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

ASCA High School & Youth Podcast 2503 - Pyke & Mathews by Joseph Coyne

In this episode of the ASCA Women's Advisory Committee Podcast, we sit down with Sophie Dodd, Head of Athletic Development at Somerset College and a passionate leader in the school-based strength and conditioning space. Sophie takes us through her inspiring journey from high-performance dreams in rugby union to her current role shaping adolescent athletes, particularly focusing on female participation and confidence in the gym. With honesty, energy, and warmth, she dives deep into navigating co-ed training spaces, coaching through puberty, the power of presenteeism, and the real challenges and wins of working within school systems. A must-listen for coaches, teachers, and anyone passionate about youth development and inclusive training environments.

Kaarle McCulloch is a former Olympic Track Sprint Cyclist with a 15-year career at the top of her sport including Olympic Bronze and 4 World Championships. Retired in 2021, Kaarle went on to coach the British Women’s Sprint Team from 2022-2023 with great success and recently returned to Australia in late 2023 to fulfil the same role as Australian Women’s Sprint coach and QAS coach. Kaarle has a degree in Health and Physical Education and is a former level 1 ASCA coach.

David Watts has been preparing athletes for competitive success for well over 10 years. Beginning his career at the QAS between 2011-2016, David has since spent time at the Geelong Football Club as a rehabilitation coach and also at the Melbourne Demons as the head of strength and power. More recently he has returned to the QAS and is currently working with track and field, cycling and beach volleyball athletes. David is accredited with the ASCA as a Master L3 Coach and this will be his fourth time presenting at the ASCA international conference

QUOTES

“I am from a family of teachers and I believe really strongly that coaching is teaching and teaching is coaching. So a lot of my coaching philosophy centres around pedagogical practices and trying to create learning environments for athletes”

“For track cycling, I feel very strongly that its foundation is in strength. So gym forms the first and probably the most important part of becoming fast and I work off a sort of a triangle model where strength is at the bottom. To be powerful, you need to be strong. And then to be fast, you need to be powerful.”

“I don't like to call it taper because I think taper has some connotations around it and athletes think that they're going to feel good and that everything's going to go amazing but it never ever happens that way. And so, unload for me is all in its title. It's about taking out work as we get closer to the event.”

“I'd say 90 % of time the gym and bike loading is aligned. So if we've got a de-load week or a low week, it's low in the gym as well.”

“So in the team sprint cycling, we've got three types of acceleration, we've got low range, so from zero, we've got mid-range which is our high power and we've got, you know, high range acceleration, which is our speed. So that's how the week looks. Work high torque, high strength in the start of the week. We work high power midweek, and then we work that sort of back end speed at the end of the week. And that doesn't really shift through all of the periodized phases. What shifts is the specificity of it.”

“We have a monthly catch up with my group and every month they have to present something back on what they've learned through the month and that gives them accountability and ownership over what they're doing.”

SHOWNOTES

1) Kaarle and David’s backgrounds as athletes and coaches

2) What type of collaboration is needed when developing athletes and Kaarle’s philosophy on sprint cycling performance

3) Benchmarking events in sprint cycling and periodization approaches from the macro- to the micro-cycle

4) What base building, general prep, specific prep and unload phases can look like for athletes in sprint cycling

5) Different weekly structures and adapting the structure around different athletes and their experience and fiber typology

6) Physical benchmarks for athletes in sprint cycling and 220kg full squats

7) Pedagogical approaches to developing athletes and session planning considerations and creating conditions for athletes to both fail and play

8) One legged box jumps and the power of vulnerability

PEOPLE MENTIONED

Anna Meares

Matthew Denny

Brene Brown

Kaarle McCulloch is a former Olympic Track Sprint Cyclist with a 15-year career at the top of her sport including Olympic Bronze and 4 World Championships. Retired in 2021, Kaarle went on to coach the British Women’s Sprint Team from 2022-2023 with great success and recently returned to Australia in late 2023 to fulfil the same role as Australian Women’s Sprint coach and QAS coach. Kaarle has a degree in Health and Physical Education and is a former level 1 ASCA coach.

David Watts has been preparing athletes for competitive success for well over 10 years. Beginning his career at the QAS between 2011-2016, David has since spent time at the Geelong Football Club as a rehabilitation coach and also at the Melbourne Demons as the head of strength and power. More recently he has returned to the QAS and is currently working with track and field, cycling and beach volleyball athletes. David is accredited with the ASCA as a Master L3 Coach and this will be his fourth time presenting at the ASCA international conference

QUOTES

“I am from a family of teachers and I believe really strongly that coaching is teaching and teaching is coaching. So a lot of my coaching philosophy centres around pedagogical practices and trying to create learning environments for athletes”

“For track cycling, I feel very strongly that its foundation is in strength. So gym forms the first and probably the most important part of becoming fast and I work off a sort of a triangle model where strength is at the bottom. To be powerful, you need to be strong. And then to be fast, you need to be powerful.”

“I don't like to call it taper because I think taper has some connotations around it and athletes think that they're going to feel good and that everything's going to go amazing but it never ever happens that way. And so, unload for me is all in its title. It's about taking out work as we get closer to the event.”

“I'd say 90 % of time the gym and bike loading is aligned. So if we've got a de-load week or a low week, it's low in the gym as well.”

“So in the team sprint cycling, we've got three types of acceleration, we've got low range, so from zero, we've got mid-range which is our high power and we've got, you know, high range acceleration, which is our speed. So that's how the week looks. Work high torque, high strength in the start of the week. We work high power midweek, and then we work that sort of back end speed at the end of the week. And that doesn't really shift through all of the periodized phases. What shifts is the specificity of it.”

“We have a monthly catch up with my group and every month they have to present something back on what they've learned through the month and that gives them accountability and ownership over what they're doing.”

SHOWNOTES

1) Kaarle and David’s backgrounds as athletes and coaches

2) What type of collaboration is needed when developing athletes and Kaarle’s philosophy on sprint cycling performance

3) Benchmarking events in sprint cycling and periodization approaches from the macro- to the micro-cycle

4) What base building, general prep, specific prep and unload phases can look like for athletes in sprint cycling

5) Different weekly structures and adapting the structure around different athletes and their experience and fiber typology

6) Physical benchmarks for athletes in sprint cycling and 220kg full squats

7) Pedagogical approaches to developing athletes and session planning considerations and creating conditions for athletes to both fail and play

8) One legged box jumps and the power of vulnerability

PEOPLE MENTIONED

Anna Meares

Matthew Denny

Brene Brown

Chris Bartels is currently the coordinator of health performance at the New South Wales Police and also works with the Sydney Roosters as head S&C for their Academy program. Previously he was a Senior Strength & Conditioning Coach with the Royal Australian Air Force Human Performance Optimisation team located at RAAF Base Richmond. and supported the Australian Defence Force Diving School at HMAS Penguin. Prior to this, Chris had amassed over a decade of experience across law enforcement, educational and high-performance sporting organizations. Chris also hold’s a Master’s in High Performance Sport from the University of Technology Sydney and is an Accredited ASCA Elite Level 3 S&C Coach.

Quotes

“An explosive device might be identified as being on the side of the ship. And these divers will go down and instantly I'm thinking, all right, they're going to try and remove the mine off a boat. But it's not the case. They’ll actually go down there and drill into the explosive device to try and flood the system so that it doesn't go off and these sorts of things can happen in the dead of night”

“Senior instructors that were responsible for the phases of the divers would come to those meetings and get feedback around each of the divers, their readiness to perform, their fatigue, anything related to muscular soreness, and your basic five point wellness questionnaire.”

“it's around about a million dollars to train one single diver. So if you're getting towards the back end of a course, and it's gone for 11 months and all of a sudden the diver succumbs to an injury, they'll have to repeat that phase, and that's money tied up or potentially and depending on the injury, that's money lost.

“whilst we communicated jump height to the divers, we looked at our RSI as a readiness tool and we were actually testing at the back end of the week. Now gold standard would obviously be on the Monday, but we dealt with the dates that we were given... So the conversation always stemmed around, right, this was the cost of the week”

“Pull -ups are a big cultural thing with the clearance divers.”

“the PTI then came on this journey where they realized that if they were gonna introduce a session, there was obviously gonna be an increased level of soreness versus having a bit more of a consistent structure to the sessions on a more regular basis that soreness is going to go down and you're going to allow those divers to actually experience some improvement”

“we can give them 10 minutes of what they want to then give them 50 minutes of what they need. It's a good trade -off”

SHOWNOTES

1) Chris’ background as a swimmer and progression in tactical strength and conditioning

2) Challenges faced by Navy clearance divers and addressing vocational drop-out

3) Implementing an athlete monitoring system with Navy clearance divers

4) Strength and power assessments relevant to clearance divers and categorizing divers in “force” or “fit” buckets

5) Traditional physical training for Navy divers, “finning” and influencing PTIs

6) Targeting shoulder and hip resilience and identifying high risk phases in navy diver training

7) Recommendations for using sport science technology in a new environment

8) The strategy of giving people what they want and the strategies of negotiating

The ASCA High School and Youth Podcast, sponsored by AlphaFit, features an in-depth conversation with Luke Edgell, owner of Edge Performance, Speed Academy, and Assistant Director of Athletic Performance at Shore School, Sydney. With over 12 years of experience in strength and conditioning, Luke shares insights from his career, including coaching Olympians and mentoring trainers. He discusses his transition from personal training at Fitness First to working in high school strength programs, highlighting the importance of communication, athlete development, and long-term training models. The episode delves into speed training, agility, and change of direction strategies, informed by Luke’s apprenticeship at Altis with renowned coaches like Dan Pfaff and Stuart McMillan. Luke also provides practical advice for high school coaches on managing large training groups, collaborating with external clubs, and implementing effective speed and strength programs for youth athletes.

In this episode, Wesley College’s high-performance manager, Dr. Daniel Hiscock, shares insights from his seven years at the institution, detailing how the school’s long-term athletic development (LTAD) program supports students from pre-kindergarten through year 12 in building athletic ability, healthy habits, and life skills.

Daniel highlights the program’s three-tiered structure, which caters to all students, from general participants to elite athletes competing at state and national levels. He shares inspiring stories of student athletes with lofty goals, such as a badminton player aiming for the Commonwealth Games and a footballer pursuing an AFL career. These examples demonstrate the importance of consistency, tailored support, and collaboration with families to help students achieve their aspirations.

The podcast also emphasises the inclusivity of the Wesley College LTAD program, which extends support to less advantaged students and those with disabilities. Programs like UniGym and early gross motor skill interventions are designed to foster lifelong habits of physical activity, ensuring that all students benefit, regardless of their athletic ability. Daniel further explains how the school integrates innovative training methods, such as isometric exercises, to enhance strength, accommodate injured athletes, and manage high training demands while minimising injury risks.

A significant focus of the episode is the collaborative mentorship approach taken at Wesley College. Dr. Hiscock underscores the importance of open communication with parents, external coaches, and club programs to effectively navigate the complex needs of high-performing athletes. He also reflects on the challenges of balancing resources and scaling programs, sharing practical strategies to optimise outcomes for a wide range of students.

Drawing from his diverse career, Daniel shares lessons learned, emphasising the value of foundational training principles, the need for athlete buy-in, and the importance of individualised programming. He explains how these principles have guided the program’s growth and success while remaining adaptable to the unique needs of each student.

The episode concludes with Daniel reflecting on the holistic value of sport as a means to build not only high-performing athletes but also well-rounded and resilient individuals.

Dr. Jamie Tallent is the Director of the Human Performance Research Group at the University of Essex, previously holding the position of Associate Professor in Strength and Conditioning at St Mary's University. Jamie earned his PhD from Northumbria University, UK, focusing on corticospinal adaptations from eccentric and concentric resistance training muscle actions. Jamie has worked in professional sport, as the lead strength and conditioning coach at Derbyshire County Cricket Club.

Jamie has authored over 80 peer-reviewed publications and numerous book chapters. His research, a mixture of applied and mechanistic studies, includes leading various projects in collaboration with International Cricket Teams, Premiership Football clubs, International Rugby Teams, and world-leading ballet schools and companies. Recently, Jamie has also begun to explore the role of strength and conditioning in children with cerebral palsy.

QUOTES

“Micro-dosing is just splitting up your training sessions, your volume of work into small manageable chunks”

“I'm better putting in small doses that are going to enhance an athletes performance over long periods of time, rather than that scheduling in longer sessions that could affect their training in the subsequent days”

“I think the recommendation for micro-dosing I'd almost give is that go to higher rep work as with lower rep work, maybe that's not as easy to microdose in time constrained situations because you're going to have to spend so much time warming up’”

“What we've shown in ballet is that the groups that are training three times a week of 15 minutes versus 1 time a week of 45 minutes are getting slightly greater adaptations in strength, in jumping ability, in counter-movement jump.”

“I think it's important how we package things as S & C coaches and I think it's important that the athletes are aware that micro-dosing is still going to help them. The narrative to athletes is even if you do one set, even if you do two sets, it's still a positive kind of thing for your sport.”

SHOWNOTES

1) Jamie’s journey into sport science and strength and conditioning

2) The definition of microdosing and its use to reduce risk of injury or soreness

3) The philosophy of getting as much work as possible into athletes and how microdosing aligns with this

4) How time constraints influence microdosing sets and rep schemes

5) The timing of microdosing S&C around sports training sessions and “clustering” sessions in a training week

6) Examples of microdosing in cricket and ballet and the benefits of microdosing for training absenteeism

7) Managing your communication in different environments and the future of data analytics

PEOPLE MENTIONED

Glyn Howatson

Nathan Spencer

Duncan French

Jess Turner

Dr Gareth Sandford has a consulting business that helps Olympic, Pro & College coaches with individualized conditioning. Recent consulting clients include: Manchester City Football Club (EPL), England Football Association (International Football), Australian Institute of Sport (Olympic/Paralympic Sport), Melbourne Football Club (AFL), Kerry GAA (Gaelic Football). Prior to this, Gareth has worked for 14+ years across individual and team sports within three Olympic and Paralympic systems (UK, New Zealand and Canada) and three professional sports leagues (English Football, Cricket and Rugby), supporting over 450 athletes that achieved 23 Olympic, Paralympic and World Championship medals, and one world record. He was also scientific lead for the Canadian Olympic marathon and race-walk athletes at the Tokyo 2021 Olympic Games. He holds a PhD in sport physiology and running performance from the Sport Performance Research Institute at AUT University in New Zealand and a ‘mini’ MBA from Simon Fraser University in science innovation and technology commercialisation.

QUOTES

“There are a number of things that we should be looking for. The first thing is the athlete profile. So that is where all your sub-disciplines come in, from a medical standpoint, what are we talking about? From a biomechanical, psychological standpoint, which type of personality are we dealing with? From a physiological standpoint, are we talking about a speed profile, hybrid or endurance profile?”

“So a common question you hear often is should conditioning be more sport specific or should it be more targeting the physical capacities underpinning the sport? But the reality of the matter is that physiology exists, whichever sport you're playing.”

“It is a very rare occasion in a team sport where you are short on the sport-specific exposure of chemistry”

“Sprinting speed is scaffolding for team sports. We can't build it and then let it go, because if we let it go, then the percentage we're working at when running goes up”

“The three metrics alongside team sport key training metrics I'm looking at are where's the sprinting speed? where's the MAS? where's the critical speed?”

“Athletes need to be exposed to all the stimulus, from low intensity to sprinting speed, probably for 18 months, two years at the low end, for us to be confident, this is the type of profile an athlete is.”

“The key metric for low and moderate intensity work is the effort, the internal effort, not the external speed and the answer is whatever speed elicits a five or six out of 10 feeling”

SHOWNOTES

1) Gareth’s exploration of the anaerobic speed reserve which has taken him from the UK to NZ to Canada

2) The framework for conditioning and importance of athlete profiling

3) The relevance of middle-distance track events and their training for field sports

4) Getting a clear characterization of what is happening in technical-tactical training sessions and unlearning “classical” physiology

5) Assessing the anaerobic speed reserve in athletes and the practical application of profiling

6) The interplay between critical speed and maximal aerobic speed or velocity VO2max and Gareth’s preferences for measuring both

7) How to use the ASR ratio as a screen of “spread” and benchmarking sprint and endurance physiology

8) Principles versus models and the value of holding principles as loosely as possible until you understand exactly what type of athlete you are dealing with

PEOPLE MENTIONED

Peter Weyand

Phil Bellinger

Veronica Billat

Phil Scott