A few weeks back I received an email from a parent who felt the session her son was doing with one of my APA coaches was not individually tailored to her son’s needs.  Individualisation is one of the key principles of training- as you can see in the graphic below it is also a key principle of customer service in business (in this case the customer is the parent and her child).

General Training is Specific to Untrained Athletes

I’ve made my feelings clear on this topic several times before.  Sometimes it gets interpreted that I don’t believe in sport specificity, or even individualisation.  Technically speaking, that’s not accurate- however I will say that in athletes with low training age I do feel that EVERY athlete regardless of sport- needs to learn and train the fundamental movement skills in the gym associated with ‘resistance overcoming.’  By that I mean the fundamental patterns of squat, lunge, push, pull, rotate, brace.

I also believe that if an athlete is weak then they need to learn to express force with the exercises which are best suited to doing that- exercises such as squats, before we start getting overly concerned with how closely the squat simulates the joint angles of the sport.  I call this putting the ‘cart before the horse,’ and obsessing about KINEMATICS (Direction of Force-joint angles and contraction types) before getting the basics done with KINETICS (Magnitude of Force).

However, there is a big BUT…………..you must be a good storyteller and show the athlete how this exercise (which is perceived as not sport specific) IS ACTUALLY helping them improve in their sport.  That is part of the skill of being a great storyteller and knowing how to create context for your work in the gym.

A word on storytelling:

We have all heard that the best stories take you through an emotional experience, and if you’ve ever learnt sales technique you will be taught that people buy based on emotion, how the product you’re selling made them feel.  S&C coaches are also salesmen and women because like it or not, at some point we need to get BUY IN.

In this case I wasn’t expecting Anthony to make the rugby player feel emotional about squatting!!!  But I wanted him to connect the work he was doing in the gym with his PASSION for Rugby- by educating him how each exercise was going to help him perform better at Rugby.

I’ve asked permission from this coach to share this story as we did a great job of handling the situation and I thought it might give a good practical example in case it happens to you.

What did we do?

The first thing I did was share the email from the parent to Anthony- and let him know that we have had some feedback and we need to manage the situation.

For your information this was a teenaged boy who plays Rugby and sees Anthony for 30 minutes once a week.

The programme was based on picking a different theme each week which was the main athletic skill focus for 15 minutes (be it sprinting, change of direction, plyometrics) and a 15 minute strength section in the gym.

My email to Anthony:

”A parent has suggested that her son’s session is not individually tailored to her son’s needs.  She has commented that he has been doing sprinting outside, crawling and other activities.  If he is going to keep doing ‘general’ fitness, then she would rather not continue with the S&C, as he already doing general fitness in school sports.  She commented that she thought he was going to be focused on lifting weights to get him stronger for rugby.  He did 15 minutes sprinting with you, and then he did more sprinting when he went and did his training later in the day.”

I’ve had a look at your programme and it seems fine.  Parents will always be concerned that sessions are sport specific and individualised.  The secret is in the story telling and showing how what you are doing is linked to their sport.

Have a think and get back to me.  I suggest you draft an email reply and I’ll look over it before we sent it to the parents.”

Anthony gave me a call before he drafted the email and I said that he should write a little sentence on each exercise to explain a) why it was chosen and b) how that will help with Rugby performance

I also said that because he only has 30 minutes we should go for the fitness component that will give the biggest bang for our buck.  The parent wants it to be a strength based weights session and I have to agree this is the best thing to do.  I appreciate the intent- to give him exposure to a range of athletic skills including sprinting and change of direction- but unless the parent wants to invest more in his S&C let’s get some quick wins by improving his strength.

For the purpose of anonymity I have referred to the rugby player as [son]

Anthony’s email reply:

What did the parent say?

She was really appreciative of the feedback and was able to understand how the original plan was in fact supportive of his Rugby.  She was also happy to continue on the basis that her son was going to focus the 30 minutes on strength training.

This was a good result for APA and enabled us to move forward with a potentially unhappy client.  The learning for Anthony, and for any of you reading this is that you need to be doing the selling from the beginning and storytelling to show how what we do in the gym connects with their sport- which is their passion!

I wanted to share Anthony’s email because I thought he did a fantastic job of explaining how each exercise supporting the boy’s Rugby development.

Anthony Hunt Biography

Anthony is an APA Strength & Conditioning coach as well as an Intern S&C coach and Sport Scientist at Middlesex County Cricket Club.

Anthony has a Bachelor of Science (BSc) Sports and Exercise Science from Oxford Brookes University (2014 – 2017) and a Masters degree (MSc) Strength and Conditioning from the University of Edinburgh (2017 – 2018)

Where I am next presenting?

Speed, Agility & Quickness for Sports Workshop

Date: 24th Feb 2019, 09:00AM-13:00PM Location: Gosling Sports Park, Welwyn Garden City, AL8 6XE

Book your spot HERE

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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In the last blog we looked at Transfer of Training in Sports and focused on two key aspects- Improved Sports Performance and Achievement of Physical Normalisation.  You can also think of this in terms of: motor skills (cognitive) and physical skills (physiological).

I’ve written several blogs on topics related to early specialisation, sports specific training, and the importance of building a volume base

Today I want to share more thoughts on why Physical Normalisation is important, not just for making the body more able to handle the stress of training per se, but actually how to improve sports performance.

Win Now 

The need to achieve short term improvements is what I mean by the ‘Win Now.’

A Sports coach (Tennis coach) will obviously want to talk about Sports Performance- how will what we are doing physically with the athlete improve their movement as a tennis player / help them hit the ball harder / last longer  NOW! (read that as anything that they can ‘see‘ is helping them win Tennis matches).

I like to view the ‘Sport’ as a Graphic Equaliser- Representative bar chart of the relative contribution of different biomotor abilities during sports performance.  A bar at 100% would mean that biomotor ability is taxed maximally.

Each sport will have it’s unique profile, like a display on a graphic equaliser.  This is what the Tennis coach sees, They see a specific profile for Tennis.  We need to acknowledge the peaks- there are fitness components that are clearly worked closer to a theoretical 100% maximum level, and could be considered ‘specific’ to the sport.

Coaches will have a top down approach- looking first at the components of fitness that seem to be used most in Tennis, and pop up above the average level.  Many of the fitness components that are taxed to a great extent are associated with high intensity.

Typically in sport fitness qualities such as agility and reaction speed will be closer to their theoretical 100% level.  But you’ll notice that none of them will actually reach 100% because there are so many competing demands on the body.

Importance of High Intensity Training

Let’s be clear, most sports are a high intensity activity.  So most coaches therefore associate specific training for sport with high intensity training.

However, assuming high intensity training is important to short term improvements in sports performance- how do you make an important (specific) fitness component better?

In regards to the sports performance I think it is really important to recognise that Sport is not the ‘best’ stimulus for improving Fitness, due to the competing demands placed on the body.

There is no sport that truly ”optimises” any single component of fitness.  How many of those bars on the graphic equaliser are at 100%? None right?  Therefore in order to reach high enough intensities you may actually have to address certain components separately.

Train in a less specific way to encourage greater overload

Because just playing the sport will only ever keep taxing the body at that same relative level.   This is the reason why we shouldn’t just simulate Tennis even when you’re trying to improve qualities that are highly associated with success in Tennis.  There are too many competing demands on your body.  At some point you will hit a barrier to further gains.  In order to bring up your current level you have to train in a less specific way to encourage greater overload.  This means breaking the game down into its component parts.  So even to maximise short-term gains you still need to train less specifically, by breaking the sport up into its component parts.

Now let’s turn our attention to the need to train more general qualities.  These might be movements that don’t look like Tennis.  It might also be movements performed at speeds that don’t look like Tennis. These are often the qualities that are thought to build a ‘base’ of fitness.  Perhaps the most compelling argument for doing activities that are not specific to a sport to improve sports performance- is to do with the proficiency barrier.

Proficiency Barrier

In the short term performing high intensity activities that replicate the sporting movement will lead to short term improvements in sports performance.  But what about the long term?

We really ought to all be developing a general base of physical skills for the reasons everyone has already mentioned a) injury reduction: early burnout, over use and b) proficiency barrier => maximise performance.”

I do believe that the wider and deeper someone’s movement vocabulary is the more easy it will be for the child to acquire the more specific advanced skills of a sport later down the track.  Athleticism is developed by practising a range of movement skills to make you more adaptable on the sports field.

I know that muscle pattern overload/over use is extremely likely if you keep hammering away at the same movement patterns inherent in one sport, over and over again.  So even if I did believe that the key to getting great in one sport is to just play one sport or replicate the movements exactly (which I don’t), I would enforce that the athlete plays a few other sports and performs slightly different exercises, simply to work the muscles a little differently, and give the overworked ones a rest!

We can discuss the benefits for playing a range of sports in another blog from a motor skills point of view.  For now let’s look at some other reasons why doing general physical training will augment sports performance from a physical standpoint:

Win Future

The need to achieve long term improvements is what I mean by the ‘Win Future.’

You ‘cook em slow’ and build them up to more advanced training methods.  You wouldn’t expect a child to be grasping complex aspects of University maths and physics. Unfortunately most parents (and coaches) don’t understand principles of sports biomechanics or motor learning!!!  They want them to be doing things that look like the sport.  However, what most people fail to recognise is that sport is VERY STRESSFUL on the body.  We need to prepare the body for the demands of it and that’s why we need to do general work to prepare for the more specific high intensity high speed work that is part and parcel of sport.

Volume base is important for long-term improvement

1. To build up your average level of Fitness

• Only as strong as your weakest link

• The whole is greater than the sum of its parts

My view is that every sport has a minimal level of fitness required- let’s say that’s 50% of the theoretical maximum.

Why would you want to top up a [general quality] that seems to be less important in the chosen sport?  For me your long term sustainable performance level will ultimately be limited by your ‘average’ level which includes general fitness.  Aristotle’s quote implies that the different biomotor abilities work together in a cooperative effort.  Even if agility is considered a high priority and specific to Tennis you can only express it to a certain degree before fatigue kicks in IF you don’t also have a minimum level of aerobic fitness.  So the different biomotors are all connected and rely on each other.  Make the weaker ones stronger and ‘together everyone achieves more (TEAM).’

I like to believe that a Tennis athlete needs above average physical qualities in all components– even just to be competitive. Think about the definition of an athlete for a moment.

Definition of an athlete- can be described as a person with above average physical qualities.  An old Greek word for game is ‘athlos.’  The people who were part of the original Olympic Games were called athletes.

First an athlete, then a specialist

There should be no physical shortcomings or limitations that could impact on sports performance

Do you have the number of basic motor abilities that support an athlete’s functional performance in a sport?

The things that we associate with elite performance such as high speed efforts, explosive serves and ground strokes will all be limited by the extent to which the body can provide a general foundation.

Increased quality of movement ‘in general’ is important for both sports performance and health status, by lowering the risk of injury and improving cognitive function

When an S&C coach looks at the fitness qualities of a sport I feel like we look from the ground up- looking at the graphic equaliser upside down.  We see that all fitness components that need to reach a minimum level for the body to be able to meet the demands of sport.

4. Phase potentiation

• Cart before the horse

• Size principle

This is kind of related to point 4 but I wanted to hammer the point home.

Parents (and coaches) focus in on the kinematics- they want to see the movements that look like the sport (same acceleration, velocity, position).  I get it! But they don’t make the link that it is FORCE PRODUCTION that is the underlying cause of motion.  To get more explosive you first need to build a general foundation of strength.  The END

.

As Des Ryan said in the forum, ”Tail doesn’t wag the dog!”

Specific training is the ‘realisation’ and expression of those qualities that we need to build in a general sense such as movement efficiency (balance, coordination, mobility/stability, basic strength). We can then apply those physical skills to more high intensity and high speed sports skills. When the kids are young I am comfortable that they get most of their ‘realisation’ opportunities from playing the sport. Let’s work on the foundation in the early years.”

Summary

Developmental athletes are building a movement efficiency base to get good at lifting in later cycles. Strength/Power athletes are building a fatigue base to get a rebound in performance in the next strength cycle.   Fat loss clients are building a fat loss base to improve insulin sensitivity and general fitness enthusiasts are building a general base of fitness which doesn’t serve a particular purpose for future cycles.

Where I am next presenting?

Level 2 Certificate in Strength & Conditioning Coaching

Dates: 19/20 Jan and 16/17 Feb 2019, 09:00AM-17:00PM Location: Gosling Sports Park, Welwyn Garden City, AL8 6XE

Book your spot HERE

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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In this blog article I am going to talk about some of my reflections since returning from my week in Portugal, where I was attending the ‘‘International Meeting for High Performance in Training” October 15th-20th.

This was a conference unlike no other I have been to.  I wanted to go for several reasons.  Yes, the line up of keynote speakers was fantastic but truthfully I had heard at least three speak in person already at UKSCA conferences, and everyone else speak either on a podcast or online.   But it was because I knew all the speakers would be there all week because they were all taking it in turns to speak there throughout the week.  This gave us a real opportunity to start conversations with them in a relaxed environment without the scrap to get your question answered at the end of the presentation before they would exit the building! And- yes because it was in Portugal and I hoped it would be a final opportunity to get some sunshine in this year in Europe.

It was intense- 8am first presentation all the way through until 8pm Monday to Saturday- with a 1.5 hour lunch and 30 min coffee break, so 60 hours of presentations.  At some point I will write a summary blog of my favourite presentations and a few take homes for each.  But right now I just wanted to let some things simmer and reflect on how what I have heard has impacted my training philosophies and methods.

I have taken a week to digest my experience and not surprisingly I have come right back to my basic beliefs and principles of strength & conditioning, my role in enhancing Sports Performance and the methods that I feel are most appropriate [for Tennis].

Know your Sport

Several different themes have been going on in my head- but essentially it always came back to ”let’s get rid of the noise, and find out the things that we really need to focus on [in our sport or athlete population] so we can improve performance.  What all the keynote speakers had in common was a clear appreciation for the demands of their sport that they were most associated with whether that be Rugby League- Dan Baker, MMA- Brett Bartholomew, Australian Football- David Joyce, Track & Field- Mike Young, Alpine Skiing- Matt Jordan, Team sports- Sophia Nimphius or Football- Mladen Jovanovic.

The themes that they covered focused on a mixture of topics related to knowing how fit athletes are in these respective sports by

a) doing a needs analysis to determine workload profiles

b) designing appropriate physical performance tests and

c) designing the resultant physical training intervention that goes alongside that.

I’m pretty happy with the performance tests for Tennis that I both like to do now, and I am considering doing in the future. There was a lot of talk about the role of muscles in certain sports and how to prepare them specifically for their role in sprinting, jumping, or change of direction, but I’ll cover that in the summary blog.

As far as the needs analysis goes I sometimes get frustrated that technology such as GPS is not widely used in Tennis.  Physiologically we have a lot of information on Tennis and also a lot of kinematic information.  But not much on the kinetics- the forces we experience from running and jumping.  I could appreciate that when the GPS units were all we had, they can’t measure accelerations and jump elements that are so important to Tennis.  But with advances in technology so that GPS units have in built Inertial Movement Units (IMUs) we can surely do better.

But frustration aside, I wanted to take this blog down the path of actually understanding how we might go about getting to know our sport better from a Loading stand point – and building up a workload profile. This lead me to Load Monitoring.  Ultimately if you know what the demands of the sport are- you can get fit to prepare your body to meet the demands of it- hence the title of the blog.

Using internal and external load to answer performance questions

As a Tennis coach or sports coach of any sport you have no doubt had a conversation at some point with a strength and conditioning coach or sports scientist who wants to tell you about how much work your athlete or team has done in the last match or last training week.

So What?

Well if we are all in the business of helping players win matches then hopefully they are coming to you with useful information that will help you to make decisions about their training plans.  This in turn will give your players the best chance of winning.  There are probably a few questions you should ask from your sports science team:

1. How will we know if they have improved their fitness?
2. How will we know if they have increased their fatigue?
3. What is the typical workload profile of a match in competition?
4. How much of our training week needs to be done at or above that workload to improve their fitness?
5. How much of our training week needs to be done at or below that workload to reduce fatigue?

Being able to answer these questions is essential to being able to design a safe and efficient training programme.  Remember for some athletes, they will not be fit enough to meet the demands of the game.  Others will find that playing matches will actually undertrain their fitness capacities and need more work.  And at other times you will want to give them an easy day so they are fresh for a match. So it is important to consider everyone’s needs individually.

A well-designed training programme will expose athletes to a range of stresses, all of which will induce fatigue and adaptations to that stress to differing degrees. Without an objective measure of the stress being imposed on the athlete, or their response to that stress, coaches and sports scientists are unable to quantify the true effectiveness of their interventions.

The consequences of failing to correctly measure those loads can be under- or overloading of athletes, either of which can lead to injury or illness, contributing to sub-optimal performance levels. So how can practitioners measure the load being placed on their athletes? More importantly, how can they use information to derive meaningful insights to help address performance questions and support the work of coaching staff?

Measuring Internal & External Load

Fitness can be seen when a player is capable of doing more work in a given time period.  Fatigue might be shown when they do less work in a given time period, or if they are unable to repeat the work in a defined period.

To help us build up a picture of the typical amount of work (Training Load) we experience on a Tennis court and how we respond to that stress we need to talk about External and Internal load.   Over time, you will be able to build up a workload profile of what a player typically does in a training and match scenario.

External Load

External Training Load (TL) describes the work completed by the athlete in terms of distance, speed or power using micro-technologies including time-motion analysis, accelerometers or power-meters, respectively.

At a basic level, external load can be characterised as the sum of the work completed by an athlete during a particular training drill, session or period. In terms of wearable technologies, measures of external load can be categorised as locomotive (e.g. distance covered, average velocity, number of sprints etc.) and mechanical (e.g. Player Load).

Locomotive Load with GPS- Running velocities

The GPS data calculate running velocities, which are traditionally expressed as distance covered, time spent, or frequency in different velocity categories. For intermittent sports such as tennis, this approach is potentially inadequate because maximally performed changes in running velocities and directions over short distances are misinterpreted as low to moderate intensities because the attained velocities are not high.  Furthermore, GPS won’t give information on things like jumps, tackles and kicks important in a range of sports.

Mechanical Load- Inertial Movement Units (IMU)-accelerations with respect to movement direction

In addition to running, mechanical loads of intermittent sports involve other activities such as jumps (e.g., split steps in tennis) that cannot be quantified by GPS data.  Consequently, 100-Hz triaxial accelerometers, gyroscopes, and magnetometers were also integrated into GPS devices to determine total mechanical loads more accurately. The most common accelerometer-derived parameter is PlayerLoad, which is a vector magnitude and is calculated from changes in accelerations measured in all 3 movement planes. One limitation of PlayerLoad is that changes in all acceleration directions are considered universally. An enhanced approach using accelerometer data is inertial-movement analysis. This approach combines accelerometer with gyroscope and magnetometer data, allowing the examination of accelerations with respect to movement directions.

GPS and IMU data in Tennis

The use of this technology in Tennis is limited.  I have read a journal article which has quantified Player Load and other external load variables for a 2 sets Singles Tennis match.  But even in the absence of specific information on External load we must make steps to define our sessions according to some categories of Activity that we believe will elicit different workload profiles.  If you haven’t read Matt Little’s article on his LinkedIn profile ‘A Paradigm Shift in Measuring and Monitoring Tennis Players’’ I have put the link below:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/paradigm-shift-measuring-monitoring-tennis-players-matt-little/

I have paraphrased part of his article below to include the categories he mentioned, and added my comments.  Even if we cannot accurately assess running velocities and accelerations we can at least measure Heart rate to give us an idea of physiological load- more on this later.

Categories of Workload: A suggested model for Tennis

Technique– drills should not be fatiguing

Rhythm and patterns– drilling.  Can be used for on court cardio.  Consider if 80% of ralleys are less than 4 shots, do elite players really need so much time to develop rhythm and timing and confidence?

Serve & Return– typically practised later in a session when fatigue has set in.  Given its importance should it be done early in practice?

Points based play– playing sets, or drills that simulate match based scenarios.  Typically done later in the week.  Should it always be done in the afternoon and later in the week?

Speed work– single ball feeds at flat out speed and lots of recovery.  How much of this work is really done?

Let’s say, for example, that a singles match exposes the player to a 450 PlayerLoad amount of work. In addition, each match requires around 60 acceleration efforts (from 2-4 m/s) with a total distance covered of 3000 metres in the whole match.

You might set a Technique, Serve & return and Speed work session as 300 PlayerLoad.  A Points based session might be 450 PlayerLoad (same as a match) and a Rhythm and patterns session (used for volume and conditioning) as 650 PlayerLoad for example.

Internal Load

Okay- so let’s say we have started to plan our training schedules optimally so there is enough work to prepare our players for the actual workload demands of the match, and get them fitter without getting them too tired.  What’s next?  Well, we need to determine if the planned workload actually had the desired level of stress on the body.

The resultant physiological or psychological stress imposed, described as internal TL, drives adaptation in the relevant metabolic, cardiovascular and neurological systems.

The outcome of any training intervention is therefore the consequence of both external and internal stimuli and reliable monitoring tools are vital for the optimization of athletic performance.

External load may be more easily observable for practitioners, but it is internal load (the cardiovascular and metabolic stresses placed on an athlete during a bout of work) which determines the overall outcome and an athlete’s subsequent adaptation to that stress. Ultimately, the majority of coaches will look at the relationship between internal and external load metrics to measure athlete efficiency.  I have suggested two levels of Internal load monitoring according to the resources you have available at your club.

Level 1 Monitoring- Internal Load

The monitoring of intensity of sessions at Level 1 is conducted using a metric called Session RPE. RPE stands for Rating of Perceived Exertion, and requires a subjective assessment from the athlete of how hard each drill or session was based on a scale 1-10.

The session rating of perceived exertion (sRPE) provides an alternative method of quantifying internal TL, which describes a subjective, global rating of intensity and is the product of training duration, and perceived exertion using Borgs CR10 scale.

Level 2 Monitoring- Internal Load

At Level 2, a method of quantifying internal training volume is introduced. Heart Rate Exertion (sometimes known as Training Impulse) breaks down athlete heart rate into a series of bands proportionally related to an individual’s maximum heart rate.

However, the use of these HR-based methods in intermittent sports may underestimate near maximal short high and very high intensity efforts due to the heavy reliance on anaerobic metabolism.

So whether you use a Level 1 tool or a Level 2 tool you can now quantify the physiological stress (internal load) imposed on the body by the training session/match (external load).  I personally would ideally like a combination of the two.  Having a heart rate monitor will be very useful for the Rhythm and patterns session.  But if you’re doing a technical and/or speed session the Heart rate may not be very high but the sRPE might be higher accounting for the higher mechanical and/or psychological stress.  At the end of the day, if you are the sport scientist you are giving information to the coach to let them know if the session was effective in achieving its goal, whether that be to increase fitness or reduce/minimise fatigue.

FITNESS VS FATIGUE

Planning the Week

The final piece of the puzzle is monitoring the day to day fatigue.  In some cases you are trying to increase fatigue so you can improve fitness.  This may involve doing a session that is ‘‘tougher than a match.’’  So you expect them to be fatigued. But how many fitness based sessions can a player handle in a week and how do you plan them in the lead up to a match?

My example is actually going to draw from team sports first.  This is because in these sports the match itself is usually the most stressful activity of the week in terms of workload.  Everything is about building up to that important Game day at the weekend. We will discuss Tennis after that.

Peaking for the Weekend

So let’s assume match demands and intensities are known, and we have set a weekly practice plan for use during the season. We have also tested through trial and error what we expect the Internal Load to be.  Using a Football example, let’s say that a typical PlayerLoad on a Saturday match is 600 AU.   If these are their normal demands on match day, it would stand to reason that achieving similar numbers a day or two before the game would not be ideal. The only gains that occur a day, or week, before competition is fatigue. Athletes cannot expand their gas tank in such a short time frame, they can only burn the gas already there. The best teams are at their optimal capabilities on match day.

Therefore, tapering practices as the match draws closer is vital.  The other side of the coin is that if athletes are not exposed to some of the match-like speed and volume demands in practice, then they are more likely to perform poorly, and be more prone to injury, during the match.  In general, having one practice that approached match like demands early in the week (3-4 days before competition) with each subsequent practice decreasing about 25% from the previous one is a good starting point.

EXAMPLE 1: MATCH DAY SATURDAY

SUN MON TUES WED THUR FRI SAT

OFF  300     600   450  300     0    600            Total PlayerLoad 2250

EXAMPLE 2: TRAINING WEEK NO MATCH

If said athlete maintained this weekly plan for four weeks, their chronic average would be 2250 per week. Now, imagine if that athlete had a bye week (no match at weekend due to International break).  So they stay at their club and plan to do a tough training week where practice looked like this:

SUN MON TUES WED THUR FRI SAT

OFF  800     600   900   600   500    0             Total PlayerLoad 3400

It’s a bye week so no harm, no foul, right? Wrong. Scientifically speaking, the acute: chronic ratio for this athlete would have gone from 1.0 (i.e. 1:1) to 1.51.  This 51% increase in activity would result in an increased chance of injury during the week and the next week.

So what you do in one week can have a consequence in the next week. When you resume your 2250 PlayerLoad week they will be more tired so you need to account for this.  Usually athletes need to plan for a lighter week every 5-6 weeks with a few days off.  Ideally they will have a complete week off at least every 12 weeks.

Preparing for a Tennis Match

Tennis is a bit different.  If you are a younger player then it will look quite similar to football as you might train during the week and play a match (or two) at the weekend.  But for a junior international player or a Professional player you are often competing for several days each week, and sometimes more than one match a day.  If you are at the bottom of the draw success might be winning the 1^st round so you need to be in peak condition for the first match at the start of the week.  If you lose early, then you can resume training for the rest of the week. That means your training in the previous week might be a bit lighter in the few days leading up to the first match.

If you are one of the favourites then you might need to plan for being there until the end and need to try to recover so you can play 4-5 matches over 4-5 days and still be as fresh as you can at the end.  This means there will be no physical training as such until the tournament has finished.

Unlike Team sports, I personally find that going out competing for several days can in some ways be a bit of a vacation away from training at base-from a physical stand point.  Let me explain.  A typical match contains only 20-30% of the time hitting balls.  In training it is often the case that players will be doing sessions where they are hitting balls for much more than 20-30% of the time.  Having said that players will often rate their matches as hard, so if they played a match that lasted 2-3 hours it can be comparable to a training session.  But again, if you are smart, you can look at the PlayerLoad for each day in competition and compare it to their normal training and competition PlayerLoad and start to get an idea of how stressful that match is on their body.  The Internal load data you have will support this observation.

This is when day to day fatigue management is key. When you’re playing matches every day it’s still a good idea to monitor fatigue levels the next morning (How to do this-we will save that for another post).  This way you can determine how well recovered they are from the previous day’s match.  If they experienced a big external load and reported a big internal load but their fatigue markers are not significantly down- you know they have recovered well.  If they haven’t, it’s not like you cannot play the match but it is helpful to know in case you were planning to do more than the usual 30mins practice before the match or possibly do some extra fitness because you thought the previous match was quite easy.

Training week at base

When you’re back at base training you also want to monitor day to day fatigue. If you find they haven’t recovered well after the previous day’s practice you may make some modifications to the day’s workout- especially if you’ve planned another hard day.

As we discussed earlier there needs to be variation in the day-to-day workload exposures placed on the athletes so that they do experience match-like demands, but with the opportunity to recover so as to limit the injury potential of several high demand days in a row.  Again, the lower workload days should be as crisp and fast as the higher load days; the only decrease is in volume.

Doug McKenney (Sports Performance Specialist at Coach Me Plus) said he used to programme in for his NHL teams 5 possible workouts:

Extremely hard workout

Hard workout

Average workout

Recovery workout

Day Off

For tennis we might refer to the categories of workload we spoke about earlier to determine the best implementation of the Plan depending on the goal of the week, and the athlete’s response to the workloads.

Reporting the Information

In an environment where there is sophisticated monitoring technology, a good starting point is to relate metrics back to the work an athlete usually does in a match, then report training data relative to match equivalents. For example, a training session reported as 60:80 for volume: intensity would mean that the athlete has performed 60% of the work they would do in a match, with the average training intensity being 80% of a match. In terms of distilling internal and external load data down into actionable insights, this is as good a starting point as any.

Where I am next presenting?

WORKSHOP:

STRENGTH & COORDINATION

Dates: 4 Nov 2018,  09:00AM-12:00PM Location: Gosling Sports Park, Welwyn Garden City, AL8 6XE

Book your spot HERE

This blog is the final instalment in my three part series.  In Part 1 we reviewed the principles of Motor Learning and the concepts of Variation as a form of Overload.  We also looked at the concept of Isometric muscle actions forming the basis of strength training for skill transfer of complex movements that take place at very high movement speeds.  In Part 2 we looked at models of Periodisation.  In this final blog in the series I will share some insights into my two day visit to PaceLab in Wellington, Somerset.

I first started following Steffan on social media.  Steffan is an ex professional cricketer, and is the Director of Sport at Wellington School, Somerset.  He also has his own business called ‘PaceLab.’  What attracted me to his ideas was his interesting application of special development exercises that I had only really seen popularised in track and field and his interest in isometric training methods for enhanced skill transfer.

I went down to the first two days of one of his summer training camps for fast bowlers and he was kind enough to let me ask him some questions, while watching the testing.  Being totally honest, I haven’t grasped it fully so I would encourage you to reach out to Steffan if you have more questions.  But here is my take home messages.

Prepare them for the Chaos

Sport, just like the body’s adaptation response, is not predictable! But ultimately the goal is an improvement in the sports performance.  My former Tennis Director, Matt Willcocks always used to refer to the rowing quote: ‘Will it make the boat go faster?”

The Assessments

The higher the stakes and the higher the level of the athlete the more important it is to narrow down on those exercises that will result in a positive transfer of training- that will make the boat go faster!

Steffan did all the classic strength/power and speed tests to build up a picture of the athletic profile, and determine if the athlete was more spring or static- in terms of how they develop velocity (through muscle effort or elasticity, respectively).

However, what I really came to see were the sport specific assessments.  Steffan really captured my imagination because he always uses bowling speed as his most important KPI.  Every exercise is ultimately designed to improve bowling speed.  Steffan not only measures ball speed with a speed gun  (Stalker Pro II) but he also measures arm speed (Motus Global).

He also measured the effect on ball speed from different run ups (those with and without a run up) as well as ball speed measured with the bowler working against variable resistance from the 1080 motion resistance trainer.  Finally, he also measured ball speed using different weight balls.

So what?

Well for a start, the assessment showed that the person who had the fastest ball speed had the lowest arm speed.

Don’t assume fastest arm = fastest bowl

Interestingly, the person with the fastest arm speed had one of the slower ball speeds.  It is critical to know where the ball speed comes from.  Somewhere who has a fast arm but lower ball speed needs to focus on getting stronger.

Once you have their best speed with the actual 156g ball and full run up knowing how they perform with different run ups, different weight balls and different resistances to overcome helps build up the picture further.

There should be about a 10mph drop off from a 110g ball to a 260g ball.   More and it probably means you don’t throw the heavy ball fast enough and need to get stronger.  Less likely means you don’t bowl the lighter balls fast enough and need to get faster!

You gain about 25mph from momentum of a run up but the length of the run up is probably going to be less important to a static ‘knee-dominant’ bowler as they like more time in contact with the ground to use their muscles to generate force.  An elastic hip dominant bowler will get off the back foot extremely fast and will rely on a fast approach to build up momentum.  Seeing the drop off between the two bowls (one with and one without run up might confirm your observations about their bowling type).

Finally, knee dominant bowlers typically enjoy resisted bowls at 5% and 10% of bodyweight as it gives them even more time to use their muscles, as the resistance slows them down.

I found all these different types of specific assessments fascinating.

The Training Exercises

According to Bondarchuk’s exercise classification we have four levels of specificity.  Steffan has put a lot of exercises on social media which focus on the Specific Developmental exercises but first let’s explore the exercise classifications in more detail.

I like to think of the first two categories developing physical abilities and the last two motor skills specific to the competition exercise.

General Preparatory Exercises (GPE)- Exercises to get the body in a general ‘biomechanical efficient’ state based on sound knowledge of kinetics- higher force production and lower speed (so different recruitment systems to competitive exercise).  These exercises are not going to directly help you be more powerful, and may in the short term have a negative transfer to sports skills and technique.  However, it will give the tissues the necessary strain to maintain mobility and tissue aspects.

As Max Schmarzo of Strong by Science says:’ not every exercise needs to be directly related to your goal or KPI.  There should be exercises that are used to support other exercises.”

Kier Wenham-Flatt of Rugby Strength coach adds: ‘chasing bigger squat numbers, even relative to body weight probably did very little to make us faster or more explosive.  But it may have given us the foundation to do the stuff that did- ballistic movements, jumps, plyos, sprints.

Specific Preparatory Exercises (SPE)– Exercises which bridge the gap between strength and speed.  These exercises are typically more explosive (replicating time frame of sport) and use the same muscles as the competitive exercise.  In my opinion, this is also the place to be a little bit more specific with the movement pattern, so I’ll use more uni-lateral exercises and power cleans from a hang, for example.

Exercises such as half squat, snatch and power clean, jumps (standing long jump, triple jump, vertical jump) and throwing exercises (throwing a shot put forward and backward) are common place. However, according to extensive research across 7000 athletes Bondachuk says ability in these exercises does NOT to any degree determine the amount of increase in competitive exercises.

Just as with GPE, what you get here is a positive transfer of physical abilities to the competitive exercise.  They serve only in the display of motor potential of an athlete and achievement of a definite level of physical preparation.

However, this is where Isometric training regimes also come into play and I was introduced to Steffan Jone’s Skill-Stability Paradigm.  

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 pertubations (surface of  ground, weight of a ball, and any other unexpected movements) as well as internal pertubations (fatigue).  One of the most important mechanisms for controlling movements and making them robust is the influence of co-contractions in what is known as ‘speed/accuracy trade-off.’

So if you are training for a high speed action such as sprinting or cricket fast bowling then perhaps a dose of isometric training is more suited here.

Steffan talks about technical (skill) interventions.  You need a layered approach, starting with learning the bowling skill and then at the same time removing any obvious structural dysfunctions and building general strength qualities.  All of the things we have talked about so far.  But if you’re observing that a bowler is not able to consistently repeat the positions aka ”attractors” of a skill then certain types of ‘strength exercises’ can bridge the gap to assist with skills learning. The exact intervention depends on whether you have a problem with your hardware or software.

Hardware vs. Software Flaw

Hardware problem- use skill-stability paradigm to overload key positions using isometric work (part kinetic chain) and heavy weighted balls to groove the skill (whole kinetic chain).

Software problem- need repetition, variability of technical drilling and constraints based coaching

Below I will take a look at the isometric progressions as part of the skill-stability paradigm.

Skill-Stability Paradigm:

Full disclosure- I still haven’t got the grips with the Stages 2-4 exercises that Steffan uses.  But I do believe the first two stages are part of the Special Development Exercises (SDE).

Stage 1 – isometrics (static)– holding the key bowling positions.  This is a ‘yielding’ isometric held for up to 90-sec.

Stage 2-  isometrics (dynamic)– constraining parts of the action while adding in movement in others.

Stage 1 has four levels: isometrics static

Level 1– bodyweight yielding

Level 2– bodyweight yielding with bands or external load such as an aquabag

Level 3– overcoming isometric drop and block (through partner resistance or power rack pin press)

Level 4– functional isometrics with supramaximal weight

Specific Developmental Exercises (SDE)– Exercises which approximate the competition exercise in part, such as a jump with different distance approach run, or variations in the distance run for a sprinter.  For a thrower this would revolve around different weighted implements.

Here you are getting  a positive transfer of motor skills using the variable practice conditions that Frans Bosch was speaking about.  This is where the weighted balls also come in that Steffan was talking about.  However, I believe Steffan regards the weighted balls as a Competitive exercise in his system and instead here uses exercises to develop power and usable strength which are Stage 3 and Stage 4 of his Skill-Stability Paradigm.

Stage 3- ballistic– adding explosive and coordinative aspects to the sequence (locked position MB shot pass throw)

Stage 4- complex– combining all the above methods

Competitive Exercise (CE)– the actual event.  In Steffan’s system he would put weighted balls here as part of his ‘arm speed’ programme where heavier (200-300g) balls are bowled with maximum intent to increase bowling speed.

I will perhaps follow this up with some insights into how I have seen isometrics used successfully by Alex Natera in sprinting as I think that’s quite a bit to be getting our heads around.  For now, I hope you found that a useful insight into my visit to PaceLab.

Where I am next presenting?

FREE WORKSHOP: 5 Numbers to Live By

Dates: 9 Sept 2018,  09:00AM-12:00PM Location: Gosling Sports Park, Welwyn Garden City, AL8 6XE

Book your spot HERE

On the 16th and 17th July I went down to Wellington School, Wellington, Somerset to attend the first two days of Steffan Jone’s Pacelab training camp for a group of fast bowlers. For those of you who haven’t been following my tweets and posts on social media I have been taking the time recently to get to grips with some motor learning theories that at first glance fly in the face of established principles of strength training based on Newtonian laws.

My original intention was to summarise my trip and give some insights into what I learnt and how I can apply that to the APA Training method and Tennis. But there was just so much information to digest and much of it hung on my understanding of some of the motor learning principles pioneered by Frans Bosch and Periodisation concepts of Anatoliy Bondarchuk.  So I thought I would do a three part series on this, and having established the theory, do a round-up of my trip.

• Part 1- Strength Training and Coordination- Frans Bosch
• Part 2- The Bondarchuk principles of Periodisation
• Part 3- Putting it all together- my visit to Pacelab

Part 1 Strength Training and Coordination- Frans Bosch

This book is one of about 30 books that stay on my book shelf, ready to be re-read again and again.  It isn’t a easy read, definitely more on the advanced end of sport science principles.  It reminds me of ”Special Strength Training Manual for Coaches” which is another of my favourites.  Every time you read it, you learn something new.

In the interests of not making this blog too long (if you’re really interested in the topic you’ll buy the book yourself!) I want to summarise my take away learnings from the first four chapters.  For me, these first four chapters set the theoretical underpinning for the remaining three chapters to give practical examples of overload, specificity and sport-specific training examples.

The introduction criticizes our tendency to compartmentalise the trainable aspects of the body into basic motor properties of strength, speed, agility, stamina and coordination.  The book sets out to demonstrate that this is not so, and that the basic motor properties can hardly exist in isolation.  Strength and coordination are thus closely related, and should in fact be treated as a single unit.

Sport-specific strength training means coordination training against resistance

I had to chuckle because the very back bone of the APA Training Method is the 5 S’s of Biomotor Ability.  However, I know that I am consciously simplifying the complexity of the body, in order to create a starting point for a common language.  I am not suggesting that physiological systems operate in isolation.

1 The basic concepts of strength and speed

Frans challenges coaches tendency to view adaptations in a predictable linear fashion.  But the body’s response to training is unpredictable.  All we have established so far is that periodisation with variation is better than training without variation.  We get our first introduction to the term ‘dynamic systems‘ which refers to the overall structure of complex systems and its implications for how the body behaves.  When we move in sport, adjustments to movement have to be made in milliseconds and these fluctuations are self-organizing.

We are introduced to the concept of decentralised factors which cannot be readily controlled by central nervous system (CNS) and we need to ‘plan’ for a degree of ‘noise’ in the system which won’t be accounted for with a linear understanding of the adaptation to stress.

This means there are no fairly rigid motor programmes stored in the brain, but that movement is composed on the basis of flexible sets of movement rules that are generally applicable and can filter and shape incidental adjustment to the demands of the environment.  I always thought of fundamental movement skills and sport skills being a kin to uploading some new software onto your computer (brain) and you can access the relevant software to run the sport or task required.  This gives further insight into the way the brain remembers movement through movement ‘rules.’

This also calls into question the need to seek movement perfection seen in physical therapy, golf, and martial arts to name but a few.

The precisely taught lifting technique will NOT be remembered, if only because the objects that are lifted in every day life all differ in shape and weight.  Stable yet flexible movement patterns do not develop by learning techniques precisely, but through self-organization from complexity.

In terms of movement coaching, a whole-part-whole approach is encouraged.  The whole part guarantees a combination of sensorimotor factors that is relevant to the sporting movement.  Part practice will occasionally be required to ensure progression.  Out of interest, whole implies a tactical context so when a coach feeds controlled balls so the player can alternate practising forehands and backhands, this is a type of part practice!

Furthermore, approaching sport-specific strength training from a purely physiological angle disregards the way in which the ‘learning system’ organises movements and transfers between them.  The most difficult choices coaches have to make are in the grey area between strength training and technique training.  Ultimately as a coach you have to decide if the root cause of the problem is with ability to produce enough force (increase resistance) or technique (reduce resistance)

2 Anatomy and limiting influences on force production

I will spare you an Anatomy & Physiology lesson.  In essence we are challenged to review our thinking which bases strength training on the qualities in the contractile parts of the muscle associated with force production.  Instead, also appreciate that neuromuscular factors linked to coordination have a role to play in regulation of force production.  What truly limits maximal force production ”during athletic movements?”

For me the context of the actual sporting movement is finally starting to come home.  I’m starting to appreciate that maximal strength training is designed to increase your potential (physiologically), not your performance.  Strength training can aid in your sports training but the increase in muscular contractile capabilities that may aid in ability to produce force at higher velocities will diminish as the training level of the athlete increases.  Ultimately it comes down to how much force you can access during the time frame of your sporting movement.

There was a good summary of the Force-Velocity relationship indicating that a muscle fibre is not able to produce high force and shorten rapidly at the same time.  We also got to see that different types of muscles favour high force (gluteus maximus) or high velocity (rectus femoris) contractions or both (gastrocnemius).

For me the big take away was in the fantastic description of elastic properties of muscle and the concept of ‘muscle slack.’  For a comprehensive discussion on this topic check out Strong by Science blog Muscle Slack and High Velocity Training: An Integrative Approach and Muscle Slack, which are both well worth a read.

The elastic components of muscle known as serial elastic component (SEC) act as:

• shock absorbers– resisting opposing external forces
• energy storers– storing energy of opposing forces during elastic stretch

Now, most rapidly performed movements generate large external forces that load the muscle with eccentric torque and so TRY to move the attachment points further apart.  The muscle can use its elastic components IF the force does not exceed the maximal isometric force in the contractile elements (CE).

Critical to this is the understanding that elastic muscle use is different from concentric explosive muscle use (speed skater push off, swimmer block start etc) or the commonly referred to stretch shortening cycle (SSC) which features an eccentric-concentric action.  High speed movements such as throwing, sprinting and jumping from a run up use an elastic muscle action, with muscle fibres acting isometrically and the musculo-tendinous units lengthen and shorten stretching the elastic parts.

Furthermore, if the change in knee angle in the stance phase of a jump exceeds 20-25 degrees there is little opportunity for short contact time and elastic muscle action, so amplitude of jump is a key determining factor in the underlying muscle action taking place.  Athletes are often unable to limit the range of the countermovement sufficiently because they lack the necessary mastery (and strength in my opinion) of the pretension technique.

I always just assumed that the bigger the range of the movement, the more effective the following muscle action would be, like firing an elastic band analogy (above).  However, where we get lost is that we often look at sports performance through the height of a jump as a measure of explosive power.  It is true that the counter movement jump (CMJ) will enable someone to jump higher than a squat jump.  But the higher movement velocity from the CMJ is the product of a longer movement time (ground contact time) and ”unnaturally” aided pretensioning and muscle slack reduction (unnatural because in sport there isn’t enough time for larger counter movements) which means early rate of force development (RFD) and reduction in muscle slack are not being trained.

You want to limit the eccentric action of muscle fibres.  Any lengthening that occurs is mainly due to slack muscle becoming taut.  What this means for training of high speed movements such as sprinting and single leg hop with a run up is that counter movements should be avoided.

The final section looked at neuromuscular function and in particular the size principle.  This means that the order of the recruitment depends on the size of the stimuli emitted by the central nervous system. We get stronger because we recruit more motor units (more of the larger FT fibres) through stronger and more frequent signals to the muscles, and later through improved synchronisation of the fibres.  So initially the idea in training is to progressively lift heavier weights in order to maximise the physiological potential of the FT fibres.

The idea of training with lower resistance and somewhat less predictable external forces is important not only in sport specific training but also in rehabilitation.  Being able to cope with unexpected external forces may be more important when relearning how to function in every day life than learning to cope with large external forces that can be easily estimated.

3 Analysing the sporting movement

The focus of this chapter was Dynamic Systems theory and the concept of attractors and fluctuators.  I said earlier that I always thought of fundamental movement skills and sport skills being a kin to uploading some new software onto your computer (brain) and you can access the relevant software to run the sport or task required.

The idea of having to improvise a movement and adapt it to the constantly changing demands of the environment does NOT mean that ALL of the components of the movement are constantly adapted.  Instead some are adapted and others remain unchanged

Effective movement is then a matter of changing the right components in response to the demands of the environment while leaving others alone.  According to the dynamic systems theory, the essence of motor control is more or less automatic elimination of superfluous alternatives or degrees of freedom.

• Stable economical components of movement are referred to as ‘attractors‘
• Unstable, high energy ones as ‘fluctuators‘

The fluctuators are needed in order to adapt the movement to the shifting demands of the ever-changing environment in which the athlete is moving.  When you learn a new movement, use is made of fixed components (attractors) of movements from other, already known movement patterns.  This is useful because it limits the degrees of freedom (the endless possibilities of movement solutions).

According to Bosch, this division into stable and unstable components cannot possibly develop from hierarchical top-down organization of the CNS.  Higher parts of the system ensure ‘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.  This capacity for self-organization is used to prevent at risk positions.

Bosch examines eight attractors of sport

1. Lock position of the hip
2. Swing leg traction
3. Foot plant from above
4. Positive running motion
5. Keeping the head still
6. Upper body first
7. Extending the trunk while rotating
8. Distributing pressure when decelerating

4. Fixed principles of training: contextual strength and coordination

In this chapter we learn about the importance of co-contractions to reduce muscle slack and we also look in detail at the laws of motor learning.  This whole chapter sets the scene for variation as a main means of training overload.

This chapter gets to the core of the issue- divergent theories about the relative importance of physiological adaptation (load capacity) versus motor learning adaptation (motor control).

It’s discussed whether maximal strength is a possible performance-limiting factor? If it was, Bosch argues, we would all work on making our muscles stronger, make passive structures more able to absorb more tensile forces, and the strongest athletes would always be the fastest athletes.  But this isn’t the case.

In technically somewhat complex sports, increased force production does not automatically lead to improved performance.

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 pertubations (surface of  ground, weight of a ball, and any other unexpected movements) as well as internal pertubations (fatigue).  One of the most important mechanisms for controlling movements and making them robust is the influence of co-contractions in what is known as ‘speed/accuracy trade-off.’

The more speed, the more noise or ‘variability’, the more co-contractions, the more the speed of movement will be inhibited.  So the movement will be limited by coordination issues before the load capacity is reached.  The joint is protected by the mechanical properties of the muscles, but at the expense of speed movement.

In conclusion, the limit on performance in explosive movements is probably determined by the demands that motor control makes on intensive movements.

The second part of the chapter focused on the laws of motor learning

• Cognitive schema theory– all information about how to execute a movement is generated by the CNS
• Importance of Knowledge of Results (KR) feedback in terms of intention-action model
• Importance of Variable learning

The problem with many strength exercises is that they lack a clear intention.  Children learn by copying an adult’s intention.  The body does not think in terms of processes, but in terms of the results of the movements.  If attention is focused outside the body on features related to the movement, the movement and motor learning processes will be controlled more effectively.

It is really important to look for KR feedback in practical coaching so that it can replace over-dominant KP feedback.  The KP would be instruction from a coach on correct technical performance, and KR would simply be using a tape measure to record how far the discus was thrown.  The KR feedback leads to external focus, which is a good thing.  This doesn’t mean that coaches no longer have any part to play, but that they should be gardeners rather than conductors!

Gardeners do not decide when or how fast plants should grow-when the next step should be taken in the learning process- but simply hoe and fertilize.  Create a learning environment with movement puzzles to solve and let them implicitly learn to recognize a biomechanically optimal solution.

The final topic discussed was the role of motivation.  Repetition has not only the advantage of imprinting a movement, but also the disadvantage of reducing motivation.  Sensorimotor ‘chaos’ is the basis for learning.  Variation in the execution of the movement in unfamiliar settings creates chaos- which is a good thing for learning.

More than anything the most compelling reason why periodisation models work is because periodisation lads to variation in training!

The learning system usually finds strength training monotonous and boring!  It also impairs coordinative transfer.  Perhaps one of the reasons we hit a learning ceiling is because training is too monotonous. But just as there is a point of diminished returns with strength training (Load capacity) there is also a limit to the value of variation.

When working with youths variation helps athletes develop the building blocks of movement control.  Spend a few years building up a good catalogue of basic components through variable training.  Only then does it make sense to start using larger barbell weights.

For example see below for some progressions in a step-up:

1. Asymmetrically balanced bar on shoulders
2. Vary the step up height
3. Vary movement of the free (swing) leg
4. Vary horizontal movement- placing more load on hamstrings
5. Combine step up with torsion in the upper body

Repetition without repetition (Bernstein)

Differential learning and Random learning are the two forms of variable learning.

• Differential learning– learn by frequently alternating many variants of one movement in one session
• Random learning– learn by frequently alternating many different movement patterns in one session

The effects of learning the ideal technique and differential learning are different.  Learning the ideal technique will yield faster results- but this is deceptive, for the effect is usually temporary.  Not only is the solution quickly forgotten, but it can’t be easily transferred to other sporting movements.  In differential learning the immediate results (practice results) are not so good, but the eventual impact on the sporting movement turns out to be better and more lasting (the learning result).

Where I am next presenting?

FREE WORKSHOP: 5 Numbers to Live By

Dates: 9 Sept 2018,  09:00AM-12:00PM Location: Gosling Sports Park, Welwyn Garden City, AL8 6XE

Book your spot HERE