You Don’t Have to Win Every Session
There is a strange pressure in coaching to make every session feel successful.
We want athletes to leave tired, encouraged, and convinced that the work was worthwhile. We want the session to look organised, the exercises to hit our key outcomes , and the numbers on the screen to move in the right direction. When that happens, it is easy to walk away feeling like we have done a good job.
But not every worthwhile session feels like a win.
Some sessions are slower than expected. An athlete struggles with a movement they performed well the week before. The planned training load needs to be reduced. The group looks flat, the timing feels off, and the session never quite reaches the level you imagined it would.
That can be frustrating, especially when you have spent time preparing. The temptation is to add more, push harder, or change the plan simply so the session feels productive. But sometimes the best coaching decision is to accept where the athletes are that day.
Progress rarely arrives in a straight line. Athletes have difficult weeks, disrupted sleep, work pressures, exams, family responsibilities, and all the other things that do not appear neatly inside a training programme. A session that looks disappointing on paper may actually be a good result when you understand the wider context.
Perhaps the athlete trained when they would previously have avoided the session. Maybe they communicated honestly about how they were feeling. Maybe they reduced the load, moved well, and left in a better position to train again later in the week.
Those moments do not always look impressive, but they still matter.
Coaching is not about squeezing a personal best out of every session. It is about helping athletes make enough good decisions, often enough, over a long period of time. Some days that means pushing. Other days it means adjusting, simplifying, or knowing when enough is enough.
Food for thought
Michael
