# What Makes a Good Training Session? A Coach's Checklist

Every coach has experienced it. You walk away from a session and you just know it worked. Athletes were engaged, learning was happening, the environment felt right. But when someone asks you what made it good, you struggle to articulate exactly why.

Equally, every coach has experienced the opposite. A session that looked good on paper but fell flat in reality. Athletes going through the motions. Flat energy. You cannot quite pinpoint what went wrong, but something was missing.

In my experience, the difference between a good training session and a poor one is rarely about the drills you chose. It is about a set of underlying ingredients that either come together or do not. The good news is that these ingredients are identifiable, learnable, and, crucially, self-assessable.

This post breaks down what I believe are the key components of an effective training session, gives you a practical checklist to evaluate your own sessions, and addresses what to do when things do not go to plan.

Key Takeaways

A good session is not defined by how clever the drills are. It is defined by whether athletes learned, were challenged, and were engaged.
The seven key ingredients are: clear objectives, appropriate challenge, high engagement, decision-making opportunities, a positive environment, effective transitions, and purposeful coaching interventions.
"Fun" and "good" are not opposites. The best sessions are both. But fun without learning is entertainment, not coaching.
When a session goes wrong, the ability to diagnose why is more valuable than the session itself.
Regular self-assessment against consistent criteria is one of the fastest ways to improve session quality over time.

The Seven Ingredients of a Great Training Session

1. Clear Objectives

A good session starts before anyone arrives. It starts with clarity about what you are trying to achieve.

This does not mean you need a five-page lesson plan. It means you should be able to answer one question before the session begins: What do I want my athletes to be able to do better by the end of this session than they could at the start?

That question forces specificity. "Work on defending" is not an objective. "Improve recovery runs when possession is lost" is.

#### Why This Matters

Clear objectives guide your coaching decisions during the session. When you know what you are looking for, you know what to coach and, equally importantly, what to ignore.
They help you design appropriate activities. Each part of the session should connect to the objective, even if the connection is not always obvious to the athletes.
They allow you to evaluate the session afterwards. Did athletes improve in the area you targeted? Without a clear objective, you have no benchmark.

#### Common Pitfalls

Too many objectives. One or two per session is enough. Three is the absolute maximum. More than that and nothing gets the attention it needs.
Objectives that are too broad. "Improve fitness" or "work on attacking" gives you no coaching direction during the session.
Objectives disconnected from athlete needs. The best objectives come from what you observed in the previous session or competition. This is where reflection directly feeds session planning.

2. Appropriate Challenge

A session that is too easy bores athletes. A session that is too hard overwhelms them. The sweet spot, where the difficulty matches the current ability of the group while stretching them slightly beyond it, is where learning happens.

This concept is well established in learning science. It is sometimes called the "zone of proximal development" or "desirable difficulty." The exact label matters less than the principle: athletes need to be challenged enough to adapt but not so much that they fail repeatedly and disengage.

#### How to Judge It

Watch your athletes. Are they succeeding roughly 60-80% of the time? That ratio suggests the challenge level is about right. If success is closer to 100%, it is too easy. If it is below 50%, it is too hard.

Listen to them. Are they talking about the activity, discussing solutions, expressing frustration that is productive rather than hopeless? That is the sound of appropriate challenge.

#### Adjusting in Real Time

This is one of the hardest coaching skills to develop: the ability to read the session and adjust the challenge level on the fly.

To increase challenge: Reduce time, reduce space, add opponents, add conditions, increase complexity.
To decrease challenge: More time, more space, fewer opponents, remove conditions, simplify the task.

The willingness to change your plan mid-session based on what you observe is a hallmark of confident, athlete-centred coaching.

3. High Engagement

Engagement is not the same as enjoyment, though the two often overlap. Engagement means athletes are mentally and physically involved in the activity. They are making decisions, solving problems, and actively participating rather than waiting, watching, or going through the motions.

#### Signs of High Engagement

Athletes are physically active for the majority of the session.
There are minimal queues and wait times.
Athletes are talking to each other about the activity, not about unrelated topics.
Body language is alert and purposeful.
Athletes express frustration when they get something wrong (they care about the outcome).

#### Signs of Low Engagement

Long queues or lines.
Athletes standing still for extended periods.
Side conversations unrelated to the session.
Flat body language, eyes wandering.
Athletes going through the motions without apparent effort.

#### How to Design for Engagement

Maximise activity time. For every minute of your session, ask yourself: how many of my athletes are active right now? If only four out of sixteen are doing something while twelve watch, the design needs changing.
Minimise instructions. Get athletes into the activity quickly. Explain the minimum needed to start, then add layers as you go.
Use game-based activities where possible. Activities with decisions, opponents, and outcomes naturally engage athletes more than repetitive drills without context.
Create competition where appropriate. Not every activity needs a winner, but many athletes are wired to engage more deeply when there is something at stake.

4. Decision-Making Opportunities

A session where athletes only follow instructions teaches compliance, not competence. For genuine development, athletes need to make decisions under some form of pressure or constraint.

This applies across all sports and all ages. The complexity of the decisions changes, but the principle remains: athletes develop by making choices and experiencing the consequences.

#### What This Looks Like in Practice

Activities where athletes must read a situation and respond (rather than executing a predetermined sequence).
Questions from the coach that prompt thinking: "What did you see?", "What were your options?", "Why did you choose that?"
Activities where multiple solutions are possible, not just one "correct" answer.
Realistic scenarios that mirror the demands of competition.

#### The Coach's Role

Your job is not to remove the need for athletes to think. It is to create environments where they have to think, and then to guide their thinking through well-timed questions and observations.

This is a fundamental shift from the "I tell, you do" model of coaching. It is harder, slower, and messier. It is also significantly more effective for long-term development.

5. A Positive Environment

This does not mean everything is soft, easy, and full of praise regardless of effort. A positive environment is one where athletes feel safe to try, fail, and learn without fear of humiliation or excessive criticism.

#### What a Positive Environment Contains

High expectations. Athletes know they are expected to work hard, listen, and contribute. Standards are clear and consistently upheld.
Psychological safety. Athletes are willing to attempt things they might fail at because failure is treated as a normal part of learning.
Respect. Between coach and athlete, and between athletes. This is modelled by the coach, not just demanded of the group.
Energy. The coach's energy sets the tone. If you are flat, the session will be flat. If you are engaged and enthusiastic, the group will follow.

#### Common Mistakes

Over-praising. "Brilliant!" after every action devalues praise. Save it for moments that genuinely deserve it.
Public criticism for honest mistakes. If an athlete is trying their best and gets it wrong, that is a coaching opportunity, not a discipline issue.
Inconsistency. Standards that change from session to session create anxiety, not safety. Be predictable in your expectations.

6. Effective Transitions

Transitions are the moments between activities: packing up one drill, explaining the next, reorganising the group. They are also where sessions most commonly lose momentum.

In a 60-minute session, poor transitions can easily consume 15-20 minutes. That is a quarter of your session lost to standing around.

#### How to Manage Transitions Well

Plan transitions explicitly. When you plan your session, plan the bits between activities, not just the activities themselves. What equipment needs to move? How do groups change?
Pre-set equipment where possible. If your second activity uses a different layout, set it up before the session starts or during a water break.
Use "changing the picture" techniques. Small modifications to an existing setup are faster than complete rebuilds. Can you adapt what is already there rather than starting from scratch?
Keep explanations short during transitions. Twenty seconds of clear instruction is better than two minutes of detailed explanation. Get athletes into the activity and coach from there.
Use consistent routines. If athletes know that a whistle means gather in, or that they always get water at the 20-minute mark, transitions become automatic rather than chaotic.

7. Purposeful Coaching Interventions

A coaching intervention is any moment you stop or redirect the session to make a coaching point. It is arguably the most important thing you do as a coach, and it is where session quality is most often won or lost.

#### When to Intervene

Not every mistake needs a coaching intervention. If you stop the session every time something goes wrong, athletes spend more time listening to you than practising.

Intervene when:

You see a pattern (multiple athletes making the same error).
The mistake relates directly to your session objective.
You can see that athletes are stuck and unlikely to solve the problem themselves.
You want to reinforce something that was done well (positive reinforcement is an intervention too).

Do not intervene when:

It is an isolated mistake by one athlete. Address it individually.
The error is unrelated to your session objective. Let it go for now.
Athletes are in the process of solving the problem themselves. Patience is a coaching skill.

#### How to Intervene Effectively

Be brief. The best coaching interventions are 15-30 seconds. Say what you need to say and get athletes back into the activity.
Show, do not just tell. A quick demonstration or freeze of a moment is worth a hundred words.
Ask before telling. "What did you notice there?" or "Where could you have gone?" often reveals that athletes already know the answer. Your job is to confirm and reinforce, not always to inform.
Restart quickly. The longer you talk, the more energy drains from the session. Make your point and restart.

The "Fun vs Good" Question

Coaches sometimes worry about the tension between making sessions fun and making them effective. This is a false dilemma.

The best training sessions are enjoyable precisely because they are well designed. Athletes enjoy being appropriately challenged. They enjoy making decisions and solving problems. They enjoy improving.

However, there is a distinction worth making:

Fun without learning is entertainment. Athletes enjoy it in the moment but do not develop. This is fine occasionally, but it is not coaching.
Learning without enjoyment is possible but unlikely to be sustained. Athletes who do not enjoy training will eventually disengage or leave.
Fun and learning together is the goal. When the session design is right, enjoyment is a natural byproduct of engagement and appropriate challenge.

If your athletes are laughing, working hard, making decisions, and improving, you have nailed it. If they are laughing but not learning, or learning but miserable, something needs adjusting.

When a Session Does Not Go to Plan

Every coach has sessions that do not work. It is not a question of if, but when and how often.

The difference between developing coaches and stagnant ones is not the frequency of poor sessions. It is what happens afterwards.

Common Reasons Sessions Fail

The activity was too complex. Athletes spent more time trying to understand the rules than practising the skill.
The challenge level was wrong. Too easy and athletes switched off. Too hard and they became frustrated.
Poor transitions killed momentum. The session had good activities but lost energy between them.
External factors. Weather, unexpected numbers, late arrivals, equipment issues. Some things are outside your control.
You were off your game. Coaches have bad days too. Your energy, preparation, and clarity all affect session quality.

What to Do About It

Acknowledge it honestly. To yourself, and sometimes to your athletes. "That did not work as I planned. Let's try something different." Athletes respect honesty far more than coaches who pretend everything is fine.
Diagnose the specific problem. Was it the activity design, the communication, the challenge level, the environment, or something else? Resist the temptation to write off the whole session. Find the specific point where things went wrong.
Record your diagnosis. This is where a post-session reflection habit becomes invaluable. Writing down what went wrong and why gives you data to learn from. Over time, you start to see patterns in your session failures that reveal specific areas to develop.
Adjust and try again. A failed session is only wasted if you do not learn from it.

Your Self-Assessment Checklist

After each session, score yourself honestly against these seven ingredients. You do not need a formal rubric. Simply ask yourself:

Did I have clear objectives, and did the session address them?
Was the challenge level appropriate for this group?
Were athletes engaged for the majority of the session?
Did athletes have opportunities to make decisions?
Was the environment positive and safe to fail in?
Were my transitions smooth and efficient?
Were my coaching interventions purposeful and brief?

You will not score perfectly on all seven every time. That is not the point. The point is to build awareness of what worked and what did not, so that tomorrow's session is slightly better than today's.

Track Your Sessions Over Time

If you want a structured way to evaluate your sessions against these criteria and track your development over time, [Coach Reflection](https://coachreflection.com) is built for exactly this purpose. It gives you guided prompts after every session, helps you identify patterns in what works and what does not, and turns your coaching experience into genuine development. Start for free at [coachreflection.com](https://coachreflection.com).

What Makes a Good Training Session?