The Fallowers

This week we welcomed Jonny Holland on to discuss his experience in coaching the rugby player and his approach to developing nutrition programming in elite level GAA. In addition to these topics Jonny discussed the resilience he built up throughout his adolescent years and how it involved with him making his way into a professional career in Munster Rugby. 

This conversation evolved from his own individual athletic development right through to lessons learnt as a professional athlete and how he has used this to evolve his own coaching practices.  

Areas of note in todays podcast;

🏉 His Rugby career, the highs and the set backs,

💪🏼 Building a resilience in the underage athlete

👨🏼‍🏫 Jonny's Masters research into creatine supplementation for female athletes

🤗 How he approaches performance & health nutrition to ensure the athlete is both physically and mentally prepared to perform

This week we welcome don Emma Cowley and Emma Ross who recently co-authored a paper on the disparity between male and female participants in sport and exercise science research with Kelly McNulty and Alyssa Olenick.

We explored the general findings in terms of male and female specific research but also how it is seen through titles, abstracts and methods sections.

We discussed the reasons why the gender data gap exists but more importantly the implications in terms of the specific recommendations that emerge from research alongside the social impact of a seemingly lower involvement of females as participants in research.

We welcomed on Dr Brendan O'Keeffe to discuss his PhD studies that focused on developing and trialing a health-related fitness test battery in Irish post-primary schools. We discussed why we should be testing, how to conduct tests, what tests to include and some tips around who to do and what not to do.

We looked at how Ireland's fitness levels compare to European norms and why they may be as they are.

We also had discussions around how fitness testing fits in as part of an overall meaningful PE programme and what role schools play in the long term health and fitness of the Irish population.

This week we welcome don Shannon Beer who has a wealth of knowledge when it comes to incorporating nutrition coaching as part of an  approach to developing all round health. We discussed how she became interested in nutrition, her research and work on dealing with body image issues and where she sees the nutrition u=industry going. Shannon also discussed what health is and provided an overview of her model of Flourishing Health.

This week we welcomed Dr Phil Kearney onto The Fallowers. Phil is a lecturer at University of Limerick and course leader of the MSc in Applied Sports Coaching. Phil gave us his definition of what coaching is and what a coach is.

We discussed the characteristics of "serial winning coaches" and how these characteristics are developed over time. Phil provided us with some tools that coaches can use to develop their coaching practices and add to their coaching toolbox.

Phil also gave us an overview of how research on coaching has evolved over the years, what tools are used to measure/monitor effective coaching and what direction research on coaching is likely to go in the future.

This was a truly enjoyable episode and we will certainly have to follow up with Phil in the future to dig a bit deeper on a few episodes.

Dr Gabrielle Fundaro joined us to discuss all things gut health. We looked at the signs and symptoms of gut ill-health, how we can measure gut health and what aspects of lifestyle and nutrition can have positive and negative impacts on our gut microbiome. We look at a number of nutrition related factors have created a lot of "noise" in relation to gut health, "damage" and impact on the microbiome without much evidence to back up some claims.

Finally we look at some habits we can build into our daily lives that will help to maintain optimal gut health.

You can find Dr Fundaro on Instagram at @vitaminphd

This week we were joined by Eoin Clarkin. Eoin is currently balancing two roles as S&C for Arsenal Senior Women's team and The Irish U21 men's team. He is able to draw on a wealth of experience from Dundalk FC, UCD, Kilmacud Crokes and his work in the private sector.

We discussed the importance of communication and planning for International camps as he has seen it from both aspects. We looked at cultural differences between teams and sport while also discussing some of the physical and psychological considerations when working with female athletes.

Towards the end we delved into some interesting points around how we balance our knowledge of the technical/tactical aspect of the game with our physical responsibilities.

We sat down with Lorcan Daly who is completing his PhD on Recovery Practices in Gaelic Games. His studies have focused on what physical characteristics impact recovery in GAA, what recovery modalities athletes perceive to be effective versus what is really effective and how recovered are players as they head into games? We discussed all the factors we need to consider when planning recovery practices and how a well structured training programme is often the most effective thing we can implement.

Keir Wenham-Flatt joined us this week to discuss his Strength Coach network. It evolved as he sought to help others lern from his mistakes such as how to create a network to improve future job prospects and how to think critically about how we can realistically impact performance as strength coaches. 

This week we welcomed on Barry O'Brien who is an S&C coach with Connacht Rugby. He discusses his current role predominantly as a conditioner but also on the "Return To Play" end of things. He discusses his previous role as a sport scientist where he mainly looked at GPS. We spoke about how to add variation to conditioning, how much is done with/without the ball and how important it is to communicate with technical/tactical coaches.