Lost Again? Here’s What Makes an Athlete Hard to Beat.

There is an athlete on almost every team who looks strong in training but struggles in competition. They know the techniques. They challenge their teammates. Then tournament day comes, and they hesitate, freeze, or repeat a mistake they thought they had corrected.

Another loss follows. Confidence starts to disappear.

As a coach, I want to understand what is happening before deciding what needs to change. Repeated losses deserve investigation. Simply telling someone to train harder may miss the problem.

1. Start by Understanding the Problem

The first thing I review is consistency. Has the athlete been training regularly? Do their expectations match their preparation? Someone who trains occasionally cannot reasonably expect the same development as someone who follows a structured programme consistently.

But attendance is only the beginning. An athlete can come to class every day without working toward anything specific.

What are they trying to improve? Are they practising their game plan? Are they listening to feedback and applying it?

In 2016, researchers Brooke Macnamara, David Moreau, and David Hambrick, affiliated with Case Western Reserve University, the University of Auckland, and Michigan State University, published a meta-analysis examining deliberate practice and sports performance. Their findings showed that structured practice matters, but it does not explain every difference in performance. Preparation has several contributing factors.

Research reference: The Relationship Between Deliberate Practice and Performance in Sports — PubMed

When an athlete keeps losing from the same position, we need to turn that pattern into a training objective. Improve the sweep. Refine the takedown. Practise the escape. Work on each weakness individually, then connect it back to the whole game.

“Get better” is too vague. “Recognise this grip, establish this position, and finish this movement against resistance” gives us something we can actually work on.

2. Train With Purpose, Not Just Repetition

At ATRIXION, we use situational training to put those decisions under pressure. We start athletes in difficult positions and give them specific problems to solve. They need opportunities to practise their response when an opponent is resisting and the first attempt fails.

The pressure must suit the athlete’s level. The purpose is to create a challenge they can learn from, with feedback and opportunities to try again.

Patience matters throughout this process. You cannot demand immediate results from yourself while learning skills that take time to develop. You also have to accept that competition includes losing. Even a well-prepared athlete can face a better opponent on the day.

In my experience, repeated competition can help athletes become more familiar with the environment: the waiting, the warm-up, the referee, the unfamiliar opponent. That familiarity develops at different speeds. We choose competition opportunities according to readiness and recovery, while looking at progress across a season.

A medal tells us the outcome. We also need to examine the performance.

Did the athlete attempt the takedown we practised? Did they recover after conceding points? Did they make a clearer decision under pressure?

Those details help us understand whether our work is moving them forward.

3. Understand the Mental Side of Competition

Sometimes the biggest obstacle is emotional.

An athlete may feel comfortable in the academy because they know everyone. In competition, the setting changes. They may worry about disappointing their coach, their parents, or themselves. They may train alongside successful teammates and feel ashamed that their own results look different.

That is when I ask:

“What are you feeling? What is going through your mind?”

We need to listen to the answer. Access to classes and experienced coaches does not remove the need to examine how an individual athlete experiences our environment.

In 2017, Yago Ramis and colleagues at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona published a study involving 1,166 athletes aged 9–18. Athletes who perceived their coaches as more controlling reported greater competitive anxiety.

This was an association, rather than proof that coaching behaviour alone caused the anxiety, but it gives coaches a reason to examine how we communicate.

Research reference: The Effect of Coaches’ Controlling Style on the Competitive Anxiety of Young Athletes — Frontiers in Psychology

4. The Role of Parents in an Athlete’s Development

Parents have a powerful role too. Most want the best for their children. But disappointment can come out in words such as, “Again? You made the same mistake,” or, “You still couldn’t beat that person?”

A child can hear those comments as a judgment of their worth.

In 2026, Ziyang Zhang, Zhaoyuan Chen, and Lu Peng, affiliated with Foshan University in China and Kangwon National University in South Korea, published a study of 492 adolescent tennis players, with an average age of approximately 13 years.

Higher perceived parental expectations were associated with greater pre-competition anxiety. Because this was questionnaire-based research in tennis, it cannot establish cause and effect or explain every jiu-jitsu athlete’s experience. It does, however, reinforce the importance of examining family pressure.

Research reference: Frontiers in Psychology — 2026 Study on Parental Expectations and Competitive Anxiety

Parents can offer something more useful:

• “I love watching you compete.”

• “Would you like to talk about it now or later?”

• “What did you learn today?”

Coaches should still address mistakes. We owe athletes honest feedback, delivered in a form they can use.

For example: “You lost the position when your grip opened. Let’s work on keeping that connection.”

The goal is not to avoid criticism. It is to make feedback constructive, specific, and useful.

5. A Personal Lesson From Competition

My daughter Jamilah gave me a personal example this season. She experienced several losses during the KMBZ circuit. There were podium finishes, but also tournaments where she left disappointed.

Before the final round, we focused on specific areas. We worked on her mental readiness and a technical response: recognising an opponent’s leg attack, catching the leg when the opportunity appeared, and finishing a single-leg takedown.

We also helped her recognise the preparation she already had. She had competed repeatedly, including after losses. She understood the competition environment. She had accumulated experience she could draw on.

She was competing in the 25 kg division at her normal weight of approximately 24 kg. For children, my starting point in choosing a division is their normal weight. The category should fit the child, with healthy growth taking priority.

I reminded her of the reasons she had a chance.

She went on to execute the takedown we had practised and finished the final round with gold.

One result cannot tell us exactly how much each change contributed. But it gave us a meaningful example of identifying weaknesses, working on them, and seeing that preparation appear in competition.

6. Every Athlete Needs an Individual Approach

The same individual approach applies to training volume. A full-time adult competitor’s schedule should not become a blanket prescription for teenagers or children.

The International Olympic Committee’s 2015 consensus statement on youth athletic development, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, recommends individualised development, suitable training, adequate rest, and attention to the whole athlete.

This is an expert consensus drawing on research, rather than a single experiment.

Research reference: International Olympic Committee Consensus Statement on Youth Athletic Development — British Journal of Sports Medicine

Athletes need training that matches their stage of development, alongside appropriate recovery and support. Progress is not just about how much work someone can endure. It is also about how effectively they learn, adapt, and recover.

7. So, What Makes an Athlete Hard to Beat?

I look for the athlete who returns to the mats willing to learn. The athlete who accepts help, identifies weaknesses honestly, and works on them with purpose.

Someone who recognises that technique, physical preparation, emotional readiness, and support all deserve attention.

Persistence gives that work time to develop. It also takes judgment: sometimes the next productive step is recovery, a change in approach, or help from a qualified sports psychologist.

To the athlete thinking of quitting after another loss, my message is this:

Know yourself. Ask your coaches to help you understand where you are struggling. Make your sweep better. Make your takedown better. Build your game one area at a time.

Surround yourself with people who support your development. If pressure at home or in training is becoming difficult to manage, speak to someone you trust.

And never compare your worth or your progress with another athlete’s.

Your sister, your brother, your teammate, and the champion you admire all have different experiences, opportunities, strengths, and challenges.

You can learn from them. You can admire what they achieve. But their results do not set the deadline for your success.

Your path has value in its own right. Recognise your progress: the position you now escape, the technique you finally understand, the difficult moment you handle better than before.

Stay consistent. Stay focused. Be patient with yourself.

Never compare yourself to another athlete. Respect your own path, and keep moving forward.

Chase Greatness.

By Professor Luis Carreno