Ever wondered how coaches actually build individualised training programs for athletes? In this post, I’ll walk you through the exact framework I use, borrowed from project management, to turn a paddler’s performance goals into a structured training plan that keeps them progressing week after week.
It breaks down into five phases: Initiating, Planning, Execution, Monitoring & Controlling, and Closing.
Phase 1: Initiating – Gathering the Right Information
Everything starts with information. Before I write a single session, I need to understand the athlete as a whole person, not just as a set of performance numbers.
Here’s what goes into that intake:
- Training history – what have they done before, and how did their body respond?
- Medical and injury history – anything I need to program around
- Time constraints – work and family commitments. There’s no point programming a Tuesday session for someone who isn’t free on Tuesdays
- Preferred training days and when they’d rather protect time for work or family
- Rest day preferences
- The goal or target event – where do they want to end up?
- Gear and access – boat, paddle, and available strength equipment.
- Training location – estuary, lake, ocean, or ergo access all change what’s possible
- Monitoring devices – Garmin, Strava, or similar, so we have a way to track data once the program is underway
- Preferred communication style – weekly calls, Google Meet, phone, or messaging. This is one of the most commonly overlooked parts of onboarding an athlete, and getting it wrong quietly undermines everything else
I also have a variety of programmes, gym sessions, and technique courses you can use as a strong paddler member. You can use these to start and adjust if needed based on your own circumstances.
Baselining and Testing
One of the most important parts of this phase is establishing where the athlete currently sits relative to their goal. breaking down performance down into buckets: Such as speed, strength, endurance, event-specific skill, technique.
Event-specific skill looks completely different depending on the discipline:
- Downwinding – how well they read waves and chop, and how effectively they catch runs
- Sprint – start execution, pace-holding, finishing ability, and K1 balance
- River racing – river-reading skill and the ability to get down safely
For most athletes, a simple self-evaluation questionnaire is enough. No need for lactate testing or max testing unless we’re working at a higher performance level. I’ll often map results on a spider diagram or ladder against the athlete’s goal, which shows us exactly where the gaps are: what needs the most work to move the needle, and what strengths need to be maintained rather than neglected.
Need help with structuring the your training plan using the training content inside the strong paddler website, check out the guided plan. I help you every month, evaluate the month just gone and plan the month ahead.
Phase 2: Planning – Building the Program Structure
With the information gathered, it’s time to build the actual plan. This happens across three levels:
Macrocycle: the big-picture, zoomed-out plan. Where are we now, and what’s the end goal? This might span a few months, or in the case of an Olympic cycle, a few years.
Mesocycle: How the plan shifts from event to event. Not every race carries equal weight, so an A-event gets different preparation from a B or C event, and training focus shifts accordingly between them.
Microcycle: the weekly structure. This is where periodisation really lives: how many high-intensity sessions fit into the week, where recovery needs to sit after hard efforts, and when it’s time for a deload week versus a high-load week.
I phase the training focus itself. A block might emphasise strength, another might prioritise endurance volume, another might zero in on race pace work and what that looks like differs hugely between a K1 sprinter, an ocean paddler, and a river paddler.
Initiating and Planning are where the bulk of a coach’s work happens, gathering information and turning it into a plan the athlete can actually stick to.
Phase 3: Execution – Doing the Work
This is simply the athlete going out and doing the program. If Phases 1 and 2 were done properly, execution should largely run close to the plan as possible with the right amount of flexibility/adjustment and feel achievable.
Phase 4: Monitoring & Controlling – Adapting in Real Time
Things get in the way. Weather, illness, injury, training rarely goes exactly to plan. The best programs aren’t rigid; they get adjusted based on real-time feedback from the athlete.
Here’s what I track to inform those adjustments:
- Training load scores (e.g. chronic vs. short-term load) to see whether an athlete is in a productive training window, a recovery window, overreaching, or under-loading
- HRV (heart rate variability) a strong indicator of parasympathetic (recovery) activation versus sympathetic (stress) dominance. Higher variability generally signals good recovery capacity
- RPE (rate of perceived exertion) always cross-checked against the wearable data, since devices can throw off invalid readings. How the athlete actually feels matters just as much as what the watch says
- Resting and max heart rate trends a flattening heart rate response in sessions can be an early sign of accumulated fatigue
- Total time and total kilometres simple, reliable ways to track and progressively overload volume
One important coaching note: fatigue doesn’t always show up immediately. An athlete can feel great right after a hard session and only feel the true cost one or two days later. That’s exactly why programmed structure matters, pushing hard because you feel good in the moment can stack fatigue that hits days down the track.
Need a program built around your goal and limitations that is structured to maximise your potential. One on one coaching is the ultimate tool for success.
Phase 5: Closing – Reviewing and Feeding Forward
Every program ends with a review: what worked, what didn’t. That feedback becomes the starting point for the next Initiating phase and the next program, building toward the athlete’s next goal.
Want a training program built around this exact framework? Get in touch through Strong Paddler and let’s talk about your goals. Or check out the Strong Paddler Membership for training sessions and programs built for paddlers just like you.