Training Is Not a Punishment

In my first years of coaching, an athlete said something to me I laughed off at the time: "Coach, finish us off today." Twenty years later I still hear the same sentence — and I no longer laugh, because behind it sits a problem with how sport is taught in this country.

Fatigue is not a unit of measurement

Whether a session was good is not measured by how tired it left the athlete. That sentence sounds simple and is hard to apply, because fatigue is a measurable feeling while progress is not. An athlete who can barely stand at the end says "I trained well today". Whether that session produced any progress will only be visible three weeks later, in a measurement.

Making an athlete feel tired is easy. Any coach can finish any athlete in forty minutes. What is hard is using those forty minutes so the athlete is better in the next session.

The thin line between loading and damage

The body does not adapt because it was loaded; it adapts because it responded to the load. That response happens after training — in sleep, in food, in rest — not during it. Which is why recovery is not a luxury outside the programme but a component inside it.

When we raise an athlete's load, the question we ask ourselves is: can this athlete digest this? If the answer is no, that load is not training, it is damage. And the bill for damage usually arrives not that day but two months later, as an injury.

The "grit your teeth" culture

This is what I encounter most on the field, and what I argue with most. When a child reports pain, the reflex around them is "push through". But pain is not a sign of weakness — it is a channel of information. An athlete who can tell you their knee hurts is handing you data that will save the next two months.

Our rule at the academy is explicit: an athlete reporting pain does not push through that day. Training does not stop — it changes direction. For an athlete with an ankle strain, jump work is suspended while upper-body strength and aerobic capacity are maintained. They keep training; they simply train something else.

The athlete has to know what they are doing and why

In the long run the best athlete is not the one who executes the coach's instructions most faithfully. It is the one who does the right thing when the coach is not there. That is only possible when the athlete understands what they are doing and why.

This is why we share measurement results with athletes. When a candidate asks "why did we run so little this week", the answer is not "because I said so"; it is "because we finished the endurance block last week and we are in the speed block now, and speed work done tired is wasted". An athlete who understands that still does the right thing on holiday.

So is hard training never done?

It is — but it is planned. There are weeks in a pre-exam camp block where we run two sessions a day. The difference is that the load is not random: it sits on top of the previous eight weeks and is followed by a deliberate recovery period.

Hard training is a tool, not a goal. The moment it becomes the goal itself, it stops developing athletes and starts consuming them.

Frequently asked questions

My athlete leaves training without being tired. Are they not working hard enough?

They probably are working hard enough. In technical and speed blocks in particular, leaving fresh is the intended outcome — speed work done tired is endurance work, not speed work.

How many sessions a week are ideal?

It depends on age and goal: four to five for exam candidates, two to three for children's groups. What matters is not the number but consistency and the recovery between sessions.

Is muscle soreness after training a good sign?

It is normal when starting a new movement, but if it happens routinely it indicates the load is too high. An athlete training in constant soreness does not show improvement at measurement.

Is sleep really that important?

It is where the adaptation happens. The same session does not produce the same result in an athlete whose sleep is broken. One of the things we record in the training log is how many hours they slept.

What do you do when an athlete loses motivation?

Usually the programme has stayed the same for too long. Changing the block, taking a measurement to show progress, and bringing the goal closer are generally enough. Motivation is rarely a character trait; more often it is an outcome of planning.