Dry Land to Poolside: Developing Youth Athletes at Brisbane Grammar

This episode of the ASCA High School and Youth Podcast, hosted by Sophie Pidcock and featuring guest Lara Ponsi from Brisbane Grammar School (BGS), explores the design and implementation of a long-term athletic development framework for swimmers. Lara shares how she built the BGS swim strength and conditioning program from scratch after taking on the role in 2022. The conversation covers the journey from initial challenges to establishing a structured six-squad framework that integrates dry land and gym-based training with swimming development. The discussion emphasises athlete education, general athletic development for youth, long-term progression and collaboration with swimming coaches. They also highlight practical examples like games-based training for younger athletes, gymnastics integration and the creation of a games library. The episode concludes with reflections on athlete progression, enjoyment and the importance of preparing well-rounded, confident athletes both in and out of the pool.

Highlights

Background & Context

• Lara Poncey started in 2022, taking responsibility for over 200 swimmers (ages 7–26).

• Initially, there was no clear training structure or framework across squads.

Framework Development

• Created a six-squad progression model aligned with both athletic development and swimming performance.

• Focus on long-term athlete development rather than short-term results.

• Designed to educate athletes about the “why” behind training and build confidence in the gym.

Early Stages (Micro & Junior Squads, ages 7–12)

• Goal: Build fundamental movement skills and coordination.

• Approach: Games-based, fun, low-structure “organized chaos.”

• Sessions emphasize play, agility, body control, and enjoyment.

State Development Squad (12+)

• Introduction to foundational movement patterns (squat, hinge, push, pull).

• Low load, bodyweight-based, circuit-style sessions.

National Development Squad (14–15 yrs)

• First stage in the gym setting.

• Focus on building a broad athletic base and exposure to multiple training qualities (strength, power, endurance).

• Not heavily swimming-specific; prepares athletes for any sporting pathway.

National Performance Squads (15–18 yrs)

• Increased specificity and intensity, aligned with competition schedules.

• Differentiation between age squad (strength/power development with support and guidance) and open squad (advanced training, stroke-specific focus, collaboration with head coach).

Gymnastics Integration

• Weekly sessions in the gymnastics hall focusing on handstands, rings, dynamic balance, and body control.

• Strong correlation to swimming starts, turns, and streamline positions.

• Adds variety, enjoyment, and body awareness.

Programming Philosophy

• Tailored to athlete age, development, and competition demands.

• For younger squads: term-based training with holiday breaks to avoid burnout.

• For older squads: programming coordinated with key competitions (nationals, trials).

Games Library

• Lara developed a categorized library of games (activation, invasion, core, ball, etc.).

• Provides variety, ensures coverage of different movement skills, and keeps sessions engaging.

• Mix of researched, shared, and self-created games.

Key Takeaways

• Importance of education and enjoyment at all levels.

• Building confident, resilient athletes regardless of whether they continue with swimming.

• Framework ensures progression, structure, and long-term benefits.

• Positive cultural shift: swimmers now look forward to dry land training.

Dr. Gregory Haff is the Professor of S&C and the Director of the Strength and Power Research Group at ECU. He is the author of the ‘Scientific Foundations and Practical Applications of Periodisation’ & the co-editor of the NSCA’s Essentials of S&C textbooks. A central goal of his research is to bridge the gap between scientific inquiry & practical applications, with a research focus on the periodisation of training, resistance training programming strategies, and methods of testing and monitoring of the training process. His research focuses on methodologies for testing, monitoring, and programming resistance training interventions, as well as concepts related to periodization and training theory.

QUOTES

"So they created linear position transducers, much like a gym aware, and they used it with weightlifters in particular, because obviously weightlifting, it has a speed component to it e.g., you've got to be able to move the barbell quickly and you've got to be able to move heavy loads very quickly."

"If we guided training solely by velocity, we couldn't get high end strength development. Could we improve power? Yes. Could we improve the speed of movement? Yes. Could we regulate training load? Yes. But we often missed that stimulus to actually increase maximal strength."

"So when we looked at our data, what we found is the slope of the load velocity profile changes from day to day with fatigue more dramatically than maximal strength capacity. So this is where it gets a little interesting. If I'm programming off the load velocity profile, am I actually programming off the maximal capacity or am I being hyper reactive to fatigue?"

"Velocity based training is no better than the percentage based. There's no more variability or less variability. They're about the same. So is it really adding to my training other than more expense because I've got to buy them, more technology because I need it, and more training for my staff? Potentially not."

"You might want to occasionally use a load-velocity profile to look at where the athlete's weaknesses are. It might inform you, but then you've got to contextualize it. Where am I in my training program? And what is my goal right now? So if I'm in a strength power phase and the velocity end is low, then I have got a problem. But if I'm in a hypertrophy phase and it's low… you know, I don't really care right now."

"I wouldn't use it with weightlifting exercises, especially when what I've what I found with people that use it with weightlifting exercises, they change their technique to chase speed. And what happens is they create an inefficient movement pattern."

SHOWNOTES

1) Greg’s story, from growing up in the US as a son of a Marine to becoming a leading researcher in strength science

2) The history of velocity-based training and its German / Russian origins

3) Why we might have to be careful using VBT to estimate maximal strength considering the stability of maximal strength

4) Greg’s suggested strategies around using VBT to autoregulate load plus his preference for linear position transducers over accelerometers

5) Strength stability across different exercises and the stages of over-reaching/over-training

6) How and when to apply VBT during strength training periodization and using load-velocity profiles / critical minimum velocity thresholds across different exercises

7) The cognitive load of always using VBT and its effect on motivation as well as the effect of different athlete phenotypes on VBT

8) Which exercises to use VBT with and potential applications for other populations besides athletes

9) Using VBT to monitor readiness with a set load

10) The biggest thing Greg has changed his mind on in recent times and the importance of mobility

PEOPLE MENTIONED

Mike Stone

Boyd Epley

Andrew Fry

William Kraemer

Carl Miller

Stuart Guppy

Dietmar Schmidbleiter

Nick Poulos

Dan Baker

Jonathon Weakley

Bryan Mann

Duncan French

Youth and High School Strength and Conditioning

Andrew Lulham has been involved with elite sport for over 20 years working across multiple Olympic sports as a senior strength and conditioning coach for the Queensland Academy of Sport as well as working in professional football codes in Rugby (Wallabies and Western Force), AFL (Port Adelaide F.C.) and Rugby League (Brisbane Broncos). He is currently the Head of Athletic Performance for Ormiston College. Andrew is a Master L3 ASCA Strength and Conditioning Coach, Level 4 IAAF Level Sprints, Relays, Hurdles Coach and an IAAF Level 3 Jumps Coach and IAAF Level 3 Middle Distance Coach. During his time at the Queensland Academy of Sport, Andrew was also involved in the QAS Athletics program working as a Jumps coach from 2016-2021.

QUOTES

“What I want at training is I want them to think about what they're doing and get it precise. But then when I want them to race, when I want them to compete, I don't want them to think.”

“The eccentric strength stuff in our training for jumps or for sprinting is key. You know, like we have got to think about that we want them to produce as much as much force as they possibly can eccentrically”

“I could say they only do 90 seconds of hard work in a typical session. Like the session is actually not that hard overall, but the intensity has got to be so high when they do it and spot on and it's crazy in a sense when you're think of it like that they come do 90 seconds of work for around 90 minutes of training”

SHOWNOTES

1) Andrew’s background in strength and conditioning, transition to an athletics coach and then the high school setting

2) Identifying technical issues in athletes sprint biomechanics and developing a coaches eye

3) Frontside and backside mechanics in sprinting, watching the sole of the foot and a Trae Williams case study

4) Wickets, skipping ropes and high knee runs

5) How Andrew sets up a typical training session for his athletes

6) Eccentric single leg strength and the optimal knee angles to work at

7) What Andrew would take back to football codes from athletics and a willingness to try new things as a coach

PEOPLE MENTIONED

Ian King

Dan Baker

Kelvin Giles

Gary Bourne

Ralph Mann

Patrick Castelli

Damien Harper

Creating a Bespoke Athlete Monitoring System in Schools – A Conversation with Jackson Stone.

In this insightful episode of the ASCA High School & Youth Podcast, Jackson Stone shares how he built a custom student-athlete monitoring system tailored specifically to the school environment at Toowoomba Grammar. Moving beyond off-the-shelf athlete tracking solutions, Jackson details how he collaborated with school leadership and IT to create an integrated tool that captures training loads, well-being, academic performance and injury data—all while aligning with the school’s values and platforms. He provides a behind-the-scenes look at data privacy challenges, strategies to boost student compliance and how the system is used to inform interventions across sport, academics and student welfare. Whether you're a school-based S&C coach, teacher or administrator, this episode offers a blueprint for supporting holistic student-athlete development.

Christian Bosse has over 20 years of experience in coaching athletes at the elite level, working with more than 20 Olympians, 13 Olympic medallists, 7 Olympic champions, and 23 World champions. More recently, Christian has worked as a Strength & Conditioning Coach for the German Cycling Federation, where he is responsible for the S&C support of the national track cycling team. Christian also educates and mentors the coaches of the German Cycling Federation to improve the strength and conditioning support in the regional training centres.

Prior to this, Christian has worked for different national and international governing bodies, including the National Olympic Committee of the Netherlands, Catalan Tennis Federation, the British Lawn Tennis Association, the International Tennis Federation, the Chinese Olympic Committee.

QUOTES

“I just looked at what can I build in the entrepreneurial space. They call it the minimum viable product, meaning a product that works. It doesn't have all the features that you need in the end, but it works and it should be at a minimal cost.”

“So I don't necessarily ask them to send in a video of every exercise they do. It's more like, okay, you have to improve whatever your turnover in the clean, you have to improve your posture in the squat or something like this. So then that person sends me the video regarding their points of improvement and the corrective exercises I've prescribed”

“I'm a big fan of limited amount of exercise selection, meaning one of my core philosophies as an S&C coach and that's probably opposed to many others, is just have a handful of exercises that you can dominate very, very well, and then do them as good as you can.”

“The innovation is not, yes, somewhere in the world we already know this. But over here, you don't do it. So the innovation is, in a way, we bring what we already know to that place where it's needed.”

“My point is is it correlation or causation that makes the cyclists legs big? I think it's more because of the stuff they do on the bike and… it's unlikely the work in the gym, it's more likely the work on the bike that leads to the big legs. So anyway that was definitely a challenge to get them away from, or to implement the thought of maybe we don't need that much of hypertrophy work for the legs”

SHOWNOTES

1) Christian’s journey in strength and conditioning including stops in India, Spain, China, Netherlands, and Germany across tennis and cycling

2) How limited resources drove innovation in supporting the German national cycling team

3) The use of video feedback across a decentralized team model and the advantages of being able to stockpile and tag videos from athletes over time

4) Technical coach strength and conditioning education and making sure old knowledge is being applied in the right places

5) Differences between German and Dutch athlete preparation in cycling

6) Christian’s long term athlete development approach through reverse engineering performance and rates of progression over developmental years for younger athletes

7) Adapting to the demands of working with athletes remotely in different sports

8) What a typical session looks like for strength and power development with German cyclists

9) Staying away from right or wrong when working with coaches and athletes and Twan Van Gendt’s Bulgarian split squats

People Mentioned

Dietmar Schmidtbleicher

Katharina Dunst

Narelle Sibte

Reid Hoffman

Twan Van Gendt

In this episode, host Andrew is joined by Nathan Heaney, an accomplished strength and conditioning coach, lecturer, and founder of The Conditioning Consultant. With over 12 years of experience across the Victorian Institute of Sport, AFL Victoria, Adelaide Crows, and Xavier College, Nathan shares a rich perspective on designing and implementing effective conditioning programs across both elite and high school environments. The conversation dives into the common misconceptions around aerobic training, the cultural and structural challenges in youth athletic development, and the importance of data-driven, age-appropriate approaches to physical preparation.

Nathan offers practical advice on building conditioning plans, navigating sport-specific demands, balancing participation and performance, and communicating with stakeholders—from students to parents to old-school coaches. Whether you're new to high school S&C or a seasoned practitioner, this episode delivers deep insights into conditioning across developmental stages.

Christopher Watts is currently the senior coordinator of the RECON unit in the NSW Police Force. Prior to this he was the Senior Strength & Conditioning Coach with the Royal Australian Air Force – Human Performance Optimization (HPO) team and other positions include Athlete Development Manager at St Andrews Cathedral School and Strength & Conditioning Coach for Wests Tigers NSW Cup. He has a Masters in Data Science and a Masters in Strength & Conditioning from Edith Cowan University and is an Accredited ASCA Professional L2 S&C Coach. Alongside his civilian career, Chris maintains a part-time military career with the Australian Army Reserves.

QUOTES

“So my first goal when I arrived here in Wagga was to really make sure that the PTIs understood that I'm not here to do their job, I'm here to actually find ways to highlight the good things that they do”

“We try not to use the word sport science or sports physiotherapy or sports nutrition in this tactical domain because there will be people that will automatically turn off and some of the early pushback we'd get is this isn't sport and we're not dealing with athletes, so don't talk to us about sports science. So we change the terminology and most of the time you'll hear us say it's performance science.”

“if the PTIs can implement three tailored plyometric regressions and progressions for a group of 60 recruits, if they can do that comfortably with no logistical hiccups, the you can optimize the accuracy of how we are breaking them down into different groups.”

“So our job is not just about improving what they do as a recruit, but it's really essentially providing more tools in the toolbox for the aviator. So human performance should be the responsibility of the individual and they (the aviators) should be taking full ownership of their own human performance.”

“What we’re trying to do is make sure that they're not just fit for service, but fit for life. And when they're finished with their Air Force career, whether that's four years or 25 years later, they have a foundation that can carry them long after their military career”

SHOWNOTES

1) Christopher’s background and journey in tactical strength & conditioning

2) What it looks like for an initial recruit coming into the Royal Australian Air Force 1RTU and how the performance staff that support the RAAF staff

3) The relationship and interactions between performance staff and physical training instructors (PTIs)

4) The evolution of gold standard and best practice in the RAAF 1RTU physical training

5) Using force plates to make data-driven decisions about training modifications for recruits

6) The role of education in improving RAAF employee’s physical performance and “raising the floor” across the RAAF workforce

7) The importance of being able to simplify the complex with S&C

PEOPLE MENTIONED

Phil Moreland

Steve Smith

Scott Ryder

In this episode of the ASCA High School and Youth Podcast we sit down with Brett Robinson, a decorated sprint coach and founder of Viking Athletics. Based on the Gold Coast, Brett shares his deep expertise in developing speed and agility in youth and elite athletes across track and field, surf lifesaving, and field sports. Drawing from his journey as a world-class beach sprinter and a coach to Olympians, Brett reveals practical methods for improving sprinting mechanics, agility, and endurance. He offers invaluable insights for coaches working with limited time, emphasising efficiency, technique, and high-intensity training. Listeners will gain actionable strategies for enhancing speed, including key technical drills, strength and conditioning integration, and the importance of individualised, athlete-centred approaches.

Kelly Penfold is currently the speed and conditioning coach for the St George Illawarra Dragons NRL team and perhaps one of the first full-time female S&C coaches at first grade NRL level. She has previously been the Head of S&C at the Queensland Firebirds and a longtime coach at QAS with Olympic sports, and in particular field hockey. She is an ASCA Elite L3 coach and was also awarded the 2023 ASCA Coach of the Year Award.

QUOTES

“The off-feet conditioning piece for me is around the ability to add a style of energy system conditioning and potentially a tissue loading component when athletes are not able to impact loading”

“For triathletes, you've got junior athletes that essentially have come out of probably a high school system or development system and they're going to the junior elite or elite phase and they might've been running 25-30kms in a week and they've got to up to 80-100kms for men and probably 40-60kms for women… so you want to let them plateau at a certain volume for a little while before you then try to bump them up to make sure they've really just adjusted to that load and the volume.”

“It's actually probably the reason why I decided to pay more attention to this because I caught myself out just doing the old rinse and repeat of, I'm just going to give them a 20 seconds on 40 seconds off eight times over and then a 15 on 15 off six times over.”

“If you truly trying to build out an athlete’s lactate threshold or if you're trying to build out like their aerobic capacity or, you know, even working on getting them back to some high speed sprinting, you really need to make that just a bit more precise about what you're trying to achieve and how you're going to get there”

“We'll look at heart rate and if it is reflecting the zone that athletes are supposed to be working in? And then can you consequently up your effort? And we can look at how your heart rate adjusts to that effort and build that across a six to eight week period to see if you're actually tolerating the session better than you have been previously.”

“I probably steer clear a bit of zone 3 (70-80%) work, kind of in the middle of aerobic, kind of in the middle of working at really high intensities and that just seems to take an overall really high toll on people and trying to get the timing right of how long you actually get them to hold that for as well, it can be quite tricky. So trying to not totally burn them out and push them too far past that area is really quite hard to control in zone 3 so usually I'm trying to work at a base level up to a more of a top level percentage of heart rate.”

“I think the big thing for me is if you have the time and the reason we have aerobic intervals is generally because we don't have as much time with the athlete to do like and hour to hour and a half long sessions. But ideally if you have the time, going up over that 45 minute mark for your total session is going to be optimal.”

SHOWNOTES

1) Kelly’s background and update since the last episode

2) What is off-feet conditioning and why S&C coaches should be experts in it

3) When to build and stabilize at certain training volume thresholds for athletes

4) Common issues with off-feet conditioning, ensuring the precision around getting the desired adaptations is as high as possible and basic rules around energy system development.

6) Using a conditioning needs analysis for training prescription and the interplay between heart rate and wattage

7) The nuances of using heart rate and measuring heart rate recovery based on time taken to get back to zone 2

8) Practical examples of conditioning sessions and making sure the rest periods are long enough for max efforts

9) Building precision around the adaptations you’re getting with athletes