Moving Ailsa From Good to Great
When I started coaching Ailsa in 2022, I wasn’t really coaching Ailsa the athlete yet.
At that point, ring muscle-ups were inconsistent, bar muscle-ups were often haunted by chicken wings, and her strength and weightlifting numbers were shy of where they needed to be. Today, all of those numbers look very different.
But what changed those numbers wasn’t just hard work and consistency, although she has plenty of both, probably enough to spare for those who need it. What truly moved the needle was a deep shift in mindset and in how she approached the journey and the sport itself.
By the end of 2022, Ailsa and I had a long and intense conversation in a coffee shop in London. It wasn’t tactical. It wasn’t emotional. It was honest.
The point was simple: a day has 24 hours, a week has 7 days, and high-level performance doesn’t bend around life; it usually asks life to bend around it.
It was a frustrating conversation for both of us. We compared her situation to athletes who were already living the outcome she dreamed of, and we took mental notes: how much they trained, how often they competed, and how deeply their lives were organised around the sport.
As we walked out of the coffee shop, Ailsa said something important:
“I’m not giving up on my career. I don’t think I have to. I may never reach my goal, but I’ll keep training hard, and I want to see how far I can go.”
The months that followed weren’t easy, but that’s not what this story is about.
Fast forward to early 2024, and Ailsa is a very different athlete. Not because she suddenly started training more, but because she started training better.
What truly moved her from good to great was her mindset.
Here’s what changed:
She stopped comparing herself to other athletes.
She became more optimistic and constructive about her journey.
She accepted her weaknesses and actively asked for more work where she struggled.
She became highly organised to avoid missing sessions.
Her training volume stayed the same, but the quality of her work increased.
Feedback stopped being something she heard... It became something she applied immediately.
She became curious, asking why exercises existed, why rest times varied, and why weeks were structured the way they were.
She became deeply invested in planning her season with me, choosing competitions intentionally and understanding when we were peaking, and when we weren’t.
The more she understood the process, the more ownership she took over it.
Ailsa is proof that even with a busy life, you can still do the best possible work with the tools you have. And that mindset, how you think, how you respond, how you engage with the process, is one of the most powerful performance tools an athlete can develop.
Numbers change when training improves.
Training improves when the mindset changes.
That’s what’s moving Ailsa from good to great.
Let’s chat about your training programme.
Eddie,