Monitoring & Communication
How coaches detect meaningful change, monitor adherence, and why communication between coach and athlete is critical to the entire training load process.
Source: PhD Thesis, Chapter 2 · §2.8–§2.11 · Deakin University Repository →
This page is adapted from the Literature Review of Leighton Wells' doctoral thesis: Triathlon Coaching Practices — Optimising Training Load Processes and Communication. Read the full thesis →
Monitoring: comparing what was planned with what happened
Monitoring training load involves comparing prescribed and actual load to assess adherence — did the athlete do what was planned?115 It also involves tracking the relationship between external and internal load over time to detect changes in the athlete's response.32
Effective monitoring requires understanding what constitutes meaningful change. The smallest worthwhile change (SWC) and coefficient of variation (CV) are used to determine whether observed changes represent a real physiological shift or merely normal biological variability.116,117
Longitudinal monitoring reveals trends — is the athlete adapting positively? Is there an accumulation of fatigue? Are subjective wellbeing scores declining? These trends inform management decisions.118
Monitoring is not just dashboards and graphs. It's asking: did the athlete do the session as prescribed? If not, why? And if so, how was it tolerated? Understanding smallest worthwhile change prevents coaches from reacting to noise and missing signal.
Management: making decisions from the data
Load management is the decision-making process that follows monitoring. Based on whether load is being tolerated, the coach adjusts future prescriptions — increasing, maintaining, or reducing load.119
This may include modifying session intensity, volume, or frequency; adjusting recovery periods; or changing non-training factors such as nutrition and sleep recommendations.48 The management step closes the feedback loop established by the four-step process: prescribe → measure → monitor → manage.32
Management is where coaching judgement lives. The data informs; the coach decides. This is the step where experience, intuition, and athlete knowledge matter most — and where the gap between 'data-rich' and 'insight-rich' coaching becomes visible.
What coaches actually weigh when managing load
Roos et al. surveyed elite coaches to identify which factors they consider most important when making load management decisions. The findings reveal that subjective athlete feedback and perceived well-being rank alongside — and in some cases above — objective training data.119
Coaches' Rated Importance of Load Management Factors
The key insight from this data: athlete wellbeing ranks at or above training intensity and volume as a management factor. The best coaches are not just reading dashboards — they are reading people. TMS platform data, while useful, ranks lowest. This reinforces the thesis finding that communication and subjective assessment are central to effective load management.
Communication: the under-researched connective tissue
Communication between coach and athlete is foundational to the entire training load process.120 Quality relationships facilitate trust, openness, and feedback — all of which improve the accuracy and effectiveness of load monitoring and management.121
Athletes who feel the coach "knows them" — understands not just their physiology but their life context, motivation, and personality — are more likely to communicate honestly about fatigue, illness, and wellbeing.122 Open communication enables earlier detection of overreaching and better-informed management decisions.
Despite its importance, communication within the training load process is markedly under-researched.123 This was identified as a key gap in the literature and directly informed the design of the thesis studies. The thesis argues that communication is not separate from the four-step process — it pervades all four steps.124
This is arguably the most important insight in the entire literature review for practising coaches: the quality of your communication directly determines the quality of your monitoring and management. Technology enables data collection — but the athlete's willingness to share what the data can't capture depends on trust.
"Communication within the training load process is markedly under-researched. This gap directly informed the design of the thesis studies."
— Wells, 2024. Triathlon Coaching Practices, §2.10
Key takeaways
Monitoring is comparison, not collection
Collecting data is not monitoring. Monitoring means comparing prescribed vs actual load, tracking EL/IL relationships, and detecting meaningful change via SWC and CV.
Management closes the feedback loop
Decision-making based on monitoring data completes the four-step process. This is where coaching judgement, experience, and athlete knowledge are most critical.
Communication is the connective tissue
Quality communication enables honest athlete feedback, earlier detection of overreaching, and better-informed management decisions. It pervades all four steps of the load process.
This page draws on the Literature Review of Leighton Wells' doctoral thesis and the work of the researchers cited below, whose contributions have shaped the fields of load monitoring, athlete management, and coach-athlete communication.
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- 122Trust within the coach-athlete relationship through digital communication. Trust and Communication. Springer. 2021;273–93. ↩
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- 124Triathlon Coaching Practices — Optimising Training Load Processes and Communication. PhD Thesis, Deakin University. 2024. Repository → ↩