How athletes and coaches review a monthly report
A 30-minute routine for reading a monthly ski racing performance report together and agreeing one action.
A monthly report brings a month of athlete entries, coach observations and agreed actions together. Its value comes from the conversation it starts. The IOC consensus statement on load in sport recommends monitoring both training load and how athletes respond to it, including athletes’ own reports (Soligard et al., 2016).
A 30-minute review in six steps
- Read separately first (10 minutes). Athlete and coach each note one thing that surprised them.
- Start with the summary on the first page. The colour bars show sleep, energy and training regularity against their targets — green on target, amber watch, red improve. Then the overview: how many entries, which day types, how much training time. Entry counts are not a measure of work quality, and missing entries are not interpreted as absence.
- Compare both views. Where do the athlete’s and the coach’s entries agree? Where do they differ? A difference is a starting point for discussion, not a judgement of who is right. Compare the errors too: which did you both notice, and which did only the coach see?
- Look at patterns with care. A pattern — for example lower energy after poor sleep — is an association, not a cause. Small samples are marked as insufficient.
- Review last month’s actions. Was each one done? What was the outcome against the review criterion?
- Agree one action. One change, who is responsible, how you will know it worked and a review date.
- Overview
- 14 athlete entries, 12 coach entries, 2 race days.
- Agreement
- Both see smoother transitions in the second half of the month.
- Difference
- Nick rates his focus lower on race days than the coach expected.
- Pattern
- Lower energy after nights under 7 hours — 4 entries only, marked as insufficient.
- Last action
- “One cue before each start” — completed; Nick could explain the cue after 9 of 10 runs.
- New action
- Same cue in races plus one breath after a mistake; review after the next two races.
In DOME5 the coach proposes the action in Actions and reviews, and the athlete approves it — for athletes up to U14 a guardian can approve it too. It appears in the next report with its status. The same routine works for quarterly, six-month and annual reports. Parents receive a version of the report without diary entries.
A report supports the conversation between athlete and coach. It cannot predict results or replace medical advice.