Des joined Arsenal FC in February 2013 after a successful strength and conditioning career in the rugby world. At Arsenal, Des is the head of the academy sport medicine and sport science department. He oversees the physical development of players aged from 8 to 23. During his time at Arsenal, Des has helped develop the approach, size of the department and the facilities at the academy. This has helped support a number of players graduate from the academy to the first team.

Des has completed a Masters in Strength and Conditioning and is also a tutor with the IRFU, Setanta College and a tutor trainer with World Rugby. He has been UKSCA accredited since 2008 and in 2016 Des completed the BASES high performance sport accreditation and charted scientist accreditation. He has a keen interest in the area of developing a player over a long term and has presented at many conferences around the world over the last few years.

Quotes

"Rugby pushing the guys out of the gym whereas in football you’re pushing them into the gym"

"Aim (for players) is fantastic skill and fantastic physical condition"

"You invest in an academy, you get a lot out of it!"

"Excellence does take time especially in high skill sports and we do need that time with them so that will lean specialising early..."

"Mol on oigie agus tiociagh si (Praise youth and they will flourish)"

"We can move the players up and down (squads, programs) based on physical maturation but we cannot neglect tehcnical, tactical and pyschological maturation"

"Be a generalist before becoming a specialist and methodology before technology!"

"Don’t wrestle pigs - you get dirty and the pigs like it"

"Our job to energse people, to be creative, to avoid conflict and to be positive and you can’t do that, if you have a poor work life balance"

"One session where you’re buzzing and the players are buzzing are worth ten sessions just going through the motions"

Shownotes

1) How Des got started and his move from Irish Rugby to the English Premier League 3:20

2) The different phytsical qualities for rugby union & soccer / football - rugby 70% physical 30% skill; football 70% skill 30% physical 7:25

3) Des' 3 rules with coaches, how to educate but not confuse the coach and marrying technical/tactical development with physical development 12:15

4) Understanding coaches' inspirations and influencers 15:50

5) The Arsenal FC Academy set up - all the way from 6-23 years old 18:30

6) The problems with a lot of Academies - under investment and inexperience 21:20

7) Early specialisation is categorically bad from research but skill takes time so... 23:30

8)Monitoring workloads through high growth periods and Arsenal FC's hybrid model 27:25

9) Some different models of developing athletes and the best bits of each model 30:50

10) Arsenal FC's four pillared "arrow" approach - get athletes to the next level as quickly and efficiently as possible 35:15

11) Methods of measuring biologocal maturation 37:10

12) S&C staff should be generalists before specialists 41:30

13) Des' 3 rules for buy in and 3 rules for dealing with athletes 50:35

14) Work life balance and career progression for strength & conditioning coaches 59:00

15) Don’t make too big a change in too little a time and keep people in the loop 1:10:45

16) Des' favourite books including Dietrich Hare's Principles of Sports Training 1:15:20

People Mentioned

Liam Hennessy

Christaino Ronaldo

Per Mertescaker

Darren Burgess

Dave Fagan

Istvan Balyi

Rhodri Lloyd

John Oliver

Dave Collins

Kelvin Giles

Dietrich Hare

Sean Cummings

Stuart MacMillan

Ian Jeffreys

Dan Baker