Hi All,

like many of us busy coaches this time of year represents a time for reflection before we get back to it in January.  I was looking over some of my notes for 2014 and lessons learned and I totally forgot I hadn’t posted on the blog the notes from the UKSCA conference!!  So here it is!

If you’re a Strength & Conditioning coach then this is the must go to event.  I have only missed one since the inaugural conference in 2004!!  As ever there was an extensive line-up of International speakers with representation from UK, Australia and USA.  There was also a record turn out of over 500 delegates over the 3 day programme.   So I thought it would be appropriate to feedback a few of the key messages and applied methodologies presented at the workshops I attended or made notes on.

I have included below the thoughts of a friend and colleague of mine, Arran Peck, who fills us in on his key take home messages from Saturday’s speakers

Adam Beard

Head of Physical Performance (British & Irish Lions)

Physical Preparation of Elite Rugby Players

• Improved performance normally exists where EVIDENCED BASED PRACTICE and PRACTICE BASED EVIDENCE meet
• It is imperative to stand by your principles, underpinned by your experience, understanding and information available
• Effective motor learning elicits far stronger and more effective transfer than mechanistic learning

Duncan French

Regional S&C Lead (English Institute of Sport)

Programming for & adaptation to Concurrent Training

• Modulate the TIMING, ORDER, FREQUENCY, DURATION and INTENSITY of sessions to minimise likely inhibition of adaptation
• Training for multiple qualities is ALWAYS going to increase total work load, the likelihood of system fatigue & reduce the rate or magnitude of gains
• Every time you step in the gym, there’s an energetic cost but not always an adaptation

Craig Ransom

Lead Physiotherapist (Welsh Rugby Union)

Integrating Injury Prevention & Athlete Preparation

• Research shows having your most effective players available more often & at key times increases likelihood of success…obviously!
• Identify most frequently occurring injuries, target the ones that are preventable, understand the mechanisms, profile who is in greatest need & develop management strategies
• Consider the COST : BENEFIT of ‘functional’ screening – consider workload, lifestyle, environmental and technical issues as more likely cause of injury

Nick Winkelman

Director of Education (EXOS performance)

The Art of Coaching Meets the Science of Motor Learning

• Value of ‘Constraint based’ model of training – manipulate BODY, TASK and ENVIRONMENT to optimise development over time
• The benefits of CONTEXTUAL INTERFERENCE – but variability needs to be related to ability!!!
• Understand difference between IMPLICIT & EXPLICIT learning and that internal cueing often less effective than external cueing & sometimes less effective than no cueing at all!

APA Director Daz Drake comments on Day 1-

Adam Beard– I found this a great insight into use of monitoring to inform competitive readiness in Professional rugby.  They used GPS and morning monitoring diaries extensively.

If a player was returning from injury they were able to use this to determine whether they were back to full fitness. Key thing- know your sport.  I remember Dave Hamilton presented on GB Women’s Hockey in 2012 and 148 m/m was the norm for Hockey.

Adam also talked about the importance of being able to repeat high quality efforts.  Hence greater use now of power endurance strongman circuits and speed endurance to top up the running volume.  But these must be performed explosively.

Duncan French–  this was a nice blend of theory and then application of concurrent training (strength with endurance training) with a case study of his programming for British Taekwondo.

Body transformation vs. Sports Performance

Duncan reminded us that it’s not about being a great generalist.  It’s about training specifically.  If you throw a lot of different training modalities together in a week or session (aka Crossfit) that will definitely be effective for stripping fat with the general population.  But the down side of concurrent training could be chronic fatigue and most importantly, a drop in rate of force development (RFD).

Research shows us that doing strength training doesn’t seem to impair aerobic performance but doing aerobic work does impair strength performance

Cycling seems to have less negative effects on strength levels than running

Whenever you can separate a strength/power session DAY from an aerobic day do so IF your goal is to OPTIMISE strength/power indicators

Repeated sprints (30-100m) 2-4 times per week improve aerobic/anaerobic performance without causing decrements in RFD if programmed effectively.

Dr Craig Ransom– questioned practically of the Functional Movement Screen (FMS).  Movements are slow and work the end range- is this representative of what happens in sport?  Even if the information is useful, can it be gathered and acted on quickly.  You will probably need to do another screening to determine why the movement is inefficient.

Solution- a targeted musculo skeletal screening which dials down on the key target areas that are associated with injuries in the sport.  Can also use Field based functional tests- for example, single leg elevated glute bridge for 25 reps.  This replicates demands of the stress placed on the hamstrings at mid stance of running cycle during high speed running- a major source of injury in rugby.

Nick Winkelman– this was a whistle-stop tour of coaching science,  stopping off at Dynamic Systems Theory (environment), constraint based learning (instruction) and internal and external cuing (feedback).

I always enjoy hearing from coaches who are interested in motor learning theory.  Some coaches just focus on Newton’s laws and production of force, using those methods which we know work best such as heavy weight training. While I believe this has to be a large underpinning principle that respects the principle of progressive overload, I also believe elite performance is all about error elimination and decision making under pressure.

Remember: errors must become unstable for efficiency to emerge

Introduce uncertainty in skills- it leads to learning

Introduce variability in skills- it gives the body system a chance to experience the pattern you want it to discover.

Well it’s Friday and to be honest I probably should be showing this video on a Monday (when we need a kick start to our week) but I thought you would like to see my latest favourite motivational video!

It can be very challenging to focus on all the things you have to do that day, while still leaving time in the day to dream about your big goals and keep one eye on the next big project to start or finish.  So this video is for you to remind you to keep pushing for what you want!

I don’t recommend to our athletes to go without sleep and food like it says in this video but nevertheless the message is powerful………..

And here’s my other favourite

So now you’re feeling motivated to reach for a goal that takes you outside your comfort zone the question is what are you going to do with your time?

Why not check out the latest APA Level 2 Certificate in Strength & Conditioning?  Click HERE  to get the Early Bird Discount which expires in 1 week!!!

This Blog post is a departure away from my usual writing.  As some of you may know I’m as passionate about coach education as I am about coaching itself.  As part of my journey to becoming a coach educator I am now enrolled on a teaching qualification.

For those of you who are in the fortunate role to provide Coach Education I just thought I would share with you a few key learnings from my first two days on the Level 3 Award in Education & Training (AET).  I love being able to reflect on my own education journey and think how I will change the way I do things to influence the next generation.

It’s that old cliche that if you pick up one key pearl of wisdom it will be worth going.  Well my biggest pearl was to be introduced to Sir Ken Robinson.  Our tutor showed us this Youtube video just before lunch to give us something to discuss over lunch. I was gripped.

You can watch the whole lecture here

Sir Ken is an educationalist who encouraged me to think about creativity and divergent thinking, an essential capacity for creativity.  Creativity is the process of having original ideas that have value.  Divergent thinking is the ability to see lots of possible answers to a question and the ability to think laterally.  There are so many achievements that characterise the ascent of human culture.  But in his opinion we destroy this natural creativity in the way we educate people.

The education system:  ”They’re trying to meet the future by doing what we did in the past, and along the way they’re alienating millions of kids who don’t see any purpose of going to school.” 

”There is an intellectual apatite where Vocational training is seen as not as good as academic training.  Our children are living in the most intensely stimulating period of the history of the Earth.  They are being besieged with information and calls for their attention from every platform: from computers, from Iphones, from advertising hoarding, from hundreds of television channels.  And we’re penalising them from getting distracted…..from what….??”

Boring lessons!!!!!!!

Not everyone will benefit from a standardised way of learning, being force fed information that they may or may not be interested in.

Death by Powerpoint:

We’re still getting our children through education by anaesthetising them rather than waking them up!!

Group work:

Instead most great learning happens in GROUPS.  Collaboration is the stuff of Growth.  But yet we have achievement standards that learners need to reach by working in isolation on a test paper where there is only one answer!  We need a shift from an industrial metaphor of education to an agricultural one.  Human organisations are not like mechanisms (even though organisational charts still represent most organisations like this) they are like organisms. The way you work in an organisation is deeply affected by how you feel about it.

My challenge:

So I challenged myself to think out of the box and give a 15 minute presentation on Strength & Conditioning without the use of powerpoint.

Before I did my presentation I had a really good session on Delivery Methods.  We did a group brainstorm on different delivery methods we could use to share information and here is a photo of the brainstorm on the flip chart.

So fuelled with lots of ideas I went and did my presentation.

The presentation was really well received and it gave me a lot of satisfaction in achieving the learning objectives without being constrained to the use of powerpoint.  Rather than just tell people by showing them words on a page and reading them off, I cultivated group discussions, I showed them videos and I got them to do some practical tasks.  This is what our tutor meant by Tell > Show > Do, where learning sticks more, the more INVOLVED you are in it!

Out of interest compare how much information you took in when you listened to Sir Ken speak on the full 55 minute lecture and just focused on the words, with the 10 minute illustrated version where you were constantly looking at pictures too!  They say a picture paints a thousand words!

Go out there and be creative!!!!!!!

The last few weeks I have been doing a fair amount of coach education with the Sports Studies students of the University of Hertfordshire, as well as my recent workshop, ‘5 Numbers to Live By.’  Discussions quickly came around to how to get a job in this industry so I thought I would share with you some of my reflections.  Bottom line; be a great coach and get yourself noticed.  So how do you do this?

To be a great coach I have been focusing on talking about the ‘Coaching Process.‘  I’d like to mention a few of my own mentors on this subject who have influenced many of my thoughts on this topic, namely Louis Cayer, Helen Emms, Paul Dent and all the coaching team at Gosling Tennis Academy.   So to set the scene my discussions with the students focused on:  

• Creating a culture
• Creating a training environment
• Observing performance
• Giving and receiving feedback

In this post I will focus on the first two:

Creating a Culture:

  I started by speaking about Creating a culture.  I explained to the students that if you’re looking to get a job with an organisation it’s really important to see if you are going to be a good fit for each other.  I think that great teams have a great culture, which consists of the following:

>Having a Big Goal and a set of processes in place to achieve it.

For example, at Gosling Tennis Academy, they have a goal of:

”winning now and in the future, on and off the court.”

They define winning as having a champion in the same calendar year in each of the following events:

>Junior 10 and under British Nationals

>Junior 14 and under Tarbes (unofficial world championships)

>Junior Grand slam

>NCAA Divison 1 Team

>Senior Grand slam

So if you’re thinking about approaching an organisation think about whether you’d be excited about being part of a team with these goals.  The processes they have in place that lead to winning at Gosling are:

• World class knowledge
• Clear understanding of level
• Improve performance at each stage of development
• Integrated improvement of performance

By knowing this you can start to think about where your skill sets will fit within these processes!  Then you can demonstrate how you will help them achieve their goals.

It’s also worth asking them about their values and beliefs.  I was very fortunate to part of the process that the Gosling coaches went through in 2008  coming up with their own Values & Beliefs:

Values:

• Courage
• Respect
• Excellence
• Fun
• Competitive spirit

Beliefs:

• Process focus = More wins
• Everything can improve
• Programmes are individualised
• Tennis is a team sport

Creating a Training Environment:

Assuming you’ve got this far, you’ve probably already visited the organisation you’re interested in getting a job with and spoken to them about their goals, processes, values and beliefs. Well if you’re lucky you might be asked to show them what you’ve got and do some coaching so they can see if you can actually coach!!  This is your job interview and you’ve probably heard that you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression!

Creating a great training environment is not as easy as it might seem.  I really value having someone in my team who I can rely on time and time again to rally the troops.   In my sessions with the students at University of Hertfordshire I focused on a few key concepts to create a great training environment.

• Passion
• Challenge
• Competition
• Fun

You don’t have to be a ‘hoo-rah’ American style loud and animated personality to be passionate but you do need to engage your athletes some how.  But if you’re starting out then let the goal and the drill be the coach for you and make sure you stick to some simple rules guaranteed to get results!

> No finish line no race so set targets- make sure there is a clear objective that is challenging

>Keep score to switch them on and create a sense of urgency- make sure there is competition

>Make it fun by using games as well as drills to train the theme you are coaching

>Create an environment of choice and consequence.  This doesn’t necessarily link to the previous objectives of having fun, competition and challenge.  But in my experience it does create a sense of accountability if you expose them and do not afford them the opportunity of being able to hide and not take responsibility (you cannot take responsibility if it was not your choice in the first place). Choice and consequence leads to ownership, responsibility and accountability.

Encourage player ownership and control by offering options, making suggestions and providing choice e.g. Would you mind if..? How about we..? How many do you think it will take to do this? etc.

Within each drill/task there must be at least 1 ‘choice point’ for the player e.g. if you choose what is to be done, then the player can choose when. If the coach decides to feed tough balls from the basket, the player can choose from 3 options the number of balls he wants to receive.

The player can choose the level of challenge of the drill/task e.g. ‘Would you like national or international level feeds to be given to you? Would you like national or international standard targets to aim for?’ etc.

Trust me, if you do these things well you will make yourself stand out as a coach by creating a great training environment! Good luck!

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This week’s Blog post comes from APA coach Paddy James.  Paddy has been dropping into see us at APA for a few months now and formally joined the team in September having impressed at his interview.

As September draws to a close, I have been reflecting back over some key aspects of my coaching practice that have been tested during the past 30 days. Coaching is a very broad topic, with a number of key themes such as adaptability, decision making, being a leader and the ability to educate and influence your athletes being tested in every session. Each one of these topics has enough discussion points to write a book on, so I will be focusing this blog on the area of communication in sports coaching. Communication is essential for coaching success and therefore mastering this skill is hugely important. It is a large area to write about in a blog so to save you from reading War in Peace, I will start at the beginning and have a look at establishing aims and objectives for the session and communicating this to the athletes.

Setting aims and objectives for a session may sound like a basic principle, but ensuring that the athletes know and understand them can often be overlooked. Just spending a few minutes at the start of the session to outline what the theme is, and the key coaching points to be followed can have a positive effect on how smooth the session runs and also the engagement from the athlete. As well as identifying the aims, it is also important to relate the skill being coached to the game or performance. This will give the participants a clear understanding of not just what they are trying to achieve, but why!

Often in coaching, the skill is knowing what to say and what not to say. Allowing the athlete to discover the most efficient way to perform a skill can be far more powerful than the coach giving them all the answers. I have often heard that the best coaches say the least, but this is not to say they are not communicating with their athletes. Nonverbal communication includes observing how your message has been received. This again will link back to the athletes understanding of what they are doing and how it going to enhance their sporting performance. Usually if an athlete believes what they are doing is going to have a positive effect on their game, their effort and concentration will be greater. When coaching a group, this can encourage others to raise their game and, by creating some competition between them, can lead to the athletes striving to perform better.

Identifying the focus of the session, how it relates to the game, and making sure the athletes understand will help to create a positive motivational environment to train in. Creating this environment is an important part of coaching and getting the communication right from the start will make this possible. I will finish by recapping on the 4 points of communication posted a few weeks ago in another APA blog:

1. Give them the message
2. Check they heard it properly
3. Check they understand why they are doing what they are doing
4. Check they understand the consequences of doing it and not doing it

Paddy James, BSc (Hons), ASCC

 Paddy also has a successful Personal Traning business in London.  Contact Paddy here  for more details.