10 Years Coaching with Speedworks: Here are 5 Lessons I learnt along the way and What Comes Next
- Liam Mistry
- Sep 18
- 4 min read
In 2016, I was just finishing an internship and had taken on a role at a tennis academy, coaching junior athletes. I had recently passed my UKSCA accreditation and, like most young coaches, I was hungry for experience. I didn’t know too much about Speedworks at the time—I just knew they worked with elite track athletes, and as a track athlete myself, that was more than enough to get me interested.
I thought I’d join, learn a bit about high-performance sprinting, and develop myself as both a coach and an athlete.
What followed was a decade of learning far deeper than I could have imagined—here are 5 of the key lessons I learnt along the way and what is to come next for me.
Lesson 1: Watch Movement. Again and Again.
After a year of volunteering, I was offered a permanent role at Speedworks as an assistant coach and S&C coach for the developmental group. There were others in the room who had stronger technical abilities than me. But what gave me an edge, I believe, was my coaching eye—my ability to see movement, to observe athletic needs in real-time.
That didn’t come overnight. I sharpened that skill obsessively:
I watched video in slow-mo.
I watched live, full-speed movement.
I watched from different angles.
I watched the sport—again and again.
The lesson? You can’t coach what you can’t see.
Lesson 2: The Annual Plan Isn’t All That.
At Speedworks, we rarely worked off a rigid, year-long training plan.
Instead, we focused on principles. We stayed close to the research, built systems around progressions, and adjusted constantly based on what the athletes in front of us needed.
This agile way of working trained me to coach with feel, to adjust in real time, and to drop the illusion of control that comes with overly fixed plans. The reality is: you never know what tomorrow will bring. Best you can do is be ready for it.
Lesson 3: Elite Athletes Are Always Injured.
When you’re pushing physical limits, injury isn’t the exception—it’s part of the process. And it’s not something to fear—it’s something to understand.
Over the years, we became skilled at building smart rehab programmes, integrating robust prehab, and spotting warning signs early through monitoring and movement screens. There’s real art in knowing when to push, when to hold, and how to keep athletes progressing even when they’re not 100%.
Lesson 4: Efficiency First, Always.
One of Jonas’ mantras that really stuck: efficiency over effectiveness.
It’s easy to get carried away with intensity, output, and the temptation to chase maximal effort. But what we drilled into every training block was efficiency:
Shared load.
Smooth transitions.
Positions you can return to under pressure.
From gym to track, the aim was always to chase quality reps that translated directly to performance. Over time, this approach builds not just fast athletes—but resilient ones too.
Lesson 5: Sport Isn’t Fair—But the Coach Can Be
Elite sport is unforgiving. Some athletes have the talent, others don’t. Some get lucky, others don’t. And not everyone makes it.
But everyone has a role.
We built a community where every athlete knew their place, strengths, and weaknesses—and were respected for them. The goal wasn’t just medals. It was meaning. We built a culture that was more than a training group. It was a family.
Start-Up Highs, Start-Up Lows.
Working in a fast-moving, ambitious company like Speedworks has been exciting—but also brutal at times. You pour your heart into a new product or course. You believe it’s going to help people. And sometimes... it doesn’t land.
When things flop, it’s not just your heart that sinks—it’s your confidence too.
Covid was another test. Like many coaches, we lost our jobs. I took a break from Speedworks and ended up working with an elite amateur boxer turning pro. It wasn’t glamorous, but it gave me just enough to keep going—and reminded me of something I now live by:
If you’re good to people, and you leave a positive impression, someone will always help you back up when you fall.
What It’s Like Working with Jonas Dodoo.
People ask me what it’s like working with Jonas. My first impression?
Family man.
He brought his kids to the track. World-class athletes trained with toddlers running around. It made things feel light, human.
As a mentor, Jonas is generous with his trust. He doesn’t spoon-feed you—he lets you figure things out. It’s guided discovery, not rigid rules. That freedom shaped me into the coach I am today.
Biggest lesson from him?
Develop your coaching eye.
Prioritise efficiency.
And remember—everything is sales.
The most challenging part? Keeping up with the pace.
Jonas’ brain never switches off. There’s always something new to build, test, or launch—and it always needed to be done yesterday. It was intense—but it taught me to move, think, and create fast.
What’s Next?
The next chapter for me is about coming home to what I love:
Coaching.
Treating.
Helping people move toward their goals.
But it’s also about expanding impact—especially for underrepresented communities who haven’t always had access to quality coaching or safe spaces in sport.
I want Mistry Method to be more than a service.
I want it to be a philosophy—a way of thinking, moving, and helping that makes health and performance feel personal and possible.
Here’s to the next 10 years.
To stay up to date with Mistry Method developments. More about coaching, philosophy, and wisdom check out my instagram where I aim to post weekly. Just click the link below:
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