Dr Lachlan James is a Senior Lecturer, Sport Scientist, Course Coordinator of the Master of Strength and Conditioning degree at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia, and an ASCA Professional L2 coach. He has published over 40 peer reviewed articles including 25 as first or senior author. Lachlan currently supervises 7 PhD students with research projects in the AFL, Super Rugby, Queensland Academy of Sport, the A-League and with VALD Performance. Prior to entering academia, he spent 10 years in professional practice as a strength and conditioning coach and applied sport scientist.

QUOTES

“The problem we are trying to solve is reducing the vast array of metrics we have available to us from technology down to just a few key ones”

“Choose the metric in any cluster that is more reliable and is most interpretable by the end user”

“Whatever variable we can get reliable at 100ms in the IMTP, which is typically force at 100ms, is the one I will take”

“The reality is force at a certain timepoint, RFD and impulse all contain the same information but the reliability differs markedly”

“If isometric strength doesn’t track heavy dynamic strength changes, and you are trying to use it to inform more heavy dynamic strength interventions from something like the DSI, then it might not respond in the way you think”

“You have to give feedback on contact time after each rep if assessing reactive strength with a drop jump or 10-5”

SHOWNOTES

1) Lachlan’s pathway to becoming a world leading strength researcher at LaTrobe University

2) Strength and power assessments and the vast array of metrics available for practitioners

3) Dimension reduction and making sense of the various clusters of metrics available

4) Picking between the Iso Squat and IMTP as the test of choice for lower body maximal isometric strength and the advantages of looking at net force

5) The importance of set up in the maximal isometric strength tests

6) Choosing between net force at 100ms, RFD or impulse?

7) Key metrics in the countermovement jump, unilateral variations and eccentric measures

8) What strength domains or qualities actually exist? The 5 strength qualities and their relationship to one another

9) Issues with the Dynamic Strength Index

10) Feasibility of assessing the different strength qualities and solutions with large squads of athletes

11) The effect of initial strength on strength training adaptations and the merging of strength qualities in weaker athletes

PEOPLE MENTIONED

Vince Kelly

Warren Young

Greg Haff

Chris Bishop

Mike McGurn is Head of Athletic Performance at Queens University in Belfast. He has a BSc in Sports Science from Temple University in Philadelphia, U.S.A. and an ASCA Professional L2 accreditation. Mike has worked for over 20 years in Professional Sports as a S+C coach preparing athletes and players for 3 World cups, 3 Olympics, EPL, Commonwealth Games, Boxing, and many other sports. In that time winning 2 World Titles in 2 different sports as well as having the prestigious honour of training 3 National Senior Irish Teams in 3 different codes. His area of speciality is Olympic lifting and strength development in the gym along with energy system development on the pitch. Mike presents ASCA courses in Ireland, Malta and Poland as well as delivering lectures and talks in the USA, UK, Germany, and wider Europe.

QUOTES

"All they had was rugby league, tattoos and weight training”

“Firstly, what does an athlete need to be fit for purpose? Then what does the sport demand?”

“We need to look at the three P’s in athlete preparation: position, pattern and power”

“You can’t fake fitness and you can’t fake strength”

“Look at what is happening in the sport and in hard training blocks and stay away from that in your strength work”

“Don’t set your athletes up to get gold medals in the gym and then a bronze on the weekend in competition”

SHOWNOTES

1) Mike’s journey from Ireland to US collegiate running to elite S&C in field sports

2) The myth of sport specific training and differences between considering strength and energy system specificity for sports

3) Building athletes to be fit for purpose based on demands of their sport

4) The difference between sport specific and sport relevance with case studies of surfing and sprinting

5) Dynamic correspondence, force vectors and understanding what the sport is giving the athletes to be able to “fill in the blanks”

6) Periodisation differences between general and specifc prep

7) The importance of being comfortable with all the training you prescribe as an S&C

8) The influence Dan Baker has had on Mike’s coaching career

PEOPLE MENTIONED

David Boyle

Kelvin Giles

Yuri Verkoshansky

Dan Baker

Dan John

Joe Kenn

Paul Sculthorpe

Leading a multidisciplinary team at the Australian institute of Sport, Ross has over 25 years strength and conditioning experience working across multiple sports and organisations. Since 2004 at the AIS working with development and elite athletes across sports including netball, boxing, taekwondo, judo, athletics, cycling, rowing, basketball, modern pentathlon, water polo, winter sports, gymnastics, artistic swimming, and part of the leadership team in the AIS intensive rehabilitation program. He has also work with the Australian armed forces and lectured ASCA courses in Australia and overseas. Throughout his career coaching Athletics, sprint and agility and S&C the ability to tell a story and build athlete understanding has been an integral part of optimising outcomes.

QUOTES

“As an S&C coach we are highly time limited and time poor and sometimes our intervention with athletes doesn’t resonate”

“So that understanding of what that data means is important and the last piece for is how to apply that data”

“If I can make myself redundant on the basics, on the low level stuff, it gives me an opportunity to work on the high level stuff with athletes”

“That separation between technical training and the gym is too large alot of the time with how we coach”

“Anything high velocity, high speed, I want to do it in as fresh a state as possible and this also applies to the cognitive state, like teaching somebody something new.”

SHOWNOTES

1) Ross’ update since the last episode and background

2) Concepts for S&C coaches to understand to maximize interventions with athletes

3) The first things to focus on when setting up strength & conditioning programs for athletes

4) Athletic models of movement and magnification of error learning techniques

5) Themes in warm ups and drills and how to link sessions together

6) Building the cognitive transfer between technical training and strength & conditioning sessions

7) An optimal structure and sequence of strength & conditioning within a head coach’s plan

8) Purposefully making yourself redundant with athletes

9) Do athletes have the capability to apply force and more importantly, the rate of force?

10) Barefoot work and core training with Kosta Tszyu

PEOPLE MENTIONED

Craig Purdham

Kosta Tszyu

Johnny Lewis

Kelly Penfold

Sarah Hervert has a PhD in Sport and Exercise Science from James Cook University and is an ASCA Associate L2 Coach. She specialises in strength and conditioning for team sports, injury prevention and rehabilitation and has a keen interest in advocating for S&C in the wider community from adolescents through to older athletes. Following the completion of her PhD, Sarah co-founded Foundations Performance & Rehab with the aim of creating a safe and welcoming environment for athletes and the wider community to undertake S&C and rehabilitation services. Currently, Sarah is also a Lecturer at the University of Southern Queensland.

QUOTES

“Even simple things like financial projections, which you sound so boring, but at the start you need to have that stuff to have an idea of where you are going and what you need to put into action”

“If you are trying to pump through a lot of individual clients, and that’s your only source of income, you’ll probably struggle to pay a lot of bills”

“So if you’re going to open a business with a partner, you need to be really aware that if something did happen down the line, you need to have those back up plans with what you are going to do”

“Have a plan but be flexible with that plan is a big thing in business”

SHOWNOTES

1) Sarah’s journey from James Cook University to owning a private S&C facility

2) Advice for S&C coaches looking to open a private facility

3) The recommended model for private S&C facilities and setting up client agreements

4) How to implement service fee rises

5) Deciding when the right time is to bring on more staff in a business

6) The pros and cons of owning a business with a partner

7) The ins and outs of cash flow and marketing

8) Managing adversity and burnout as a business owner

9) Sarah’s PhD on sub-elite soccer players and preventing rate and severity of injuries in soccer

Nathan Parnham is the Head of Performance Development at Brisbane Grammar School. His career spans over two decades having set up multiple school athletic development programs across the country, to working in professional sport in the NRL and the Rugby Australia Women’s 7s. Nathan is a bestselling author of The Sporting Parent - an invaluable resource for parents, teachers, and coaches alike in the youth sporting landscape.

QUOTES

“I don’t think there is any parent that goes about intentionally setting up their kid to fail but it is just a lack of knowledge”

“Our biggest challenge is the opportunity is very feasible for students to go elsewhere for S&C”

“Pro sport cemented the idea that consistency is king with youth athletic development for me”

“The biggest question in the youth athlete development setting is how do we try and sell the best multi-sport approach to parents?”

SHOWNOTES

1) Nathan’s update since our last episode with him.

2) The nuances to coaching kids of this generation, immediate gratification strategies and the sandwich effect.

3) The importance of briefings to start and end sessions.

4) Nathan’s practical take on the current theories of long-term athlete development.

5) Athlete retention strategies and compliance strategies in the youth setting.

6) The day-to-day of Brisbane Grammar’s athletic development program.

7) Integration with PE Department and the session structure at Brisbane Grammar.

8) The biggest things taken from pro sport and put into the education / youth space.

9) Early specialisation and the cultural influences on its appropriateness.

10) The reality of coach: athlete ratios in the school youth athletic development setting.

PEOPLE MENTIONED

Istvan Balyi

Glenn Stewart is a physical and personal skills preparation specialist and manager. He has extensive experience as a S&C specialist and spent two decades developing Australia’s leading athletes and sporting teams professionals to international standards. He's a skilled researcher in physiology, biomechanics and team performance measurement. Glenn has published and presented in peer-reviewed journals and conferences. developing some of Australia’s leading athletes and sporting teams. With a key focus on winning, he offers his experience and knowledge as a leading voice in high performance sport to assist those seeking solutions and direction to improve on their sporting results.

QUOTES

“I see the role of the S&C coach and high performance manager to make recommendations to coaches about what would be ideal training loads and sessions… and at the end of the day, the coach is ultimately accountable on acting on those recommendations.”

“When something is complex (like injury), you cannot apply rules, you can only apply guidelines”

“My number one guideline to minimize risk of injury is to do high risk activities at low risk times and if you have a high risk time, choose low risk activities”

“It’s not those events per se that are high risk (e.g., high speed running), its your preparedness for them that elevates the risk”

“Injury minimisation is an understaning of your athlete and knowing that one extra rep could be the disaster you are trying to avoid whereas one less rep is not probably going to impact their performance down the track”

“It is not always about injury risk minimization, we are in the world of high performance so we want our athletes to perform to the best of their abilities and they do that when they are injury free and have had massive training loads”

SHOWNOTES

1) Glenn’s progression from PE teaching to the 20 plus years at the West Coast Eagles

2) The common mental model in sport that assigns blame to S&C staff for athlete injuries and the influence of sports coaches on injury

3) Factors leading to heightened injury risk in athletes and principles for dealing with complex scenarios

4) When load exceeds tissue threshold and what causes changes in tissue threshold

5) Managing training load and high risk times vs high risk activities

6) The concept of “great care with new” and applying progressive overload

7) How to determine how much training load is too much?

8) Glenn’s system of injury risk minimization and coach accountability

9) The latency period for injury after high risk periods

10) Monitoring and Glenn's preference for subjective measures

11) Chris Judd’s first day at the West Coast Eagles and witnessing greatness

Des is one of the leading youth coaches and performance managers in sport and a world-renowned practitioner and speaker in the field of youth athletic development. In joining Setanta College, Des contributes to the College’s mission to deliver industry defining Education, application and insight to communities at a local and global level.

Des joined Setanta as Director of Coaching & Athletic Development, from his position as Head of Sport Medicine & Athletic Development at Arsenal Football Club Academy, which he has held for over 8 years and where he has re-shaped the concept of player development within the world of football. He has previously served as Head of S&C at Connacht Rugby, S&C to Ireland and as Fitness Education Manager within the IRFU, where he spent over 13 years developing the IRFU’s coach and player development system. u Over the years Des has presented at the UKSCA, ASCA and the NSCA conferences as well as many other conferences around the world.

He also has worked as a consultant to World Rugby and the National Cricket academy in India. Des has a Masters in Strength and Conditioning and is also an Accredited Strength and Conditioning coach with the UKSCA. He also has achieved the High Performance Sports Accreditation from the British Association of Sports and Exercise Science and is a chartered scientist.

QUOTES

“What brings it all together is the performance plan and if I step into any environment, it should be apparent”

“That language (of your performance pillars) should live and breathe in all the different departments”

“We always get caught up in the negatives but we should also focus on what is good?!”

“In a meeting, it is important to ask what does the group feel and is this a journey we are going to go on together?”

“Apparently the science behind it is flawed, but I saw benefits from personality profiling with our players and staff”

SHOWNOTES

1) Des’ journey in brief and update since our last episode including his latest work with Setanta College

2) How to approach management structures for performance teams including setting up your Vision, Mission, Objectives and Strategy (VMOS) and Performance Pillars

3) Refining the VMOS & making it as effective and efficient as possible

4) Maximising inter-disciplinary staff meetings and interventions with players

5) The power of staff ownership in department projects

6) Making performance development reviews/plans useful for staff and are you as good as Nic Gill?

7) Managing staff members that might disrupt group dynamic or are troublesome

8) The benefits of personality profiling for staff and player interaction, especially around communication preferences

9) The cornerstones of Des' management philosophy

PEOPLE MENTIONED

Liam Hennessy

Nic Gill

Dan Baker

Philip Morrow

Aled Walters

Steve Nabo

Bob Tisdall

Professor Chris McLellan is the Vice President of Sports Performance at the Florida Panthers in the National Hockey League (NHL) and Professor of Exercise and Sports Science at the University of Southern Queensland. He is also the co-founder of Horyzen Performance LLC offering bespoke athlete profiling and strength and conditioning services to professional sporting teams and elite athletes around the world. Professor McLellan has over 25yrs experience as an athlete preparation specialist internationally working in in the National Rugby League (NRL), Australian Football League (AFL), professional Rugby Union and the NHL. He also has a Phd in Exercise & Sports Science and Strength & Conditioning, a Masters of Physiotherapy and a Bachelor of Exercise Science. Chris’ research areas of interest include acute and chronic adaptation to strength and power training, hormonal responses to blunt force trauma and collision during contact sports and body composition, anthropometric & fibre type profiling for optimised performance and injury risk mitigation. Professor McLellan’s research has resulted in over 120 published works in peer reviewed journals, published abstracts and presentations at national and international conferences.

QUOTES

“I think being systematic is massive in strength & conditioning”

“As a general comment based on subsequent performance in games and training, and sleep is massive, so if we can’t get back to home and have wheels on the ground by 2am, we stay an extra night”

“The biggest piece for us is we aim to develop power and strength without loading players up with a load of hypertrophy”

“We will try to manage the eccentric components of our lifts because we don’t want to make them much bigger in-season”

“If we go 10 days without a lift, we’ll start to see shifts in their force-time-power curves”

“Everyone talks about philosophy but my philosophy is keep the main thing the main thing”

“In terms of salivary hormones, cortisol is a very blunt measure so I have embarked for quite some time to differentiate a more precise measure of stress”

SHOWNOTES

1) Chris’ journey from police officer and age grade footballer to S&C coach and professor

2) From academia to the Florida Panthers and what Chris brought into the program in his first year

3) The usefulness of accelerometry measures in the NHL and the similarity of injuries between rugby league and ice hockey

4) Managing the density of competition and the workload of players in the NHL

5) Dealing with the longest game in NHL history and novel nutrition approaches to help keep players fueled.

6) The focus and logistics of strength & conditioning in-season for ice hockey

7) Managing hypertrophy with cold water immersion and limiting eccentric components of lifts

8) The efficacy of measuring different salivary hormones and differentiating physical and psych stressors

9) Practical considerations for measuring salivary hormones and the minimum amount of measures need for it to be worthwhile

10) The benefits of attending conferences and reading bona fide scientific literature for S&C coaches

PEOPLE MENTIONED

Kelvin Giles

Steve Nance

Billy Johnstone

Andy O’Brien

Aaron Wellman

Mike Keelan

Lynn Jones

Gareth Webber is a Strength and Conditioning Coach from Cardiff in the U.K. He has a BSc in Sport & Exercise Science and MSc in Exercise Physiology from Loughborough University and is a ASCA level 3 PCAS Elite coach. He has been involved in high-performance, professional sport for over thirteen years and has worked in three national institutes and two professional team environments across ten sports in five countries. His areas of specialty are the concurrent training of multiple physical qualities to maximize athlete preparedness for competition and the return to play process. He has presented at both ASCA and ICST conferences and has guest lectured at universities in the U.K., Asia and Australia.

QUOTES

“Sometimes basic scientific theory, training principles and exercise technique does the world of good even in world class athletes.”

“It is a similar concept of stripping things back to a) protect athletes and b) to get some robustness into them so they could spend more time on the technical and tactical training”

“Athletes and coaches respond really well to competence and confidence in strength & conditioning coaches when first starting”

“With injured players, I try and keep the training process similar to what they would be doing if they weren’t injured… just working around the injury”

“I use a Gymaware as an extra level of data and an extra level of protection where I don’t need to go super super heavy with their lifting”

SHOWNOTES

1) Gareth’s backstory and experience across multiple sports from rugby union to ten pin bowling

2) The advantages of being a generalist in strength & conditioning

3) Cornerstones of strength & conditioning that coaches should be competent in before trying to expand into other specialty areas

4) Examples of reverse engineering robustness across different sports

5) The softly-softly approach strength & conditioning coaches can use when first starting in a new position.

6) Different heuristics and non-negotiables for strength & conditioning from Gareth’s experience

7) A typical week outline in current role as return to play process for Cardiff Blues

8) Guidelines for bringing players back into full training from injury and examples of low-cost return to play criteria

James Wild is a research & development and speed consultant with Harlequins Rugby Club and as a Lecturer in Applied Sport Science at the University of Surrey. Using a blend of physical preparation and biomechanics techniques with skill acquisition and motor learning principles, James has worked with coaches and athletes across a full spectrum of abilities, including medal winning teams and athletes at major international competitions. James is also a book author and has just completed his PhD in the biomechanics and motor control of team sport athletes during sprint acceleration.

QUOTES

“We have to remember the (sprinting) technique is not an end unto itself, but should be seen as part of opportunity to create external force expression… to fit with a performance objective”

“Technique can potentially modify injury and pain whilst previous injury history and pain can also drive technique modifications as a coping strategy”

“You will find some individuals have a high step rate and rely on faster step rate for faster sprints so working towards their strength is key for that individual but you might also find the opposite”

“You’ll find the strength characteristics of the athlete will underpin the technique they are adopting when sprinting”

“I have previously investigated what effect resisted sprinting has on stride length or string frequency and for some individuals, it increases length, for others, it increases frequency and in some individuals, it hasn’t changed anything”

SHOWNOTES

1) James’ journey into strength and conditioning and sprinting research

2) The key performance indicators of sprinting biomechanics and how to assess acceleration

3) Deciding if athletes are stride frequency or stride length reliant when sprinting and what to do with it

4) Different contexts (e.g., injury history, aptitude) around using kinematic data from sprint analysis

5) What to do if athletes are not getting faster from sprint interventions?

6) The three strength qualities that are relevant to sprint performance and how to test them

7) How and when to provide technique interventions with athletes

8) James’ philosophy on using resisted sprinting work with athletes

9) Identifying opportunities for and then integrating speed work throughout a training week with athletes

PEOPLE MENTIONED

Aki Salo

Ian Benzodis

John Goodwin

Pierre Samozino

JB Morin

Damien Harper