Today’s blog comes from APA coach Konrad McKenzie

Hi Everyone,

Today I wanted to review a paper by some great lecturers at Leeds Beckett University, who consistently produce practical research around the area of strength and conditioning and in particular youth athlete development.  I am going to split this topic into two parts, Part 1 will look at the role of feedback and getting the most out of our young athletes. Part2, will discuss the types of feedback. Part 2 will be out next week.

Today’s article title is “Show me, tell me, and encourage me: The effect of different types of feedback on resistance training performance”.

This paper mentions the importance of high quality resistance training sessions in promoting positive adaptations for sports performance. However, for these sessions to be of a good quality athletes will need to express high levels of kinematic outputs, for example in power and velocity (Pareja‐Blanco et al, 2017). Fatigue, low levels of motivation and external factors could reduce intent subsequently reducing performance outcomes. Those who work with youth can attest that a significant part of the program is keeping the athlete engaged and motivated to deliver the best possible outcomes. This is not always easy but delivery is our bread and butter, something which I am constantly learning.

Is there a significant difference between feedback methods?

The article compared four different feedback mechanisms, these included no feedback, verbal, encouragement and kinematic feedback on back squat performance in semi- professional rugby union players. The paper was interesting and has speculated that high levels of verbal encouragement and especially, kinematic feedback improved acute physical performance in speed of the movement particularly with players who display low levels of conscientiousness. A good example of kinematic feedback would be devices that measure barbell velocity during certain lifts.

Studies in youth?

The paper then, made me explore this further in the area of youth athletic development. I found another paper by the same authors discussing how visual feedback improves physical performances, motivation, competitive and perceived workload in adolescent male Rugby union players. There were significant differences in Barbell velocity between feedback and non-feedback control groups. This particular cohort responded well to kinematic visual feedback. Now, if we are all interested in how to get the most out of our young athletes these results are interesting, especially as the gym is not every athlete’s favourite place to be (believe me).

How do we get the most of our young athletes?

It may seem obvious that verbal encouragement and visual feedback provide superior results, when improving sports related tasks, but a question that has always been at the forefront of my mind is how do we get the most of our young athletes? I want to share my thoughts with you:

Energy

An old mentor of mine took pride in delivering his sessions with energy, I will never forget the intensity of those sessions. Delivering the sessions with passion, enthusiasm and flair makes even the mundane tasks exciting. Not only is it delivering with energy it is also getting the athletes on your level by first matching their energy and taking them to your desired destination (something he always told me). A good example of this could be bringing your athletes energy up when they seem a bit flat or bringing it down, when they seem a little too excitable. This a skill that takes time to develop but I believe it’s a skill worth practicing especially with the session you are trying to deliver. An example of this, may be high energy consistent verbal encouragement for a hard fitness conditioning session vs a grounded energy for more technical tasks that require higher levels of skill execution.

Feedback

I believe that type and timing of feedback is vital for youth athletic development and the types of feedback will be discussed further in part two. I previously alluded to ‘specific feedback’ in building self-efficacy in youth, what did they do well? In this section I wanted to talk about timing of feedback concurrent vs terminal, or in simpler terms, feedback during or after the task. Dr Mike young does a great job in giving his thoughts on the timing of feedback, particularly in relation to the complexity of the task. He suggests that ”concurrent” feedback is best reserved for tasks that are simpler to execute, and ”terminal” feedback for more complex activities, to prevent worsening the movement or paralysis by analysis. I know my former self would try to correct everything all at once but this isn’t always favourable practice. With this in mind, excellent coaches will achieve desired outcomes with a constraints based approach and concise instruction.

Competition

A question I always ask myself is ‘How do we go about creating competition within our environments where young athletes display high levels of intent?’ and a further question is how do we get our athletes to display high levels of intent without digressing to far from the target task?’. This is always a fun topic to discuss as we try to strike the balance between stimulating competitions without losing sight of the main session focus. Athletes love to compete, it’s in their nature, why would we want to tame that? For me now, it’s finding tasks that we can measure and compare, creating games that challenge different qualities and making sure our language and the way we sell these activities to the players, always links back to our main session focus and their sport. For example, using the ‘acceleration noughts and crosses’ games in Tennis to reinforce appropriate levels of projection and drive enabling players to get to the ball quicker. So, with that game we get high levels of intent and relevance to the focus of the session, and their sport with the way it is fed back to the athlete.

Want a FREE Fun Games For Kids Ebook?

Click Here

Final thoughts

I think we all attest that the longer we are in the area of youth physical development, we understand that the delivery of the program is a key component to its success. A great program will undoubtedly fail if it’s delivery is poor. At university, back then, Sports science/Strength and conditioning was focused around the granularity of programming rather than the art of coaching, which is primary but what if that individual is not putting in their true efforts, or they are lacking motivation? How then do we go about creating the desire to perform in that individual? These are just a few of my thoughts around this area would love to hear yours.

Show me, tell me, encourage me!

Thanks for reading guys,

Konrad McKenzie

Strength and Conditioning coach.

Follow Konrad: @konrad_mcken

Follow Daz: @apacoachdaz

References

• Pareja‐Blanco F, Rodríguez‐Rosell D, Sánchez‐Medina L, Sanchis‐Moysi J, Dorado C, Mora‐Custodio R, Yáñez‐García J, Morales‐Alamo D, Pérez‐Suárez I, and Calbet J. Effects of velocity loss during resistance training on athletic performance, strength gains and muscle adaptations. Scand J Med Sci Sports 27: 724-735, 2017.
• Weakley, J and Wilson, K and Till, K and Banyard, H and Dyson, J and Phibbs, P and Read, D and Jones, B (2018) Show me, Tell me, Encourage me: The Effect of Different Forms of Feedback on Resistance Training Performance. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. ISSN 1064-8011 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1519/JSC.0000000000002887
• Weakley, J., Wilson, K., Till, K., Read, D., Darrall-Jones, J., Roe, G., Phibbs, P. and Jones, B., 2019. Visual Feedback Attenuates Mean Concentric Barbell Velocity Loss and Improves Motivation, Competitiveness, and Perceived Workload in Male Adolescent Athletes. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 33(9), pp.2420-2425.

A word from APA owner, Daz Drake.

This week’s blog comes from APA coach Konrad McKenzie.  In my last two blogs I wrote about the topic ”There is no such thing as a sport specific strength exercise.”  In case you missed it you can read Part 1, and Part 2.

These two blogs were inspired but a great discussion I was having on a Tennis forum.  Off the back of that Konrad recommended I read an article written in the NSCA Strength & Conditioning journal.

Konrad has done a terrific job of summarising the article and leaves a few of his own thoughts on how this could relate to youth athletes.  Enjoy!

Training the youth athlete: How specific to the sport do we need to be?

I recently read an article by the NSCA titled: Transfer of Training: How Specific Should We Be? This is an area which has always interested me as there has always been discussions around this topic. I wanted to review this article and also create some discussion around the implications for youth athletic development, relating to this article. Generally speaking, the authors suggest coaches have varying ideas on how much specificity is required to transfer to better sports performance. The definition of transfer they have used, refers to the degree of crossover from a training means to a desired outcome or task, for example, this could be the degree to which a jump squat transfers into improved jump performances in Volley ball players. Whilst some coaches advocate using exercises which are highly specific to the target task, others believe that training the general physiological capacities will transfer to sporting skill this operates on a spectrum. The questions are:

• If we are so focussed on specificity are we missing out on overload?
• What are the different types of overload outside of traditional methods and how can these be specific?
• What is the best approach when training youth athletes?

Firstly, I want to outline that the paper does a great job in describing the different types of overload, with relation to specificity. I’ll explain each very briefly to give the reader an understanding around this principle, but I do suggest going over to heading over to the paper and giving it a read!

• Coordinative Overload
• Mixed-methods
• Traditional Methods (Specific)
• Traditional Methods (General)

Coordinative Overload

This is a bias towards developing the skill element and motor learning over developing the physiological capacities of the athlete.

This method requires the reader to redefine the definition of overload beyond Newtonian and physiological ideas of progressively adding weight to the barbell. But imposing overload through variation; by creating subtle changes in the target task, which are familiar to the athlete (Bosch, 2016). The paper uses a nice example of high speed running and creating variation by imposing new coordinative challenges such as creating instability through uneven surfaces or gradient. It is important to remember that in order to do this successfully, variations of the required movement need to be small to create the desired adaptation- intermuscular coordination.

Mixed Methods

This approach uses a mixture of traditional and specific training methods, typically with this method a coach decides when it is right to apply very specific and general principles within a training program. The idea here is that an athlete needs to the capacity to produce force but needs to be skilful enough to direct this force optimally. For example, in sprinting where the importance on the rate and magnitude of force produced, express a clear relationship between capacity and skill. Furthermore, this approach makes it difficult to completely separate coordinative and traditional overload. For example, if I want to work on acceleration using a sled is this considered overload through traditional or coordinative means? Probably both. Also, the author suggests that this type of training is likely to allow the athlete to apply the gym based strength gains to the associated intermuscular coordination of the sporting task.

Traditional Overload (Specific)

This is the idea of mechanically overloading a part of the target movement pattern. This particular type of overload looks at specificity at the muscular recruitment level, sharing similarities to the intermuscular, intramuscular and velocity of the task.

Intramuscular coordination– referred to as “Specificity on the inside” This is to the type of muscular contraction (eccentric, isometric, concentric) of the sports movement. Bosch suggests that the similarity of the specific muscle activity is the first step of ensuring specificity (Bosch, 2016). The author states that, with this type of specificity, musculotendinous behaviour is more important for transfer to the sporting task, than the visual resemblance.

Intermuscular coordination –Intramuscular describes the activity within a muscle, intermuscular coordination, also referred to as force- couple relationship, looks at the synergy between different muscles for efficient movement within the human movement system. As described by the author the idea here, is that realization of new found gym strength is limited unless, the coordinative intermuscular relationships are practiced, therefore increasing transfer and specificity.

Traditional Overload (General)

Traditional overload is probably the most familiar with a lot of coaches and is the methodology of developing the general physiological capacities with the belief, that these will be enough to transfer to the sporting skill. It is apparent that structural, neural and muscle fibre transformation makes up the majority of the support for this type of specificity. A great example they use is the positive correlation between maximal isometric strength and measures of agility (Bazyler et al, 2015; Dos’Santos et al 2017).

So where does this lead, with youth training?

An extensive argument will fall outside the realms of this blog. But, I hope it will stimulate some discussion.

Before we nosedive into this question, it’s important to appreciate that context is king. This could be down to the environment you are operating in to the demands of the sport in question. Additionally, it is knowing the athlete and understanding their strengths, limitations and current stage of development. It is also going to be dependent on your coaching philosophy, what you think specific training looks like and how you go about achieving this. Finally, when dealing with youth, it is recognising the complexities of training this special population for example, the period of growth and maturation may temporarily alter some of their physical qualities, particularly coordination. There will be a time and place for every method mentioned.

The more experience I gain in the industry and the more I learn, I would argue that my approach now, will lean toward the mixed methods approach. Utilising both a general and a specific approach for increasing transfer to the sporting task. Surfing the spectrum between traditional and coordinative overload.  Some will argue that a traditional overload model is all that’s warranted for a developing athlete but I do believe that there are limitations to this.

Would a coach who cements his philosophy solely on traditional principles of overload be missing out on a whole array of opportunity to develop important qualities such as skill acquisition? Would a young athlete who is capable of producing large amounts of force be able to express it in varying environments? Is a correlation between traditional methods of training and sporting skill also a causation?

These are just questions which I have asked myself especially in a sport like Tennis which requires excellent rhythm, timing and readjustment. Alternatively, developing structural and neural qualities are vital to athletic development, particularly if thinking about enhancing output, robustness and injury prevention. Ideally, I would like an athlete to possess the capacity to withstand the rigors of competition/tournaments whilst being able to express suitable levels force in unpredictable environments, with precision, finesse and efficiency. These, in my personal opinion, will warrant a mixed methods approach.

Thanks for reading!

Konrad McKenzie

Strength and Conditioning Coach

Follow Konrad: @konrad_mcken

Follow Daz: @apacoachdaz

References

• Bazyler CD, Beckham GK, Sato K, Bazyler C. The use of the isometric squat as a measure of strength and explosiveness. J Strength Cond Res 29: 1386–1392, 2015.
• Brearley, S. and Bishop, C., 2019. Transfer of Training. Strength and Conditioning Journal, 41(3), pp.97-109.
• Bosch F. Strength Training and Coordination: An Integrative Approach. Rotterdam, the Netherlands: 2010 uitgevers, 2016.
• Dos’Santos T, Thomas C, Comfort P, Jones P. Relationships between isometric force-time characteristics and dynamic performance. Sports 5: 1–12, 2017.
• Wang R, Hoffman JR, Tanigawa S, Miramonti AA, La Monica MB, Beyer KS, Church DD, Fukuda DH, Stout JR. Isometric mid-thigh pull correlates with strength, sprint, and agility performance in collegiate rugby union players. J Strength Cond Res 30: 3051–3056, 2016.

Okay folks, this is about my twentieth post on the topic- each time I move forward with my thinking on sport specific training.

Today’s blog has been inspired by my Tennis colleague Ruben Neyens, who was on a conference call with me and a few mutual friends where we were talking about strength training and specific exercises for Tennis. Ruben threw out a few questions/observations which are pretty typical of the Tennis coaches view of strength training.

Follow Ruben: @ruben.neyens

Follow me: @apacoachdaz

Statement 1: In Tennis it is often the case that the player needs to be able to execute the skill in quite challenging positions (uncomfortable/awkward) on the stretch, low or high positions in relation to usual centre of mass etc.  How does strength training prepare the player for that?

Statement 2: The gym is quite a closed environment, where movements are pretty much the same every session with not much variation in movement.  This compares to tennis where you never really hit the same forehand or backhand twice in a row and it’s quite open. How does strength training prepare the player for that?

With those questions posed, Ruben actually had to leave the meeting and I promised him I would give him thoughts on this on a blog….so here goes.

Enter Frans Bosch…well not literally, but I felt that these statements needed the attention of a man far smarter than me, so I pulled out Strength Training and Coordination: An Integrated Approach

In case the mere sight of the front cover has got you rolling your eyes because you’ve heard he is ‘anti-strength training‘, stick with me because I’m a big proponent of doing heavy weights but I want to give a balanced view of things.  He makes some observations that are difficult to refute – such that the ‘strongest’ athletes are by no means always the fastest sprinters, and evaluation of training always shows that, in technically somewhat complex sports, increased force production does not automatically lead to improved performance.

On a side note, I one day hope to release a volume of work that challenges the status quo like Frans has.  I regard myself as somewhat of a Newtonian when it comes to my thoughts about strength training- it’s all about Force. But Frans has definitely challenged my ideas about the role strength training in the gym has in transferring to sports performance.

Within the first 10 pages of his book Frans has already cast doubt over my entire reductionist approach to athletic performance and states that ‘a highly reductionist approach to these aspects will not take proper account of the dynamics that shape movement patterns.’

Disclaimer: throughout the book you need to view it through a lens of improved sports performance.  He is making a case for the kind of strength training approaches that will transfer to improved sports performance (better movement technique in the competitive exercise whether that involves running, jumping, throwing etc).  As we will see later, there are plenty of reasons to strength train the traditional way, even if it doesn’t cause direct transfer to sports performance.  So just bear in mind his book and this blog is about movement and role strength training plays in improving it.

Movement patterns

Movement is composed on the basis of a flexible set of movement rules that are generally applicable and can filter and shape incidental adjustment to the demands of the environment.

The precisely taught lifting techniques will not be remembered, for it is not universally applicable, if only because the objects that are lifted in everyday life all differ in shape and weight.  Stable yet flexible movement patterns do not develop by learning techniques precisely but through self-organisation from complexity.

Already I can imagine Ruben nodding his head because when you speak to a tennis coach they are talking to you about a movement problem so it stands to reason they would also see the traditional gym environment as being too inflexible to help them with their tennis player’s movement.

Yet one common word we share in our coaching toolbox is ‘technique.’  A good description of technique in a sporting movement is therefore not one that prescribes ideal joint angles, but one that describes universally valid underlying principles of the movement and leaves room for variants that develop from self-organisation and are related to the individual properties of the body.

The role of strength and speed in movement

During the intermuscular cooperation, the amount of force is no longer the most important feature of good movement – what is crucial is the timing of the production of force.  The more contextual a movement pattern becomes, the more strength and coordination become a single entity.

Likewise, the speed of action of muscle fibres only partly determines the eventual speed of contextual movements.  It’s the timing (and hence coordination) that once again is more important.  Speed is thus a function of coordination too.

A reductionist approach to movement- whether this means thinking in terms of categories such as speed and strength, or pursuing perfect technique in isolation – does not focus on the limits of sensorimotor links.  Approaching sport specific strength training from a purely physiological angle disregards the way in which the learning system organises movements and transfers between them.

Role of Coordination

Sports coaches intuitively sense that strength training will produce the best transfer if the movements are performed in movement patterns similar to those in the sporting movement.  There appears to be a close connection between strength and coordination.

Strength training is coordination training with resistance

Want proof? Look at what happens when a beginner enters the gym for the first time.  During the first few weeks the muscles will not get stronger, nor will they increase in size.  Performance will improve when there is improved cooperation between the agonist, antagonist and synergists (improved intermuscular coordination).

The Sweet Spot

Traditional strength training strategies focus on improving the qualities in the contractile parts of the muscle.  More modern approaches put far more emphasis on the role of the central nervous system in force production.  A synthesis of the two approaches would seem useful.

Role of isometrics

I’ve written about this extensively in previous blogs – but for now I will just remind the reader that a recurrent theme throughout the book is isometric contraction of the contractile elements which is a feature of many contextual high speed sporting movements, and differs greatly from concentric and eccentric actions, described in plyometric exercises.  This allows the elastic component of muscle to be stretched, and creates forces many times that which the body could be capable of producing concentrically.  This is because there is no eccentric-concentric action in the muscle fibres when loading and unloading elastic energy during throwing and running.  The muscle fibres act isometrically, so that the musculotendinous units lengthen and shorten through stretching of the elastic parts.

Daz note: this muscle action can only occur in actions where the knee angle does not exceed 20-25 degrees.  Therefore we are talking about specific types of jumps, such as single leg take offs, very reactive double leg jumps and high speed running.

Central Nervous System Control: General Exercises

Traditional strength training focuses on the role of the brain and spinal cord in controlling all muscle contractions by sending messages to the muscles in response to sensory input.  Large intermuscular patterns – the building blocks of movement – can be controlled this way.  This could be another way to describe ‘general’ exercises in the gym.

When thinking about movement patterns in sport, such control at spinal cord level has little significance according to Bosch. It is still very difficult to translate that into intensive contextual movement, especially in the upper limbs. However, Bosch notes the movement of extension of the arm synchronous with rotation of the trunk around the longitudinal axis (used in punching) is one such general movement that is a generic building block of movement that can be used in such varied patterns as shot putting, boxing and arm entry in freestyle swimming.

Bosch talks about in sporting movements having to improvise and adapt it to the constantly changing demands of the environment.  Now in order to do this, instead some are adapted but others remain unchanged.  Seen in this light, strength exercises are very suitable for improving unchangeable components of skill.

This paves the way for Fran’s terminology of ‘attractors’ and ‘fluctuators.’  Higher parts of the system (brain and spinal chord) ensure the general, more abstract rules of the movement. while specific muscle actions and ranges of motion tend to develop from self organisation of the musculoskeletal system (peripheral nervous system).

So going back to statement 1 we can say that indeed in Tennis there will be great variety in the position players find themselves in.  The key thing is to identify the attractors and fluctuators present in the movement.  An attractor will be present in all variations of the movement (think of it as a non negotiable or a key performance indicator).

Common Attractors:

• Head position
• Arm abduction at an angle of about 90 degrees when throwing
• Contact point on the swing

Common Fluctuators:

• Trunk side flexion
• Knee flexion
• Pelvis rotation

A few typical universal attractors found in most running based sports include:

• Hip lock during running
• Swing leg retraction
• Foot plant from above
• Positive running position
• Head still
• Upper body initiates movement
• Extend trunk while rotating
• Distribute force while decelerating

Applications: Analysing athletic movement and identifying the stable components of the movement are key steps in devising a meaningful strength training programme.  Strength training needs to take into account the laws of motor learning.

In sports in which technique has a decisive impact on performance (I think Tennis qualifies), it may be useful to gear strength training to coordination training as far as possible.

Ask yourself:

• Is the quality of the explosive sporting movement limited by the demands that motor control makes on its performance? How will the degrees of freedom be controlled in an environment of attractors and fluctuators?
• Under what conditions can strength training help shift that limit?

Role of Motor Control

This section is going to allow me to comment on statement 2, which was making the comment that the gym environment is very closed.

Frans observes that:

In explosive sports, performance is largely limited by the requirement that the movement must be controllable

A movement is only controllable if it can withstand external and internal pertubations.  The main internal pertubation is fatigue.  One of the most important mechanisms for controlling movements and making them robust is the influence of cocontractions in what is known as the speed-accuracy trade off.

When agonists and antagonists contract at the same time, they keep each other more or less balanced.  The right balance is thus struck by a number of muscle properties that are not subject to neural control.

The effect of these mechanical properties is known as ‘preflexes,’ (mechanical muscle properties that influence the eventual performance of the movement without involving the central nervous system).  The action of preflexes within cocontractions forms the basis for muscles’ self-organising ability.  The effect of preflexes can be compared to the action of shock absorbers in a car’s suspension system.

The central nervous system emits the signal for the powerful cocontractions, and the correct movement is then largely ‘organised’ by the muscles themselves.  One major benefit is that response time is nil (0 milliseconds), so you can make contractions when the central nervous system has insufficient time to intervene.

Now because this is a protective mechanism for the joint, this comes at the expense of speed of movement.  This is important because it will for example, protect the shoulder when a child imitates an adult and tries to throw a ball overhead for the first time.  The mechanical properties of the muscles will adopt a 90 degree abducted arm almost automatically to take the pressure off the shoulder joint.

It also has a positive effect because it reduces muscle slack.  Muscle slack limits the intensity of movement.  Reducing it by creating pretension with the help of contractions reduces this limiting effect on the potential intensity of movement.

Therefore, in sport where high speed high intensity movements take place (think sprinting and take offs in jumping, as well as ballistic throwing/striking) the limit on performance is probably determined by the demands that motor control makes on intensive movements.  This limit, which occurs before the limits of the healthy central nervous system are reached, serves two purposes:

1. keeping the movement controllable in an environment in which several unforeseeable pertubating forces will act on the mover
2. protecting the athlete from injury by limiting the load on the system.

Before We Throw The Baby Out With The Bath Water

When you read the book carefully, Frans states on several occasions that traditional strength training (think maximal strength) and his approach (coordinatively complex ones with a light weight) should be blended.  With everything that we have spoken about until this point we are about half way through his book!

Now we have gone through the theory, we finally get to the strategy………but I’m probably going to get into the meat of the strategy in a part 2, so for those who have stuck with me to this point I’ll give you a quick overview now.

Implications for Strength Training

Training methods should be designed to provide a reserve of load capacity to protect the body during high intensity movements.

Two strategies for strength training emerge from this idea:

1. Raise Force Production by muscles as far as possible in the hope that the submaximal (‘good enough’) level, as well as the robustness of the movement, will increase together with the maximal level.  The maximal level raises the submaximal level along with it, as it were. This strategy approaches strength training in terms of contractile properties of muscle.
2. Increase the Robustness of the movement so that the ‘good enough’ level will shift towards greater force production during the athletic movement.  The submaximal level then shifts towards the maximal level without the maximal level needing to rise.  This strategy approaches strength training much more in terms of movement technique than the first (motor learning strategy).

As previously stated, in practice there will almost always be a blend of the two strategies.  But with the understanding that motor control places an importance on robustness of a skill (adaptability), it makes clear why in many cases there is no reason for explosive athletes to try and lift heavier and heavier weights within strength training.

‘Strong enough’ is something most athletes can easily achieve, and it is pointless to invest in anything more.  Making movement patterns more robust through strength exercises, is the most useful strategy for elite athletes to develop their skills.

Frans goes on to say that:

The problem with many strength exercises is that they lack a clear intention

I’m going to finish this blog post by summarising the last 30 pages of chapter 4 (of 7) and save the exercise selection part for another post.

Our body organises our movement solutions in clusters of similar intentions, rather than clusters of similar muscle activity.  Movements are above all intention-orientated.  The body does not think in terms of processes but in terms of the results of the movement.  We all like a target to aim for!  This is one of the clear benefits of Olympic lifts is that there is a clear end point of where the bar needs to finish and within what time, if you execute it correctly.

Furthermore, if attention is focused outside the body on features related to the movement, the movement and motor learning processes will be controlled more effectively.  The reason why external focus works better than internal focus, is quite simply that external focus concerns the RESULT of the movement (the basket the ball has to go into, a stable landing in gymnastics, the box the serve has to land in).  Most coaches direct attention internally and no where more so than in the gym doing strength training.  The body couldn’t care less about the processes of how to lift weights, it’s only interested in the result.  So give more feedback on knowledge of results (outcome) rather than knowledge of performance (process).

Now before you get alarmed this can simply mean giving the athlete a sense of the start and end point of a movement and letting them figure out how to get there.  This is important because research shows that movements learnt with a great deal of augmented knowledge of performance feedback are less stable and less reliable especially in stress situations!

The gym is often seen as a boring place for athletes because every rep is the same.  The learning process will not be greatly stimulated if the sensory information is well known.  Repeating the ideal execution of the movement in a standard setting does not lead to chaos- VARIATION in the execution of the movement in unfamiliar settings does.

This monotony within strength training has an adverse effect on the training effect.  It also impairs coordination transfer, and so it will not be easy to organise strength training in a way that creates the condition for such transfer.

The Movement Paradox: Finding Generalised Rules Through Variability

I want to finish by repeating a statement I made at the start: stable yet flexible movement patterns do not develop by learning techniques precisely but through self-organisation from complexity.

A principle of movement will be learned and automated more quickly if it is GENERALLY valid and hence can be applied in many different movement patterns.  It is absolutely essential to seek generally applicable principles of movement.  The ideal way to do this is variation in training (repetition without repetition), which should play a part in the learning of strength training techniques.

The learning system is very interested in general rules that can be applied in many situations.  These basic components of the movements have attractor characteristics.  They are STABLE and ECONOMICAL.  Variable training can separate the stable (i.e. generally applicable) components of the movement from the changeable, fluctuating (ie incidental) ones.

Final thought: a movement can only be truly mastered if it is to be executed stably as well as in changing environments.  Performing well in competition depends on this combination of stability and adaptability.  In the run up to competitions it may be therefore useful to retain some variability in training.