Something I hear occasionally from coaches doesn’t surprise me anymore. It goes something like: “My athletes just can’t seem to train without me.” They say it with a kind of pride. A quiet pride, but pride nonetheless.
It’s not something to be proud of.
If your athlete cannot function without you in the room, you haven’t built a great athlete. You’ve built a dependency. And dependency isn’t coaching — it’s control dressed up as support.
This post is about one of the things I feel most strongly about in everything I do: the idea that the goal of a great coach is, eventually, to make themselves unnecessary.
The Dependency Trap
It’s more common than people admit. Coach and athlete develop a relationship. The athlete trusts the coach. The athlete performs well when the coach is there. And gradually — almost without anyone noticing — the athlete stops being able to perform when the coach isn’t.
They don’t know how to warm up without being told. They can’t make a session decision when the programming doesn’t quite fit how they’re feeling that day. They have no sense of what their own body is telling them, because they’ve been taught to look outward for every answer rather than developing the internal read that actually lasts.
I’ve worked with athletes who came to me from other coaches in exactly this state. Technically capable in the right environment. Completely lost outside it.
That’s not coaching. That’s a leash.
Why Some Coaches Do It
I don’t think most coaches create dependency deliberately. Some do — the insecurity piece is real, and I’ve seen coaches who are very invested in being needed, because being needed feels like value. But for most, it’s more subtle than that.
New coaches default to instruction. They tell athletes what to do and the athletes do it. That works in the short term. The lifter improves. The coach feels effective. Everybody’s happy. Nobody pauses to ask the question that should follow every successful set: does this athlete understand what just happened, and could they reproduce it without me?
If the answer is no — keep working.
The tell is what happens when a session doesn’t go to plan. When the prescribed weights feel off, when something’s not moving right, when the athlete has to make a decision in the moment. A dependent athlete freezes. An educated athlete adapts.
What Independence Actually Looks Like in Practice
In my sessions, I’ll ask an athlete to warm up. I’ll have a rough idea of what I expect to see, but I want them to feel their way through it. To notice what’s tight. To notice what’s ready. To make a call about where today starts.
Then I ask questions. Not “why didn’t you do X?” — genuine questions. How did that feel? Where do you think the bar path went? What would you change on the next set if it were just you in here?
I’m building the internal conversation. The one they’ll have with themselves at 6am when they’re training alone, or on competition day when I’m in the crowd and they’re under the bar.
Competition day is the real test of a coaching relationship. If they need me to tell them what to do with the bar, we’ve failed somewhere.
The lifter walks out to the platform and I can’t touch them. Whatever I’ve put in is already in there. If they can make their own calls, read the situation, adapt to a red light or a missed lift, and come back for the next attempt composed — that’s what years of building independence actually looks like.
The Education Component
I talk about this when I deliver coaching education for British Weightlifting and British Powerlifting. It’s something I feel strongly about at Level 2 and beyond.
Athletes need to understand what’s happening, not just comply with what’s prescribed.
Velocity-based training, for example, isn’t just a tool I use to monitor an athlete’s readiness. It’s something I explain to the athlete. I want them to understand that bar speed tells us something real about where they are today. I want them to be able to look at the data and make an inference. Not to programme themselves from scratch — that’s not the point — but to build the self-awareness that makes them a better participant in the process.
An athlete who understands why they’re doing what they’re doing trains differently to one who’s just following instructions. The intent is higher. The engagement is different. And when something doesn’t go to plan, they have context to work with rather than confusion.
That’s not a complex educational programme. It’s a conversation. About what you’re feeling, what the data is showing, and whether those two things are telling the same story. That conversation, repeated over months and years, is how you build an athlete who thinks.
This Applies Well Beyond the Gym
I spend a lot of time with coaches and business owners, not just athletes. The dependency pattern shows up just as often outside the gym.
Leaders who build teams that can’t operate without them. Mentors who keep clients coming back by drip-feeding answers instead of building capacity. Entrepreneurs who become bottlenecks in their own businesses because they never taught anyone else how to think through a problem.
In every case, the short-term dynamic looks like success. The leader feels valued. The mentor feels needed. But the long-term cost is always the same — nothing grows without them, and eventually everything stops working when they’re not there.
The people I respect most in any field — coaching, business, military leadership — are the ones building something that functions beyond them. Institutions, not dependencies. Systems, not habits that only work when one person is in the room.
That’s what #BeAGoodHuman looks like in a coaching context. The easy path is to keep people close and keep them needing you. The harder path is to invest in them so thoroughly that they don’t need you anymore — and be genuinely glad when they get there.
The Moment You Know It’s Working
There are athletes at Crazy Strength who’ve been with us for years. They train sometimes with me in the room, sometimes without. They send programme updates. They make adjustments. They ask good questions and they come with well-reasoned thinking about why.
I didn’t do that for them. I built the environment where they could build it for themselves.
A few of them now help coach others. Some have moved away and train somewhere else entirely. I don’t take that as a loss. I take it as evidence that something worked.
The athlete who steps onto the platform, competes well, and afterwards says “I knew what to do” — that’s the job.
What I’d Say to Any Coach Reading This
Be careful with how much you enjoy being needed. It’s a human thing — the feeling of being essential is warm and affirming. But it is not the same as being effective.
Effective coaches make themselves progressively less necessary by building athletes who can eventually operate without them. The dependency coaches keep people close by ensuring they can’t.
Spend twenty minutes this week asking your athletes questions instead of giving answers. Ask how it felt. Ask what they noticed. Ask what they’d do differently if you weren’t there.
You’ll learn something about your athletes. You’ll learn something about yourself too.
Craig Spicer is the founder and head coach at Crazy Strength, Amesbury. He delivers coaching education for British Weightlifting and British Powerlifting and has 25 years of experience coaching athletes at every level. Follow @craig.spicer on Instagram.
There’s a particular kind of frustration that doesn’t announce itself loudly. It builds quietly, over months, through small moments that individually seem manageable but collectively start to wear at something fundamental in you. The moment you name it, everything becomes clearer.
This post is about accountability. Not the corporate buzzword version. The real kind — where words have weight, actions have consequences, and people are expected to stand behind both. Follow along at @craig.spicer where I share the unfiltered reality of leadership and what it actually takes to build something that lasts.
The Kind Person’s Dilemma
I’ve spent the better part of my life trying to look after people. It’s not a strategy — it’s just who I am. I’m laid-back by nature, I genuinely care about the people around me, and I will go out of my way to support, encourage, and invest in others. Most people who know me well would tell you the same.
What I’ve learned — particularly over the last 12 months — is that some people read that as permission.
Not consciously, perhaps. But somewhere along the line, kindness gets mistaken for compliance. A relaxed manner gets read as indifference to standards. And when you eventually respond with the same directness that’s been directed at you, or when you hold someone to something they said or did, the reaction is one of genuine surprise.
As if the rules only applied one way.
A Difficult 12 Months — And What It Revealed
I’ll be honest with you. The last six to twelve months have been some of the most demanding I can remember. Business pressures, a significant move, rising costs, and the kind of accumulated stress that doesn’t always show on the surface but absolutely affects how you show up day to day.
During that period, I wasn’t always as robust as I needed to be. I let some things go that I shouldn’t have. I absorbed more than I should have absorbed. And in doing so, I inadvertently gave some people the impression that the standards I hold — for myself and for those around me — had softened.
They hadn’t. I had just been running low.
The last two to three weeks have felt different. I’m back. Recalibrated, clear-headed, and reminded of exactly what I stand for. And with that clarity has come a sharper view of a pattern I’d been too stretched to address properly — people who are very comfortable saying and doing whatever they like, right up until the moment they’re held to it.
The Accountability Gap
Accountability isn’t a punishment. It’s a basic feature of any functioning relationship, team, or organisation. You say something — you own it. You do something — you own that too. The consequences of your words and actions belong to you, whether you intended them or not.
What I’ve encountered repeatedly in recent months is a significant gap between people’s willingness to act freely and their willingness to accept the consequences of that freedom.
People say things carelessly, then reframe them when challenged. People make commitments, then act as though the commitment was never made. And when you respond — calmly, clearly, and with the expectation that they stand behind what they said — the reaction is often one of offence.
It’s a revealing moment. Because the people who struggle most with being held accountable are almost always the people who’ve never genuinely had to be.
Opinions Are a Two-Way Street
This is the part I want to be particularly clear about.
I have no issue with people sharing their views. Healthy disagreement is one of the most valuable things that can happen in any conversation. I actively encourage it. What I do take issue with is the specific dynamic where someone feels entirely comfortable telling me what I should be doing, where I’m going wrong, or what the right answer is — and then becomes visibly uncomfortable the moment I disagree, push back, or offer a perspective rooted in my own experience.
Because that experience is not insignificant.
Twenty-five years working across national governing bodies, the British military, building sports programmes from the ground up, developing coaches, running a business — that body of work earns a perspective worth hearing. It doesn’t make me infallible. It doesn’t mean I’m always right. But it does mean that when I offer a view, it comes from somewhere real.
Experience doesn’t make you arrogant. It makes you qualified. And there’s a meaningful difference between the two.
If you’re going to offer an opinion, be prepared to receive one. If you’re going to challenge someone’s thinking, be prepared to have your own challenged in return. That’s not aggression — that’s an honest conversation between adults.
What Holding People Accountable Actually Looks Like
There’s a version of accountability that people fear — aggressive, personal, point-scoring. That’s not what I’m talking about.
Holding someone accountable, done properly, is measured. It’s clear. It’s direct without being cruel. It says: “You said this. You did this. I’m not going to pretend otherwise, and I’m not going to lower my standards to make you more comfortable.”
The key distinction
Reacting is emotional and immediate. Responding is considered and intentional. When I hold someone to their words or actions, it comes from a place of principle, not frustration.
Being robust is not the same as being unkind. You can be warm and firm at the same time. In fact, the most respectful thing you can do for another person is take them seriously enough to expect them to own what they’ve said and done. Letting people off the hook isn’t kindness — it’s just easier.
Getting Back in the Game
The last few weeks have reminded me of something important. Standards don’t disappear during hard periods — they just become harder to maintain. And when you come back to yourself after a difficult stretch, you see very clearly what was allowed to slip and what needs to be recalibrated.
This post isn’t a rant. It’s a reminder — for me as much as anyone reading it.
- Own your words.
- Own your actions.
- Expect others to do the same.
- When they don’t — be measured, be clear, and hold the line.
That’s not a personality flaw. That’s leadership.
For more on how I think about leadership, accountability, and building something real, head over to the Crazy Strength blog — including my recent post on knowing when to lead and when to follow.
Your Move
Think about one conversation or situation in the last month where you let something go that you shouldn’t have. Not because it wasn’t worth addressing — but because it felt easier not to.
What would it look like to go back and hold that line, calmly and clearly?
That’s where this starts. Connect with me at @craig.spicer — I’d genuinely like to hear where this lands for you.