! Run what I tell you! Every coach has his method, and that's fine, it's his way of doing things and, based on his studies, it's what he considers best and most effective. But every method must be flexible, and the reason is that all people are different and adapt differently. Not all runners benefit from stretching, for example, and much less from stretching in a forced way. Some athletes find speed easier, others find endurance easier. The coach should be discovering these characteristics in his athletes and adapting his method to what works best for them. If your coach forces you to do things only his way, that's a bad sign.

In general, you should feel comfortable with your coach. The treatment should be friendly, respectful, and should inspire confidence in you to reach your goals. It's vital that there be open communication, that he listens to your observations, and that he's constantly interested in your progress. In any case, it's a good idea to ask him from the start what his training background is and why he considers himself qualified to coach you. It's not a rude question, and if he's a well-prepared coach, he won't have any problem talking about his studies.