06/05/2026
Amen --no AI saying need 3 rest days now 🤣🤣🤣🤣
The Session That Makes You Who You Are 💪
Whether you're a professional athlete or fitting training around work, the kids, and everything else life throws at you, the principles that drive real performance are the same.
Think back to the most satisfying workouts you've ever done. I'd bet they weren't the fastest ones. They were the ones that really tested your resolve. The sessions where everything in you wanted to quit, and you chose not to.
There's a great story about Percy Cerutty, the legendary Australian coach behind Herb Elliott - one of the greatest middle-distance runners who ever lived, who retired unbeaten at 1500m.
One of Percy's signature sessions had no fancy name. No heart rate zones, no power targets. He called it simply the WILL POWER SET.
On a Saturday morning he'd gather his athletes at a sand dune in Portsea Australia, maybe 30 to 60 metres long, and say:
"This session is the one that makes you who you are. You only ever grow as a human being if you're outside your comfort zone."
How many reps? As many as your will allows.
That kind of session doesn't show up in modern training plans.
But it should. Because all the recovery protocols and structured periodisation in the world can't replace what happens when you really test yourself, and win.
You'll know the session when it's done. Completely spent with sweat dripping. Somewhere in that exhaustion you'll feel it: I MADE MYSELF STRONGER TODAY.
But here's what most people miss about that story.
The athletes who got the most from those Will Power sessions weren't the ones who showed up fresh for a heroic Saturday. They were the ones already showing up Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Quietly doing the work when no one was watching.
THAT is where will power is forged.
Herb Elliott didn't become unbeatable because of one magical dune session. He became unbeatable because consistency turned ordinary sessions into extraordinary ones.
For age-group athletes, the lesson is the same. The will power set isn't something you schedule for a free Saturday. It's something you EARN THE RIGHT TO DO through the weeks before.
When you've shown up tired from work, from life, from the grind and done the session anyway, you've already been doing will power training. The dune climb is just the expression of what's already been built.
A hero workout on top of nothing is just fatigue, lack of discipline and counter productive. A hard session on top of months of faithful work is TRANSFORMATION.
The best athletes don't prove themselves every day. THEY BUILD THEMSELVES EVERY DAY, and occasionally, test what they've built.
Find your consistency. Then find your sand dune.
Robbie Haywood Director of Coaching
