This week with pre-season starting for some of my professional Tennis players I have recently being reviewing the training plan I have written and reflecting on how I was going to ensure that all the athletes get what they need.  It threw open a few good debates with the wider Performance team about the purpose of fitness testing, and also musculo-skeletal testing.  Does it need to be done- was basically the question the sports coaches were asking of me?

 

I have also been personally reflecting on my own roles as a strength & conditioning coach and reflecting on how much knowledge I need to have about the way my different athlete’s bodies are functioning from both a physiological and anatomical stand point.  For years I have seen new coaches pop up posing as corrective exercise specialists and offering in depth movement assessments and postural corrective exercise.  How much does my programming in pre-season need to speak to these individual differences?

 

There’s also a rise in athlete monitoring tools that can basically measure anything you want so again I want to be clear on what I am measuring and why.

 

Does every athlete above need a completely unique programme?

 

As controversial and popular topics go these are certainly ones I have followed for a few years now, and at this time of year I like to reflect on this as well.

 

So this blog is really a response to three topics- the first one is about the value of fitness testing from my perspective. The second one is my views on corrective exercise specialists.  The third one is my take on athlete monitoring.  I will include two links to two recent articles which I highly recommend you to read.

Fitness testing

 

 

So the situation is the week before pre-season and one of the professional players is due to return for pre-season.   They have had a week off on holiday at the end of a long competition campaign (in Tennis that basically means around 25 tournaments in 10 months).

 

The athlete in question has a long history of training, has probably been tested annually for the last 13 years in some form or another and generally knows how they are going to score.  He also feeds back that very rarely does he feel that the test results actually determine the training programme.  It is usually based around the areas he feels he needs to improve to win more points/lose less points.  So the Performance Team made up largely of tennis coaches ask the question, “Do we need to do it?”

 

Initially I am a bit dumb founded because I am thinking to myself, “Are you serious?”  but then I sit back and think it’s actually a smart question that deserves a proper answer.  Testing require maximal effort over several tests across various fitness parameters such as strength, speed and stamina- some of which are in tests that are not specific to the movements of the sport.  The risk-reward equation plays heavily on the mind of the sports coaches too who are protecting their prized assets from unnecessary risk.  I get it.  Does the test actually influence the subsequent training? Do we need to ‘sacrifice’ a day before and after a testing session to recover? Do we need to push them in the first few days back?

 

Yes is my reply! we need to know where they are at!  Assess don’t Guess– is my standard retort but……..let’s look at this more deeply:

 

If you have an athlete with so many years data behind you, are you really guessing? When there is a lay off through injury, or there is a reduction in training for some other reason for more than a few weeks then it is a no brainer. Historically myself and the Head of Sport Science & Medicine I work closely with at the Tennis Academy have said you need to be at above 80% of your baseline markers to return to a full training and competition schedule.  When you have a lay off we need to know if you are above 80%.

 

But if the athlete has years of training history, is fit and healthy and has only had a short vacation to re-charge the batteries this discussion warrants further comment.  For the athlete in question I still say  test.  Even if we suspect through intuition that they will hit these markers I like to test for another reason:

 

• To determine the effectiveness of the training intervention- pre and post training scores
• To test their competitive spirit
• To create a clarity of purpose with something measurable to beat

 

Generally speaking assuming the athlete is fit and healthy we may well be able to predict what scores they will get within 5-10%.  But crucially, we may not be so easily able to estimate what percentage of improvement we have made in the 4-week pre-season.  I like to know rather than just rely on the athlete’s feeling that they are fitter, faster and stronger.

 

General versus Specific Goals

 

Also, I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing to be able to feedback to an elite athlete that yet again their scores have met the baseline markers we are looking for.  Even if it is ‘normal’ for them.   I used to stress about this when working with elite athletes as I really wanted something in the fitness test to show up as a weakness (or a strength) so we had a clear focus for the training.  But actually the fitness test is simply an insurance policy- yes- you have a full bill of health. You have a strong foundation of general fitness on which you can build the plan.  The specific goals then become more about the demands of the game and where the athlete feels they can make some extra gains.

 

Usually this can be about working with the physio to rehabilitate some niggling injuries, maybe working on a bad habit in terms of movement around the court and fixing that, or even doing some specific work to prepare for a change in game style.  For example, if building more net play around your game style perhaps we need to condition the hamstrings more for some extra sprinting and stopping.

 

Corrective Exercise ”Pseudo-Physio”

 

My curiosity has peaked in recent months about sport biomechanics and I am even going to go to a 2 day course on pelvis function with Biomechanics Education.  I recently read a great article on the Personal trainer Development Centre (PTDC) website (www.theptdc.com) titled, ”A Corrective Exercise Specialist’s Guide to Training Clients Through Pain.”  You can read the whole article here.

 

He makes a really great point that first and foremost clients are coming to us NOT to take away pain but to gain a TRAINING EFFECT.  It’s worth remembering that!  Yes- we need to have an awareness of what movements elicit pain but more than that, it’s about having an arsenal of exercise variations and tweaks, and learning how and when to use which training technique to gain the desired training effect.

 

Think regress, not correct!!!

 

What movements can you still perform with them that work them hard, get them stronger and are pain free??

 

If you take your standard stock of go to exercises there are usually some common pain provoking exercises that can be accommodated with some alternatives.  You’ll notice that a lot of the pain is during anterior loading of the knees or shoulder during pushing/pressing activities!!!

 

Example: Pain during Lunge Variations

 

Pain on Forward lunge or walking lunge- modify to reverse lunge or split squat lunge.

 

Pain on Split squat lunge (front leg)- use a shin block to promote vertical tibia.  If back leg try foam rolling quads and/or use support under knee to reduce ROM.  Or try a less upright posture and use more of a forward lean with a more pronounced hip hinge.

 

So my take home is that perhaps not every athlete needs a wildly different programme, but perhaps the individualisation comes from knowing which variation of a classic is best suited to each athlete.

 

Here are some further thoughts from Steve Magness on assessing versus guessing in the context of movement screening.

 

 

Steve Magness, author of ‘Science of Running,’ writes: ”The screens should be a part of our program to perhaps identify risks, but not lead to the robotic linear thinking of On test X you scored poorly, So you’ll have this problem, So we need to do Y rehab to correct this. The body doesn’t work like this- it’s a complex self-organizing system that needs to be challenged in a variety of ways. It needs to be challenged to figure out the best way forward, not trapped.”

 

Read the whole article Movement Screens.  I highly recommend it.  He basically says that the art of coaching involves knowing how the athlete’s body moves normally in training and noticing deviations away from that.  This is as opposed to noticing how they move in closed assessment, and depending on whether it’s new or if it’s a simple versus dynamic movement, we’re testing something potentially far away from an athlete’s movement norms.

 

Athlete Monitoring

 

I’ve written about this topic on several posts.  Lately I have been monitoring Z scores to note worthwhile differences in markers of performance, related to neural fatigue.

 

It’s early days but I’m going to stick with it for several months to make a real determination of its ability to tell when athletes are fresh or fatigued.  So far I haven’t any athletes report a Z score of more than 2, which is the criteria for a significant worthwhile change from the norm.

 

 

In essence, we have the same issues with these tests where sport scientists are using numbers to determine readiness or prepardness. They provide some pretty little numbers, but do they really assess the issue we’re most concerned with?

 

Some will argue they don’t.  What some suggest, is perhaps instead of needing to codify every single difference in movement or health marker, maybe we’d be better off by engaging in practice, paying attention to how our athletes move and look and building up a large enough bank of movement watching, that we can let our master pattern recognition software in our brain do it’s job.

 

As Steve Magness says, “Attention is the greatest commodity we have to give, and in modern society it’s often the first one to go. Watch your athletes from the beginning to the end of practice. Challenge them and see where the point of breakdown is, mechanically, metabolically, psychologically- and figure out how to address them. Simply being being aware will tell you more than any screen ever could.”

 

Right now, myself and the Head of Sport Science & Medicine I work closely with at the Tennis Academy have said you need to be at above 70% of your baseline markers to carry out a full training session.  When you have recovered less than 70% (based on your health questionnaire used as part of your morning monitoring) training will be adapted accordingly.  The health markers are subjectively reported scales based on muscle soreness, energy levels, muscle fatigue etc.  If they report a drop in comparison to their 4 week rolling average that is less than 70% of that, we can advise reduction in volume and/or intensity or even complete rest.

 

The jury is still out.  I still feel comfortable using both intuition and science to back up my hunches.  I hope you have enjoyed my ramblings and have reflected yourself on why and what you test!!!!  I’d love to hear your comments!!

A few weeks ago I was asked to be interviewed by one of the students who is doing work experience with APA, as part of one of his assignments for University.

I thought it might make an interesting blog post- I’ll leave you to be the judge of that!!

Coach- Athlete Relationship Interview – Daz Drake

 

1. A little background history, how did you develop an interest in getting into the field of strength and conditioning?

I’ve had a fairly traditional route into the field of strength and conditioning. My interest in sport has been there from a young age, in football, athletics, long distance running etc. I probably realised early on that I wasn’t going to be a world beater, in terms of being an athlete. So I went to University to complete my degree in Sport Science, and from there went on to do my gym instructor and personal training awards. Once I left University, I realised it was all about networking. At the time one of my best friends happened to run a tennis club, and was looking for someone to do circuit training, of which I was capable of doing. It inspired my curiosity to learn more about how to train athletes rather than members of the public. I was at the inaugural Olympic weight lifting course that Sportscoach UK  delivered in 2003, which would then develop into the UK Strength and Conditioning Association workshop, so I was actually there at the very beginning.   I went from working in a local tennis club to getting my very first job here at the Gosling Tennis Academy (again through meeting someone at the UKSCA inaugural 2004 conference). I have now been involved here for 11 years.

2. From a young age, who would you say were your idols, or anyone that would have a big influence on your life/career?

I would say I never had a single person that I would call an idol or role model. Of course like all young males I too dreamed of being a footballer, so in that sense I would my say idol as a young kid was Ian Wright. However I never had a specific aspiration to emulate one of my sporting heroes, as equally I’ve never had a coach or mentor that I would single out as one particular inspiration for me. My entire coaching career has been one big journey of self-discovery and learning independently by doing (Erickson, Bruner, MacDonald, & Côté 2009). Everything I’ve learnt has been self-taught, and rather than having one particular coach that has mentored me, what I tried to do instead was create a leadership group, within my network of people that I trust who have had more experience than myself in other areas, and who I have always been able to ask questions of and go and visit. Rather than trying to become an expert in everything, having that leadership group is key because personally you can never know everything about such a broad field like strength and conditioning. There’s a business book called ‘Think and Grow Rich’, by Napoleon Hill (Hill, 1937) , and one of the thing he said was that even the greatest and richest people in history have always been reliant on the expertise of people within their group, and that in a way is what I’ve done, is put together a group of leaders and experts around me of which I can gather ideas from, otherwise I would not have been able to carry out this job on my own.

3. Would you say there’s any one individual who you take inspiration from in terms of replicating their method/philosophy of coaching, or would you take different elements and characteristics to make them your own?

There’s a quote by Ralph Emerson who said ‘As to methods there are many, but as to principles there are few’ , so personally I have always tried to get a grasp of the principles of training which I think are not unique, as all of the best trainers in the world respect the principles of training in terms of; overload, variation, specificity etc. But when I was setting up the company, and taking myself from just doing my programme, to then wanting to be a leader and influence other coaches, I was much more aware that I needed to have a stronger and clearer philosophy that I could articulate to the other coaches.

Not rocket science I know but I actually spent around 18 months figuring out where all the various types of fitness could fit inside the 5 S’s:

The late, great Mel Siff often referred to the Seven S-factors of fitness. The S-factors include:

1. strength
2. stamina (general cardiovascular endurance and local muscular endurance)
3. suppleness (flexibility)
4. speed
5. skill (kinasthesis, motor coordination and control)
6. structure (size, shape), and
7. spirit (psychological fitness)

I stick to 5 and prioritise:

1. suppleness
2. skill
3. strength
4. speed
5. stamina

I always think that the foundation of fitness is movement efficiency.

1 + 2 = foundation (movement efficiency)

3+4+5 = fitness

A note on stamina

About 5 years ago in terms of figuring out my philosophy one of the key influences was veteran strength and conditioning coach, Vern Gambetta, and running coach, Jarrod Deacon both of whom implement the short to long approach in terms of developing endurance, suggesting that you want to increase the speed you can run, and then having developed a good economical running speed, you can then increase the distance at which you can maintain that speed (Ferrigno, 2014). So the short to long approach is a big part of the tennis philosophy that I’ve developed here.

A note on suppleness

Another key influence would be another veteran coach, Mike Boyle, and one thing he said was the joint by joint approach, relating to mobility and stability, and which of these three elements body parts require e.g. ankle (mobility), knee (stability) etc. so this was a better way of helping me understand how to training the kinetic chain of the body as efficiently as possible. Eric Cressey from America, who works with baseball players, was one of the first people that gave me a blueprint for how to do good, quality sport specific training, as the emphasis is on having a good understanding of the needs of the sport and how to best prepare without just trying to replicate movements and shots of the sport.

4. What age range of athletes do you primarily work with currently, and would you say you have any preference regarding what category of athlete you coach?

Currently I work a little differently to how I have done in the past, as previously I made sure I worked with every kind of age group, as young as 5 years old up to 25. More recently I don’t tend to work with the youngest age groups as now I specialise in the juniors that are transitioning into professional sport (12-16), the other fifty percent of my time would be spent with those of elite standard that make a living out of the sport. I believe there is a misconception of whether it may be an easier or harder job depending on age categorisation as I believe everyone is unique. In previous experience, irrespective of age or standard you get those that gravitate towards fitness and enjoy it more than others. Therefore I don’t have a preference as everyone brings different challenges, who all bring enjoyable experiences for different reasons. In a way I enjoy the challenge of working with those who may not enjoy the training as much initially, because then you really have to test yourself to get them to change their mindset.

5. When being introduced to new athletes, what would be the key factors in ensuring a positive/safe environment in which they trust and respect you? Does this depend on age category?

In terms of the safety element for athletes is about appropriate exercise prescription and level of training depending on the level of physical development, so what you’re asking the athlete to do is not going to be injury provoking. As you say, the trust and respect elements are key for the training environment.   For me, firstly it is about how the coach themselves making sure they develop a positive environment. It needs to be about the coach being animated, inspirational and in general being passionate and excited about what you’re doing. During the sessions it is important to search for the positives aspects of the athlete’s performances and give genuine praise about the good progress they make, as sometimes it’s too easy to spot the negative aspects and look into the reasons as to why they’re not doing well.

I believe respect comes from three different areas; knowledge, authority and power. You need to initially possess the knowledge and display to your athletes that you know what you’re talking about, as they more often than not will respect you if they believe what you’re asking of them is helping them to get better and ultimately win. Generally there is a sociological hierarchy, in which adults are generally thought of as having more authority and power over children, so naturally young people are generally brought up to respect those older than them. However you should never rely on believing you should immediately gain respect based on a hieratical ladder, and you need to earn it, because ultimately if you don’t know what you’re talking about then you lose respect very quickly. As a coach you need to be very clear about what your boundaries are and make sure the people under your care are made aware that if they cross the line that they know there is a consequence for their actions. Of course people will make mistakes, step out of line and constantly test the boundaries, but as a coach you have to pull them up on it, remind them of the principle agreement between coach and athlete. Therefore you have to make sure there is an agreement in the first place and get them on board with you, rather than going down the dictatorship route as athletes won’t buy in to that. With an older athlete you can then ask them what do they feel is acceptable and what isn’t, and what they feel would be an appropriate punishment, so you can therefore create your own set of rules, of which though you need to make sure you follow through with, which some coaches don’t have the ability to do. I’m able to do that as I have quite a military style, and those that test the boundaries with me personally find out quite quickly that they won’t get very far.  Not saying I create a military environment that isn’t fun, but I personally start quite strict, and as time goes on and the athlete starts to understand the process then I start to relax.

6. What would you say would be there most significant change of approach towards dealing with athletes of a young age e.g. under 11s, to training those that are older with a competitive goal in mind?

In terms of their behaviour you’re going to have boundaries regardless of what category you’re dealing with, but you respect that fact that a six year old kid that turns up to a session once a week because their parent has sent them there, is going to have a different attitude to those who may be playing full time tennis at 16 and wants to be world number 1, so you have to manage the expectations differently, and match the behaviours you expect with the end goal. In the beginning it has to be all about having fun!!! As things progress along in to elite performance the expectations change.  When the goal and behaviours are incongruent, you’ve got to call them up on it and say ‘ if we’re aiming for you to be number one, that behaviour is not congruent with that goal, and you won’t get anywhere soon if it continues’. You still have to make sure the session is fun, regardless of what standard or level you’re working with, as that’s the reason they got into the sport in the first place. Goals and expectations can always change, and you’ve got to be flexible with the athlete, and from time to time pull them aside the discuss issues i.e. what they want out of it, and what their expectations of themselves are.

7. During a session, would you say you have a more hands on approach to coaching, or would you take a step back and analyse from afar before implementing change? How often/little would you step in?

Something I would say I’m still guilty of even now, is jumping in and having your own agenda about what you want to coach on the session plan and end up not coaching what you see but coaching what’s on the paper. But you still need to have a proper process that involves an evaluation that takes place in a live situation, when evaluating their movement, rather than going straight into a technical drill, and saying ‘this is how you do it, copy this’, you need to step back and see how they move naturally when they’re not consciously thinking about the activity, from which you can then plan on what to do next. The next step is to lay out the objective of the session, and use the evaluation feedback to dictate the plan that is dependent on who you’re coaching. With a younger athlete you take on more of the dictator type role, and say ‘this is what you’re doing’. With a more experienced athlete it will involve more consultation with the athlete and ask them what they think they should be working on now. After you and the athlete know ‘what’ they are doing, the next important thing is the ‘why’ they are doing it, something a lot of coaches miss out on, but important so the athletes buy into it. The session will depend on what stage the athlete is it, so typically with young athletes that may be learning a skill for the first time, more teaching and demonstrating will take place (Mageau & Vallerand, 2003). With a more developed and experience individual, you would put that skill into performance pressure where there’s something at stake, although in any lesson you want to be teaching, training and performing.

8. In terms of the relationship between coach and athlete, how would you go about ensuring that they continue to respect and trust you, to ensure that their development continues?

Assuming you get the athletes to respect you in the first place, it is also vitally important that they trust you over a period of time. The biggest thing in ensuring that they continue to trust you is that they can see you’re helping them get results, because ultimately in the field of sport, people are judged on whether they win or lose more.

The athlete has to feel that the things you’re asking them to do are ultimately helping them get better and win more. When you may start getting issues with trust and respect is when they’re not winning, sometimes in situations that may be out of your control, as it’s up to them to deliver the outcomes, but they will still question the processes if they’re not seeing improvement. For long term, knowledge is vital, as you have to know what world class looks like and know where the athlete is currently, and where they have to get to. If you don’t know what world class is in that particular period, you’re not going to be able to help that person reach that level, and therefore can end up losing their trust.

9. Over the course of your career have you adapted the way in which you interact with your athletes, maybe due to the changes in society, and the way athletes behave nowadays?

My personality and the way I set up the environment hasn’t changed, as I’ve always been quite a strict, no nonsense coach that has very clear boundaries from day one. I’ve never been known as a kind of joker that tries to entertain through humour, and have always been known as quite a serious coach. I would say my anxiety levels have dropped significantly because I’m now more likely to adapt sessions on the fly because of the experiences that I’ve had, so I’m much more confident in knowing that if something I’m doing is not working, then there’s another 5 options that I can revert to. A former Head of British Swimming coach called Bill Sweetenham always said that in the beginning of your coaching life you relie heavily on the session plan and you only know one way of doing something, and if it goes wrong you don’t really know what to do. By the time you get to the twilight of your career, you find there are numerous possibilities by which you can get the same result. So overall my style hasn’t changed, but my adaptability has to give me numerous options to work with (Sproule, 2009).

10. Generally how would you deal with the situation of which the athlete is clearly showing signs of a lack of interest/focus and motivation, and does your approach on this change depending on the individual i.e. do you make use of any punishments?

In my opinion there are 2 scenarios when coaching, one where you don’t get a choice in who you work with, and the other is where you get to pick and choose, which ideally is a great position for a coach to be in. Now I am in a position where I get to select who I work with, and I can say to the athlete that if they want to work with me then these are the benchmarks and standards that I expect in the session, if you’re happy to commit to those levels then you can work with me. The minute they aren’t able to maintain that level you can may be give them 1 opportunity and say maybe this isn’t going to work. Some coaches don’t get that luxury of turning down work, and in some cases may decide to take the money rather than take the moral high ground. Those that may not have the choice because they’re contracted to provide a service for a club or school and who have a mixed group, inevitably you’re going to have a group of people that want to be there, and those that don’t. There are couple of ways you can deal with this depending on the support of the team you’re working with.  If it’s an inclusive session where everyone has to be involved its more difficult, but you can have a strike system where you can say if they do something out of line once you get a warning, do it again you’re out for a few minutes, 3 times then you’re out of the session, and in doing so you can potentially create an environment of excellence by saying that people that don’t want to do it and are going to mess around are out. However most of the time it’s very difficult and won’t be well received unless people support your vision of excellence.

Sometimes in an attempt to keep everyone involved, with those that aren’t necessarily motivated you can use pace and lead. You can’t get frustrated as a coach, or have this unrealistic expectation that they should be here, they should be working harder, as they’re not at that point in their life or career to have that level of expectation as they don’t want to be there at that moment. Therefore you have to stay positive with them, find the greatness in them and have different expectation to those that want to be there. For some just turning up in their kit could be a success, of which you could praise. It’s easy to be strict and hard on them as you may feel you already expect them to do such things, but in my experience people respond better if someone notices something that they’ve done well. Don’t try to go at your pace, go at their pace, and if they’re not as motivated to be there, don’t push it, but ease them onto the next step and identify what is progress for that individual. As I work in performance, not development, we don’t have any dead wood in our programme. If someone wants to pay for performance based sessions and they don’t come to the party, then they get a reasonable time to shape up. However if they start slowing the rest of the group down then they’re out, because they’ve already been notified of the agreement.

11. Can you recall a moment in your career in which you felt you made a significantly positive impact on the athlete, not just in a sporting sense, but in terms of developing the person?

I can’t single out one particular person, however in terms of developing them as a person it is really important to me and is a big part of my philosophy. It’s well acknowledged in sport psychology literature, mindfulness, purposefulness etc. that it’s not just about developing the athlete, it’s about developing the person. I see my job as a coach, and differentiate myself from a trainer, who predominantly motivates a person to get more energy out of them or teacher whom predominantly help people learn a skill. A performance coach is someone that can truly have an impact on the person as well as the athlete. The general thrill you have of seeing someone come into your programme who may lack confidence or self-esteem or who is unsure of what they want to do in life, and you see them graduate from a programme like this, go onto university, graduate with a degree, and end up doing great things within the industry and business, is personally as equally rewarding to me as maybe working with a junior or senior world number 1 who wins titles.

This week I am as excited as I ever have been.  As you know, at APA we believe that one of the fastest ways to improve your game and win more is to get fit. APA specialise in getting you fitter, faster and stronger so you can excel in sport or lead a healthy functional life.

For years I have been working in professional strength & conditioning offering services principally in Tennis to both youth and professional athletes.

APA will now be offering adult clients who want to get fit for sport the opportunity to follow the same programmes as our pro athletes.

Adults will work with the same  coaches that work with our pro players. During the evening classes you will be working on the same types of sessions that our pro players use.

Why now?

APA’s new venture into adult group fitness coincides with the launch of Gosling Sport Parks new Junior gym which will also be the home of APA training sessions.  This gym will be booked out exclusively for training clients so there will be no queuing for equipment or difficulty making yourself heard due to all the noise from a busy tennis court or gym!

What can you expect?

Just like the pros we need to keep your body guessing and our training system is designed to do exactly that.

Building a complete athlete – APA recognise that training the same way all the time can become boring. All APA training methods are based on a holistic approach to getting fit. You will experience a variety of training methods including mobility work, power training, speed training, strength training and endurance.

Individualisation – Everyone who aspires to be their athletic best will be on a different part of the journey. No two athletes are the same so rest assured that we will determine from the very beginning exactly where you need to start and programme a long term plan to get you where you want to be! Every athlete will be screened before starting any of our programmes.

 

Periodisation parameters

As a general guideline we phase our programmes according to the chart below.  A complete cycle consists of 12 weeks, finishing with either Strength or Power.  When you first enter our programme you will always start with a ‘robustness phase’

Cycle	Weeks	Phase 1	Phase 2	Phase 3
1	1-12 weeks	Robustness	Hypertrophy	Strength
2	13-24 weeks	Hypertrophy	Strength	Power
3	25-36 weeks	Robustness	Hypertrophy	Strength
4	37-48 weeks	Hypertrophy	Strength	Power
1-4	Rest week at end of each cycle focusing on Robustness

 

How do I get Started?

This is a truly world class individualised experience and in order to ensure this happens, all participants will be required to conduct a 60-minute initial assessment before being able to attend one of these sessions. This is to ensure we prescribe the appropriate type and intensity of exercises to meet your needs.  As well as looking at your exercise technique we will take you through the common foam rolling and mobility drills we use so you are all set up to join in straight away!

The cost of the 60 minute initial consultation is £50 but for a special promotional offer is available for £25.

If you would like to learn more about the Group Fitness classes for Adults, and book yourself in for an initial assessment then contact APA Director Daz Drake at daz@apacoaching.co.uk

Further details can be found HERE

 

Two days ago I had the privilege to present to over 20 Performance Tennis coaches from Hertfordshire as part of the relaunch of the Herts Coaches Association.

Who cares how strong you get them!

I am in a fairly unique place having worked and specialised in performance Tennis for 12 years.  Having been on the shoulder of some fantastic tennis coaches over the years I have a unique perspective which means I can relate all of the S&C work I do to the game.  I think that is a massive part of an effective coaches’ tool kit- the ability to turn/TRANSFER kinetic gains in the gym (increased force/power etc) into kinematic gains on the sports field (improved set up and torque during skill execution).

The figure above highlights how movement efficiency in the gym in the form of a squat (fundamental movement skill) sets up longer term success in fundamental sports skills such as the set up stance when preparing to hit a ground stroke.

You can read more about this presentation in my previous blog Movement skills before Sport Skills, where I discussed LTAD, the Technical checklist and the processes involved in influencing movement efficiency.

In this blog I want to go into a bit more detail on the Mental processes that influence movement efficiency, or more generally the overall performance of an athlete or team.

From a Mental Performance factor stand point the ultimate goal is to get your athlete or team into a state of mind where they can FOCUS on the task at hand and give their 100% best effort.  My inspiration for this blog came from watching a documentary/interview with Sir Alex Ferguson, who is regarded as perhaps one of the very best in the world at getting the best out of his players over his entire managerial career.

Knowing your players

When interviewed Sir Alex was asked whether he thought he coached through Fear or Love? He said that he thought it was a bit of both; you needed to know when to give someone a bit of love and an arm around the shoulder and when to give someone a bit of dressing down to get the best out of them.

Sir Alex was well known for his ‘hair drier’ treatment of certain players including Roy Keane, Ryan Giggs and even David Beckham.  He wanted to let everyone know that no one was too big to get put in their place.  Everyone except Eric Cantona, who Sir Alex knew was someone that no matter how reckless or poor his performances or behaviour was he would never respond to the stick.  He always needed Love.

Christian Ronaldo spoke very highly of Sir Alex and spoke of how considerate of his situation he was when his Father was unwell; he said to Christian, take how ever long you want- one day, two days, a week- your family is the most important thing.  We love you here at the club, you’re very important to us but family comes first.

We need to recognise that the athlete or team needs to be in the right state of mind to receive the coaching you want to give them.  The Figure below shows the number of factors that can influence someone’s focus.  Clearly Sir Alex had a great knowledge of his player’s and knew what things were going on in their life that could potentially have an influence on their performance.  He clearly knew when to be positive but also when to really challenge someone with some tough words to get a response.

Internal factors

This is the mental ‘stuff’ that an athlete or team will bring to the session that can influence their focus.

External factors

This is the mental ‘stuff’ that we as coaches also need to bring to the session that can influence both our own and our athlete or team’s focus.

Resulting Mindset

The combination of the internal and external factors give us the resultant mindset which is part of the Environment you create as a coach.

Peak Performance Coaching

Your job as a coach is to get your athletes to focus and give 100% effort and in my opinion there are 3 aspects to coaching for achieving this that all top coaches have in abundance linked to their COMMUNICATION:

1. Create the environment
2. Set the Scene
3. Ask for Feedback

 

Create the environment- it starts with respect!

Sir Alex said that it isn’t about coaching through either Fear or Love, it’s about having RESPECT.  He also said it wasn’t about power it was about control.  He wanted to make sure that he was in control of everyone and everything.  But that’s for another blog about Leadership.  Let’s talk a bit more about how someone like Sir Alex might influence his players during actual coaching sessions.

Overall there is a need for the individual or team to respect you.  If they don’t respect you they won’t listen to you and they certainly won’t want to work for you.  We all know you have to earn respect you can’t demand it.  Having said that some people who have been there and done it will get instant respect such as former pros who turn managers or managers joining new clubs fresh from success with a previous club.

I personally think you earn respect in many ways.

> Respect through your track record

I think people respect you when they can see that your methods get results- that helps.

> Respect through being consistent

From my approach I try and earn respect because my athletes see I stand up to what I believe in and set clear rules for behaviour that I work hard to uphold.  Maybe they don’t always like the strict approach but they learn to respect it because it creates an environment conducive to learning and not horse play.  I personally start off with a fairly strict no nonsense approach but there is certainly plenty of room for fun too!  However, if athletes break the rules then there are consequences for that.

> Respect through trust

When you show someone that you are prepared to go above and beyond to support someone to achieve their goals it builds trust in you that you are there for them.  Having an unconditional love for your athletes is really important.  It is important to be able to always see the greatness in everyone.  If you can’t do that then you aren’t the right person to be working with them.  Having a positive label of the athlete is important- don’t label them as lazy, or having a poor attitude, you always need to focus on what they do well and where they are making progress. It’s about being positive.

”No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care”

Before the session starts

In my opinion one of the most important roles of a coach is to pay attention to your own as well as your athlete or team’s mindset going in to the session and bring them up or down to the right level to get them in their ‘optimal mindset.’

Assuming the athletes respect you they may still need a bit of help to get in the right mindset; that’s why coaches need to be in state of mind where they are neither under or over aroused.

> Having a presence- grab their attention!

There is no doubt that certain coaches seem to have more of a presence than others.  One of the delegates at my presentation apparently remarked to another coach, ‘I thought he was shy?’ after seeing me present!

You see, in my every day life I’m quiet and I am not usually the one who is at the centre of attention or looking to get in the thick of the action.  I prefer to be in the background and my leadership style is very mild mannered and consultative.

Yet in my coaching role, I see it like  more than an audition; it’s a performance and people are coming to be entertained.  In my presentation I had to keep more than 20 coaches entertained for nearly 3 hours! No easy task!

If you have a great presence you can use that to influence the energy of the athlete or group positively.  If they are lacking in energy you can rally the troops with your enthusiasm.  If they are over aroused, angry anxious and so on, you can calm them down with a controlled but authoritative voice.  Both types of communication require a strong presence.

 Be Passionate for the subject you are talking about

The easiest way to grab attention is to have lots of passion and enthusiasm for what you are talking about.

 > Use shake up activities

People are much more likely to be engaged when they are involved.  Before you get stuck into your coaching session if you can see the energy in the group looks low a really easy tactic is to use a high energy game such as tag or any kind of game which has a ball- anything that requires them to compete and concentrate!!

> Let them calm down first

Equally if you are about to give them some coaching and they come to you too hyped up or angry, let them calm down first- where you can either call a time out for the entire squad or an individual so they can calm down first.

Setting the Scene

This is a huge part of every coaching session.  Now that the athletes are ready to listen with the right mindset you can now set the scene for the rest of the session.

The figure above summarises some of the things I spoke to the Herts Coaches about.  Too often we get straight into the drill we want to work on without setting the scene properly.  Tell them what they are going to do and then why- which can be done through you selling the importance of it (if it’s a new drill) or asking them why it is important and reinforcing that (motivating them).

Crucially you will want to remind them of what you are expecting from them.  You may want use demonstrations to show what you are looking for from a performance point of view.  You most definitely want to remind them that you are looking for 100% effort and focus.

Let the drill teach the skill 

One of the the things I have learnt is that the easiest way to get people to work hard is to set the level of challenge high enough that the only way someone can achieve the goal is if they are focused.

Athletes will always respond well to drills that are:

• Fun
• Competitive
• Challenging

Generally speaking games based drills are more fun so rather than just doing closed technical drills, more open drills that involve running and use of a variety of skills are more fun.  Athletes always enjoy opportunities to apply their skills.

Keep score to hold interest and promote competition and most importantly stretch your athletes by making them aware of world class levels of performance.  I think it’s always easier to challenge them by setting the level high and see if they can reach it.  To do this you as a performance coach need to have an awareness of standards and know what world class looks like!

Too often we might berate athletes for not working hard enough but if we don’t stretch them in the first place they may not have a reason to need to work hard!

Give them a choice

When you set the scene you can also:

a) give them a choice how hard they want to be challenged- they can decide how challenging they want the drills to be

b) give them a choice if they want to stop or keep going (when the drill is challenging)- but they must know that IF they decide to KEEP GOING they will need to meet the demands of the drill.

Ask for Feedback

You can learn a lot about what is going on in the head of an athlete by asking questions after completion of a drill.  They can tell you what they were focusing on and they can even come up with ideas on what they think they need to do to improve their performance.

In my experience, if you give the athlete ownership of their performance they will often harder on the things they have come up with even if you think there is something else that may be more important! Sometimes it’s more effective to let them run with their own idea and see what happens!

By doing this you are also showing the athlete you are making them accountable to an agreed level when we set the scene earlier.  It is very important to get agreement on the level of performance actually achieved.  If it is not of a high enough level they have a choice- either improve to the level required or be asked to stop the session.

There is no place for mediocrity!

I hope you have enjoyed this blog.

If you would be interested in learning more about some of the skills and drills that form part of APA’s movement skills foundation to build high levels of coordination and strength in athletes who aspire to become a professional sportsman or woman then please book on to APA’s next workshop:

Title: Coordination and Strength Training for Sports

Date: October 31st 9am-12pm 

Venue: Gosling Sports Park

Cost: £30

Full Details HERE

September madness

If your job is anything like mine then the month of September is all hands on deck as many of our junior athletes are returning from summer holidays, are back to school and are now getting back to their student athlete lifestyles.

Needless to say we have had a lot of athletes to assess over the last few weeks including physical competency assessments, fitness tests and strength/power profiles.  With all this data it is important to be able to determine what data is actually useful so that is my focus this year.

Athlete monitoring: Goal 1: Is it any good?

APA has been recording data consistently over the last four years on a range of Fitness test parameters so we know what good looks like in terms of speed, agility, power and stamina.  Since APA purchased the Gym Aware linear position transducer to determine power and force parameters I have been keen to use this tool to deepen my understanding of what good looks like!

Based on previous articles and my take away messages from the UKSCA conference this summer my main goal is to determine:

if there is a power achieved at a specific load that differentiates those at pro level from the second string players in the sports I work in.

Tennis: Since I spend most of my own time working in Tennis I thought I would start with that.  There are many contributing factors to successful performance in Tennis besides physical attributes.  So unlike other sports it may not always be the case that the best athlete is also the best tennis player.

Other sports such as rugby may be better off assessing absolute power at fixed loads of 20, 40, 60, 80 and 100kg.

For example, Dan Baker’s research on professional rugby league players, with whom he worked for 19 years, shows that the power achieved jumping with 80-100 kg really differentiates those at the pro team level (NRL) from second- and third-division players.

But for Tennis I am going to look at relative power first rather than absolute power.  So this years’s power profile looks at 0, 20, 40, 60, 80 and 100% bodyweight.  I will be investigating if better players produce more power at certain loads.

So far I have profiled our top 3 British Tennis players (all Top 300 world ranked) and their power and force profiles during 1 repetition jump squats look like this:

Athlete 1 was able to generate 78 watts/kg during 20% of his body mass during a jump squat.  It doesn’t seem to follow the trend of his profile but for now 78 watts/kg is the highest observed.  He is the best athlete (supported by this jump squat profile) and currently is also the highest ranked.

Athlete monitoring: Goal 2: Is it any good- measured against the norm?

It is clearly important to know what good looks like.  It is equally important to know how the performance you are observing compares to the ‘norm.’  Is the change in performance significant or simply within the realms of typical day to day variation?

One of the skills of a strength & conditioning coach is being able to plan the training of a professional athlete who is training multiple times per day across both S&C and their sport.  Below are a selection of training templates I have either personally used myself or have seen other coaches use.

Clearly the stresses of such a full schedule can take its toll on the body (and performance) of the athlete, so it’s important to monitor this.  Perhaps the athlete is not responding well to the volume and/or intensity of the schedule.  How can you observe this? And then hopefully do something about it before it becomes an issue?

I have already mentioned in a previous blog about this but it is worth referring again to some of Dan Baker’s work he used to monitor neuromuscular fatigue.  He used a 20kg repeated jump squat x 5 to monitor mean external power.

Dan says, ”At the end of every power training session warm-up, before the real barbell work started, we would do five jump squats with 20 kg to monitor the state of the neuromuscular system/recovery. An easy test, not fatiguing, and it allowed us to monitor how the squad was coping. A 3-4% deviation (from the best pre-season score) meant nothing. That is just the normal weekly variation, but changes of 7-10+% meant something! If the whole squad is down on average 7%, look out!”

Figure 5. Monitoring neuro-muscular recovery through the weekly assessment of jump squat power with 20 kg in professional rugby league players. The mid-season slump corresponds with two key factors—mid-winter and an increase in playing load and intensity for the key players.

Statistics, Statistics, Statistics!!!

Means, Standard Deviations and Z scores

Mean– The mean is the average of the numbers: a calculated “central” value of a set of numbers.

Standard deviation– A measure of the dispersion of a set of data from its mean. The more spread apart the data, the higher the deviation. Standard deviation is calculated as the square root of variance.

Z–Score – A Z-Score is a statistical measurement of a score’s relationship to the mean in a group of scores. A Z–score of 0 means the score is the same as the mean. A Z–score can also be positive or negative, indicating whether it is above or below the mean and by how many standard deviations.

This year I will be calculating these numbers for our important variables that we believe will be the most sensitive to change during times of fatigue.  So I will be taking the Reactive Strength Index (RSI) at the end of warm-ups at 9:45am and then the Mean External Power of a repeated 20kg jump squat during the start of the strength session at 10:30am.

Below is some hypothetical data for Mean External Power for this month

.

Let’s say the coach asks me if the score on 21.10.15 is significant.  As you can see there is an upwards trend in RSI performance peaking at 2.70 on 21.10.15

The Rolling average is 2.58 which takes into account the average of the last four scores

The Z Score of 1.31 shows that the last score of 2.70 is above the mean.  Z scores are particularly important when determining significance- when the score has gone above/below the rolling average.

Generally a score of between +/-1 and +/-2 is seen as quite a significant change from the average.  (A Yellow Flag).

Generally a score of greater than +/- 2 is seen as very significant.

Therefore the last score would be quite significant in terms of a worthwhile improvement from the rolling average.

How can APA help you?

Fitness testing and programme design

General public remote support packages-athlete copy

If you would like APA to assess your fitness and write you a programme you can do yourself then feel free to contact us.  We would love to hear from you.