As a coach, I often told people that I could assess whether an athlete was likely to succeed from the first time they walked into the gym.
At the time, I thought this was instinct—some mysterious coaching ability developed through years of experience. Looking back, I believe the explanation was much simpler. I was not predicting talent. I was recognising intent.
Some athletes entered the gym as though they had somewhere to go. They listened carefully, watched others, asked useful questions and approached even simple exercises with concentration. They did not need to be constantly reminded why they were there.
Others were physically present but mentally elsewhere.
This difference was often visible before anyone lifted a weight, ran a lap or demonstrated a particular skill. It appeared in how athletes prepared, how they responded to instruction and how seriously they treated the opportunity in front of them.
The question is whether that first impression really tells us anything about an athlete’s future.
The argument for intent
High-level sport requires far more than attending training.
Two athletes may complete the same session, but they may not receive the same benefit from it. One simply completes the prescribed repetitions. The other connects every repetition to a purpose: improving technique, correcting an error, testing a tactical decision or preparing for a particular competitive situation.
The physical activity may look similar. The learning taking place is not.
This is consistent with the concept of deliberate practice developed by psychologist K. Anders Ericsson and his colleagues. Deliberate practice is purposeful, demanding and directed towards improvement. It involves clear objectives, concentration, feedback and repeated attempts to correct weaknesses. It is quite different from simply accumulating training hours.
This distinction matters because sport does not reward attendance. It rewards adaptation.
Athletes who train with intent are more likely to:
- understand the purpose of each activity;
- remain engaged when training becomes repetitive;
- seek and apply feedback;
- recognise small technical errors;
- persist when improvement is slow;
- accept responsibility for their own development; and
- reproduce disciplined behaviours under competitive pressure.
Competition must also be approached with intent. An athlete who merely participates may gain experience, but an athlete who competes with a clear tactical purpose learns far more. Every contest becomes a source of information: What worked? What failed? What changed under pressure? What must be addressed in the next training cycle?
This is where attitude becomes more than enthusiasm. It becomes a practical performance capability.
Research broadly supports the importance of this type of purposeful practice. However, it also introduces an important qualification. A major meta-analysis found that deliberate practice explained approximately 18 per cent of the differences in sporting performance. That is significant, but it leaves most of the variation unexplained. Among elite athletes, where almost everyone has already completed substantial amounts of serious training, deliberate practice alone explained considerably less. (Macnamara, Moreau and Hambrick, 2016)
Intent therefore matters greatly, but it is not the whole story.
The argument against the premise
The danger begins when a coach turns an early observation into a final judgement.
An athlete may appear uncertain during a first session because the environment is unfamiliar. A young person from a disadvantaged background may lack confidence, suitable clothing, prior instruction or the social ease displayed by athletes who have grown up inside organised sport.
None of these things necessarily indicates a lack of ambition.
Personality also complicates the picture. Some athletes express commitment loudly and visibly. Others are quiet, cautious and internally driven. A coach can easily mistake confidence for potential—or compliance for commitment.
There are also many factors that cannot be seen when someone first enters a gym: biological maturation, health, recovery capacity, coordination, access to nutrition, family support, financial resources, quality of coaching and the opportunity to compete regularly.
Athlete development is rarely linear. Research comparing development pathways found that many senior world-class athletes specialised later, participated in several sports and initially progressed more slowly than athletes who achieved success at junior or national level. Early progress, therefore, is not always a reliable indication of the highest eventual performance. (Güllich and colleagues, 2022)
There is another danger for coaches. Once we decide that an athlete “has it,” we may give that person more attention, better feedback and greater competitive opportunities. The athlete then improves, partly because our original judgement changed the environment around them.
The reverse is equally possible. An athlete judged too early as lacking potential may receive fewer opportunities and eventually confirm the coach’s expectation.
What looks like accurate talent identification may sometimes be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
What was I actually seeing?
I still believe that an experienced coach can recognise something important during an athlete’s first session.
It is visible in the athlete who listens when no one is watching, completes the final repetition with the same care as the first, responds constructively to correction and wants to understand why an exercise matters.
These behaviours do not guarantee greatness. They indicate readiness to learn.
Perhaps that is the more defensible version of my original claim. I could not know from the first day whether an athlete would reach the top. I could often recognise whether the athlete already possessed—or was beginning to demonstrate—the habits that make sustained improvement possible.
The distinction is important.
Talent may determine what is physically possible. Opportunity determines whether that possibility can be explored. Coaching influences how effectively it is developed. Intent determines what the athlete does with all three.
The responsibility of the coach
Coaches should observe intent, but we should also help create it.
A poorly designed session can make even committed athletes disengage. If athletes do not understand the purpose of an activity, receive no meaningful feedback and cannot see how the work connects to competition, their lack of focus may partly reflect the coaching environment.
Training with intent requires the coach to provide:
- a clear purpose for each session;
- specific performance objectives;
- activities connected to competition;
- timely and honest feedback;
- opportunities for athlete reflection; and
- standards that are consistently applied.
The practical question at the end of training should not be, “Did we complete the programme?”
It should be, “What did we improve today, and how do we know?”
I remain convinced that intent is one of the clearest early signs of sporting potential. Yet experience has also taught me to be careful. A first impression should begin a coaching enquiry, not conclude a selection decision.
Great athletes do not simply train more. They learn more from their training. They do not merely enter competitions. They compete with a purpose.
The athlete who walks into the gym with intent has already taken an important first step. The role of the coach is to recognise it, develop it—and remain open to the possibility that it may also emerge in someone we initially overlooked.
