Mills, J., & Thue Bjørndal, C. (2025). Endurance running coaching’s mechanical topography: a Foucauldian discourse analysis of coaches’ knowledges. Sports Coaching Review, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1080/21640629.2025.2541142
ABSTRACT
Michel Foucault was part of a French revolution of history seeking deeper understandings of history beyond narratives of “great men” and their events. As a historian of the body and power, Foucault’s work is applicable to move endurance running coaches beyond the narratives of great coaches and their knowledges and practices. Discourse and knowledge are well-used concepts in Foucauldian coach scholarship, but specific Foucauldian discourse analyses are rare. Given endurance coaches aim to produce fast runners, adopting Foucault’s work could be both intriguing and compelling. Following, as faithfully as possible, Foucault’s discursive method, we analysed six of the most popular endurance running coaching textbooks to show how the endurance body can only be articulated as a machine, which may undermine coaches and their athletes’ development and performances.
KEYWORDS:
Foucault discourse knowledge body coaching
Foucault News 