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Dr. Mark Kovacs- Strength & Conditioning for Tennis

March 12, 2020/in APA Blog /by dazdrake

This blog is a review of the Tennis Files Podcast Episode 33 – S&C For Tennis

Dr. Mark Kovacs

Background:

Dr. Mark Kovacs– Dr. Kovacs is a renowned performance physiologist, researcher, author, speaker and coach with an extensive background training and researching athletes and elite performers. His unique skillset has made him one of the worldwide leading performance experts in the area of optimizing human performance through the application of cutting edge, evidence-based information. He formerly directed the Sport Science, Strength & Conditioning and Coaching Education departments for the United States Tennis Association (USTA)

Discussion topics:

MK on several areas of Tennis fitness that are required

”Overall philosophy of Train hard and recover hard. Like most sports it requires a multitude of physical qualities.

Flexibility
Strength/Power
Agility/Movement
Endurance- to last long matches
Dynamic Balance

These are factors that are important in becoming a PROFICIENT ATHLETE first and foremost, and tennis player second. Unfortunately people are so focused on the tennis side of it, hitting tennis balls that sometimes they don’t develop their physical capabilities well enough. We see that at every level of the game. You may have great strokes but if your physical qualities aren’t optimised and you can’t get to the ball, recover from wide balls and fitness for the long term you can’t compete at your highest level for three or four hours.

So it’s really important to look at yourself as a tennis athlete, and make sure you don’t have major limitations in your physical capabilities. It’s definitely an area that can be worked on, and you can do a really good analysis to understand where you are at today, and what areas you need to work on.”

MK on prioritising the different elements of Tennis Fitness

”Everyone is at a different stage of their tennis development. The thing for most tennis players from a speed, power strength perspective is that a lot of that is based on your strength foundation level. So you need to make sure you are doing some form of strength training. That’s really a foundation for a lot of other physical capabilities.

So strength is one component that needs to be a priority. The other is your endurance. You have got to make sure you can last a match as we know plenty of players who are great in the first set and by the third set they’ve got nothing left in the tank. So strength at one end of the spectrum and endurance at the other.

The third big piece is this flexibility/mobility area where you have got to have the right range of motion. You have got to be able to get into the right positions so you can really utilise the energy appropriately meaning the energy up from the ground through the entire kinetic chain out into the ball. That’s where the great players, the efficient athletes do a great job, and get injured less typically.

Athletes that are less efficient are always using the wrong body parts to create their power, they are adjusting at the last minute to hit the ball and those are the players that typically have more issues in the long-term.”

MK on which areas are typically lacking in the adult amateur tennis athlete

”A lot of what you see as a limitation is a lack of general body strength, not necessarily absolute strength but the ability to repeat that movement (muscular endurance. Meaning that when I ask you to perform a single leg squat many of them struggle to put eight through their hip and lower limbs without collapsing or falling one way or the other.

If the lower limbs and core are not strong and stable then we lose energy and have to recruit other muscles to allow us to make contact with the ball. That’s where we see a lot of the problems stemming from.

We want to make sure we have stability with muscular endurance.

MK on which muscle or muscles groups is an area a tennis player typically under trains

”We used to say it was the core, but now people seem to have a greater understanding of the importance of training the core. So a lot more people are now training the entire core region, still sometimes they are doing it with the wrong exercises but that area at least is more of a focus.

The area that doesn’t get enough attention is the lower limb, the calf all the way down to the ankle. This is really the large major joint and last major muscle groups before ground contact, and we know that everything we can get energy wise into the ball comes from the ground. So if we have a weak link at the lower limb then everything further up the chain is limited.

Ankle range of motion =>stretch it out DAILY
Ankle stability
Ankle force generation capabilities => bodyweight squats are a good exercise

MK on type of strength training most appropriate for Tennis players

”A lot of tennis players structure their training to not necessarily increase their size of the muscles but what they are doing is they are developing general strength, power and muscular endurance and they are not trying to increase size of muscle as an objective. However as you age, you want to increase muscle mass because there is a natural aging effect, where you lose muscle mass as you get older.

Strength foundation – 3×10 (two reps short of a 10 Repetition Maximum- so not going to failure)
Power– 5×3-5 (30-60% 1RM) -the optimisation of training for a tennis player. Less that 6 reps. Light, Fast and Low Reps.
Absolute Strength– 5×3-5 (>85% 1RM) less than 6 reps. Heavy, Slow and Low Reps.
Hypertrophy– 4×6-12
Muscular endurance– 2-3×8-15

MK on different types of Periodisation for Tennis players

Perioridation is simply a form of planning to increase and decrease load throughout a period of time to optimise your training and be prepared for your appropriate competition. The reason Tennis players train is so that they can compete at a higher level so you need to structure your training with:

Heavier weeks
Lighter weeks
Higher volume
Lower volume

We can’t do week after week more and more. At some point you will break down. For some players that might be week two or three of a programme. For others that might be week six or eight. But at some point you keep increasing the workload and increasing the intensity you are going to break down, and a structured periodised programme is designed to avoid that!

Monitor the workload, monitor the rest and then pull back on the training depending on what the numbers are telling you objectively. When you start to see signs of fatigue (and there a lot of different ways to monitor that) you want to start backing off and you want to start reducing volume and reducing intensity. Let them recover for two, three, four days or even a week depending on how bad it is, and then start ramping up the training again. If you don’t do that the body will naturally shut it down itself by getting sick or injured and have to take time off.

One way is the block approach– where you really emphasis one specific component for an extended period of time (two to threes strength foundation, two to three weeks absolute strength, two to three weeks power etc. This is a great way to train and develop those areas, no doubt about it, and for athletes who have a traditional season with a full off-season, a full pre-season that’s how I train them (football players, basketball players).

In many Tennis players, they don’t have that luxury as they are competing once a month, every two weeks, may take two weeks on, three weeks compete etc and that’s their entire year. So for those individuals that are competing year round, we use a tennis specific periodised model, which is a form of non traditional periodisation known as concurrent approach. Meaning we do everything every week. We have a strength day, a muscular endurance/hypertrophy day, a power day.

The way we periodise it is we increase or decrease the volume and intensity in a structured way leading into our major tournaments. So certain events where we know aren’t as important as others, where they are competing just for match practice, they are going to train through that tournament somewhat, and maintain their physical training regime so they can really peak for some of the more important tournaments.

MK on some of the best strengthening exercises for the serve

A lot of times people try to fix their serve technique without knowing what the cause of the problem is. Sometimes it’s purely a technical issue that can be changed just with a cue and some practice. Most of the time there is a PHYSICAL LIMITATION that is the reason why you can’t do certain things on the tennis court.

In general the big areas that athletes need to focus on are the hip range of motion. Most people don’t think of the serve as a hip based exercise but that’s really where a lot of the power comes from. So they have to have good hip stability and range of motion.

The second big area is their back leg strength. If they don’t have good strength and power here that needs to be an area of focus.

Once our lower limb and hip is doing it’s job we can focus further up the chain with the core and shoulder.

MK on how to improve Footwork

”Very. very important area. A lot of people think that taking a lot of little steps is the best way to move, and it’s definitely not. It’s actually the slowest way to move on court. We want to be in the air more than we are on the ground, and what that means is that we want to take less total steps to get from A to B.

The problem is we want to do that as quickly as possible but you have to have the right amount of power to generate into the ground and out. So if you think about Usain Bolt at the Olympics, the reason he wins is because he takes less total steps than all his competition in the 100m dash. If the fastest way to move was to take a lot of little steps, we would see everyone shuffling down the track, and we don’t see that for a reason, because the fastest way to move is to take big steps.

Sometimes we do need to take those smaller adjustment steps but that only occurs if something has gone wrong in your movement to the ball

(meaning you haven’t timed it right, you’ve over ran the ball or mistimed the ball that is coming to you). Great movers always look like they are in the right position.

You with individuals that really struggle with movement you have to ask yourself:

Technique– am I using the most efficient footwork pattern as possible?
Strength/Power– do I have the leg strength and ability to produce the power to move quicker
Flexibility/Balance– concept of stability. Do you have the stability to be able to take these larger steps and absorb what you need to absorb, and take another step without losing your balance or taking too much time to regain your balance?

A good oncourt drill to use that work really well is the T line to S line (in service box) 30-sec cross-overs (run facing the net). This is a great exercise because you have to work on not only your footwork, but your change of direction, acceleration. If you do that for 30-seconds that is about a long a point as most people will play, so you get a little bit of speed endurance. You’re starting to get a little tired in the last 10-seconds.

We also like the Spider 5 ball drill.

Focus on your technique and understand your angles of stopping and starting, which is the art of good movement.

MK on areas of flexibility to focus on

Calves– loosen up that area
Hip mobility– loosen specifically internal rotators (pigeon stretch)
Shoulder mobility– internal rotators eg. sleeper stretch

MK on overall athleticism of a Elite Tennis player

Tennis players aren’t going to win any of those traditional competitions on a specific quality. They won’t have the biggest vertical jumps, and jump 40 inches; they will be in the mid twenties or low thirty inch at best. They won’t get a 4.3 seconds 40Y dash, maybe it’s going to be in the 4.6-4.8 range. They aren’t going to put up 20 reps on the 225lb bench.

However, they are going to do pretty well in all those competitions and when you combine all those scores together their average is going to be higher than a (American) football player, because an American football player is not going to have the endurance of a Tennis player etc. You need to be really good at all those physical attributes to be an elite tennis player.

Author opinion:

At APA we always promote the use of using a range of exercises, that require a mixture of physical capabilities- it’s just the focus and intensity of those exercises that changes at a given point in time.

For this reason APA would agree with the recommendations to use a concurrent approach to Tennis periodisation with a focus on building a strength foundation.

Top 5 Take Away Points:

Total athlete– recognise that Tennis is a sport which requires a multi-variate approach with emphasis on strength, endurance and flexibility
Strength foundation– importance of building relative strength as the foundation of power and speed
Importance of lower limb strength– make sure you focus on strength of lower limb
Importance of hip mobility and back leg strength for serve- rather than focusing on the upper body, make sure you are getting the lower half working efficiently first
Importance of taking big steps- rather than taking lots of little steps remember the fastest way to get from A to B is with big steps.

Want more info on the stuff we have spoken about? Be sure to visit:

Twitter:

@MKovacsPhD

Joel Jamieson: Recovery-Driven Conditioning

March 8, 2020/in APA Blog /by dazdrake

Joel Jamieson– online educator who taches coaches how to write science based conditioning programmes that deliver real world results

Website

Bioforce HRV

Morpheus

Bioforce conditioning certification

What is Conditioning?

The overall mental and physical preparation in order for someone to compete or perform in whatever environment they are trying to compete or perform in, whether that’s the game of life and you’re trying to stay alive and sustain a healthy life or it’s in the octagon and last from bell to bell for 3-5 minutes.

Conditioning- how well they can use their fitness they have to accomplish something

Energy system development– VO2max and Anaerobic threshold
Movement capacity– the energy it takes to perform a movement (efficiency)
Mental performance– control emotion and heart rate without a massive adrenalin dump

Movement capacity- we try to develop fitness and a lot of times that does mean going to high intensity and causing some fatigue to develop fitness qualities, but what we forget is that as we get fatigued our natural inclination is to let our fatigue fall apart.

If the coach is reinforcing that by saying: ‘Go faster, finish, keep going’ etc the problem becomes that they have learned to have poor technique as soon as they get tired, and have bad habits.

In sport as you fatigue, technique is always what wins! So we have to realise that as we develop these different fitness qualities we can’t let that develop hinder our movement and make us have sloppy technique. That doesn’t haven’t to be the case and it’s a very trainable quality!

Need For A Aerobic Base

Nowadays you will hear coaches say it’s all about interval training now. The research is based on time constraints of 4-6 weeks studies so of course if you are trying to improve fitness in that time, ”intensity is just a driver of the acceleration of things” so if I have 4-6 weeks and testing from point A to point B then training harder is going to lead to better results in those time frames.

But if we look at real world development over 6 months or a year then you can’t just do one intensity all the time. There is something to be said for spending time at lower intensities and higher volume training and greater frequency of training having looked at HRV data for many years.

In most sports that have a high aerobic demand there is a tendency to have a distribution annually of about 80% of time at lower intensities and 20% at higher intensities. That seemed to be a distribution that held true across almost any endurance sport in the world.

First 20-30 seconds of maximum effort work is predominantly anaerobic. After that point you will be predominantly aerobic. Because you were so anaerobic for the first 30 seconds, it takes up until to around 60 seconds of maximum intensity to where the total energy comes around to being around aerobic.

Now of course there is a difference between going for 2 minutes versus 2 hours but both events are going to be predominantly aerobic. It’s more just a question of how the aerobic system is functioning from an aerobic power versus aerobic capacity over the event. If you look at the average speed of a 1-mile and a marathon race the speed is not massively different to go one mile or to go 26. The reason for this is once you get to that 1-mile pace it is entirely aerobic, and when it is entirely aerobic it is possible to sustain that for a long time.

Specificity? Why not just practice the event?

Let’s use the classic indoor Concept 2 Rowing challenge.

A typical interval routine might be: 500m x four intervals with 5 minutes rest between intervals, and over time taper that down to rest to 1-minute between.

But why not just practice my 2000m rowing challenge every session and get better at the race?

It comes back to developing fitness qualities which requires a range of intensities. We are trying to develop different components of the aerobic engine, or anaerobic engine depending on the sport. Those happen at different intensities.

Let’s say I’m training for powerlifting, which is 1 repetition maximum of Bench press, Deadlift and Squat. So why don’t I just come in the gym and max out on 10 heavy singles every session and then walk out the gym? Well most people will say, ”A you’re going to blow your joints apart if you try that and B there is something to be said for doing some higher rep work and some different exercises.”

So we look at strength sports and inherently recognise that we can train for that with higher rep work and different exercises so it’s really the same thing if we are talking about the aerobic engine and aerobic sports. Yes the sport might mean rowing 2k for a few minutes, but that doesn’t mean that only doing that is the ultimate way to develop fitness qualities for it, because there are other intensities which will help us develop the overall biological systems and capacities that we need to get better at that specific event.

So one day a week we try and do a very close to competitive scenario session to get that overall brain-body connection used to that distance and pace and feeling so we do use specificity in training. But again, there are reasons and benefits to using other intensities to build the fitness qualities we need to be able to perform at that event.

Competition

The closer you get to the competitive event the more you want to simulate and recreate as many different parts of the event as possible. That’s where the psychological part of the training comes into play. The brain works by familiarity.

UFC fighters- the guys that have been in the Octagon more times are more calm and don’t get the adrenalin dumps than the person who is going in there for the first time.

There is a reason that the home team wins more than the away time as they are more familiar with the environment.

Train Slow Be Slow

There is no way I’m going on an ergometer for 45 minutes but there is some merit in doing longer work at zone 2 or what we know as that steady zone of 120-150 bpm! So can you just chop up your training into say 10 minutes weights circuit, 20 minutes rowing and then a brisk walk home?

General Central component- adaptations to blood vessel network, and heart are general adaptations that will apply to a lot of different types of exercises. An elite cyclist would still likely do well in other endurance events because they have developed these large central adaptations of aerobic fitness that will transfer to other aerobic events.

Specific component- more specific endurance to the sport, specific motion in leg drive in the exact movement of the bike.

The only caveat with doing general training is that you can’t take this idea that heart rate is equivalent no matter what you are doing. A strength circuit will cause a high heart rate but the resistance of strength training is significantly different to going out for a jog, or a row. The resistance drives my blood pressure up which causes different changes in the cardiovascular system.

But yes going out for a run, versus a bike versus a run can be used to get the general central adaptations, recognizing that the further out from an event we can prepare the body by doing different movements and events. The closer we get to the specific event

If that was not the case then bodybuilders and powerlifters would be great endurance athletes and they are not!

Charlie Francis popularised the High-Low System and he was talking about 70-80% of his overall work volume for his sprinters were tempo intervals at 70% of their maximum speed. So the vast majority of their overall running volume was done at low speeds, but 20-30% towards the end was done at their high speeds.

Now did that tempo interval work slow them down? No! Clearly not, they are the fastest guys in the world! So there is something to be said for the fact that the body is going to adapt to what you do, so if all you do ALL THE TIME is run slow then your body will get better at running at those speeds if you’re doing that over a period of time.

But the idea that any submaximal work is going to all of a sudden slow you down just doesn’t hold up. Your body is going to adapt to the BIGGER PICTURE of things as long as you provide your body with that high speed or high intensity stimulus it’s not going to slow down.

Hope you have found this article useful.

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APA are Recruiting!!

February 26, 2020/in APA Blog /by dazdrake

I have a few important announcements today!!!

APA Are Recruiting!

If you would like to be considered for a role with APA then please send a covering letter and CV to APA Owner, Daz Drake at [email protected] with email title APA.01

Gosling Tennis Academy

Full-Time strength & conditioning coach

We are looking for a full-time strength & conditioning coach who has a passion for working with youth athletes and would be available to lead on the Full Time Academy (11-16yrs).

This a full-time self-employed role, with opportunity to work with National and International Junior Tennis players.

The successful candidate will play a key role in driving the culture of strength & conditioning forward, with the opportunity to design, deliver and review long term athlete development programmes that can be used throughout the APA network. This is an opportunity for the right person to innovate in the sport of Tennis and integrate a physical programme within an experienced world class team of tennis coaches, sports medicine practitioners and s&c coaches

For Full Details Download the PDF by clicking HERE

Part-Time strength & conditioning coach

There are a number of part-time roles at Gosling Tennis Academy.

We are looking for part-time strength & conditioning coaches who have a passion for working with youth athletes and would be available to lead on the Mini Academy (5-10yrs) and Junior Academy (10-12yrs) programmes.

These squads run in the evenings from 4-6pm Monday to Friday and would be suitable for a coach who is looking to gain experience of a high performance training environment.

Gosling Tennis Academy is based at Gosling Sports Park, Welwyn Garden City and is operated by Better

For Full Details Download the PDF by clicking HERE

(Ignore the closing date: we are still looking for part-time coaches at Gosling Tennis Academy)

So what are you waiting for?

If you are interested in applying for any of these roles then send an email to APA Owner, Daz Drake at [email protected]

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Share this post using the buttons on the top and bottom of the post. As one of this blog’s first readers, I’m not just hoping you’ll tell your friends about it. I’m counting on it.
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Pacey Performance Podcast REVIEW- Episode 266 Hamstring Injuries- Part 2 of 2

February 14, 2020/in APA Blog, Pacey Performance Podcast Review /by dazdrake

This blog is a review of the Pacey Performance Podcast Episode 266 – Hamstring Injury

Jurdan Mendiguchia

Research Gate

Background:

Jurdan Mendiguchia– Physiotherapist, Researcher and Injury Consultant. Jurdan is a World expert when it comes to injury prevention and rehabilitation, particularly in hamstrings and ACL. He has 40+ research papers to his name (see link above to Research Gate).

Discussion topics:

JM on the current approach to hamstring injury rehab and prevention and how would you say there is room for improvement in this area

”Good question. The issue of hamstring injury definitely needs a new boost, a step forward. I think it has been an injury that contrary to other types of injury such as ACL, has been approached from a very analytical and isolated point of view. This influences the intervention carried out.

To give a clear and simple example, in the ACL injury, inciting events such as jumping and side cutting were biomechanically analysed to later analyse how the trunk, hip, ankle or even anatomy influence this inciting event providing a multifactorial approach to the problem. Consequently injury prevention programmes have been directed to correctly and repeatedly perform the movement related to the injury mechanism such as side cutting. I never see a guy only perform squats to prevent the ACL injury!

Everything was reduced to the action of the hamstring at a specific time of sprinting, the main injury mechanism. And from there the measurement methods such as isokinetic and eccentric (Nord board) and prevention training arised. It has been focused at that concrete moment without going too deep into how the trunk, pelvis, the other leg interaction influence that moment. Unsurprisingly that was extrapolated to the prevention methods, and most of the research methods have focused on improving the specific strength or isolated strength of the knee flexor without knowing which exercises activate one hamstring muscle or the other!” (rather than the correct performance of the movements related to the injury like in the ACL!)

If we go the literature we can see a huge difference between the articles dedicated to the nordic and sprinting, at least in the injury related area. I wonder myself, since it has been more than 18 years since the first study carried out in the AFL that suggested that eccentrics are effective in reducing this type of injury. So it is not a new thing, and at least in the major leagues all the football teams I know are doing eccentrics at least weekly. And what is still the biggest injury problem today? Hamstrings!

We can assure ourselves in the knowledge that the velocity and intensity of the game has increased but then maybe eccentrics are not effective enough to battle against actual player demands.

We cannot ignore what is happening and continue to not listening to the concerns of the coaches of the teams frustrated and under pressure because they continue with the same injuries despite using eccentric exercises. What has been suggested does not solve, at least entirely, the problem.

Without criticising what we have done in the past, we need for sure, something else. If we can agree that it is a multifactorial injury, and the factors interact with each other the current force or range of motion measurements and isolated measurements are not able to show us these associations.

Therefore everything goes through the development of new ‘contextualised screenings’ that allow us to decipher the primary factors to correct.

When we talk about context we are talking about the main injury mechanism, that is none other than the sprint, and of course it is not the only injury mechanism as there are injury mechanisms related to overstretching, trunk perturbations etc.

If we want to be more close to success and succeed from a injury prevention perspective at least in football, in my opinion we need to perfectly know our sport demands and delivered adaptations and our coaching methods and training.”

JM explaining the role of the trunk and pelvis when it comes to hamstring injuries.

”It has been shown that anterior pelvic tilt is a risk factor for hamstring injury, if we only base it theoretically on elementary anatomy, we know that the hamstrings attach to the pelvis at the ischial tuberosity. An increase in anterior tilt will increase hamstring length.

Risk Factors

Anterior pelvic tilt (related to bicep femoris)
Increased Trunk and Hip Flexion (Functional MRI shows it increases bicep femoris signal intensity). Sprinting with inclined trunk there is more bicep femoris lengthening mostly at the beginning of the acceleration phase
Interaction of one leg with the other- the pelvis is the only joint that connects the legs

It has been shown that to run faster you need a deep anterior pelvic tilt. But the mismatch is that while it could be good to run fast like in track and field and soccer, but if you go too far it can be dangerous from an injury perspective.”

JM on the focus on knee flexor strength rather than the multifactorial issues around sprinting

”The thinking process is not bad because it was hypothesised that late swing phase is where the injury probably happens. It is true that it is the moment where the hamstring acts as an absorber doing negative work in order to prevent the tibia going away. So yes, we focus on that and probably generally speaking it is good.

But at this same moment the anterior pelvic tilt happens, ipsilateral gluteus maximus force happens, contralateral iliopsoas lengthening happens. So if you look at the entire movement you can see all this happening concomitantly (next to each other!).

I don’t know why we focus only on that (knee flexor strength). In fact we see that there is no relationship between isolated testing and mechanical properties of sprinting. That makes sense to me as the function of the biarticular hamstring muscle is totally different to what we are doing when we test in isolation.

If you compare the cross sectional area of a football player’s quadriceps and hamstrings with a non player, the quadriceps are equal but the hamstrings are greater. But when you normalise with knee extension or knee flexion strength, it is less in football players. This is probably because we are not testing how this group of muscles are functioning during sprinting.

We know that footballers have greater cross sectional area which means probably they are stronger, but when you normalise and measure knee flexion during isokinetic movement you have less hamstring compared to people who don’t do football.”

JM on injury prevention methods he would use if he was working in a Football club full-time

”This dichotomy of sprint versus nordic that is trending is totally wrong, and also dangerous.

Consider the this case study of an elite coach considering increasing stride length with a sub 10-second 100m sprinter to increase performance.

You need to be structurally prepared for the task that your coach (or the game) demands.

Therefore if his structure is not prepared to run in that way, he can have all of the strength in the world, but if you don’t correct his structural issues sprinting in that new way with the increased stride length for him it would be harmful. Sprinting is not the new injury recipe either. If the athlete is not prepared to run properly or does it wrong in terms of shape or volume the sprint will become counter productive 100%.

In fact, in football sprinting has become the new nordic. If you hear coaches right now, they will tell you that you are old school if your players don’t sprint. I think that’s not the right way to think. If from your screening methods you interpret that the cause of your player’s injury is a decrease (lack) of strength, either from the hip or knee, the prescription of a strength programme in the gym will be adequate for sure.

But therefore the answer to your question is almost always, ”it depends.” Do not apply anything as a recipe or established protocol. Look what your athlete needs, because if not, as many people do, we can treat people by email or twitter without seeing the patient!”

JM on the use of the nordic in hamstring injuries

”The use of the nordic for more than 20 years has shown positive results, in relation to hamstring injury prevention. Therefore we can say that as a general measure it seems that it has turned out to be advanced in it’s day. But I wonder if right now it’s enough, according to the training methodology that is undertaken by most of the football teams that contain eccentric work in their programme and looking at the current epidemiology data showing no injury reduction.

I wonder too, if a single exercise satisfies the individual and multifactorial needs of the individual and the pathology.

Another thing in relation to your question, is the reason why eccentrics and the nordic exercise in particular is effective, because consistently too it has not been proven the prediction ability between eccentric strength level and injuries.

But it is true that there are architectural adaptations to eccentric strength such as:

alterations at the aponeurosis level
change in extracellular matrix with increasing collagen
change in protein isoform
dynamic pennation angle increases (to protect fascicle from lengthening)
tendon stiffness (increase in tendon compliance during sprinting results in a decrease in musculotendinous length).

A fatigue provoking protocol after eccentric exercise decreased tendon compliance and increased fascicle length and this can be related to different role of the tendon being compliant at low loads and intensities but acting as a force transducer and stiffening structure at high loads and highs. No one as far as I know has analysed that after an eccentric strength intervention.

It is true that lately much attention has been paid to Fascicle Length as a possible injury protection mechanism to explain the positive effect of the nordics, with respect to hamstrings. It has been suggested as a risk factor in football despite having a low association. Theoretically, the idea is based on a hypothetical increase in sarcomerogenesis after eccentric work. This assumes that the addition of sarcomeres in series in humans after eccentric exercise will protect the muscle from damage.

However, although theoretically supported I think that today with the technological knowledge we have with it is hard to demonstrate the relationship between fascicles and hamstring injury.

There are technical limitations on fascicle measurements. We know too, that hamstring architecture changes throughout the muscle and only one region is measured. ”

Moreover, the measure is static, so we are assuming that what we are measuring statically will happen dynamically, without considering muscle tendon interaction and behaviour.

JM on role of ‘activation’ work and its role as a risk factor for hamstring injury

”In one prospective study no association between muscle activity and hamstring injury during isokinetic measuring was found. But in contrast another study showed prospectively too, doing a prone hip extensor extension manoeuvre, a delayed hamstring recruitment compared to erectors in those players that after suffered an injury, with no difference in EMG amplitude at all.

Another study showed an association between decreased EMG activity of gluteus and trunk muscles and hamstring injury in a prospective study of football players sprinting overground. (prospective definition- likely to happen at a future date). But in terms of hamstring activity there was no association between EMG of biceps femoris and hamstring injury during follow up was found.

There is still equivocal data in the research comparing the reduction (or not) of bicep femoris EMG activity when comparing injured to non-injured leg, with some studies showing differences and others not. But they use different techniques such as functional MRI and EMG, so it is difficult to compare because the physiological processes behind them are completely different. There are also differences in the type of exercises used.

There could be something there, but we know at this point that EMG has limitations, it neglects regional hamstring activation, it has high variability and there is an inhibition during eccentric contraction and we have to account too for crosstalk.”

Individualisation of Hamstring Recruitment Profile

”Concurrently in hamstring muscles, the distribution of activation and the distribution of torque generating capacities varied greatly between individuals during a maximum knee flexor task on an isokinetic dynamometer. Moreover, significant negative correlation was observed between the imbalance of hamstring activation muscle and the time to exhaustion.

This individual variability is not in isolation and has been confirmed in other muscle groups. Regional EMG patterns are highly individual, and each individual maintains similar proximal to distal and inter-muscular EMG patterns across different running speeds.

This confirms the idea that activation sequence and patterns are very very individual and that has made me wonder if the hamstring pattern is so individual, is there a gold standard?

How much can we rely on previously conducted studies knowing the variability between people?
Will it be necessary to change the pattern of activation after the injury?
Will it be as easy as changing the activation pattern during running and prescribe a hip dominant or knee dominant exercise?

With these questions I don’t mean that EMG pattern is not related to hamstring injury but we have to question things and we have to move further in this field to give more rigorous advice and opinions.

Currently there is not a gold standard, we don’t know if it is good or not to change the patterns of people after the injury has happened.”

JM on use of Isometrics in Hamstring injury reduction training

”I know that there is a debate about the isometric or eccentric behaviour of the fibre at the time of the injury. It looks clear that towards the end of the swing phase during sprinting the hamstring muscle-tendon unit lengthens and the hamstring forces increase. But what about the muscle fascicle or fibres? Do they increase because the muscle is stretching, or decrease because of the force and activation increase?

I don’t think that anybody knows for sure right now!

Both visions (isometric and eccentric) share the idea of the inability of the fibres to withstand the mechanical forces imposed during sprinting.

If you want to reproduce the injury mechanism and the same behaviour and same adaptation to the muscle tendon and fascicle don’t jump between isometric and eccentric contractions- simply run!

But more relevant and important than the type of contraction is the time and velocity of the contraction depending on the effort that we want to create at the muscle tendon junction.

We will choose different parameters of time by increasing the contraction time or velocity depending on whether we want to reduce or increase stiffness and so on. Control the time and velocity parameters that will induce different effects on the different structures.

Sometimes with the authors there is a mismatch between performance and injury. With a more stiff structure that is good for performance but may not be as good from the injury perspective.

Author opinion:

At APA we always promote the use of using a range of methods to develop athleticism. As Vern Gambetta once said, ‘Assess, Don’t Guess.” The answer to the question concerning what the athlete needs is almost always, ”it depends.”

Do not apply anything as a recipe or established protocol. Look what your athlete needs, because if not, as many people do, we can treat people by email or twitter without seeing the patient!”

Top 5 Take Away Points:

Research– injury prevention programmes need to be directed to correctly and repeatedly perform the movement related to the injury mechanism
Risk factors- multifactorial including anterior pelvic tilt, hip and trunk flexion and tendon stiffness
Assessment- currently we assume that what me measure statically will happen dynamically
Activation- patterns and sequence are very, very individual
Velocity vs Contraction type- more important than the type of contraction is the velocity

Want more info on the stuff we have spoken about? Be sure to visit:

Research Gate:

Jurdan Mendiguchia

Where I am next presenting?

Speed, Agility & Quickness for Sports Workshop

Date: 22nd Feb 2020, 09:00AM-13:00PM Location: Gosling Sports Park, Welwyn Garden City, AL8 6XE

Book your spot HERE

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Pacey Performance Podcast REVIEW- Episode 248 Hamstring Injuries- Part 1 of 2

January 30, 2020/1 Comment/in APA Blog, Pacey Performance Podcast Review /by dazdrake

This blog is a review of the Pacey Performance Podcast Episode 248 – Hamstring Injury

Australian Catholic University

Website

Background:

Josh Ruddy– Running loads and hamstring injury risk. Two years into PhD embedded with one of the AFL teams. Looking at hamstring injury prediction.

Ryan Timmins– completed PhD, now supervising Josh- and working with elite soccer programme Melbourne Victory. Looking at reducing injury risk.

Jack Hickey– clinical exercise physiologist, completed PhD and now sports rehab injury lecturing and research. Looking at hamstring rehab.

Discussion topics:

JR on the contrast between academic research and real life

”The risk of finding nothing.

We try to grow our research projects around what the industry actually requires and what questions that they might have, so that in turn organically grows interest.”

JR on predicting hamstring injuries

”Background was studying high speed running loads and how that influences the risk of hamstring injuries. High speed running and Workload in general is quite a hot topic. Large weekly changes in high speed running loads increase the risk of hamstring injury.

Non modifiable

History of hamstring injury
Increasing age

Modifiable

Biceps femoris long head fascicle length
Low levels of eccentric hamstring strength
Workload (and in particular high speed running volume)

High speed running was considered to be distance covered above 24 km/h. Approximately anything over in terms of a week to week change. Doing 200 metres more than the previous week doubled your risk of injury.

It is really important to consider that the numbers and statistics reported in studies are actually really specific to the cohort from what they are derived.

Optimal threshold and optimal cut points are really only optimal from the particular cohort that they are derived.

They are derived from looking at injury rates above and below a specific thresholds and once they are determined you then actually retrospectively apply that threshold to that same cohort. It might not necessarily be relevant when talking about other cohorts. Sometimes people get too caught up in those numbers being hard and fast rules. For example, it is thought that you need to be above 256 Newtons for eccentric hamstring strength at the start of pre-season or you are going to get injured. When really they are just there to act as a guide.”

JR on predictive modelling

”It’s a pretty broad term, and there are a number of different facets and elements that fit under that umbrella term. It is taking some data and identifying different patterns that occur within that data, and then applying what you’ve learnt from that initial data and applying it to a new data set. The aim to predict specific outcomes at an individual level.

This is different to the research that looks at associations at a group level which will not allow us to predict specific outcomes at an individual level. In practice we don’t really want to predict injuries. We want to identify risk, mitigate risk and prevent those injuries from ever occurring.

In practice the way predictive modelling should be applied is to identify risk and mitigate risk so you have no injuries to predict!

At this point in time we can’t predict injuries with a degree of certainty. Furthermore, predictive models and machine learning (computers learn and identify different patterns from a data set) require a large data set. A couple of seasons of GPS data and injury rates doesn’t necessarily constitute big data.

RT on hamstring architecture overview

”Basis of my PhD the impact that muscle architecture may have in modifying risk of future injury.

Two dimensional ultrasound image of bicep femoris long head:

Pennation angle– angle at which fibres insert into base of muscle (aponeurosis)
Fascicle length– bundle of muscle fibres (estimated from trigonometry)
Muscle thickness

We assume that number of sarcomere series could modify the amount of strain we can tolerate. If we have more sarcomeres in series are we hypothetically able to withstand the effects of large amounts of repetitive damage (such as running, kicking, change of direction).

We assume that by having a longer fascicle we actually have more sarcomeres in series which are our smaller functioning units of muscles. If we have more sarcomeres in series then in theory we will have better ability to withstand repeated eccentric contractions, or muscle damage. And as a result have a better buffer against that risk of injury.

Ability to increase the eccentric overload in hamstrings such as exercises below will increase fascicle length by having more sarcomeres in series:

Nordics
2 up, 1 down RDL
Kbox flywheel (squat to hinge)
or even leg curl 2 up, 1 down

RT on hamstring higher and lower volume interventions

How we can implement lower volume interventions and whether there are different adaptations to high volume interventions. Whilst the nordic is a great exercise and reduces the incidence of injury the volume prescribed is quite high which means not everyone wants to do it. We have found that with lower volume nordic hamstring training interventions we can promote similar muscle architecture and strength adaptations to that if we did a high volume intervention. Although we didn’t look at injury risk as part of that study.

Following a decent dose during two-week pre-season (I’m assuming twice a week) those gains can be maintained with one times a week (2 sets of four nordics done at a really high intensity).

RT on hamstring injury risk

”In bigger stronger athletes like in rugby when their hamstring asymmetry is greater than 15% then the risk of injury doubles.

Less well trained athletes first step to improve risk of injury is improve the level of strength first

So its a two-part approach. If you’re weak get strong. If you’re strong, stay symmetrical.

Typically see average 305N across 180 athletes in Australian A-league football (soccer).

Very rare to pull below 350N in AFL. Risk in asymmetry tends to occur around 450N in Rugby.

JH on asymmetries as part of the rehab process.

You have an individual athlete who comes in with an injury and you may not and actually rarely have any previous injury history on that individual. So to benchmark their rehab we can use the strength of the contralateral non-injured side. Yes we try to close those gaps but we make it clear to the athlete that we certainly don’t want to make your non-injured leg any weaker. You want to train both the limbs as they will still be at risk of injury in their non-injured limb.

We can compare at the time of testing or at baseline when they started the rehab. If it’s a short term hamstring injury of a few weeks that will be quite different to a 12-18 month ACL intervention. It’s generally advised to use the non-injured limb at baseline as a control.

RT on alternatives to Nordics

”From a practical standpoint it is very hard to get 40 blokes to do a 45 degree roman chair 2-up 1-down on one piece of equipment (longer length hip dominant exercise). Whereas it is much easier to get 40 blokes to do nordics on the side of the pitch. So that creates some considerations for a squad wide intervention in terms of what equipment you have available to you to implement that and isn’t going to p@*s off the coach in the mean time.

Other considerations:

Can we make them stronger if we can’t implement a squad wide cohort level?

If guys have some spine issues we might need to find some other variations for them

Maybe some isometric exercise in addition to some really well prescribed high velocity sprinting intervention actually allows you to improve strength and fascicle length. So 8-10 sprints throughout the week at greater than 95% maximum velocity.”

RT on use of Isometrics

”Both eccentric and isometric methods can live together in harmony. I don’t think you need to be in one camp or the other.

Currently there is no evidence that muscles (fascicles) undergo eccentric lengthening during sprinting. The theory is that all of the lengthening that we see in the musculotendinous unit is actually just slack being taken out of the tendon and the muscle itself is just contracting isometrically to hold it’s shape. So everyone in the isometric camp, goes, well that means we should just train isometrically to adapt to that isometric stimulus and as a result have the ability to withstand that risk of injury. We have no evidence to suggest either way! So why throw it out the bin? It has a place. The heavy isometric work might condition the tendon.

But there is a lot of research that eccentric training has beneficial adaptations and even injury risk reduction so the nordic has an important place in that programme as well. So if you do both as well as do a well planned sprinting programme done regularly and you overload the hamstring you will cover most of the bases.”

JH on use of Isometrics

”There is room for both. I suppose from a rehab point of view in terms of isometric exercise, one of the traditional approaches to acute muscle rehab they generally follow the progression guidelines of:

starting with low level isometrics
progressing to short length isotonic (concentric-eccentric)
introducing longer length and eccentrically biased exercises towards the end of the rehab

This has changed a little in recent times but at this point in time everything is theoretical. So basing your whole approach of rehab around isometric training is flawed just as is basing your whole approach around eccentric training is probably somewhat flawed as well.

There are certainly some high level variations of isometrics that may have some benefit and certainly some transfer to high speed running. But the biggest problem we have right now is that we just don’t have the evidence and that’s where we need more research.

To some extent we disagree with the traditional model of rehab just because we don’t believe there is ever a point in time where you should only be doing one type of contraction mode.

It makes more sense to do all types of contraction mode from the start right through the rehab, but just do it at an appropriate intensity.

Ultimately there needs to be more research to shed light on these topics, but it is clear there is benefit from a range of contraction modes.

Author opinion:

At APA we always promote the use of using a range of exercises, that require a mixture of physical capabilities- it’s just the focus and intensity of those exercises that changes at a given point in time.

For this reason APA would agree with the recommendations to include a range of isometric, isotonic and eccentric exercises and maintain an appropriate balance based on the needs of the individual.

Top 5 Take Away Points:

Research– grow research projects around what the industry actually requires and what questions that they might have
High speed running– Large weekly changes in high speed running loads increase the risk of hamstring injury
Numbers– don’t get too caught up in the numbers! Thresholds and cut offs might not necessarily be relevant when talking about other cohorts
Importance of strength- if you’re weak get strong. If you’re strong, get symmetrical
Variety is the spice of life

Want more info on the stuff we have spoken about? Be sure to visit:

Twitter:

@joshua_ruddy / [email protected]

@jackhickey89 / [email protected]

@ryan_timminds / [email protected]

Can Boxing Training Help You Hit Harder on the Tennis Court?

January 9, 2020/in APA Blog /by dazdrake

A month or so ago I asked one of my coaches Ayo Shodimu to lead an in-service session on boxing, to see what we could learn about it. Unfortunately the video quality isn’t great as we were in a very noisy tennis Academy but I’ve included a few videos from the session.

Some of the key messages I took away:

Technique cues for the Jab (right hander)

The first thing that moves in any punch is the hips- it all comes from the hips
Punching comes from the ground up
Left hip rotate towards the target when throwing the jab (left hand)
Front foot will lift off heel and shift onto ball of foot to extend reach

Technique cues for the Cross (right hander)

Drive your foot into the ground as you throw your punch
Right hip rotate towards the target when throwing the jab
Foot flat to foot up

Technique cues for the Hook (right hander)

Left hip rotate towards the target when throwing the hook (with left hand)
When you throw the left hook you actually load right leg on follow through ready for a right cross immediately after

Fast forward to 4:00 minutes for the video below as we talk for several minutes and go through footwork prior to that which is not audible.

Can this Help Tennis?

I asked some of the more experienced coaches what they thought about Boxing as a useful skill to transfer to Tennis groundstrokes. Maybe it could help with ball speed? I wanted to share one particular discussion, which I thought was fascinating…

The coach started by making a reference to golf- remarking that the true determinant of distance off the tee is the degree to which the golfer can hit the sweet spot of the club head on the ball, just a millimetre off will cause a major difference in the outcome.

In some ways this is the same with Tennis, the ability of performance players to hit the ball harder will mostly come down to how consistently they can hit the sweet spot during contact.

Out of 10 shots in an open game environment the full-time junior players (11-16 years old) can perhaps align optimally [currently] with 3/10 so they are in the ideal position to hit their groundstroke without needing to adapt, and find their sweet spot on contact. Let’s say a pro is at 7/10. So for the tennis coach you are going to have to sell them really hard that development of force through the hip drive is the most important thing right now, to help them hit the ball harder.

Yes, if they are stationary or moving just a little bit then I guess hitting the pads would be like basket feeding a player. You can give the player a ‘feeling’ of hitting the ball harder, or hitting the pads harder because the skill is relatively easy. But how often have you come across the recreational player who has a private lesson with their coach and after 20 minutes of baskets on their forehand they feel amazing- they are hitting it so clean, and hard.

Then when they go and play a match against their friends they can hardly hit the ball! So why does this happen? Because they haven’t learnt the skill [the definition meaning it can be done in match conditions]. They have only learnt how to do it under very closed and controlled conditions.

Perhaps you could use a radar gun and show that after some boxing (equivalent of basket feeding) you can hit the ball 3-4 mph harder during a controlled trial, but can they still maintain this increase in speed if you measure it during points?

They have to learn how to hit it deep, then rising, then when changing direction and changing rhythm, then receiving a change of direction and rhythm. Then after a serve or after a return of serve. Then in points and finally in matches!!!!

Probably vision and tracking skills would make a bigger difference than physical hip drive.

Some further considerations from the coach:

Is boxing a model based approach or a game based approach? How much variety is there in the final skill of the big four punches (jab, cross, hook, uppercut) vs. in Tennis (serves, return of serves, groundstrokes and volleys)? Can the same punch be thrown against most fighters? In tennis the striking skill will need to align with the game style. So for example, Player A has very good shoulder around shoulder on his groundstrokes but very poor shoulder under shoulder. So if s/he was doing boxing perhaps a focus on upper cuts where s/he needs to feel what it is like to drop their right shoulder and hit up might be a good idea. But for Player B who hits the ball more flat s/he might benefit from more emphasis on shoulder around shoulder.
How much tension is required when throwing a punch in boxing? In Tennis you need the arm to be very loose like a whip as you bring the racket through to contact. How does this compare to boxing?

One other thing to consider is the cueing of the Hip rotation. With Ayo the cue was to ‘ground down’ to ‘ground up’ and then rotate towards your target with your hips. Foot turns in the same direction you are punching. Louis Cayer I know would cue ‘tip toe finish’ which is an explicit cue to promote hip rotation (like ‘ground up’ foot comes off the floor as you throw the punch. Some coaches might says this shouldn’t be cued explicitly; it will happen as a consequence.

My take is this: think of what Louie said as an ”impact” cue, meaning it will probably work to make a short term impact but don’t expect it to fix everything in match conditions and don’t use it all the time. The implicit cueing idea is ‘by the book’ and will be better longer term.

Thanks for reading and I hope you found this article useful. By the way we are still actively recruiting so check out the information below:

Gosling Tennis Academy

There are a number of part-time roles at Gosling Tennis Academy.

Part-Time strength & conditioning coach

We are looking for part-time strength & conditioning coaches who have a passion for working with youth athletes and would be available to lead on the Mini Academy (5-10yrs) and Junior Academy (10-12yrs) programmes.

These squads run in the evenings from 4-6pm Monday to Friday and would be suitable for a coach who is looking to gain experience of a high performance training environment.

Gosling Tennis Academy is based at Gosling Sports Park, Welwyn Garden City and is operated by Better

For Full Details Download the PDF by clicking HERE

So what are you waiting for?

If you are interested in applying for any of these roles then send an email to APA Owner, Daz Drake at [email protected]

Remember to indicate your preferred location if you have one.

Free Training Reminder

If you have signed up for the FREE Webinar ”How To Get Buy In That Lifting Weights Is Safe For Children” then click the link below to sign up!

Hope you have found this article useful.

Remember:

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Share this post using the buttons on the top and bottom of the post. As one of this blog’s first readers, I’m not just hoping you’ll tell your friends about it. I’m counting on it.
Leave a comment, telling me where you’re struggling and how I can help

Since you’re here…
…we have a small favor to ask. APA aim to bring you compelling content from the world of sports science and coaching. We are devoted to making athletes fitter, faster and stronger so they can excel in sport. Please take a moment to share the articles on social media, engage the authors with questions and comments below, and link to articles when appropriate if you have a blog or participate on forums of related topics. — APA TEAM

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APA are Recruiting!!

December 17, 2019/in APA Blog /by dazdrake

I have a few important announcements today!!!

APA Are Recruiting!

APA have a number of vacancies within the APA network. If you would like to be considered for a role with APA then please send a covering letter and CV to APA Owner, Daz Drake at [email protected] with email title APA.01

WimX Tennis Academy

Full-Time strength & conditioning coach

We are looking for a coach who can start immediately. The ideal candidate will have experience of working within elite junior tennis although we will consider applications from coaches with complimentary skills and experience.

The role will involve working with children with a focus on high performance players between 11 and 16 yrs. You will need to have an enhanced DBS and be on the update service before you can start the role.

WimX Tennis Academy is based at Connaught Tennis Club, Chingford, London.

For Full Details Download the PDF by clicking HERE

Gosling Tennis Academy

There are a number of part-time roles at Gosling Tennis Academy.

Part-Time strength & conditioning coach

We are looking for part-time strength & conditioning coaches who have a passion for working with youth athletes and would be available to lead on the Mini Academy (5-10yrs) and Junior Academy (10-12yrs) programmes.

These squads run in the evenings from 4-6pm Monday to Friday and would be suitable for a coach who is looking to gain experience of a high performance training environment.

Gosling Tennis Academy is based at Gosling Sports Park, Welwyn Garden City and is operated by Better

For Full Details Download the PDF by clicking HERE

New Hall School

The role at New Hall School is for a part-time strength & conditioning coach who has a passion for working with youth athletes and would be available to lead on one to one lessons and small group training sessions with senior school students aged 11-18yrs.

These sessions run in the lunchtime and after school periods at 1-2pm and 4:30-5:30pm and would be suitable for a coach who is looking to gain experience of a high performance training environment. Priority days are Monday, Wednesday and Friday. This role will start in September 2019 and the successful candidate would need to have a DBS and be on the update service.

For Full Details Download the PDF by clicking HERE

So what are you waiting for?

If you are interested in applying for any of these roles then send an email to APA Owner, Daz Drake at [email protected]

Remember to indicate your preferred location if you have one.

Free Training Reminder

If you have signed up for the FREE Webinar ”How To Get Buy In That Lifting Weights Is Safe For Children” then click the link below to sign up!

SIGN UP HERE

Hope you have found this article useful.

Remember:

If you’re not subscribed yet, click here to get free email updates, so we can stay in touch.
Share this post using the buttons on the top and bottom of the post. As one of this blog’s first readers, I’m not just hoping you’ll tell your friends about it. I’m counting on it.
Leave a comment, telling me where you’re struggling and how I can help

Since you’re here…
…we have a small favor to ask. APA aim to bring you compelling content from the world of sports science and coaching. We are devoted to making athletes fitter, faster and stronger so they can excel in sport. Please take a moment to share the articles on social media, engage the authors with questions and comments below, and link to articles when appropriate if you have a blog or participate on forums of related topics. — APA TEAM

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BOOK REVIEW- Methodology of Training in the 22nd Century

December 6, 2019/in APA Blog /by dazdrake

Hi Everyone,

it’s been a while since I’ve done a book review but I have recently been reading a book that has been really interesting and I wanted to share it with you. It is called ”Methodology of Training in the 22nd Century” written by Henk Kraaijenhof.

I actually have a few chapters to finish (there are 12 in total) but I really wanted to focus in on a particular chapter that will have meaning for you whether you are business owner, athlete or coach.

For the first 10 years of my life as a coach I invested nearly all of my time learning about the science of training in elite sport. For the last 10 years I have continued to do that while also navigating the new frontier of commercial sport and all that it entails. One chapter in particular was a great overview of the balance between the two settings of science and capitalism.

As a coach first and foremost I want to learn about the best approaches to train someone to achieve the highest levels of performance in competition. As a business owner I have had to wrestle with the idea and later accept that it won’t always be the best method (the one that gets evidenced results time and again!) that is the most popular- it’s the one that is best marketed.

I think Chapter 2 did a great job of describing this state of affairs.

Chapter 2- Sociocultural Backgrounds of Modern High Performance Training

Sport and Performance

Modern sport has its roots in capitalist industrialization. The desire for performance lead to the need for recording the results and the birth of records in sport. Different sciences analyze from different perspectives (with the ultimate goal to maximise performance leading to improved results).

Biomechanics- performance is regarded as a physical value of power (P), which is the amount of mechanical work accomplished in a given time.

Exercise physiology- proves relationships with biological reactions of the organism.

Science of training- the original science and focuses on a systematic approach to training, based on the demands and results of the competition.

Setting of Modern Elite Sport

High performance sport was a political goal and science was the instrument to realise this goal. Elite athletes were often called ”diplomats in tracksuits.”

Until the end of the East-West conflict, the funding of sports at the elite level was completely established by the government in all successful Eastern European countries.

The centralised socialist planning was able to ensure a foundation for controlling long term performance development from kindergarten to the the Olympic level. For the German Democratic Republic (GDR), a country with only 16 million citizens to win 102 Olympic medals in the last Games in Seoul in 1988 was a prime example of the efficacy of the whole sport system.

Methodologies without evident effects had to be excluded.

The system of the GDR worked because of its systematic quality, relying on a centralised network of controlled processes that were in line with a long-term approach.

After the end of the cold war, elite sport was no longer needed as a political instrument and the governments in Europe gradually withdrew their involvement in elite sports.

Now we have a high performance sports system which acts as a entertainment sports network with globalised economic dependencies and the breakup of the national state. The task of the modern professional athlete is no longer (only) striving for the highest performance in competition. In fact, it is of comparable importance to achieve a high amount of public attention aside from the sport, because the modern athlete is treated as a product, aimed to be sold at the highest possible price on the market.

The Olympic movement was an idea for amateur sport, but after the end of the political east-west conflict, the Olympics were fully embedded into the capitalist idea of profit and professional athletes were accredited to compete. The sociological perspective reveals that, in modern elite sports, maximising competition results or sports performance seems to be secondary to maximising profit.

Sports Performance Training as a Product

Today, sports performance training is offered increasingly as a service by a variety of providers, leading from single people to big companies.

A successful business model in the sport performance market relies strongly on good networking and marketing rather than on a sophisticated training approach.

It’s about a subjective assessment of being in good hands and not on the verification of the contribution to competition results of the given service.

The practice of sport is used to express a certain kind of lifestyle. In a highly commercialised society, consuming products or services are strongly related to a lifestyle. The lifestyle is a product-related image, created by the industry in order to sell an imaginative new self-identity.

McDonaldization of Training Methodology

This term refers to the concept of standardised mass production made famous by pioneering American companies like McDonald’s and Ford. The coordination and the control of the training processes in elite sport are based on the same logic.

The main goal is always to find the most efficient, logical and reproducible way to reach a goal. Features of McDonaldization include:

Efficiency- optimum training methodology with best possible cost-benefit ratio
Computability- quantifiable parameters
Predictability- clear time structure of training planning
Control- monitoring of training parameters

But there are a number of side effects of McDonaldization in training methodology.

Template methods
Mechanistic approach- more is better
Inflexibility of approach in spite of the fluidity of biological and environmental changes
Automation and deskilling of expertise- dehumanization through rapid adoption of technology

The organisation of businesses geared towards making money always leads to standardisation. In every McDonald’s restaurant all over the world, every hamburger equals the other, as well as the ingredients, preparation and sales. Any systematic approach requires a certain degree of standardisation in order to increase the likelihood of getting the desired results in a specific timeframe. This is why planning of training also relies on standardised parameters, but there are limitations to this approach.

From a biological point of view, there is nothing like an average or standardised individual- either on an anthropometric, metabolic, neural, nor on a personality level. Unlike in a McDonald’s franchise optimal training results:

can be achieved from different starting positions
can be complete despite incomplete or variable training stimuli
allow margins within which it is possible to reach the same effects

The goal of McDonald’s is not to produce good hamburgers, the goal is to sell many hamburgers.

Considering performance training services in modern sport as a business, the same principles apply. Standardisation becomes very apparent via the rising popularity of exercise orientation in the training methodology of athletes. Exercise orientation implies that the characteristics of the equipment or the methodology itself are the foundation of the training approach and not the demands of the sport or the needs of the individual athlete.

Without exercise-orientation, McDonaldisation is impossible. Tailor made training is exactly the opposite.

Therefore it is logical that in a gym, everyone is doing the same thing based on uniformity of the facility designs, the equipment orientation of the methodology, or the subjective bias of the coaches, led by the latest fads.

Generalisation is the core concept of marketing and, in order to become commercially successful, it requires serial production and no individualisation.

The bias a coach has for a particular methodology seems to be derived from subliminal mechanisms of the commercial market, rather than on individually based sports profiling

In summary, this behaviour is typical for a complex highly differentiated society where McDonaldisation is the only possibility. In a McDonalised society, people rarely seek the best means to reach a goal- instead they fall back on popular means.

It is suggested that methodology of training in high performance sports should NOT accept and represent the principles of McDonaldisation too much. The prevalence of standardization leads to uniformity like the ”template method.”

Therefore, it has to be questioned whether a humanistic high performance sport is possible in a McDonaldised society, as McDonaldisation contradicts the essential characteristic of every competition and game: unpredictability, the essence of human life.

Where I am next presenting?

Level 2 Certificate in Strength & Conditioning

Dates: 11/12 Jan and 15/16 Feb 2020, 09:00AM-17:00PM Location: Gosling Sports Park, Welwyn Garden City, AL8 6XE

Book your spot HERE

Hope you have found this article useful.

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Share this post using the buttons on the top and bottom of the post. As one of this blog’s first readers, I’m not just hoping you’ll tell your friends about it. I’m counting on it.
Leave a comment, telling me where you’re struggling and how I can help

Since you’re here…
…we have a small favor to ask. APA aim to bring you compelling content from the world of sports science and coaching. We are devoted to making athletes fitter, faster and stronger so they can excel in sport. Please take a moment to share the articles on social media, engage the authors with questions and comments below, and link to articles when appropriate if you have a blog or participate on forums of related topics. — APA TEAM

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How To Stay Motivated

November 3, 2019/in APA Blog /by dazdrake

If you’re anything like me November feels like one of the more difficult months to stay motivated and productive. It’s dark and wet and we are all kind of waiting for Christmas to kick. Many of us will get off track with our nutrition and training goals too.

”Movember” is an annual event involving the growing of moustaches during the month of November to raise awareness of men’s health issues, such as prostate cancer, testicular cancer, and men’s suicide

So it seems like a good time of the year to talk about how to stay motivated. Being motivated means that I can stick to my meal plan, hit my workout and basically keep a fit lifestyle all year round. Here are some of the things that have motivated me to train and improve my physique throughout my career.

Rehab injuries in High School
Get bigger in College
Get leaner (Work as a Fitness model)
Help others reach their fitness goals (Work as a Fitness Trainer)

You have to have a higher purpose for working out other than just to look good- that motivation will only last in the short term. Even with a deeper purpose that doesn’t mean that you won’t have days when you don’t feel motivated. So below are 6 Tips to help you stay motivated.

Have a workout partner
Hire a fitness trainer
Use an app like MyFitnesspal to track workout and nutrition progress
Get a Bodpod or Dexa scan test to measure your body composition
Have a vision board- the first and last thing you should see in the morning are pictures of things you want to achieve
Buy an outfit that you want to fit into

Interested in Personal Training?

At this time of year we can help you get control of your life and make fitness and health a priority!

We’re looking for 10 superstars that are looking to get in the best shape of their life in the next 90 days.

If this sounds like you then contact Daz Drake at [email protected]

Remember:

If you’re not subscribed yet, click here to get free email updates, so we can stay in touch.
Share this post using the buttons on the top and bottom of the post. As one of this blog’s first readers, I’m not just hoping you’ll tell your friends about it. I’m counting on it.
Leave a comment, telling me where you’re struggling and how I can help

Since you’re here…
…we have a small favor to ask. APA aim to bring you compelling content from the world of sports science and coaching. We are devoted to making athletes fitter, faster and stronger so they can excel in sport. Please take a moment to share the articles on social media, engage the authors with questions and comments below, and link to articles when appropriate if you have a blog or participate on forums of related topics. — APA TEAM

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APA are Recruiting!!

August 20, 2019/in APA Blog /by dazdrake

I have a few important announcements today!!!

APA Are Recruiting!

APA have a number of vacancies within the APA network. If you would like to be considered for a role with APA then please send a covering letter and CV to APA Owner, Daz Drake at [email protected] with email title APA.01

For Full Details Download the PDF by clicking HERE

Gosling Tennis Academy

There are a number of roles at Gosling Tennis Academy.

[update September 9th 2019– Full-Time strength & conditioning coach]

We are looking for a coach who can start immediately. The ideal candidate will have experience of working within elite junior tennis although we will consider applications from coaches with complimentary skills and experience.

The role will involve working with children with a focus on high performance players between 11 and 16 yrs. You will need to have a DBS and be on the update service before you can start the role.

Remuneration can be discussed at interview and will be commensurate with experience.

We are also looking for part-time strength & conditioning coaches who have a passion for working with youth athletes and would be available to lead on the Mini Academy (5-10yrs) and Junior Academy (10-12yrs) programmes.

These squads run in the evenings from 4-6pm Monday to Friday and would be suitable for a coach who is looking to gain experience of a high performance training environment.

Gosling Tennis Academy is based at Gosling Sports Park, Welwyn Garden City and is operated by Better

New Hall School

The role at New Hall School is for a part-time strength & conditioning coach who has a passion for working with youth athletes and would be available to lead on one to one lessons and small group training sessions with senior school students aged 11-18yrs.

These sessions run in the lunchtime and after school periods at 1-2pm and 4:30-5:30pm and would be suitable for a coach who is looking to gain experience of a high performance training environment. Priority days are Monday, Wednesday and Friday. This role will start in September 2019 and the successful candidate would need to have a DBS and be on the update service.

So what are you waiting for?

If you are interested in applying for any of these roles then send an email to APA Owner, Daz Drake at [email protected]

Remember to indicate your preferred location if you have one.

Free Training Reminder

If you have signed up for the FREE Webinar ”How To Get Buy In That Lifting Weights Is Safe For Children” then click the link below to sign up!

SIGN UP HERE

Hope you have found this article useful.

Remember:

If you’re not subscribed yet, click here to get free email updates, so we can stay in touch.
Share this post using the buttons on the top and bottom of the post. As one of this blog’s first readers, I’m not just hoping you’ll tell your friends about it. I’m counting on it.
Leave a comment, telling me where you’re struggling and how I can help

Since you’re here…
…we have a small favor to ask. APA aim to bring you compelling content from the world of sports science and coaching. We are devoted to making athletes fitter, faster and stronger so they can excel in sport. Please take a moment to share the articles on social media, engage the authors with questions and comments below, and link to articles when appropriate if you have a blog or participate on forums of related topics. — APA TEAM

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Dr. Mark Kovacs

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Top 5 Take Away Points:

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Chapter 2- Sociocultural Backgrounds of Modern High Performance Training

Sport and Performance

Setting of Modern Elite Sport

Sports Performance Training as a Product

McDonaldization of Training Methodology

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So what are you waiting for?

Free Training Reminder

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