Emily Wilson has a master’s degree in Exercise Science (Maj. Strength and Conditioning) from Edith Cowan University and is an Accredited ASCA Level 2 S&C Coach. She was the strength and conditioning coach for the South Sydney Rabbitohs Harvey Norman Women’s rugby league team for the past 3 years as well as the 2020 Sydney Roosters NRLW team. Aside from her time in rugby league, she has coached and continues to work with youth representative netball players with Netball NSW and St George District Netball Association, and youth national level shot put and javelin throwers. Her areas of specialty are women’s health and performance, and youth development.

QUOTES

“Research has shown that if you talk about periods in that positive light, they are more likely to find a solution to any issues with the menstrual cycle”

“Don’t tiptoe around the subject of menstruation”

“If a female athlete is stressed, the effect on your cycle will not become apparent until 3 cycles later”

“If you a regular menstruator, you can plan out your training for the rest of the training year based on your cycle”

SHOWNOTES

1) Emily’s journey from an athlete to a coach

2) The relationship between puberty and development of the menstrual cycle

3) What strength and conditioning coaches need to know about the menstrual cycle

4) How to create a positive representation of the menstrual cycle with female athletes

5) Alternatives to oral contraception and learning how to perform in and around the menstrual cycle

6) The phases or four seasons of the menstrual cycle

7) Whether it is worth aligning the female athletes training cycle to the menstrual cycle and how you might accomplish this

8) The myth of menstrual cycles aligning in a group of female athletes

9) Using menstrual cycle tracking tools including apps like Flow

10) Dealing with female athletes that are heavy menstruators

11) How to approach female athletes with amenorrhea

12) Resources for strength and conditioning coach around the menstrual cycle

13) Incorporating skill 1 percenters in the warm up for gym sessions and lessons in leadership

PEOPLE MENTIONED

Sophia Nimphius

Darren Burgess is currently the High-Performance Manager at Adelaide Football Club. Previously, he was the high-performance manager at Melbourne Football Club and prior to that, Darren’s roles have included Director of High Performance at Arsenal Football Club, High Performance Manager at Port Adelaide Football (AFL) Club, Head of Sports Science for Football Federation Australia and Head of Fitness and Conditioning at Liverpool Football Club. Darren also worked as a lecturer in Exercise Science at Australian Catholic University in Sydney and completed his PhD in movement analysis of AFL and Soccer in 2012. Darren has had multiple papers published in peer review journals and has spoken at many international conferences.

QUOTES

"It took me a while to realize but we (strength and conditioning coaches) are very much in the background and I really thought in my early days that fitness could win you a title"

"In elite European football, the training dictates everything and if we can squeeze a 10 min lift in, we will, but to do so, you really need to identify your core lifts"

"We are in a skill-based sport so the skill will come first before gym work"

"In order to be very good and very prepared as a coach, you really need to know the game you are working with well"

"It is very important to expose players to as specific a match demand as possible"

"Creating competition in training is paramount both on and off the field"

SHOWNOTES

1) Darren’s journey in strength and conditioning to the highest levels of football

2) Where does strength and conditioning coaches fit into a high-performance department

3) Monitoring tools in AFL like sub-maximal heart rate tests

4) Promoting communication and structures in a high performance department

5) Where S&C should fit into a schedule based on a coaches plan and the specificity of the sport you are dealing with

6) Being good at both the technical and personality aspects of the job

7) Luis Suarez and the importance of consistency of exposure to stimulus on and off the pitch compared to a recovery based performance system

8) Game specific conditioning and low tech solutions if without GPS

9) Getting hired in a foreign job markets and the importance of repeated exposures

PEOPLE MENTIONED

Dave Watts

Bill Gates

Cal Newport

Adam Owen

Dave Carolan

Kelly Penfold is a Physical Performance coach at the QLD Academy of Sport, currently working with Men’s field hockey, triathlon and race-walking. She has been involved in athletic development from grassroots to professional and Olympic sports, including three years as the strength and conditioning coach for the QLD Women’s State of Origin Team. Her coaching experience ranges from field and court sport to endurance athletes, and has worked with youth, adolescent and older athletes. She was Head Performance Coach for Ace Performance in Melbourne prior to her QAS role where coaching speed, acceleration and agility were a strong focus. She holds her Level 2 ASCA accreditation and is an Elite coach within the ASCA Pro-scheme.

QUOTES

“Endurance first is the underlying factor that I think should always be worked on in a preseason”

“At the very start of preseason is when I start to get them confident and comfortable at running a reasonable distance”

“It is very important in any endurance sport to build kilometers in a patient approach year by year”

“Somewhere around that 25 km mark is my minimum in the preseason to know that the hockey players will get through a normal week inseason”

“If I can give them a cue the players have in their mind, those external cues seem to gee them up the most”

SHOWNOTES

1) Kelly’s voyage in strength and conditioning to the Queensland Academy of Sport

2) The importance of building aerobic capacity in preseason work

3) Approaches to develop aerobic capacity in preseason, including in semi-professional athletes

4) How to balance strength and endurance work and using the gym to stay in touch with speed and power

5) Using hill work and other field progressions to get players ready for accelerations and decelerations on pitch

6) The physiological base, polarised training and building mileage year after year in players

7) How change of direction and sprint work can be applied with triathletes

8) The footprints concept from Thorpey's former coach

9) Monitoring an athletes fitness during the season and using aerobic running tests to decide what type of running an athlete may need

10) External cues versus internal cues and athlete retention

PEOPLE MENTIONED

Gennadi Touretski

Nick Winkelman

Tim Rogers has been a strength and conditioning coach since 1991, working across a number of sports including stops in the NRL, international Rugby, Australian Institute of Sport, NSW Institute of Sport (twice) and has had stints in Malaysia, China, Samoa, New Zealand (twice) and France (thrice). He is currently back in Malaysia and alongside this is finishing his PhD on Off-feet conditioning through the University of Waikato. Tim has presented for the ASCA since 2004 in Australia New Zealand and India,and been a life member since 2014.

QUOTES

“The next generation of strength and conditioning coaches should be better than us”

“One of the main challenges for a S&C coach when starting, is why should athletes trust you?”

“Aiming for the highest level of sport is not necessarily where you learn the most as a strength and conditioning coach”

“The more you learn about the technical and tactical side of the sport, the more it will help you”

SHOWNOTES

1) Tim’s amazing journey in strength and conditioning

2) Challenges when starting a job and the logistics of strength and conditioning

3) Why you need to do your due diligence before starting in a new position and performing a gap analysis with your program

4) The benefits of being consistently involved in a program regardless of the sporting level and doing your homework on your own team

5) Hurrying slowly when you start a new position

6) Being a piece of the pie and mastering the basics as a strength and conditioning coach

7) The benefits of being at the same organization for extended periods and why it depends on what stage of career you are at

8) Deciding the balance of off-feet to on-feet conditioning based on the individual athlete you are working

PEOPLE MENTIONED

Keith Lyons

Martin Bevan

Nick Gill

Mick Crawley

David Pyne

Kelvin Giles

Peter Harding

Matt Blair

Dave Hatfield

Richie Dixon

David Joyce

John Lythe

Dr Courtney McGowan is an applied sports scientist currently lecturing in exercise and sport science at the University of Tasmania. Courtney is also the physical preparation coach for Surfing Tasmania and collaborates with various organisations to conduct applied research in the areas of performance physiology and athlete preparation. Prior to her current roles, Courtney was a post graduate scholar at the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) Physiology department and completed her PhD focusing on competition day preparation strategies to enhance competitive performance in swimmers.

QUOTES

“Shorter warm ups (15-30 min) may be better for sprinting events”

“The key things with the endurance sports is looking at switching on the right muscles and focusing on activate, mobilise and potentiate phase of the (RAMP) warm up is critical”

“It doesn’t take very long at all to drop temperature after the warm up, which is an issue considering the whole purpose of a warm up”

“The key thing with any post activation potentiation before competition is what the athlete has around them to use”

“For every 1 degree reduction in muscle temperature, there is a 3% reduction in leg muscle power in cycling”

“A re-warm up at half time is very important for contact based sports where you have to be mentally and physically prepared”

“Really good research shows a significant drop in players' work rate in first 10—15 min after half time whereas teams that use short re-warm ups after halftime have the opposite effect”

SHOWNOTES

1) Courtney’s journey in academics and sport

2) Controlled frequency breathing in swimming

3) Competition day priming and RAMP warm ups

4) Strategies for call room or transition phases between warm up and competition

5) VO2 kinetics, clothing and considerations around warm ups for both heating and cooling depending on the environment

6) Field sport strategies for half-time and effects of re-warm ups on work rate after half time

7) Ambient temperature manipulations and continuous glucose monitoring for optimising fuelling for athletes in different environmental conditions

PEOPLE MENTIONED

Ben Rattray

Keith Lyons

Ron McKean

David Pyne

Louise Burke

Julian Jones

David Martin

Liam Kilduff

Mark Burley

Andrew Jones

Stephen Faulkner

Christian Cook

Phil Moreland comes to Royal Air Force Human Performance & Safety (HPS)from his role as the head of strength and conditioning at the NSW Institute of Sport where he managed the delivery of physical preparation services to institute supported sports and athletes. Phil has dedicated 31 years to the field of high-performance sport, having led a number of leading performance and strength conditioning teams in Australia, Scotland, Ireland, Brunei and Vietnam.

QUOTES

“The reality of it is 80% of the Royal Air Force is a corporate based work force”

“At the end of the day, we are in a people business, and we have to drive relationships”

“In the RAF, if you can get command buy-in, they can drive out directives, but you still need to create that ownership and autonomy”

“It is all about understanding what good looks like in a job and how to take that back”

“if you get that wellbeing piece right, the rest of the performance aspect will come with it”

“Make sure you are always reflecting on yourself and making sure you are always getting better”

SHOWNOTES

1) Phil’s backstory and transition from sport to the tactical space with the Royal Air Force (RAF)

2) The diverse range of staff and competencies in the RAF

3) Differences between working with athletes and the RAF and understanding what performance is for the many different roles in the RAF

4) How to improve reach and engagement within the tactical space and autonomy KPIs

5) Capability or strength and fitness testing in the RAF and changes in overseas armed forces’ testing

6) Applying performance principles to different RAF roles

7) Characteristics of tactical support services that Phil would take back into a sporting environment

8) Opportunities for strength & conditioning with the RAF

9) Being let go from roles and mentors not handing things to you on a platter as opportunities for self-development

PEOPLE MENTIONED

Kevin Thompson

Natalie Cook

Kerri Pottharst

Kelvin Giles

Alex is currently employed by the Brisbane Broncos working with their NRL Squad. He first worked as a High Performance Manager at the Canberra Raiders in 2000. Over the following 20 + years in the NRL he worked at the Melbourne Storm (2003-2013), Brisbane Broncos (2014-17) and the NZ Warriors (2018,19). His proven ability in S&C was recognised with invitations to work with the Australian Kangaroos from (2007-13) and the Queensland State of Origin Team (2016-20). Alex derives much satisfaction from observing athletes [he has worked with] have long, successful careers and sustained excellence. Alex is a strong advocate for game specific conditioning and conjugate gym based training.

QUOTES

“You do have a use by date in certain roles”

“The main priority is to present the players, individually and in a group, in the best physical condition you can on a day-to-day basis, on a weekly basis in season”

“There are certainly elements of your training that need to be at or above peak game speeds in the preseason”

“The key with any “overspeed” training is the athletes need to be able to execute the skill”

“The conjugate method believes if any element of training is not trained for a certain period of time those qualities will fall away”

“Higher volume session on the field are generally paired with upper body weights and lower volume field sessions with lower body weights”

“Strength is still one of the most important markers in rugby league in terms of performance output”

SHOWNOTES

1) Alex’s professional pathway from PE teaching and being a rugby league coach to strength & conditioning

2) The role of the performance manager in elite rugby league and the stakeholders involved in shaping that role

3) Monitoring and adjusting performance plans of rugby league teams and athletes

4) Working with the strengths and weaknesses of the staff you are involved in and the ideal composition of a performance department

5) Training over and above game speed and the run-wrestle fitness component of rugby league

6) Adapting a conjugate method of training to rugby league

7) Fitting strength & conditioning into the coach’s plan and deciding on the best schedule

8) The big rocks of preparing athletes for rugby league and Alex’s strength standards for rugby league players

PEOPLE MENTIONED

Mal Megniga

Steve Kearney

Craig Bellamy

Israel Folau

Greg Inglis

Alan McCaw

Nik has a Masters degree in Exercise Science from the Edith Cowan University. He has worked with professional basketball teams both nationally and internationally for a total of 23 years - 13 years in the Australian NBL (West Sydney Razorbacks, Sydney Kings, South Melbourne Dragons & Melbourne United) and 10 years in the Chinese CBA (Dongguan Leopards and Shenzhen Leopards). Nik has also been part of two Olympic campaigns (2004 Athens & 2008 Beijing) a World Cup Championship (Japan 2004), and a Commonwealth Games (Melbourne 2006) as the Performance Coach for the Australian Men’s National Basketball team. Over the last two decades, Nik has been a coach with 4x NBL Championship teams, a Commonwealth Games Gold winning team and the NSW ABA Sydney Comets Championship team as a player. Nik is an Accredited ASCA Level 3 S&C Coach and Accredited Elite Level Coach, within the Professional Coach Accreditation Scheme. He also is both an Accredited NSCA Certified Strength & Conditioning Coach and Registered Strength & Conditioning Coach with Emeritus Level – one of only 9 non-USA based coaches & one of only 4 Australians to hold the honour. Additionally, he is an ASCA Accredited Level 1 Tactical Strength & Conditioning Coach.

QUOTES

“You are only as good, strong or skilled as what your mind allows you to be so retaining information, learning new strategies and skills, there is that cognitive approach that needs to happen and if you haven’t fully developed that, how are you going to get better?”

“I’ve always believed in communicating as much as possible the importance of what we are doing to each and every person in the organization”

“You’re not going to program a lot of jumps for a given athlete that jumps a lot in games… but you still have to have some type of RFD element in their strength & conditioning”

“I feel that the strength & power work wakes the body up for whatever team or skill activity you are going to do”

“There is no reason you can’t come in for 15-30 min to work on 3 different areas that will keep your body getting better that won’t detract from what you are going to do on the court, from a skills point of view”

SHOWNOTES

1) Nik’s journey from working on computers to coaching basketball internationally

2) The 9-month preseason, nutrition, and other differences between coaching in Australia and China

3) Learning to learn and an athlete’s cognitive development for their success in sport

4) How increases in available data and player involvement have changed in the NBL and CBA

5) The importance of developing movement in different planes of motion for basketball

6) Individualising jump programming in basketball and coaching correct landing mechanics

7) Nik’s favoured assessments to use in basketball

8) Fitting in S&C sessions around a professional basketball schedule

PEOPLE MENTIONED

Paul Batman

Julian Jones

Denise Jennings

Stuart Cormack

Brian Goorjian

David Stiff

Dylan Hicks is a PhD candidate in Exercise Science at Flinders University, Adelaide. He is currently completing his thesis focused on Force-Velocity Profiling and has undertaken research with the Seacliff Hockey Club and the Adelaide United W-League team. Dylan is also the Head of Physical Education and High-Performance Academy Coordinator at Cardijn College in Adelaide. He is a Level II ASCA coach, a Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist (NSCA) and has completed a MSc at Edith Cowan University (Strength & Conditioning). His area of specialty is coaching speed and making sense of the data to improve sprint performance. Dylan has previously worked with athletes in team sports in the AFL, SANFL, A-League and NBL.

QUOTES

“Should I just invest my time in improving maximal force or should I also focus on improving maximal speed?”

“We know that we want the athletes to produce 9N/kg and 10-10.5m/s”

“Do not put all your eggs in one bucket with force-velocity profiling”

“My inkling with the training group (in my research) was that the group that was doing vertical loaded strength training was going to improve jump and sprint than the group doing horizontal based exercises”

“The biggest thing I have learned is not to put too much into the pot and strip things back into a really lean training program”

SHOWNOTES

1) Dylan’s time in education, research and strength and conditioning

2) Optimization of sprint performance and assessing an athlete’s force-velocity profile in a sprint

3) A quadrant based approach to bucket athletes based on their sprint force-velocity profile

4) Practical sessions based on an athletes’ force-velocity profile

5) Technical analysis and ratio of forces in acceleration

6) Putting vertical (e.g. jumping) and horizontal (e.g. sprinting) force-velocity profiles together

7) The changes in Dylan’s coaching practice from before starting his PhD to now and what he has found in his research

8) Using a Bondarchuk model and keeping training programs relatively constant

PEOPLE MENTIONED

Darren Burgess

Mladen Javonic

Clair Drummond

Jace Delaney

JB Morin

James Wild

Dan Cleather

Kym Williams

Derek Everly

Antoly Bondarchuk

Ashley Jones

Nathan Parnham

Natalie holds a Masters in Exercise and Sport Science (Sydney University) and is an ASCA Level 2 Professional Coach. She currently works a lecturer in Sports Performance at the Australian College of Physical Education, and is the Penrith Panthers Premier League Netball S&C Coach. From 2010 to 2020 she held roles at NSW Institute of Sport in Sport Science, where she was involved in Athlete Testing and Monitoring; along with athlete physical preparation using Heat and Altitude Training for athletes from sports including Track and Field, Kayaking, Netball and Rugby League. Nat has been a conference presenter at the ASCA International Conference in 2015 and 2019.

QUOTE

“It is a really big area and we still do not understand how a menstrual cycle can impact on female performance overall”

“Mid-follicular phase may be the best time to put some strength in training”

“To get a good picture of what is happening with athletes’ cycles, you would probably need to track for around 6 months”

“If athletes are stressed in another part of life, that may trigger a worse cycle”

“In an altitude room, you don’t have to work as hard mechanically, but you still feel like you have worked perceptually”

“For heat acclimation, there is a holding effect of around 7-10 days after the last stimulus”

SHOWNOTES

1) Natalie’s backstory in strength and conditioning and sport science

2) The menstruation cycle and what we currently know about it

3) Setting up training around the menstruation cycle for both strength and conditioning

4) Ways of recording the menstrual cycle for females including apps and the effect of age of menstrual cycle symptoms

5) The role of the S&C coach in helping female athletes with their menstrual cycle

6) The possibility of menstrual cycles syncing up based who the athletes are around and the use of oral contraceptives to regulate the menstrual cycle around competitions

7) The benefits of heat and altitude to drive athlete adaptations

8) The "ins and outs" of using an altitude room, including working inside and recovering outside

9) Deciding whether heat or altitude interventions might be more beneficial for the athletes

10) Active versus passive heat/altitude exposure and the positives and negatives of each

PEOPLE MENTIONED

Justin Crow

Jordan Peterson