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How Do We Learn To Move? – Part 1

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This blog has been simmering for a few years now.  I wanted to share my experiences as someone who has been coaching for 20 years, and has subscribed to one particular philosophy of coaching athletes how to move- only to move away from this way in recent years.

 

The traditional information processing approach to skill – using internal models and knowledge to predict the outcome of our actions, is one I have followed for many years.  Over the last few years I have been adopting an approach that is more consistent with the ideas of exploration, self-organisation, and connecting with your environment.

 

Like any journey (in this case my professional development) there are various people and concepts that influence you along the way.  Some of these concepts have been in my consciousness for as long as I can remember – but there has been a shift in recent years to apply them.

 

I learnt about Motor Learning Principles first in University in the late 1990s, looking at the concept of Differential Learning – blocked versus random practice.  This was a topic I also referred to in a few blogs and linked to a talk Dr Mike Young did several years ago – Motor Learning Concepts all Coaches Should Know‘  I had read some of James Gibson’s work on Ecological Dynamics Approach and ”Affordances” around 10 years ago, and was aware of the growing buzz around ”Constraints Lead Approach (CLA).”  But I largely kept it in the background.

 

In 2012 I heard Frans Bosch speak for the first time, at the UKSCA Conference – Transfer of Strength Training – Implications from How the Central Nervous System works.  He was the Keynote speaker on the first Saturday morning.  It’s probably unfair to generalise for the whole audience, but I did feel that at that point in time the predominantly Newtonian biased audience of coaches were quick to reject the ideas of Fran and defaulted to the idea that Force = Mass x acceleration, and the more the better, is more important than the control of Force during sporting tasks.

 

I bought Frans Bosch’s second book in 2017 (first published 2015) but left it on the book shelf for the first year, waiting for the right time to be drawn back to it.

 

 

Fast forward to June 2018 and Chris McLeod – who just started as the Lawn Tennis Asociation (LTA) Lead S&C coach.  Chris is someone that clearly had a refreshing outlook on how to address skill acquisition and it wasn’t long before he was inviting interesting and innovative coaches to speak to some of us involved in British Tennis.  In August 2019 he invited Danny Newcombe to present on ‘Movement Puzzles,’ and specifically diving into CLA.

 

Around this period I went to visit Steffan Jones to learn about some of his training methods in fast bowling and cricket and it seemed the World was sending me a message that this topic was one I needed to pay attention to.  He was instrumental in giving me the nudge to invest more time in understanding the principles of Frans Bosch.

 

The presentation of Danny Newcombe coincided with the first year of one of my junior coaches Gabe Fishlock working at APA in April 2019 – Gabe would go on to stay with us for almost two years until January 2021.  I often use Gabe as an example of a ”positive disruptor,” a coach who challenges the status quo and helps evolve the programme.

 

Time for a Change

 

Gabe had been following the syllabus we had in place at APA which was largely based on the the traditional approach of learning a number of discrete motor skills in isolation through rote repetition – and the concept of developing mastery through drills.  I could tell he never felt at ease coaching within this framework and thankfully he had the courage to challenge the status quo- and ask if he could re-write the syllabus over the summer break for the next term.

 

I’ll come back to this story in Part 2 of this blog, but for now it is enough to say that this was certainly the catalyst for change – and a new era of coaching.  We had the pandemic from March 2020 – August 2020 so I guess it’s only really the last 2 years that the syllabus has been in full flow.

 

It would be easy to stop there and be content that APA has made it’s own positive dent in the coaching landscape but I’m always trying to develop what we do – and as I write this I still feel that while we say we adopt an approach to coaching that fosters self-organisation, and we use methods such as CLA, if I’m honest I think we still have a long way to go- myself included.

 

Present Day

 

In the last few months I’ve been further inspired to dig deeper after hearing Paul Venner – Frans Bosch System & Aquabag, who was someone I heard about having read about Randy Sullivan’s Savage Method in Baseball.

 

Two weeks ago I finally read Rob Gray’s ‘How We Learn to Move” book and found it really helped to consolidate all the various bits of research and sound bites into a coherent explanation that helped to solidify my understanding of the scientific research.

 

Today I’d like to share a few insights from Paul Venner’s presentation (Part 1) and I’ll follow up with a summary of some of the main findings I took away from Rob’s book (Part 2).  This will certainly be just the highlight reel, the tip of the iceberg and I encourage you to seek out the original information for yourself.

 

Paul Venner – Frans Bosch System

 

The following sections are based on a presentation I listened to with Paul Venner in 2020 prior to the Pandemic.

 

Sometimes we have a situation where we have an athlete with a very stable pattern, but it is not optimal.  Think of a runner who has a hip drop as they are running, so it’s stable but it’s passive stability as they move into the end range of the (hip) joint.  This way they lose performance and they increase injury risk.

 

So what we need to do is first show them that it is not optimal, and put them in a position where they are going to get feedback about this passive movement (solution) that they are using.  So for example, using a perturbation of the pattern so they are going to feel it and notice that it is actually not a good pattern.

 

Basically, this is what Motor Learning is – moving through this landscape of Stability

 

This landscape of stable points is moving throughout our development – firstly as a baby, then moving through to adolescence with growth spurts and later even as an adult whenever we learn a new skill- finding the optimal stable points to help control movement.

 

If someone has a stable but sub-optimal pattern, it is not enough to ‘teach” a better pattern because it’s so deep/engrained in the system (deep attractor well) that they will always fall back to the original pattern- and their old way of doing it.  SO we have to get rid of that old pattern and make it unstable.

 

The model that we use for this coaching is the ”Constraints Lead Approach (CLA).”  The movement emerges through the interaction of the TASK, ENVIRONMENT and ORGANISM.  So the better we know the constraints of the organism, the task and the environment, the better we can manipulate those constraints in order to get a different movement outcome emerging.

 

 

If I have a goal orientated approach I can eventually increase the total solution-space – which is the space in which I can be successful.

 

Broadly speaking, instead of doing the same repetition 20 times in a row, I do one or two repetitions in a certain way, and then do something else.  This may also include doing things that are not optimal, because by doing it someone will get a feel that it is not optimal so it is much more about having variation in the task.

 

 

Bottom Up Vs Top Down

 

There are two predominant theories that coaches use to explain how we learn skills – one based on a ”top down” computational model (CNS dominant) and the other based on a ”bottom up” dynamic systems model (muscle dominant).

 

Actually of course, it’s a bit of both!   Yes we have a lot of stuff going on from top down, and yes we have a lot of stuff going on from bottom up, and it’s about how we can put them together.

 

What I have aimed to do with my baseball training is seeing where the anchor points are where both meet each other.  I think of it like a road map of the country, and I identify all the places where all the traffic comes together [Daz comment- such as when cars are converging on London from the North and South around the M25 – for a UK based analogy].

 

 

  • CNS dominant – anything with very High Intensity  –> building maximum strength in optimal range.
  • Focus on maximum power with pre-tension – with little or no external load (in max strength training the load builds tension, but out on the field I don’t have external load so I have to build it myself).  This is based on the concept of muscle slack, and getting rid of it!  I want to be able to get up without going down first and the way to train that is with pre-tension and using no load or changing loads such as aqua bags to train this ”co-contraction” control.
  • Focus on rhythm in jumps, bounds & plyometrics
  • Focus on reflex patterns development – cross extensor flexion reflex etc
  • Focus on joint-coupling & synergies –> variable loads
  • Focus on neuromuscular development –> time pressure & complexity (it’s too much information for the brain to cope with and there is a limitation on this transition from CNS to the muscular).  You get very quick fatigue but you get very quick recovery, so you can do this even on game days.
  • Focus on preflex development –> co-contractions & pertubations

 

 

Finding the Anchor Points in Our Coaching

 

In our coaching we can also find those anchor points so if we coach in a more brain dominant way – and talking a lot – I like to focus on keeping my talking only to the level of using analogies, metaphors & motivation – I try to do as little talking as possible, create the environment, and let the movement do the talking.

 

 

On the deeper level I can have knowledge of result information so that I get feedback from the exercise because I hit my target, I used a certain rhythm, I made a certain sound.

 

On the lowest level I can have intrinsic knowledge of results which is information that I get from within the body, this implicit learning through a feeling.  It takes longer to establish but it is way more robust if we learn that way!

 

Exploration Versus Exploitation

 

Exploration

 

Exploration is always done at moderate intensities, with many degrees of freedom  –> mobility & variability = flexible system.

 

Exploitation

 

Exploitation is always done at high intensity –> hitting attractor sites (high specificity) = stable system.

 

Individualisation

 

On what level, to what extent, and on which difficulty and degree = Individuality

 

  • Strengthen attractor sites = STABLE
  • Increase Solution-Space = FLEXIBLE
  • Find and prioritise bottlenecks in both = INDIVIDUALISE

 

If you have got this far then well done and Thanks for sticking with me!  There is a good chance you are curious about this topic so stand by for Part 2 – How Do We Learn To Move?

 

Want More Information?

 

By the way – Frans Bosch Systems (FBS) are coming to the UK to deliver a 7 week International Course (26 May- 9 July 2023).  It will focus on the theory outlined in Frans Bosch’s latest books.  I personally won’t be going as it falls in the summer period, I feel I have a pretty good grasp of the principles and I need to focus on applying them now.

 

It will be delivered through a combination of the interactive online learning platform, live webinar sessions and a 2-day onsite practical session at Queen’s University Belfast (8-9 July 2023).

 

Objectives

 

  • Understand the Constraint Led Approach and transfer this knowledge into exercises and training settings.
  • Understand the mechanisms of specificity and transfer of training.
  • Understand how feedback works and can organise training and rehabilitation in such a way that representative design in exercises and the learning process is guaranteed.
  • Understand self-organisation and its effects from intramuscular processes to muscle cooperation to bigger components of movement to total contextual patterns.
  • Understand deep rules of motor control and know how to determine these in movement.
  • Understand the search rules for attractors and how to apply these in movement analysis.
  • Gain knowledge of all the systems involved in motor control, feedback and intrinsic learning, and how to apply these in rehabilitation and training.
  • Be able to use phase transitions in rehabilitation and training in order to accelerate the learning process.
  • Demonstrate each topic of content in training or rehabilitation.

 

 

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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Periodisation for Tennis – Part 4

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One of the benefits of running a strength & conditioning coaching company is that each year I get to mentor a new set of coaches.  In the last few weeks two questions have been raised by some of the interns which I thought would make a good blog topic for discussion.

 

  • How do you decide on the goals of the S&C programme?
  • How do you periodise the goals into an Annual Training plan?

 

I covered the first question in my last blog – Click here and now I will turn my attention to the second question of Periodisation.

 

I’ve probably written about this topic as much as any on my blog and usually it’s when I have been trying to figure things out and make myself accountable to commit my thoughts to paper.  So certainly there has been some good stuff, and some not so good stuff, some things I still agree with and some things I have changed my mind on.

 

But for what it is worth – take a look at some previous blog articles – Periodisation for Tennis – Part 1; Periodisation for Tennis – Part 2; Periodisation for Tennis – Part 3; Periodisation for Teenagers; Periodisation – Hybrid Models for team Sports; Periodisation – Does it Even Work?

 

I also wrote a review of the Triphasic Method – click here and here, which are the probably the two most recent blogs I have written about on the topic of Periodisation.

 

All of the above blogs talk about frameworks and models but having gone back through them all it was actually the Periodisation for Tennis – Part 1 that I want to talk a little bit more about.  In the team meetings with my staff we have been discussing how you go about solving the problem of working in Tennis where the athletes rarely complete several cycles of 4 consecutive weeks.

 

Junior Elite Tennis Players

 

Let’s take the example I gave of a female player in the 14-unders (double periodisation) and moving into 16-unders at aged 15 (triple periodisation).  For boys the equivalent could be moving out of 16-under and into 18-under.

 

The STATS

 

  • At 15 yrs they might play 35-75 matches per year
  • They may play up to 9 international tournament
  • They may play up to 3 consecutive tournaments in a row
  • They might have 3 training blocks a year (triple periodisation) up to 8 weeks each

 

Almost 50% of the top 100 ITF ranked junior
girls fail to plan 1 block of 8 weeks and 1
block of 4 weeks (Raabe & Verbeek, 2004)

 

More STATS

 

 

McCraw, P. Making the ATP Top 100. Transition from Top 10 ITF Junior to Top 10 ATP Tour (1996-2005).

 

 

As you can see, different researchers report slightly different stats, but you can gather from the research that children can be playing tournaments from anywhere from 11 to 30 weeks of the year, with 12-16 weeks of training (development weeks) and 8-10 weeks of rest.

 

In reality, the best outcome is one longer training block of 8 weeks and probably two shorter ones of 4 weeks each, and a lot of 2 weeks in training followed by 2 weeks in competition.

 

When you have 8 weeks

 

This is what I would do with a less advanced athlete.  I’d do a 4-week build up phase, what I call the ‘GET FIT’ PHASE, and I’d follow it with a GET STRONG / GET EXPLOSIVE phase.

 

Phase 1 – GET FIT (Foundation) – Early Preparation – Hypertrophy

 

 

Phase 2 – GET STRONG / GET EXPLOSIVE – Late Preparation – Max Strength and Power

 

 

With my more advanced athletes there will be ‘loading’ of all parts of the Force-Velocity curve from the beginning of the preparation period, which will only be 4 weeks in most cases.  It will be the emphasis that I will shift BUT all forms of training are present from the outset. This means that advanced athletes will be loading up on hypertrophy, strength and power either in the same session or at least in the same week (microcycle). See later in the blog for more information on this.

 

But What Happens when they come in for 2 weeks and go on the road for 2 weeks?

 

 

In the above figure (on the left) we have a scenario where the athlete has trained for a few weeks and built up the intensity, only to then go on the road for 1 week.  The orange column was supposed to be a 75% week (of the planned 100% of intensity for that block).   If they only go away for a week I just get them to repeat the load of the previous week.

 

If they go away for two weeks in a row (on the right) where they would have achieved the planned 100% load had they stayed for a full month in training, when they come back, I have to start from scratch!

 

The only way to break this cycle is to lift on the road – preferably as soon as they exit the tournament but before the following week

 

The key with in-season programming is to have your ‘benchmark’ levels of performance that you can hold your athlete or team accountable to.  I want my less advanced athletes to be motivated to keep making progressions in the intensity of their lifts, and buy into the principle of ”no missed lifts.”

 

For my less advanced athletes I really want to get them to progressively build up to a few cycles of 100% intensity before switching up to a more concurrent method (see below).

 

As for the more Advanced athletes

 

A couple of common approaches to strength training in-season are:

 

1 .  A weekly undulating model – An undulating model as proposed by Charles Poliquin uses weekly variations in load.  It is quite common as an in-season model which fluctuates between 1-2 weeks of hypertrophy and 1-2 weeks of maximal strength/power.  It allows the CNS to recover during periods where there is already high neural stimulus from a busy competition schedule.

 

I believe Dan Baker uses this form of week to week variation in strength sets and reps schemes to maintain strength and muscle mass using a form of weekly undulations in strength. (Undulating wave 12/8/10/6).  In this example the weeks of 12 and 10 reps would represent hypertrophy weeks and the weeks of 8 and 6 reps would represent strength.

 

2.  A daily undulating model– which uses variations in the same week.  This is something we use quite a lot with Tennis players where we will plug in a session which combines Strength and Power a couple of times a week.  Or you can have one session which focuses on a strength and one which focuses on power.  This is an example of the concurrent method – where you are training strength and power in the same week.

 

In the earlier scenario above, where they miss a few weeks of strength training while they are competing I am less concerned about this.  I feel more confident that I can get them back into their training by progressively increasing load during the first week.  I can do this by doing a 50% load in the first session back (muscular endurance 3 x 12-15), a 75% load in the second (hypertrophy 4 x 6-10) and by the third session of the week we can be getting back to our 100% load (max strength 5×5).  So we top up their strength the first week they are back.

 

Then in the second week we can do the session which combines Strength and Power a couple of times a week.  Or you can have one session which focuses on a strength and one which focuses on power.  This gets them feeling a little sharper before they go back on the road again.

 

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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How Do You Decide on the Goals of an S&C Programme?

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One of the benefits of running a strength & conditioning coaching company is that each year I get to mentor a new set of coaches.  In the last few weeks two questions have been raised by some of the interns which I thought would make a good blog topic for discussion.

 

  • How do you decide on the goals of the S&C programme?
  • How do you periodise the goals into an Annual Training plan?

 

Where to Start?

 

These are fundamental questions all coaches need to ask and a thorough needs analysis is required which boils down to gathering information on:

 

  • The Athlete
  • The Sport
  • The Training Philosophy of the Organisation

 

Regardless of which sport you may be focusing on, there are so many outstanding coaches to learn from.  I aspire to have a Training System  that other practitioners will find helpful and be impactful in our industry.  I’m certainly not where I want to be yet, and many of my ideas are influenced by others.  The list is too long to mention everyone but the list below is based on coaches I have taken the time to study their methods in detail.

 

 

In this blog I’ll focus on the goal setting process and specifically the Athlete.   Many of my ideas have been influenced by the coaches above, and others besides.  I’ll touch on Periodisation but I’ll go into more detail on that topic in a follow up blog.

 

The Athlete

 

When you work with an athlete for the first time, in order to set some goals you need to determine what their strengths and weaknesses are.  This starts with an Assessment process.  Early in my career in 2003 I was fortunate to read ”Athlete Body in Balance – Gray Cook.”

 

 

This is still one of my go to texts that I like to re-read each year.  I really like the concept of developing the Athlete through a progressive approach starting with Functional Movement –> then Functional Performance –> and finally Functional Skill.

 

Functional Movement – Move Well

 

Off the back of reading Gray’s book and also having the opportunity to learn from Kelvin Giles, I created the APA Physical Competency Assessment (PCA).   I describe it as a bridge between a physiotherapy musculo-skeletal screen and a Fitness test.  We look at the function/competency of the athlete’s movements in a range of patterns:

 

  • Overhead Squat
  • Lunge & return
  • Single leg squat (pistol on a box)
  • Hop & land
  • Press up
  • Lying pull up

 

These movements require a combination of mobility and stability and relative body strength.  They show you if an athlete has the competency to perform a movement but they don’t necessarily highlight the reason why an athlete can’t perform them.  Is it a ”software issue”, meaning they  just need to practice the movement more to gain competence and develop the software (the neural input- ability to time and coordinate a specific pattern)?  Or is it that they lack the hardware (the muscles, the bones, and the tissues resulting from not having enough mobility & stability to get into the position in the first place). So this is where the musculoskeletal screen comes in handy as it gives more clues.  Some strength & conditioning coaches are more interested in functional anatomy and physical therapy etc and develop expertise in how to assess individual joints for strength and range of motion.

 

I personally try to up-skill myself on these type of clinical assessments each year but I’d rather refer out to a physiotherapist for the most part.  I tend to focus more on looking at gross movements rather than individual joints.  However, it definitely pays off to understand Functional Anatomy better.

 

As Gray Cook says; ”it takes a lot of time for the tissue to remodel.  And when you’re doing strength training for the first time you’re doing software re-organisation for the first 3-4 weeks before you ever get any change in tissues like increased bone density or hypertrophy of muscles.”

 

That’s because most of us can organise a movement situation well if we are moving well and we do it often enough to allow for healthy adaptation – your first adaptation is going to be neural and your second adaptation is tissue.

 

Yet much of our fitness is focused on tissue.  Now you may be able to re-set and or reprogramme the neural software in a matter of minutes and get changes within a session.  In terms of tissue re-modelling it takes weeks and months to make those kind of changes, which is why I guess it becomes a focus.

 

Elite Adult

 

For an elite adult I broadly talk about it taking 12 weeks to Peak (that’s based on 4-6 weeks strength block*, 2-4 weeks power block and 1-2 weeks speed (peaking) block).  But the strength block is a maximum strength block meaning loads above 85% 1RM from the get go.

 

For a great example of how a collegiate level athlete might go about this I highly recommend you read Triphasic training by Cal Dietz – or you can read by blog overviews here and here.

 

Clearly this type of training approach is only appropriate to someone who has training experience and is quite ‘Advanced.’  So a novice adult undertaking a training programme for the first time would need to build up to lifting those kind of loads and would do more ‘basic’ training to prepare for that, which might take another 12 weeks of progressive loading of the tissues.

 

Below is an example of a 6 month training plan – assuming no interruptions in training, all phases are 4 weeks and separated by a week of unloading.

 

  • Hypertrophy – 3-4 x 8-15 reps – 65-80% 1RM
  • Strength – 5 x 5-8 reps – 80-87% 1RM
  • Maximal strength – 5 x 3 reps – near maximum force –  93% 1RM
  • Maximal strength* – 5 x 1-3 reps – maximum force – 93-100% 1RM
  • Explosive power – 5 x 3-5 reps  – 50-80% 1RM
  • Speed – 30-50% 1RM

 

 

There is an argument that unless you are in the professional sport of power lifting or Olympic weight lifting you may not need to go to maximum force loads due to the extra stress on the body, but I’ll address that when we talk about the demands of the Sport in the next blog.  It’s also not possible in some sports to have athletes commit to 12-24 weeks in a row without some form of competition, so again I’ll address that in the next blog.

 

I have regularly used this systematic approach in my own training to fully appreciate how my body feels during each training phase.  I have also used it with adult clients who can commit to seeing me consistently.

 

Key point:  During the first phase, which is associated with lower intensity work, often called Hypertrophy phase, it is a good opportunity to work on the hardware and software to improve how well the athlete moves.   At APA we refer to this as the GET FIT phase.  It’s probably not the best term to describe it, as GET FIT probably makes coaches think of lots of continuous runs and bodyweight circuits.  Although the aerobic fitness is part of it, it is about laying a foundation of fitness that ultimately sets the body up for success in the next phase.

 

The GET FIT phase would be an ideal time to use the PCA to assess your athlete to see how well they move.

 

Functional Performance – Move Fast

 

Needless to say that strength and power work in the gym are critical components of the training we use to develop the ultimate goal of moving fast – producing high forces at high speeds.  There are slightly different assessments we can use to assess the athlete here.

 

Now I’m not going to go into specific details on the Fitness test and some of the other strength/power tests that you can use as part of the ”Functional Performance,” aspect of assessment.  These are broadly speaking well understood by coaches and are used to see how much horse power the athlete is capable of harnessing.  This is where you can use:

 

  • Sprint tests – to measure acceleration and maximum velocity
  • Jump tests – to measure power output
  • Endurance tests – to measure aerobic speed and anaerobic power/fatigue index
  • Strength tests – to measure peak force and rate of force development

 

At APA I personally start to incorporate all these tests with secondary school age children onward (11 years and over) to build up a picture of an athlete’s strengths and weaknesses.  Even though there is a typical hierarchy to the way we progressively remodel tissue (progressive overload) – of volume to intensity (endurance to speed) it is still useful to know which aspect the athlete is better or worse at to best target the training most effectively.  Some athletes are better at sprint and jump tests, but find endurance and strength tests more difficult.  Others, for example, are very strong in the gym but struggle to express that force at the time frames required in sport (so will need more speed and power work).  You get some athletes that are outstanding in endurance activities, some who are generally good across the board, and also others who are generally poor in all areas.

 

Key point:  During the second phase, which is associated with higher intensity work, often called Strength phase, it is a good opportunity to work on upgrading the hardware to improve how fast the athlete moves.   At APA we refer to this as the GET STRONG phase.   If an athlete is a beginner or has had a long period off training, we will do the training in a sequential fashion meaning there will be a focus on strength first.  Then we change focus to Power which at APA we refer to as a GET EXPLOSIVE phase.

 

The GET STRONG and GET EXPLOSIVE Phase would be an ideal time to do a Fitness test.

 

Risk Reward

 

Please be cautious with what sort of assessment you do here and WHEN in the training plan.  All coaches like assessments and numbers and want to benchmark starting levels of functional performance.  This way it is easier to show improvements.  I get it! But you may be testing a quality that you have not yet trained fully so the idea of asking an athlete to give a maximum effort in a particular test (such as a 20m sprint or a 3RM back squat) may be a risk if it comes at the wrong time.

 

So please be cautious if opting to do a Fitness test at the beginning of a GET FIT phase.

 

If I am going to do it at the start of a GET FIT PHASE I usually get children to do the Fitness test after a few weeks of training so not to shock the body in the first week or two of resuming training (even though some coaches will say they are not at a true baseline level of performance a few weeks in, I’d rather not take the risk of getting an injury).

 

As for strength testing, with technology and some simple maths we can estimate strength and power levels pretty well from sub-maximal loads without needing to go to maximum.  APA are fortunate to have a Gym Aware to measure bar velocity so it can help in this regard.

 

Children versus Adults

 

Now with children you can’t expect them to reach those levels of tissue loading in 12-24 weeks.

 

It is generally understood that the body is physically better equipped to handle more intensive training means once children have been through puberty.  By this stage they have finished growing and their hardware has been upgraded thanks to the surge in hormones and increases in lean mass.  So how do you approach working with children?

 

Long term Athlete Development

 

In 2005 I read a really interesting book which really helped me to consolidate my ideas around the APA Training System. The book talked a lot about the Key Stages of Long term Athlete Development (LTAD) and also Optimal Windows of Trainability.  The book also gave some really good insights on Periodisation concepts and how much competition per year a child should do as they go through the stages of development.  I’ll go into more detail on this in the next blog.

 

 

I used the principles of the book to design six stages for my training methodology (At APA we talk about Basic level– 3 stages – which covers childhood and puberty, approximating 10-under, 12-under and 14-under; and Advanced level – 3 stages- which covers post puberty onward; 16-under, 18-under and pro level).  Note that for girls, these stages could occur two years earlier.  I typically think of post puberty as a jumping off point to ramp up training intensity to the Advanced Method (although I have been known to introduce higher loads in adolescence if the child has a good training history).

 

I personally give credit also to Jon Oliver & Rhodri Lloyd – The Youth Physical Development Model (2012), which brought into focus the idea that critical windows of training needed updating and actually all training qualities should be trained all the time, and particularly that strength needs to be a focus from middle childhood (5 yrs old) all the way through to adulthood.

 

Going back to Gray Cook’s point that when you’re doing strength training (or any new skill for that matter) for the first time, you’re doing software re-organisation for the first 3-4 weeks before you ever get any change in tissues like increased bone density or hypertrophy of muscles.  When I think about all the skills I would want a complete athlete to have, that gives you a pretty good idea that one of the priorities in childhood is to learn all the Fundamental Movement Skills (FMS) as well as Fundamental Sport Skills (FSS), collectively these are known as Physical Literacy.

 

If you think about it there are a lot of movement skills to master:

 

  • ABCs (Agility, Balance, Coordination, Speed)
  • RJT (Run, Jump, Throw)
  • KGBs (Kineasthesia, Gliding, Buoyancy, Striking with objects)
  • CPKs (Catching, Passing, Kicking, Striking with body)

 

When strength is developed alongside FMS it creates a foundation for all other forms of exercise and helps children to develop controlled movements.  So the biggest part of assessment of a youth athlete is assessment of Physical Literacy in a range of skills.

 

Key Point: At APA we refer to these Fundamentals under the umbrella term ‘SKILL.’  Skill has three sub-components:

 

  • Reaction speed
  • Balance
  • Coordination – I include all the RJT, KGBs and CPKs under coordination

 

I refer to Agility & Speed under ‘SPEED’ and there are 5 Biomotor Abilities that make up the APA training system.

 

  • SKILL              <– Coordination Profile
  • SUPPLENESS  <– PCA
  • SPEED            <– Fitness test
  • STRENGTH     <– Fitness test
  • STAMINA       <– Fitness test

 

How Do You Test Skill?

 

At APA we created the Coordination Profile which is an assessment specifically created to be used with children as it doesn’t bias higher performance to those children who are more physically mature, as you would see with the Fitness test.  To be honest, it used to be a very big part of the Training System, but now the challenges have been incorporated into the syllabus rather than performing lots of assessments with the younger children.

 

The Full version has 14 different challenges and the Modified version has 7 which includes challenges like skipping rope, throwing, balance, racket skills over an obstacle course, hexagon drill, reaction ball and a jump.

 

Even if you haven’t created a specific assessment to ‘test’ skill, I’m pretty sure that most coaches have developed a progressive training syllabus where the focus of the skill changes throughout the year.  James Baker was someone in the 2000s who was a leader in bringing more ‘physical’ into the Physical Education syllabus at his school – St Peters High School- between 2013-2017 before moving to Qatar to work at Aspire.  You are only limited by your imagination.

 

Below are some simple example progressions of skills for speed and strength that could be used to informally assess and teach a youth athlete.  Essentially our annual plan takes into account all the software organisation (uploading) we want to do, so by the end of the year we have more skillful athletes – who MOVE WELL.

 

 

 

Hope you have found this article useful.  I’ve included lots of different links to coaches that have influenced my ideas about athlete assessment.  It should give you plenty of places to look for further ideas on all the different types of assessments you can do.

 

Remember:

 

  • If you’re not subscribed yet, click here to get free email updates, so we can stay in touch.
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  • 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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Are You Happy?

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First of all Happy New Year to all who read this blog.  I’ll spare you the cliched post about setting goals – it’s not that I don’t like to set goals, just that they don’t necessarily need to start in January!

 

Having said that, Christmas is one of the few times where I take a week off and my laptop doesn’t travel with me, so it does give me more time to reflect.   Because of the way my mind works I really struggle with completely stopping so I tend to favour the kind of ‘stopping’ that allows me to trick my mind into thinking I’m still ‘doing.’

 

For me this means cooking and reading.  I’m in no hurry to start writing a food blog so instead I just wanted to share with you a summary of a couple of books I did read over the festive period.  Depending on my mood I gravitate to different genres, but usually it’s between business or self development (mindset).

 

On this occasion, I picked out ”Happy” by Fearne Cotton (2017) and ”I have enough-I do enough-I am enough” by Sheridan Stewart (2023)

 

 

The back story for this is that I set my company Vision in 2020 to be ”The Best Tennis S&C Team in the World” by 2025.  I also recently set a personal goal to ”pay off my mortgage in the next 5 years.”  Both of these goals are big scary goals which excite me, but I have realised that they have the potential to pull my time in different (and not entirely complimentary) directions.  To achieve the first goal I feel I need clarity to achieve my vision – my inspiration will be fed by isolation and protection from distraction (meaning having time set aside ALONE to work on the Vision).  To achieve the second goal I need to be committed to working full-time WITH CLIENTS for the next 5 years.

 

In the last four months I have aimed to work full-time and also work on my Vision.  This has lead me to feel 1) knackered 2) question if it is sustainable? and 3) consider, what makes me the most happy?

 

I’ve read all the same self-development books as you no doubt have, and one of my all time favourites is ”The 5 AM Club” but the message ultimately speaks to the virtues of sacrifice and suffering in order to achieve your potential and make the biggest contribution/impact in your career.

 

 

One quote states:

 

Victims love entertainment.  Victors adore education

 

In my 30s I couldn’t get enough education and I had no interest in entertainment, and I didn’t really feel like the sacrifices that other people saw I was making made me suffer- it was fun.  In my 40s it feels a little different and I feel I need more balance.  I still love to educate myself but I feel the need to make more space for other stuff.  I’ve read self-development books that say that the idea of balance doesn’t cross the mind of truly successful people.  I have spoken to a few trusted friends and in my view, it comes back to taking things one day at a time, doing what makes you happy, and knowing that you can change your mind.  I don’t want to feel like a hostage to my goals and constantly be thinking about the future.  It is important to be in the present moment.

 

Life is a journey, not a destination – Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

The books definitely helped give me food for thought.  Rather than review the books in detail I’ll just pull out a few paragraphs that resonated with me.  In this blog I’ll start with Sheridan Stewart’s book.  I’ll cover Fearne’s in the next blog.

 

I have enough – Sheridan Stewart (2023)

 

On finishing her next book

  • I live in fear of never finishing it.  Why? Because I don’t write enough is the obvious answer.  But is that true?  I don’t write as much or as often as I aspire to but does that mean I don’t write enough?
  • For the past few years I’ve focused on the idea that I don’t write enough and allowed that belief to become entrenched; yet another thing I’m not satisfied with!
  • Did I have the imposter syndrome or was I simply a wannabe writer?
  • But what if I have been writing enough all along.   The need to have ‘just a little bit more’ can creep up on you.

 

AFFIRMATION – I am learning to trust that I know when I have done enough

 

On having enough

  • I find myself wondering if holding back from contentment is a learned behaviour?  I often feel trapped, cornered and fearful that I won’t amount to much, won’t achieve my full potential.  Is this what drives me?  And is that a bad thing? I think not, it’s part of how I achieve things, but knowing what is enough doesn’t come easy for me.

 

On Surrendering

  • I only have one bum, I can only ride one horse at a time.
  • Then something clicks into place, and I realise I’ve confused surrender with giving up.  Giving up implies defeat, but letting go of that which no longer serves us, surrender, is an act of choice.
  • How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.  Why do I think I’m exempt from the basic principles of life?

 

On Expectations

  • There is a sweet spot between what we want and what we are willing to do to obtain it.
  • How can I still dream and have goals without feeling like a massive loser if the dream changes when I’m only partway to the goal?
  • What happens when you discover that you don’t really enjoy doing what it takes to manifest that Big Dream? Or maybe the time for that particular dream has passed, you’ve outgrown it and a new dream is emerging?
  • I’m realising that sometimes the role of dreams and goals is to get me up and moving.
  • I’m starting to see them as guides, sparks of inspiration that light a path that may lead me directly to the Holy Grail or I might sidestep to explore other choices and opportunities.
  • This understanding allows me to not become attached to a fixed result or outcome, to let go or adapt when required or desired.
  • Perhaps life doesn’t need to be ALL or NOTHING?

 

On Taking Action

  • Let’s talk about inclination for a minute.   ”A person’s natural tendency or urge to act or feel in a particular way, a disposition.”  We often talk about our dreams in terms of compromise: ”the acceptance of standards that are lower than is desirable.”  I like inclination much better!
  • Weighing up what you think you want to do or achieve, against what you actually feel inclined to do, helps to define your goal towards an outcome that is both satisfying and achievable.
  • A Venn diagram is a great way to identify the sweet spot, where desire and inspiration meet resources and inclination.
  • In the first circle, note your dreams and aspirations, and in the second circle place your resources i.e., available time and money.
  • The place where the circles overlap is where you put what you feel you are inclined to give the project in terms of time and money.
  • Then step back and think if what you are inclined to commit will bring about the outcome you want?
  • If not, adapt the goal to better match your inclination, or wait until you have the desired resources to achieve your desired outcome.

 

Venn diagram

 

 

My Summary

 

I definitely like the words ”surrender” and ”inclination” rather than thinking of ”quitting” and ”compromise”.  For me personally, I feel inclined to work full-time (right now) as the personal goal of paying off my mortgage sooner is more appealing while I am younger and have the capacity to work more hours.   You also never know when things can change in business so I’d prefer to be busy now when demand is high.

 

That may change in the future but for now that is what I am inclined to do.  This means that in order to achieve my company Vision of being the ”Best Tennis S&C Team in the World” in the next 3 years I will need help – to bring other coaches and researchers into my world to help me answer some of the questions I have.  Or, if I have to lead this research myself accept that I will need more time to do it with the clarity I choose.  Perhaps I won’t arrive at that clarity in the next 3 years, but that is okay as I’ll look forward to finding my way over a longer period of my career.

 

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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Level 2 Gym Instructor Qualification – January 22 2023

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Level 2 Certificate in Gym Instructing

 

Description:

This is a fully accredited Level 2 Gym Instructor course running on the following Sundays: January 22nd (face to face), 29th (Zoom), February 5th (face to face), 12th (Zoom), and 26th (face to face).

 

There are NO EXAMS, just continual assessment.

 

This course is normally £495 but we are offering it for just £99 if you meet the following criteria:

  • Have lived in England for the past 3 years
  • Be 19yrs or older on August 31st 2022
  • You have a ‘England Non-devolved’ postcode (You can check a postcode on this link here: https://skillspostcodecheck.com)

 

If you are not eligible, this course is still greatly reduced at just £249. Please pick the correct ticket below when booking.

 

Book Online HERE

 

The Level 2 qualification aims to provide learners with the skills and knowledge necessary to plan, deliver and evaluate safe and effective gym instruction sessions via the context of gym-based exercise. This qualification is endorsed by CIMSPA and learners successfully completing it will be able to join as a member of CIMSPA and be listed on its directory of qualified and recognised sport and physical activity professionals.

 

 

Start Time: 09:00
End Time: 16:00

Start Date: January 22, 2023
End Date: February 26, 2023

 

Book Online HERE

 

ABOUT YOUR TRAINER

Daz Drake, APA Owner

Daz Drake is Head of Strength and Conditioning at Gosling Tennis Academy and is Owner of Athletic Performance Academy who consult with numerous sports organisations in the south of England. Daz currently looks after the S&C programmes of some of the top ranked male professional Tennis players in the country, and has previously worked with two World Number 1 ranked Doubles players on the WTA and ATP Tour.

 

 

Pacey Performance Podcast Review – Episodes 414, 417 & 418

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This blog is a bit of a change up in my review of the Pacey Performance Podcast as I’ll be doing a ”shorter” form review of three Episodes in one blog.

 

Episode 414 – Pete Burridge – Debunking 5 myths on speed training and getting team sport athletes FAST

Episode 417 – Phil Scott – Anaerobic speed reserve: Individualising conditioning in team sports

Episode 418 – Nathan Kiely – A critique of the “knees over toes” phenomenon and maximising cross training prescription

 

 

Pete Burridge

Background

Pete is First Team Athletic Performance Coach at Bristol Bears and heads up the speed training element of the programme. He recently wrote an article on Sportsmith which detailed a number of myths that surround this area and how we can debunk them.

Training video

 

🔉 Listen to the full episode with Pete here

 

Discussion topics:

”Based on your 5 myths around speed training article, one of the first ones you mentioned was that you can’t coach speed.  Can you tell me more about that?”

 

”There is a belief in some circles that if you wanted a fast team you had to go out and recruit speed, that you couldn’t work on it and it was just this innate quality that genetics drove.  Don’t get me wrong, there is an element to that but I think that maybe, because that message was so strong some people even now think that you can’t make any meaningful inroads and change on the field when it comes to speed.  I’d dispute that.  Obviously I’m majorly biased and it is even backed up in research that pretty much once you get to 22 years old, the speed gains really start dwindling in a team sport setting, but from my practiced-based evidence I see you can make change, and it can be long lasting but it takes time, good quality coaching, and a culture around speed from a buy in perspective from the players to actually want to make any sort of change.

 

The same research has shown that what is called a ”meaningful change” or competitive advantage showed that you only need 30-50 cm of separation, which makes a tonne of sense, because if you’re a footballer and you’re trying to whip in a cross, beating them with a step over and knocking it past them and then being able to find that little yard of space to be able to create a window to whip a ball in, that’s going to lead to success.

 

In my sport of rugby, being able to accelerate that half a second quicker gets you to a weaker shoulder or at least it means you don’t necessarily go through a hole untouched but it might mean you find a weak shoulder, you might get an arm tackle which allows you to get an arm free which then allows you to off load or find a pass, or at the very least make game line, which is very important.

 

Actually the effects you need to make are very small.  So if someone goes, ”what’s the big deal about making someone’s 10m sprint time go from 1.72 seconds to 1.69 sec?” actually when you extrapolate that out that could be the difference.

 

”You mentioned also that Technical models are a waste of time for team sports.  Can you tell me more about that?”

 

”When it comes to technical models, I see the argument- why should we conform someone to run exactly how Usain Bolt runs because Usain Bolt is such an outlier we shouldn’t be trying to conform to what he does, because we are all going to be setting us up to fail.

 

However, there are some key movement hallmarks for successful biomechanical efficiency

 

One of your guests that you had on recently, Shawn Myszka, I really liked some of his thought processes around self organisation and guided discovery, especially from an Agility perspective.  But I sort of see it as being a long a continuum.

 

 

Imagine Shawn Myszka on steroids way over to one side where everyone just finds out and discovers it themselves – there is no instruction, there is no guidance – again he would attest that’s not how he coaches, compared to the super hyper track coach where everyone runs how Ben Johnson runs because Charlie Francis said so.  We’re at both ends of the spectrum here.

 

You need to understand where you are with your group.  You have to have some sort of end goal where we are aiming to shoot towards something along these lines because otherwise how do you provide any context for how to change someone’s movement if you don’t have a model of what good ”sort of” looks like?  In the same way that Stu McMillan says you have got to learn the rules before you break the rules!  Absolutely, you’re going to have an athlete that perhaps doesn’t conform to the technical model but can be successful and still run efficiently and fast.  But those cases are more rare than everyone so you still need to have some key things that you are trying to get from someone, which will help you as you go along your coaching journey.

 

You need to reach the messy zone of learning.  If you are actually trying to change someone’s mechanics, at first it is going to be messy, you’re not going to get good outcomes but understand that that is part of the process.

 

The process isn’t going to be linear and if we want to maximise learning we want some element of failure in there

 

That failure rate can’t be 0% otherwise what we’re tasking the guys to do is too easy.  With time and with effort and constantly revisiting what the athlete needs to work on we can hopefully solidify that movement pattern.

 

  • Do it well in a closed setting – an athletic performance lead warm up – coaches aren’t involved, there is not a ball involved, they’re just running in a straight line, not a lot of decision making.  Nail it there and once the failure rate disappears to the point where they are able to nail it there, what do you then do?  You pressurize it.
  • Do it well under competition – race each other in a straight line
  • Do it well under a level of complexity – run with a ball or run off line so run an arc, or beat a defender and then run upright into space
  • Do it well in a game setting in a 15 vs 15

 

”You mentioned the process that you would go through to understand whether it was a technical thing or it’s a physical thing  Is there anything that you do which gives you more clarity on that?”

”This pre-season we have tried to take our speed programme up a level and taken the concept of ”bucketing guys off,” in part to utilise all our coaching resources as we have a great coaching team, with lots of passionate people about speed.  It’s a top down approach that comes from our Head coach – he is invested in it, he sometimes comes and watches the speed sessions, and is interested in the times that the players run and the players know that this is something that the guy who picks the team is interested in.

We get a lot more time than most coaching environments get to work on both generic speed and also specific game speed.  When we split the guys to bucket off, it was in part to reduce our coach to player ratio, but it was also to see if we could be a little more specific to the player’s needs.  As part of that process we did some profiling, so we tried to marry up some of the more quantitative stuff with some of the more qualitative stuff like video.

 

We had a couple of categories:

  • Any obvious front side issue
  • Any obvious shin angle issue
  • Any obvious stiffness loss
  • Any obvious torso issue – over rotation, chest out, hunched

 

We used a very simple binary 1 or 0 with the video footage – if the answer was yes to any of the above they got a ‘1’ and we then looked at their RSI scores and ranked that.  W wanted to use some of James Wilde hip isometric strength testing but we didn’t get chance to do that.  But through some of our gym programming we could kind of tell the guys that really don’t have the hardware to project themselves well.  So we were able to group the guys into four main groups:

 

  • Stiffness group – guys with a stiffness issue.  You can’t run on flat tyres so our job was to pump their tires a little bit so they get more energy return out of the ground.  So they did a little more plyos and reactive SSC based work.  It didn’t mean they did no technical work, it just meant in terms of the training pie, more of it was directed towards that.  Cues were things like ”pop off the ground,” and ”push don’t smush.”
  • Physical group – if you’ve got a 1 Litre engine versus a 5 Litre engine, all other things being equal, the 5 litre engine is going to run past you.  So those guys were spending a little more time doing resisted speed work that was force driven in exercise selection.   Cues were things like ”tear the ground away, push the floor back, take off like a fighter jet!”
  • Technical group – guys with obvious technical deficiencies and may have done more drill based work to really nail the context of running with good postures because you have to have the position and the posture before you can add the power.  They might have the hardware, they might have the 5 litre engine, they might have their tyres pumped up, by the driver is an absolute clown.  If you put me in a Formula 1 car, I’m going to crash the car!
  • Remedial group – lower impact work while still trying to get some of the cues and getting the basics of some of our philosophy across to them.  Guys who can’t handle the amount of SSC load, or new players or Academy players who we weren’t fully aware of their training load or how much exposure they have previously had to speed training.

 

 

”It’s too risky to train speed.  Is that something that you still come across?”

 

”I think so.  My instant answer to that is I’d almost argue it’s just as risky to not train it!

 

If you’re getting max velocity exposures in your training session then doing it in a standalone session, is that necessary? Probably not.

 

But if our game demands are very different to our practice demands then there needs to be something done to bridge that gap.  If in training you are getting nowhere close to maximum velocity but yet in their games they are getting exposure to it, then that’s a risky game to play.  Because we have been smart with our exposure of speed to our guys and risk management from a medical and athletic performance perspective, we have been able to spot a car crash before it happens and hopefully mitigate some of those risks.  I believe players need exposure to top end speed whether that is to speak to the coaches and constrain a session so we can get it in the rugby session (which is the ideal) – that invisible thread of training, where you are that guiding hand where they are getting it in a (large) small sided game.  But if you are not able to do that then there probably is a place for some stand alone artificial velocity exposure whether that’s in the speed session or within the session itself – it doesn’t really matter as long as you have built up towards it.

 

Sweet spot for speed might be 6-10 exposures above 95% max velocity per week

 

  • Training– >90% max velocity for over 1 sec – 1-2 artificial exposures per week, where that is either in a speed session or at the end of a warm-up where they do a rolling effort.   Backs might pick up 2 more.
  • Game – varied.  Forwards 1- Backs 2-4.
  • Pre-season – week 1 >85%; week 2 85-90%; week 3 90-95%; week 4 95% and above; week 5 light the turbos and run a PB.  Do a above 80% warm up, then do a rolling effort and that’s it – you’ve given them what they need.

 

 

Phil Scott

Background

Phil is Men’s Strength and Conditioning Coach for England Cricket.  Phil comes on the podcast to discuss why he turned to the anaerobic speed reserve to enable him to better individualise aerobic training

 

🔉 Listen to the full episode with Phil here

 

”A lot of people might think it’s just a lot of guys standing around.  Dispel a few myths when it comes to cricket game demands?”

 

”It’s deceptive.  Fundamentally we have got three formats.

 

  1. T20 – really short format
  2. One day  – lasts 7-8 hours
  3. Test match – lasts up to 5 days

 

What these guys do is quite phenomenal.  Until I got hold of the GPS systems to profile and understand what they did, they, even the players themselves didn’t believe what they did!

 

T20 – it’s about an 90 minutes of batting and fielding at a time, 3 hours in total.  The bowlers will cover up to about 8 km in that hour and a half.  If are then going on to bat as well and you are successful, you might run between 1 and 3 km depending on how much running you are doing between the wickets.

 

They are doing up to 300 metres of high-intensity sprinting and there will be around 100 max accels/decels within that game so it is a lot to take on. Bear in mind that it is a relatively short tournament for those T20 games; one experience was 8 games in 21 days with 6 flights, so a game every 2.5 days if you get to the final, which with that experience we did! Its that ability to sustain that performance and recover from that performance, plus, throw in a bit of jet lag so the guys work hard even for that T20 scenario.

 

One day – they go on a bit longer but it’s a similar intensity so you’re looking up to 16 km per game for the bowlers and if the batters are going to go on and score a hundred in their innings it could be between 5 and 7 km.

 

Test match – if a bowler is going to bowl 40 overs in a match we have worked out it is around 50 km for an average total distance for that 5 day match.  The highest we have seen this year was 67 km covered in a match over 4.5 days.

 

I also like to highlight that they usually have a couple of training days leading into that so have 7 km in addition- so they potentially cover up to 65-70 km in a week and they are asked to repeat that seven times throughout the summer, that is a lot of distance and a lot of repeatability purely from a total distance.

 

The bowlers – Within that 50 km, 7 km of that is above 20 km/h, and 3 km of that is above 25 km/h, and also they stand in a field for around 17 hours

 

So to translate that into layman’s terms, go for a walk with the dog for 6 hours in a day and every 3 minutes I want you to do a 20 m sprint – that’s the layman’s translation of what they fundamentally do for these test matches.  Once we were able to explain that to the players, and the science & medicine staff as well, wow – this is what we are dealing with – can we raise the game and the expectations and the conditioning to cope with that – so it was a bit change at that point!

 

”Talk to us about the use of Anaerobic Speed Reserve with Cricket”

 

”If you are going to work  above your maximum aerobic speed (MAS) then if you don’t take into consideration their maximum sprint speed (MSS) then some athletes will have more efficiency and more in the tank left to work with than others.  So if we take an example:

 

Athlete A vs Athlete B – Athlete A and B has an MAS of 18 km/h.  But they have different MSS.  While Athlete A has an MSS of 29 kph, leaving 11 kph “in reserve,” Athlete B has a MSS of 33 kph, leaving 15 kph in reserve. If we programme for them at 140% of that MAS that comes out at 23.8 km/h- which is 53% of the ASR of Athlete A and 39% of the ASR of Athlete B.  Athlete A will, therefore, reach fatigue more quickly, and likely will be unable to complete the session at the same level as Athlete B

 

Athlete A – ASR – 11 km/h  vs.  Athlete B – ASR – 15 km/h

 

To take in the MSS if we programme at 40% of their Anaerobic speed reserve (ASR).  Athlete A will be going at 22.4 km/h and Athlete B will be going at 24 km/h – that’s fundamentally a big difference, and that for me, was why some guys were blowing up and going ”I can’t complete it”, whereas the other guys were going, ”this is too easy!”  [Daz comment: the athlete working at a higher percentage of their ASR will fatigue more quickly]

 

In cricket we use a 2 km time trial to assess MAS.  We do a 40m sprint for MSS with splits at 5, 10, 20, 25, 30, 35 and 40 metres.  90% of my guys will be hitting their MSS between 20-25, or 25-30 metres.

 

The accuracy of data collection is vital. When collecting maximum sprint speed via timing gates, coaches need to set the gates at a distance that allows your athletes to reach top speed, while also having a small enough margin for the reading to be valid.

 

SRR = MSS (kph) / MAS (kph)

 

Calculating this ratio for your athlete or squad lets you start profiling them and then adjusting your training program accordingly. This is not fundamentally a scientifically rigorous process that gives you an exact figure or fibre type percentage that then dictates the perfect program. Instead, it’s a very good guide for your programs to get the best adaptations for the athletes you are working with.

 

16.2 km/h was the average MAS when I first starting working in cricket.   Initially I was working at above 1.80 as the speedsters and below 1.70 as the aerobic guys.  In between that, that is what I was referring to as the mixed profile.

 

 

Why is this important? If I take a typical protocol I was using for aerobic endurance development in pre-season and let’s say it was  1 minute on: 30 seconds off (deliberately a 2:1 ratio) those aerobic guys, it didn’t touch the sides, it wasn’t enough and you would hear them say, ”can I do some more?” and the sprinters would start okay, but then they really would blow up, and some of them would not be able to complete that session.

 

A power output drop off in research I’ve read was 60% on three repeated Wingates where the slow twitch guys was only 40%.  In terms of recovery, the slow twitch guys were recovered after 20 minutes, the fast twitch guys were not recovered even 5 hours later.

 

”How do you actually programme for these groups?”

 

”If I start with the aerobic guys, they fundamentally need longer to give them time to get into that time at VO2 max- 90% maximum heart rate (MHR) – what I call the red zone.  Minimum of 2 minutes and usually up around 4 minutes.

 

I usually always work with a 2:1 ratio to keep them in the red zone.  The intervals for this group can be longer since they seem to take longer to exceed 90% maximum heart rate.

 

I have previously used 1 km ladders.  If you think these guys are going at 17 km/h – which is a 3:30 minute 1 km.  So, I found my aerobic guys really enjoyed them and I start them off relatively slowly.  So if they are doing a 1km in 3:30 minutes I might start them off at 4:00 minutes or 3:50 min pace for 1km, and then take 10 seconds off for each ladder, and we would up to 5km.  They are very cocky at the beginning but that accumulation and build up allows them time to get into their red zone and then hold on to it.

 

For the sprinters I have found that they can even adapt aerobically to a sprint session as it is such work for them but fundamentally a sprint session with 10, 20, 30 or 40m sprints with a jog back and then go again and try to hold them at 90% of their MSS.

 

As an example of our approach to training these athletes within cricket:

  • Sprint work: experimenting with the rest period can also tap into some aerobic adaptations;
  • Sprint endurance training: longer sprints (30 sec) at 85-95% MSS with long rest ~(4-8 minutes);
  • Repeated sprints: <10 sec sprint with <60 sec recovery;
  • Aerobic tempos: 100m in 15-16 sec, followed by active recovery back to the start in 44-45 seconds.

 

One of my go to is what I call aerobic tempos and go on the minute.  Cricket love ‘6’s’ because you bowl 6 bowls in an over, so I generally break that up into 6 reps and give them a couple of minutes in between.  Sprinters prefer that and they’d rather get their time at VO2 max in that setting that even close to a 1 km ladder – that just doesn’t work.

 

As far as the hybrid group goes – perhaps a bit of a cop out answer – but you’ve got options.  You’ve got all of those options above but I perhaps don’t go to the extremes.  So I wouldn’t necessarily jump to a 1 km ladder, it might be more of a 500 metre ladder.  They also respond well to the repeat sprint programming.

 

I don’t have any fast bowlers in the aerobic zone- they all tend to sit in the hybrid and speed group – which makes sense because maybe if you are going to bowl at more than 85 mph you are going to have to have a lot of fast twitch fibres for that, and that doesn’t suit an aerobic orientated person.  So they are able to get very aerobically fit but they are mostly in that high/mixed category.

 

Once we see the guys hitting that minimum aerobic standard (because we are then pushing that MSS) those ratios go up a bit more and and we see more guys going up into that 1.9 and 2.0s ratio for ASR, rather than changing the standards.

 

Accessing the SRR does not work particularly well if an athlete has not reached a minimum aerobic capacity standard. Athletes should complete the 2 kilometer time trial in under 8 minutes (15 kph MAS) before you see any real benefit in applying these individual approaches. Prior to that level, they just need to do more cardiovascular capacity work. Obviously, in each sport there will be a minimum standard your players will need to achieve, based on your own needs analysis.

 

  • Aerobic group – minimum standard is less than 7:00 mins for the 2 km time trial – so 17 km/h MAS
  • Mixed group – minimum standard is less than 7:30 mins for the 2 km time trial – so 16 km/h MAS
  • Sprint group – minimum standard is less than 8:00 mins for the 2 km time trial – so 15 km/h MAS

 

This is what the guys in the different groups need to feel they can do in order to feel in good shape aerobically

 

Nathan Kiely

Background

Nathan is Speed and Rehab Coach at the Brisbane Broncos, Nathan Kiely.

Nathan recently wrote a piece for Sportsmith on the ”knees over toes” movement which he dives deeper into in this episode. Why has this gained so much momentum, particularly on Instagram and how we can be better at being critical when other things like this come along.

 

🔉 Listen to the full episode with Nathan here

 

”Would you mind giving us an overview of what the phenomenon is ”knees over toes?”

 

”Ultimately knees over toes is just an approach to training your lower body, so on its own I don’t have an issue with it.  In fact, I’m a big proponent of things like teaching a young athlete in the gym an Olympic style squat – I want a vertical trunk, I do want you ass to grass, I do want your knees going over your toes, I want deep knee flexion.  I want each athlete to have the capacity to do that sort of stuff at different times in your programming.

 

But what I saw was athletes doing knees over toes stuff that I hadn’t programmed for them, and I’d go over to speak to them and say what’s going on here, why are you doing that? They would tell me they’ve got a sore knee, and they’re doing the stuff the physio has given me but I also saw this stuff on the internet and I thought I’d try it out.  So I’d go, ”Cool, let me know how you go with it,” and inevitably 2-3 weeks later they go my knee is killing me, they are so sore, they’ve getting worse, maybe its a time to take a step back from the knees over the toes stuff.

 

There is definitely a time and place for it but I think we needed to work through the methodology of it and understand it better.”

 

”There is a lot of push for the split squat as being a foundational exercise for this philosophy of training.  How do you feel about that and the transfer to the things we want to happen on the field or court?”
”’There are two prongs to it – there is the rehab setting and you’re talking about people in pain, and the performance setting.

 

Rehab Setting

There are two pervasive claims that the knees over toes community make:

 

1. The VMO muscle is really important for reducing knee pain – what they have tried to do is use evidence to support their claim, and I actually bothered to read the papers that they cite, and it doesn’t say what they say it says!  So the first paper they quote is from a 2013 paper which found that people with strong VMOs in their cohort had a 75% chance of having knee pain, and people with weak VMOs had an 85% chance of having knee pain.  So there is a trend but it is not statistically significant and it’s not definitive evidence.  So to say it’s a key muscle and everything is about VMO is probably an over statement.  It’s multi-factorial- there’s more to it that.

 

2. You can preferentially target the VMO – with the knees over toes approach – citing a paper in 2016, and I don’t know what they were thinking when they cited this paper as it’s not what the paper showed at all.  The study showed that surface VMO muscle EMG activity was highest at 90 degrees flexion so NOT a deep squat, and it actually drops by 30% when you get to 140 degrees of knee flexion.

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Athletic Performance

 

Knees over toes split squat and the transfer to acceleration

 

Looking at the shin angle and relationship with knees over toes and making you better at performance.  This claim doesn’t come from Ben Patrick.

 

 

When I saw that, I thought ”I can see what you’re saying, but that’s not actually how it works.  And the reason that’s not how it works is because of the confusion around LOCAL and GLOBAL COORDINATE SYSTEMS.  I have to give a lot of credit to Dan Cleather and his book Force, and one of the things he goes through is the confusion around Force Vector theory- which he rubbishes and which comes from the work from Bret Contreras.

 

Essentially you can look at the individual athlete and the reference frame for them.  So you’ve got superior-inferior (up and down) relative to your body and then you have the global coordinate system which is vertical in relation to the World, and your body and the World don’t always necessarily align with each other.

 

In acceleration an athlete is going to be generating force in an inferior orientation through their body- which is down and back in the World view system and this is where you get confusion around horizontal forces and you look at horizontal GRFs in acceleration and people go, ”oh you need horizontally orinetated strength training like the hip thrust but you’ve got to look at the orientation of the body at a 45 degree horizontal trunk and shin angle.  The athlete is stil pushing straight down in relation to the body.   Then if you look at that and compare that to the knees over toes split squat, you are distributing load over the toes and pushing up and back through the forefoot to return to the start position, which is a different movement, and it doesn’t correspond neither from a local or global coordinate system perspective.

 

I would argue that a low box step up has far more dynamic correspondence to acceleration than a knee over toe split squat.

Top 5 Take Away Points:

  1. It is a misnomer that if you wanted a fast team you had to go out and recruit speed.  You can train it.
  2. Sweet spot for speed might be 6-10 exposures above 95% max velocity per week
  3. Fast twitch vs Slow twitch – A power output drop off in research I’ve read was 60% on three repeated Wingates where the slow twitch guys was only 40%
  4. MAS standard – Athletes should complete the 2 kilometer time trial in under 8 minutes (15 kph MAS)
  5. VMO muscle EMG activity was highest at 90 degrees flexion so NOT a deep squat, and it actually drops by 30% when you get to 140 degrees of knee flexion.

 

Want more info on the stuff we have spoken about?

You may also like from PPP:

Episode 413 Marco Altini

Episode 410 Shawn Myszka

Episode 400 Des, Dave and Bish

Episode 385 Paul Comfort

Episode 383 James Moore

Episode 381 Alastair McBurnie & Tom Dos’Santos

Episode 380 Alastair McBurnie & Tom Dos’Santos

Episode 379 Jose Fernandez

Episode 372 Jeremy Sheppard & Dana Agar Newman

Episode 367 Gareth Sandford

Episode 362 Matt Van Dyke

Episode 361 John Wagle

Episode 359 Damien Harper

Episode 348 Keith Barr

Episode 331 Danny Lum

Episode 298 PJ Vazel

Episode 297 Cam Jose

Episode 295 Jonas Dodoo

Episode 292 Loren Landow

Episode 286 Stu McMillan

Episode 272 Hakan Anderrson

Episode 227, 55 JB Morin

Episode 217, 51 Derek Evely

Episode 212 Boo Schexnayder

Episode 207, 3 Mike Young

Episode 204, 64 James Wild

Episode 192 Sprint Masterclass

Episode 183 Derek Hansen

Episode 175 Jason Hettler

Episode 87 Dan Pfaff

Episode 55 Jonas Dodoo

Episode 15 Carl Valle

Best Speed & Plyo Drills for Acceleration – Part 3

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Best Speed & Plyo Drills for Acceleration

 

Background to the Blog

 

After I did the research on Tennis movement there were a few things that were left unresolved in my mind in terms of the best approach to develop movement, and specifically acceleration.  In Part 1 I introduced the Force-Velocity Curve and rational for some of the jumping progressions I am considering to aid in Acceleration development.   I also did a Part 1.2 where I looked at an aspect of the technical model for acceleration and different jump metrics related to acceleration.

 

As it relates to Acceleration (involving distances of up to 10m on a tennis court) I concluded that Maximal Strength and Explosive Strength would be more related to Acceleration:

 

  • Heavy strength training
  • Jump exercises that start from a stationary position (without counter movement) and emphasise concentric only actions – such as single leg hops to box
  • Olympic lifts (80-90% 1RM)
  • Explosive Back squats (60-80% 1RM)
  • Heavy Sleds

 

As it relates to Tennis Footwork (most tennis movements within a few metres) I concluded that Ballistic Strength (aka speed-strength) and slow SSC plyos would be more related to Footwork:

 

  • Loaded Jumps (20-60% 1RM)
  • Med Ball throws
  • Bounding (short bounds) – related in particular to a shot like the wide running forehand.  

 

And I talked about the pros and cons of the 3 Hop for distance as a test/exercise.

 

You can’t do it well unless you can use your hip, knee and ankle.  Because the first hop will be biased towards your hip, the second hop biased towards the ankle, and the landing biased towards the knee! 

 

If you can 3 hop 3x your body height and stick it we are confident in your single leg capacity.  It’s an LTA Primary exercise for Robustness – an exercise that gives confidence that the player has the force reserve in on court high cost deceleration actions (serves, change of direction and shots).

 

 

So to finish this blog series off (I haven’t forgot I still need to do part 2) I’d like to share some of the ‘drills’ you can use to aid in Acceleration development.  In this series I’ll be focusing on Stationary drills.  Some of the Heavy Throw/Jump and Heavy Resisted Runs that Cam mentions above can be saved for another blog.

 

The Drills

 

For this blog I’ll be sharing some useful insights in an old instagram post from Alex Natera on his preferred stationary drills to teach Acceleration.  

 

Key shapes we need to hit can be summarised as ‘Touch Down’ and ‘Toe Off.’  Furthermore, Alex identifies eight technical boxes to tick for an ideal acceleration drill.

 

 

Banded Strike & Switch Drill

 

 

”When it comes to stationary acceleration drills I have a preference to use drills that “tick” as many technical “boxes” as possible.

 

The BANDED STRIKE & SWITCH DRILL is a drill for me that addresses a number of acceleration aspects that many others do not. The drill holds postures throughout that are appropriate to acceleration, the drill requires significant pre-tension in late recovery, a switching of the limbs, a forceful propulsion/drive of hip/knee/ankle and the drill accomplishes key acceleration positions at touch down and toe off.

 

 

I tend not to use drills that may address a certain technical aspect but completely defy other aspects. The Lock and Lift Drill and the Wall Drill can both be useful drills in their own right. They both tick technical boxes as highlighted in the clip.”

Wall Drill

 

 

”Wall Drills address a number of technical aspects but it is that excessive touch down position and the lack of propulsion/drive of hip/knee/ankle that see me using this drill sparingly and only in very specific circumstances.”

 

Wall Drills with a Switch address a number of additional technical aspects which seem to make it a better option for Alex.  He just doesn’t give it a tick for Touch down position or Propulsion.

 

Lock and Lift Drill

 

 

”It is the near-to upright finishing posture and the lack of a strike in the Lock and Lift Drill that often preclude me from implementing them as a viable drill to assist in acceleration development.”

 

 

In this drill Alex only gives two ticks on his technical checklist – Start posture, and Touch down position.

 

Summing Up

 

It goes without saying I’m not a track & field coach, and Tennis players are not in pursuit of a perfect technical model for their sport either.  There is definitely a difference between sports with that action as the force able to be generated by a sprinter for the first few steps under no fatigue creates a different shape to a court or field athlete running under more fatigue or with less intent.

 

Having said that acceleration requires the tennis athlete to have reasonable dorsiflexion range in order to achieve the shins roll we are looking for and if athletes don’t have this to get to that ankle lock position then the shin will always be limited in the angle it can achieve.

 

The drop into heel lock is an interesting one.  Speaking to the elite track coach at the UKSCA conference he said: ”I’m not sure I’m fully onboard with it – is it a desirable action even if many people are doing it? Is it a default and not an actual trained thing to do? I’m not sure! If people are strong enough in their calf they can lock the ankle down pretty rapidly and get that stable base or utilise the elasticity without the elongation of the muscle tissue. Interesting and I will look at it a bit further.”

 

Personally I’ve had this debate with sprint coaches earlier in my career when I was curious about it – my summary is that the heel may touch down even with elite sprinters during some point in acceleration but the emphasis of the force with certainly be associated with  a purposeful foot strike just behind the ball of the foot.

 

Hope you have found this article useful.

 

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Jump Profiling to Assess Acceleration Ability – CMJ or Drop Jump?

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Jump Profiling to Assess Acceleration Ability

 

So I thought it was time to give you an update on a topic that has recently peaked my interest – acceleration.   In Part 1 I introduced the background (the ”Why”) behind bounding.   In Part 2 I’ll focus on the jumping drills – bounding (the ”How”).  Finally, in part 3 I’ll discuss the speed drills – acceleration (the ”How.”)

 

This blog is a Part 1.2 if you will, because as much as I wanted to share some thoughts on bounding as a potential part of APA Method 2.0 (those methods I want to add to the existing APA Method 1.0) I also wanted to be clear that I don’t currently do much in the way of bounding, and any kind of multiple jump test isn’t currently part of the jump profile in our Fitness Test.

 

If I’m honest, my interest has peaked in hops/bounds because the governing body of Tennis have introduced a 3-Hop for distance test into their profiling as a means to measure force capacity, and if I am or if I am not going to introduce it, I want to have a rational.

 

So for this blog I wanted to cover off the current jumping profile we use at APA- and take a pause to reflect on that and what info it gives us.

 

Acceleration Development

 

For clarity, when I talk about acceleration (in Tennis) I am referring to those movements which occur over the first 1-10 metres of a court sprint.  In Part 1 I made a case for emphasis on explosive movements executed with ”counter-movement‟, i.e., in the reversal yielding-overcoming (“eccentric-concentric”) regime, with the major role played by the Explosive Strength expressed in the overcoming (“concentric”) regime.

 

Acceleration to the ball – when first moving to the ball following the split step we’re actually not moving fast at all, but we are generating high forces.  The initial acceleration to the ball requires explosive strength.  Those first several strides are characterised by longer ground contact times. The more force we can develop in these first few steps, the faster we can displace ourselves.  Explosive Strength expressed in the overcoming (“concentric”) regime will be a key physical quality (strength-speed).

 

So with all that being said, I have always felt that the Squat jump was a good proxy for explosive strength-speed.  This was echoed in an interview with Matt Allen on the Pacey Performance Podcast.

 

First 10m – focus on non-plyometric jumps e.g., horizontal SBJ – Matt Allen (Tottenham F.C)

 

If you want some more insights into this have a look at my Pacey Performance Podcast Review with Cam Jose where he gives his own thoughts on the physical qualities associated with the segments of a 40 Yard dash.

 

 

As you can see, Cam mentions ”Short Bounds” as being a good training method for the 10-20 Yard segment – more speed-strength, and ”Long Bounds” for 20-30 Yard segment – more reactive strength.  Given that we are focused on the first 10 Yards in Tennis what jumps might give us a good insight into the physical qualities associated with acceleration over that distance?

 

  • Squat Jump – My thought process for having the Squat Jump in the test battery is that it may be informative when thinking about acceleration ability over 0-10m (because of its concentric emphasis)- and ability to produce power from a static start (no stretch-shortening cycle).  It’s like a bodyweight proxy for strength-speed and early RFD and it’s one of the jumps that is part of the APA Fitness test battery (more on the squat jump later).

 

  • Counter movement jump – a test of the long or ”slow” stretch-shortening cycle (greater than 250 ms ground contact time).  This could be associated with most tennis movements over a few metres including shots like the running forehand where there is more hip and knee flexion and more time in contact with the ground.  It’s like a bodyweight proxy for speed-strength.  I see the 3 hop for distance fitting here too (slow SSC), and my thought process is that if someone is good on that test, they will probably be good at a shot like the running forehand.  A CMJ could be used as an indication of 10-20m acceleration ability (and definitely braking capability but that’s not the focus of this blog).  Think multiple jumps such as the triple SBJ. You are probably someone who is going to be very powerful and have longer coupling capability- meaning you are able to produce power over large ranges of motion with your hip, knee and ankle.  You are probably going to dominate hill sprints, light resistance sprints.  You have a lot of power against lighter resisted activities.  The question is, how much more do we gain by doing a repeated jump/hop such as a 3 hop for distance, or a triple SBJ, vs, a regular single effort CMJ?

 

  • Drop jump – This is a measure of the short or ”fast” stretch-shortening cycle (less than 250 ms ground contact time).    Relevant to the split step and racket head speed on serves and groundstrokes.  It’s like a bodyweight proxy for  reactive-strength.  Could be used as an indication of 20-30m ability.

 

Up until now most of my thought process has been that a test like a drop jump or the 10-5 RSI is a test more for ankle stiffness and this is a good barometer of improvement at max speeds (achieved at distance of upwards of 20m for team sport athletes).   If you are improving this quality, there is a good chance you will see improvements in max velocity.

 

10-5 = 5 best averaged over 10 jumps.

 

But accelerating doesn’t take place on two legs and it seems that at the ankle at least, there may be a more reactive component related to ”ankle stiffness, ” so maybe it will benefit from a test like the RSI 10-5 jump test? To help me consider this thought process in more detail I’m going to refer to some useful insights from an article on sportsmith on ”shin roll” and its importance in Acceleration and an old instagram post from Alex Natera to give some further food for thought on this concept.  I’ll finish up with some words of wisdom from Frans Bosch.

Tobias Alt

 

Tobias does a great job of describing ”shin roll” which is the change in shin angle (Figure 1), the shin’s sagittal motion where there is a progressive forward rotation towards the ground occurring from late swing (large shin angle) to the late stance phase (small shin angle).  Check out the full article here but I’ve included a few key sections below:

 

Figure 1. Representative illustration of shin angle (sagittal plane angle between the shin and the ground) and shin roll. Forward rotation starts from the shin block (large shin angle) and stops at the propulsion pose (small shin angle).

 

This acceleration strategy is referred to as ”rotation-extension strategy”. That is, a rotation of the centre of mass around the foot in the early stance followed by a delayed and sequentially staggered catapult-like extension of the hip, knee, and ankle joint in the late stance phase.  Efficient acceleration needs a degree of patience to give the centre of mass the time to rotate to avoid excessive vertical acceleration.

 

 

Figure 2. Four key positions. A: shin block, B: touchdown, C: heel lock, and D: propulsion pose are linked by a progressive shin roll motion during swing-stance phase transition. The shin’s downward tilt is facilitated by three different movement strategies: shin alignment, horizontal ankle rocker and shin drop.

 

 

Physical vs Technical Qualities

 

Coaches and athletes should direct special attention to the dorsiflexed ankle joint acting as fulcrum and the acceleration-specific joint angles preceding the delayed extension. This training occurs in tandem with increasing the required strength capacities of the accelerative muscles (e.g., hamstrings, gluteus medius, gastrocnemii)

 

Coaching Cues

 

After reaching the shin block position, athletes should powerfully attack the ground, like a hammer striking a nail. Subsequently, an elastic deformation by means of a well-timed horizontal ankle rocker strategy in the early stance phase might minimize braking duration and will promote the rotation of the centre of mass over the stance foot. Therefore, braking is a necessary part of the step cycle to store energy for a mechanical advantage on its return.

 

In linear acceleration, the ankle behaviour should no longer be associated with rigidity and minimal displacement in a short amount of time, but with dynamic elastic deformation.

 

Efficient acceleration requires a degree of patience to give the centre of mass the time to rotate before the delayed extension to avoid excessive vertical acceleration

.

Finally, the correctly executed application of this acceleration technique can be characterized as a horizontal bounce.

 

Alex Natera

 

The comments about elastic deformation and ankle behaviour no longer being associated with rigidity was something that Alex Natera first put me onto when he shared a single leg plyometric hop over a small hurdle and highlighted some important components of the landing phase – which includes reference to the elastic deformation.

 

 

”No matter the level, type or experience of an athlete I often “strip it back” and re-visit the function of the ankle/foot complex and ground interaction for reactive hopping, bounding and jumping. My preference is to keep it unilateral as much as possible but strip back the intensity and complexity of the plyometric activity. This allows us to zone in on pretension/preactivity, a purposely foot strike just behind the ball of the foot, followed by the locking of the ankle into tendon recoil. This exercise is often a warm up before the main event.’‘

 

This got me thinking and I noticed that in a lot of videos and images I was watching of tennis players I was observing this tendency for the foot strike with the mid/forefoot followed by a  heel to hit the ground after the initial touchdown, what Tobias referred to as the heel lock, and Alex referred to as an ankle lock.

 

Below is a series of still images of a pro player executing an acceleration across the court (right foot- left foot- right foot).  I know it’s not the same limb but in image 1 (right foot) you can see the initial mid/forefoot strike and in image 2 (left foot) I’ve captured the heel lock.

 

 

Wise words from a elite sprint coach

 

Speaking to a former elite sprinter and now coach at this year’s UKSCA conference, he said that we have to remember that ”the progression from acceleration to maximum velocity is a continuum and changing situation every step. Also the GCT of acceleration steps are longer than max velocity – but still aren’t very long – and are even shorter when already in motion like many field sports will be. They are shorter then a double leg – pogo which is the fastest of the plyo activities in terms of GCT.  (Daz comment – I seem to recall the first step of acceleration out of the blocks being around 0.5 seconds but that quickly drops to 0.2 seconds by the second step).

 

Ankle stiffness in acceleration vs. max velocity – depends on how you view and define this stiffness. If stiffness means little movement then in max velocity there is a lot more than in acceleration. In acceleration the ankle should produce high levels of stiffness to maintain the angle of foot strike and therefore shin angle at ground contact. This then shifts towards a move ‘compliant’ ankle for max velocity where the elasticity component plays its part in allowing a rapid flexion of the ankle to get the rapid recoil back from the tendons and fascia of the foot, calf and ankle complex.”

 

Perhaps an argument could be made for the drop jump then – because of the elastic deformation by means of a well-timed horizontal ankle rocker strategy in the early stance phase and to minimize braking duration (so a quick transition from heel lock to propulsion?)  When I put this to the elite sprint coach he said ”DJ and 10-5 will absolutely be useful for assessing physical qualities needed for acceleration – it’s all explosive and fast movements – and they are tests that might relate that tiny bit more – yes – but unless you are working with high level sprinters then its probably not a differentiation that is required to be made.”

 

 

To me this all sounds like the juice isn’t worth the squeeze in terms of switching from a SJ vs. CMJ comparison to a CMJ vs. DJ comparison for tennis athletes.  You may not share that opinion, and if you’re keen to use the DJ I’ve included further information below on how to interpret the jump profile data.

 

Furthermore, this doesn’t mean I won’t be programming drop jumps as part of a comprehensive jump training curriculum, only to say that I’m satisfied that measuring SJ vs CMJ still gives me enough insights into how well a tennis athlete uses their slow SSC- and in my opinion that is where most of the tennis actions live so it’s a valuable metric to monitor.  Finally, I think its incredibly important to prioritise calf strengthening as it seems that there can only be good things to come from doing that, and I’ll touch on that at the end of this blog.

 

Measuring Jump Performance

 

In 2006 I read Eric Cressey’s Ultimate Off-season Training Manual where he spoke about the static-spring continuum in the context of athletics.

 

  • If you’re a “static” athlete (think powerlifter), you’re very strong, but lack reactive ability. Your training needs to focus on initiatives (“plyometrics,” although it’s not the best term for what I have in mind) that prioritize reactive ability: your ability to effectively make use of the stretch-shortening cycle. Doing so will condition the nervous system and musculotendon unit to better store elastic energy and use it for subsequent muscular action.

 

You may or may not need to prioritize rate of force development (RFD, or explosive strength), which is your ability to develop force quickly. If you have tremendous strength, but cannot develop it quickly, that strength is useless in athletic contexts.

 

  • If you’re a “spring” athlete (think of a basketball or volleyball that just runs and jumps all day, but never lifts weights), you’ve got good reactive ability, but lack maximal strength. Your training needs to focus on “lifting heavy stuff” to make your “maximal strength glass” bigger.

 

Eric Cressey recommended using a comparison of countermovement jump versus drop jump.  The countermovement jump is a test of the long stretch-shortening cycle (greater than 250 ms ground contact time).  Do that first.  Next, grab that 12-inch box and place it on the ground about 6-8 inches away from your “takeoff” spot for the jumping tests. You’re now going to do a bounce drop jump; this requires you to step – not jump – off the box, and upon landing, spring right up into the vertical jump test.

 

 

The idea is to minimize ground contact time as much as possible; you really should “bounce” instead of just doing a “landing and jump.” Attempt to use the energy you take in to facilitate the force you put out. This is a measure of the short stretch-shortening cycle (less than 250 ms ground contact time).

 

Interpreting Jump Results

 

CMJ vs Drop jump

 

If your bounce drop jump from 12” is less than your countermovement jump, you can stop the test; it’s a sign that you’re using too much static and aren’t able to use the spring because you lack reactive ability.  However, if your bounce drop jump is equal to or greater than your countermovement jump, move to an 18-inch box and see what happens. If the jump height goes up, keep increasing the box height by six inches at a time until your jump height fails to improve. In doing so, you have not only established that you’re very spring-proficient and need to train maximal strength more; you’ve also determined the optimal height for future depth jump training: the height that maximizes power output (jump height).

 

If you find that your bounce drop jump is less than or equal to your countermovement jump, you need to prioritize
reactive ability; you’re not able to efficiently take in energy and use it for subsequent force production.  If your bounce drop jump – regardless of the box height you reached – is 20% or more than your countermovement jump, you need to prioritize maximal strength.  The closer to 20% it is, the more maximal strength you need. The closer to 1%, the more reactive training you should do.

 

CMJ vs Squat jump

 

As I stated earlier in the blog, I’ve often thought that acceleration is all about concentric force production (definitely in the powerful quadricep and glute muscles) so the squat jump would be a proxy for leg power in the initial 0-10m acceleration phase and the counter movement jump would be a proxy for higher speed explosiveness over say 10-20m.

 

Most athletes are generally able to jump higher when performing the CMJ versus the SJ, meaning an athlete has an adequate use of the stretch-shortening cycle to store and release energy.  Historically, when I have seen an athlete have a minimal difference in squat jump height and countermovement jump height I’ve used that as a indicator that the athlete is not very proficient at using the SSC – and needs to perform a greater proportion of plyometrics in their programme.  But not so fast!!!  There is another interpretation.  It could also mean they are a very good athlete at producing early RFD- and ability to produce force in small amplitude of movements.  This could include ankle stiffness at max velocity (and I’m now making a case for the foot strike during acceleration!).

 

Due to the differences between a squat jump (no downward momentum and/or limited SSC utilization) and the countermovement jump (downward momentum and SSC utilization), the tendon stiffness utilized becomes more apparent. Therefore, as proposed by Bas Van Hooren and Frans Bosch, a better indicator of abilities to reduce muscle slack, and therefore produce a higher magnitude of early rate of force development, would be highlighted by a minimal difference in squat jump height and countermovement jump height.

 

However, if the countermovement jump is much higher than that of the squat jump, it may indicate that an eccentric preload is required to take up the slack of a compliant tendon that would otherwise not be readily taken up during a squat jump. Thus, a compliant tendon and an increase in muscle slack would mean a lower rate of force development, a longer time to reach maximal force, and a larger difference between countermovement jump height and squat jump height.

 

Do we want more stiffness or more compliance?

 

I think I’ve already made my opinion clear that for Tennis I think having a more compliant tendon is okay because the majority of tennis actions afford more time in contact with the ground.   Any work we do at the calf to develop more tendon stiffness is going to show itself in a drop jump improvement but not necessarily in a CMJ, so we need to bare that in mind (see more below).

 

A stiffer tendon may allow for force to be quickly transmitted from the muscle to the connecting structures to produce joint motion by reducing the need to take up the slack, which would otherwise be present with a compliant tendon. Therefore, a stiffer tendon may allow for quicker, more efficient transmission of force compared to a more compliant tendon and therefore, possibly greater rate of force development. These improvements are critical for rapid, and efficient transfer of force through the SSC.

 

A study by Burgess and Colleagues evaluated the effectiveness of drop jumps and calf raises in regard to improvements in tendon stiffness. In the study, isometric single leg calf raises, increased tendon stiffness by 61.6% compared to only a 29% increase in stiffness from single leg drop jumps. Combining these findings with those of Kubo and colleagues and the evidence clearly highlight the potency of isometric at improving tendon stiffness.

 

Magnitude versus Rate – It is important to note an increase in stiffness might not increase countermovement jump height. This is possibly due to the fact an increase in tendon stiffness will not increase the magnitude of force being expressed in large amplitude movements. Large amplitude movements allow for a longer duration for the muscle to reach maximal force and thus, the rate at which force is produced plays less of a role, especially early stage rate of force development. As proposed by several experts, the downward velocity created by a countermovement may act to pre-load the tendon of the jump, thus taking up the slack and masking the negative effects of the compliant tendon.

 

Therefore, a stiff tendon may simply play a role in quicker transmission of force from the muscle to the tendon, which is why it may not have much influence when force is able to reach its maximal, such as large amplitude movements where ample time is provided for force development, similar to that of a full depth countermovement jump.

 

It is important to note that early and late-stage rate of force development are two independent qualities. Rate of force transmission from the muscle through the tendon is most likely predicated on early-stage rate of force development, which appears to be comprised of both neural firing rates and as suggested by the above evidence, tendon stiffness. However, early-stage rate of force development will not directly influence the amount of force being produced in movements with ample time for force to be developed. Therefore, one should not expect tendon stiffness to increase performance of large amplitude movements with large loading times.

 

However, early-stage rate of force development does play a role in situations where time is limited, such as the squat jump.  A countermovement jump has been shown to take a long enough time for maximal force to be developed, with the time of movement lasting roughly 0.5-1 second. However, a squat jump may take only 0.3 seconds to execute. Thus, the small time frame does not allow for maximal force to be reached and therefore relies more on early stage rate of force development, hence the improvement in squat jump height but not the countermovement jump height.

 

As argued by Frans Bosch, most typical sporting movements have to occur over a short period of time, with small amplitude of movement. Therefore, early-stage rate of force development may play a more critical role in sporting movements as opposed to lab-based, controlled jumping exercises. Proper training should not only increase the magnitude of the force that can be developed and transmitted, but also the speed at which it can be developed and transmitted. To increase the rate at which force is transmitted and early rate of force development, a stiff tendon may be necessary. Thus, isometric training may vital for developing these critical tendentious adaptations, as well as more reactive forms of plyometrics such as drop jumps.

 

My Verdict on Best Jump Profile for Tennis

 

I’m sticking with the CMJ.  I didn’t address it here but I think the triple SBJ or even the 3 Hop for distance still fall in the same part of the Force-Velocity curve (slow stretch-shortening cycle).  I’m putting the SJ as a bodyweight proxy for strength-speed and the CMJ, triple SBJ and 3 hop for distance all as a bodyweight proxy for speed-strength.

 

There is a skill element to the multiple jumps and that can be a good thing but in my opinion also introduces further ”noise.” At the end of the day I just want a proxy for how well the athletes use their slow SSC.  I’ll train the ”fast” SSC as part of our jump training curriculum, and I can always measure drop jump performance as part of the training, particularly when I am going after some adaptations at the calf complex.

 

Hope you have found this article useful.

 

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Pacey Performance Podcast Review – Episode 413 Marco Altini

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This blog is a review of the Pacey Performance Podcast Episode 413 – Marco Altini

 

Marco Altini

Marco is a Scientist and Owner of HRV4Training.   In addition to this, Marco is also an advisor to Oura Ring.

Website

 

Background

Marco has a mixed background between computer science and sport science.  He has degree in computer science & engineering, a PhD in Data science and another Masters in sport science.  He has a role as a guest lecturer in a University in Amsterdam.

 

🔉 Listen to the full episode with Marco Altini here

 

Discussion topics:

 

”Is coding, is learning aspects of computer science the next thing and how far are we along the road of the computer science and sport science getting closer together?”

 

”We are getting there. Not for everyone, but for some people I think it can be a new path to explore and something where you can start to play with all the data that are taken from the different devices now fairly present in professional environments and even at lower levels to use that information and help the team in different ways.

 

We teach a course here at the University which is exactly that, data science for sport scientists so the basics of how to process the data and machine learning and building models and evaluating the accuracy.  I think that can be something interesting for sport scientists but again it doesn’t necessarily have to be what everyone should be doing but I think if some people start doing that I also think it helps the whole industry to have a better approach and more critical thinking around these solutions that are otherwise given to you and they are difficult to interpret if you don’t really understand how they work.”

 

”What is HRV and why should we be bothered about it?”

 

”HRV stands for Heart Rate Variability and it refers to the fact that the heart does not beat at a constant frequency there is always some variation between consecutive beats; and this variation is not random, it is actually caused by how the autonomic nervous system (ANS) modulates heart rhythm.

 

 

And since the ANS is changing its activity in response to stressors, measuring HRV becomes a way to capture our response to stress, so in short it is just a proxy for stress that is non invasive and easy to measure (such as hormonal changes which are harder to measure, and more expensive).  We cannot measure the ANS directly either, we can only measures what the ANS influences that is Heart rhythm and that is why eventually we look at HRV because it becomes a proxy of these stressors.”

 

”What are the different ways we can measure HRV?”

 

Chest strap

 

 

”We can measure it traditionally using an electrocardiogram (ECG) which measures the electrical activity of the heart and that is the same technology you have today in a chest strap, so if you use an app that allows you to link to a strap with a sensor like Polar or Garmen then you are are measuring the electrical activity of your heart, and from the beat to beat differences you can compute your HRV.

 

Optical Methods

 

 

An alternative is with optical methods where there has been a lot of work for example an Oura ring or a Whoop  device that you wear on your finger or on your wrist and they are measuring changes in blood volume.  Of course the blood is flowing when the heart is beating so there is a very strong link between activity that you measure at the heart and the activity that you measure somewhere else.

 

At HRV4Training we use just the phone camera so you don’t need any sensor- the technology is the same because instead of having a dedicated sensor, we use a flash.  The sensor would normally flash a green light or an infrared light so you can’t see it (but it’s there) then you have another receptor, an LED, that is capturing the reflection of the light so you can see these changes in blood volume.  If you use a phone, it’s a similar story but the light source is the flash and you capture changes taking a video with the phone camera.

 

There is a caveat that not every device is equipped for this task as most devices are not.  They need to be designed for this purpose, where as most are designed to measure heart rate and that makes the data sometimes not usable for HRV.”

 

”What would make optimal measuring conditions and maybe give some team sport context for that coach who is working with multiple athletes?”

 

”So first of all we need to contextualise what we are interested in measuring.  We talk about HRV as a measure of stress and it is not really specific to a particular form of stress but it is very sensitive to all forms of stress. So that is why it can be useful because it can give us an idea of the response of the athlete to not only training but other forms of stress that they might be experiencing such as:

 

  • International travel
  • Illness
  • Intake of alcohol
  • Any sort of thing that impacts your ability to train and perform

 

Now if you want to look at this overall marker we cannot measure at any random time of the day or the night because the ANS is always continuously adjusting depending on the things we do.  A lot of these adjustments are transitory and irrelevant for our application of interest, which is to quantify this overall stress.

 

So to quantify this ”baseline” stress level that results from the most impactful stressors and not just from any useless transition like having coffee or eating something, or walking up the stairs.  We don’t care about those changes, we care about your state at rest as a result of the past few days of cumulative stressors and the strong ones that have really affected you.

 

Now to get a snapshot of that we have really two moments when we can take a measurement that are not impacted by all these other transitory stressors.  These two moments would be either we measure:

 

  • During the entire night or
  • First thing in the morning when you wake up

 

If you use a device that looks at the night it is important it is the entire night or at least 4-5 hours because if you look for just a few minutes (like the Apple watch- which provides a few data points during the night) they are all over the place because the ANS activity is tightly coupled with the sleep stages, for example, and sleep stages happen on any given night at different times.  So using a few data points it may be that the device is sampling when you are in deep sleep and another night you are in REM sleep, and there is going to be a very large difference and it has nothing to do with your baseline stress level, just the fact that you were in a different sleep stage.

 

Both Oura and Whoop provide the average of the night and provide the same data because they are using the same technique.

 

It is also important to be consistent and use only one time of day – you can’t use night during some days and morning other days.  Also some athletes may forget if you tell them to take a measurement in the morning.  Another consideration when working with teams is if you measure in the morning then you are measuring after the restorative effect of sleep and after the stressors have happened.

 

Night vs day measurements

 

If you are a team and you played a match in the evening then the overnight data will be more impacted by the game simply because it is earlier so it is likely that it will show a suppression, it does not mean that you have not recovered (in the morning) just that you are measuring very close to the source of stress.  So the interpretation of the data needs to account for when you are measuring.  So you can wait another day and see if things go back to normal and then you have nothing to worry about.

 

One thing is to talk about the raw data and HRV and make sure it is accurate and another thing is to look at readiness and recovery scores that are built on top of that, how that information is used and there indeed the discrepancies are obvious.

 

A good way to look at the wearables in general is to look at the metrics and see which ones they agree on and in which ones they don’t.  The ones in which they agree are typically the ones you can rely on.  So if you look at heart rate, HRV and temperature you will see they are very similar across devices but if you look at sleep stages, or readiness or recovery then they are all over the place!

 

Intensity of Training

 

The response to high intensity training will be a much higher suppression of HRV.  The intensity will drive much of the change sometimes more than the volume.  The menstral cycle is an important factor as you have variations that are linked to the changes in hormones.  So if you have a reduction in HRV during the second phase of the cycle (accompanied by a slight increase in heart rate) that is quite typical and so that suppression is linked to something you are expecting, and so you don’t associate it with something else.  Therefore you don’t attribute the change to something like a poor response to training.  But the variability between women but also within the same person (across cycles) is so high that the HRV is not very easy to track the menstrual cycle that way but we must keep the cycle in mind.

 

Interpretation of the Data

 

You should collect data for a while in order to build the ”normal range” which is the range of values in which your data will be if there are no abnormal stressors and things are going well.  The normal range is somewhere between one to two months.  The baseline change is the weekly moving average so it is the weekly value with respect to the normal range.

 

At point then it is easy to flag deviations from this normal range so that you can identify potential issues so that is where we have had a data platform built where we can read data from.  The night devices should also have the same as we feel we should be looking at the physiology and the response rather than building scores that confound that information.

 

If you have a suppression in HRV but on the day the athlete subjectively reports that they feel great then we don’t have such a reactive approach and do not change anything, and then we wait for the second day.  If on the second day everything bounces back to normal, great.  We haven’t done anything.  If we have two or three days of suppression then at that point the baseline and the 7 day moving average will start to go down, and perhaps the 7 day moving average will go down below the normal range – and then we have a more chronic form of stress.  It’s a repeated poor response so that is a good time to start looking at the reason for that change and possibly implement some changes in the programme.  This could be manipulating load or prioritising other forms of recovery such as sleep which may have been neglected.

 

What you want to see, especially in a professional environment, is not these combinations of parameters and variables (readiness and recovery scores) – it is the actual response of the body (HRV) so that is what you should be looking at (the raw data and the physiology) but still be able to contextualise it with respect to an athlete’s normal, otherwise if there is a reduction you never know if it is meaningfully lower or it is just a bit lower, and you shouldn’t care because it is just normal day to day variability.

 

For example, you are doing a training camp so now you are training more and your readiness and recovery scores will penalise them for doing more because the model expects that when you do more you are less recovered.  It is just as simple as that.  But then that is not the information you care about – you want to see the actual response of the body – so if the HRV let’s say, is still within the normal range, then it means you had a good response to that increased load and that is exactly what you wanted to see.

 

The physiological data gives you the answer if they are responding well to the load or not

 

So when you put all this extra information in like sleep and activity level into some of these apps you end up knowing less because if it says your recovery/readiness is less, is it less because your body did not respond well, or was it because your sleep was a bit different or your activity was a bit different.  This is not to say that sleep and activity are not important, they are, but they are context to see when there is a change, if it is coming from there or not.  But it is not what you should be looking at when you are looking for the response, you should just be looking at the physiology- the HRV and how it responds in response to the stressors and not in combination with other parameters.

 

Top 5 Take Away Points:

  1. Heart Rate Variability (HRV) –  refers to the fact that the heart does not beat at a constant frequency there is always some variation between consecutive beats; and this variation is not random, it is actually caused by how the autonomic nervous system (ANS) modulates heart rhythm.
  2. Chest straps vs Optical methods – chest strap measures the electrical activity of the heart whereas optimal methods measure blood volume to estimate HRV.
  3. Time to measure – all night or first thing in the morning when you wake up are the two best times
  4. Interpretation – it is important to establish a normal range before you start to interpret if the change in HRV was a meaningful change.
  5. Interpretation – don’t be too reactive to just one day of suppressed HRV.  It is better to pay attention to a few days of suppression before making a decision to act.

 

Want more info on the stuff we have spoken about?

You may also like from PPP:

 

Episode 410 Shawn Myszka

Episode 400 Des, Dave and Bish

Episode 385 Paul Comfort

Episode 383 James Moore

Episode 381 Alastair McBurnie & Tom Dos’Santos

Episode 380 Alastair McBurnie & Tom Dos’Santos

Episode 379 Jose Fernandez

Episode 372 Jeremy Sheppard & Dana Agar Newman

Episode 367 Gareth Sandford

Episode 362 Matt Van Dyke

Episode 361 John Wagle

Episode 359 Damien Harper

Episode 348 Keith Barr

Episode 331 Danny Lum

Episode 298 PJ Vazel

Episode 297 Cam Jose

Episode 295 Jonas Dodoo

Episode 292 Loren Landow

Episode 286 Stu McMillan

Episode 272 Hakan Anderrson

Episode 227, 55 JB Morin

Episode 217, 51 Derek Evely

Episode 212 Boo Schexnayder

Episode 207, 3 Mike Young

Episode 204, 64 James Wild

Episode 192 Sprint Masterclass

Episode 183 Derek Hansen

Episode 175 Jason Hettler

Episode 87 Dan Pfaff

Episode 55 Jonas Dodoo

Episode 15 Carl Valle

 

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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Pacey Performance Podcast REVIEW – Episode 410 Shawn Myszka

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This blog is a review of the Pacey Performance Podcast Episode 410 – Shawn Myszka

Shawn Myszka

 

Shawn is a Movement Skill Acquisition Coach at Emergence and currently serves as a personal performance advisor and movement coach for more than a dozen NFL players and has partnered with 108 NFL players and counting over 15 seasons.

In this episode, Shawn details his approach which dives into the world of ecological dynamics and a constraints led approach. He explains how his approach differs to a “traditional” approach of pre-planned movements and drilling them time after time. Shawn presents an example of a closed drill which aims to improve cutting and develops it into a much more open drill so the athlete has to react to a changing environment, much like they would have to do on game day.

🔊 Listen to the full episode here

 

Discussion topics:

 

”For those of us who don’t know much about your coaching philosophy can you share a brief background on yourself?”

 

Coaching agility is much more than setting up cones and letting the athletes run routes around them. Agility is much more than just change of direction ability. But with so much complexity to improve the physical quality of “agility”, how can we coach it effectively to ensure transfer to the field?

 

I view movement and movement skill as my main objective.  I believe that sport is a problem solving activity where movements are just used to produce the necessary solutions

 

We can impact and influence how athletes are interacting with their environments in a much different way if we view movement and movement skill in this fashion.  Things like ”abundance of strategies,” things like ”adaptability” and ”dexterity” these are things that have shaped my form of life, the way that I view movement and sport behaviour and performance.

 

I am very American Football orientated but I have co-founded and operate as the co Director of education of an movement skill & education company called Emergence.

 

”Are you employed directly by players or do you also do consultancy with teams as well?”

 

”I do some consultations with teams, usually it’s on a very short term situation where I will present to staff, I will come in an for one, two or three days and maybe analyse their practice activities and get into how it is I feel that they can make them more ALIVE, so that’s a term you’re probably going to hear me drop a few times – this idea of alive problems being solved within environments.  Mostly I work directly with the players and become a personal performance advisor/movement skill acquisition coach for players that they and I lock arms with one another to attempt to polish and sharpen their craft – specifically how they behave on a field.  It was the NFL players that referred to me as the ”Movement Miyagi.”

 

 

Obviously I still attack things like general physical qualities and general physical preparedness so I’m still doing weight room stuff.  I actually used to be a strength & conditioning coach but I morphed into this role because I felt there was a major gap between what we were doing in the weight room and what they were doing on the field.  I elected to exist within that gap and attack the gaps within their skill set, particularly from movement standpoint.”

 

”Why did you decide to go down that route to be known as a movement skill acquisition coach and really niche down in that area?”

 

Learning Environments that weren’t really learning environments

 

”I was finding that that gap was getting bigger and bigger – and the position coaches within the NFL are very intelligent when it comes to the X’s and O’s, tactics and strategy, principles of play, but really I have been on my soap box during this pre-season about some of the horse shit that is being done on individual drills, where position coaches are taking 10-20 minutes to work with individual players each and every day and they are decontextualised isolated drills- where there is rote repetition which is being prioritised.  It starts to show us the limitations in how they view movement behaviour.  But what I was finding was that gap was getting bigger and bigger because strength & conditioning professionals were really prioritising the same thing within their learning environments, that they weren’t really learning environments.

 

When they were addressing speed or change of direction qualities it was in highly irrelevant fashions to the way that it would be expressed on the football field.  So I felt that that gap was getting bigger and the player was getting lost in the middle of this saying how do I put those physical qualities to use in highly practically relevant ways to  functionally solve problems in my world?

 

That’s what the players care about – they are there to become better FOOTBALL PLAYERS. So everything that we do at either end should support and supplement their craft in that way – how they were having to solve problems, the abundance of movement strategies, the diversity withing strategy, their decision making, their perceptions, their actions all being coupled and intertwined in a way, that allows them to really connect to their environment and become more functional problem solvers and more dexterous movers.

 

People hear Movement Miyagi or movement skill acquisition coach and they think that what I’m doing is chasing perfect execution of motor patterns- motor system degrees of freedom.  That’s what they view coordination of  movement to be.  I do not.  I view it as movement skill in relation to one’s environment which is constantly changing, that has emerging and decaying opportunities and I want to assist the player in perceiving and selecting and acting upon those opportunities in their own unique and authentic fashion.

 

The position coaches really weren’t doing that, and the strength & conditioning coaches weren’t doing that because they don’t view movement skill in this fashion and so things like speed and acceleration and power and explosiveness wasn’t really being expressed on the field.  That’s why I have been knocking on the door of the NFL to change and adjust its talent identification procedures particularly with the NFL combine, since 2013-14 I’ve been saying the stuff you are looking at isn’t actually overly relevant when it comes to how they are going to behave on a football field on NFL Sunday.

Listen, I understand there will be times when you will need to assist people in GAINING MORE – strength, speed, addressing things from an injury reduction standpoint and so on and so forth.  But if it’s not actually finding its way out onto the football field in a competitive environment at some point when we move up those levels of mastery, we have to address some other things.”

”Bear with me because I have a theory.  The ‘S’ side of the S&C coach is 90% of education when it comes to an under- or post-graduate education.  So we are heavily educated in that area and that translates into a working environment?  We like things in a box, to be measured. We are comfortable in that area.  We are not comfortable when things get complex, or a little bit messy.  There are a few coaches who like the messy and live in the messy and thrive in that area, but the majority [me included] like the package, like things to be in a row, like the drill where everyone looks the same.  Would you agree with this theory?”

 

”I think you are 100% on point Rob.  I think what you’ll find is that we have done what we have always done, we address it in ways that we have always addressed it so we don’t know what we don’t know, or we’re not willing to look at it through a slightly different lens.

 

We intuitively know that sport is much more about adaptability, that this world will be messy, that no two problems are ever going to be the same in sport.  There will be sports that seem to be more repeatable that have less complexity and less interacting component parts.  Yet when we really look at it, we see that there is a lot more messiness than we are willing to acknowledge, that one’s adaptability is still likely to be the calling card, the higher the levels of skill and mastery we go.

 

 

So something like running a 100m sprint on a track may at first seem like a very repeatable skill but we can still analyse the performer-environment relationship and attempt to facilitate a more functional athlete-environment relationship through and because of these changing constraints – the weather, the track, the shoes and rather than chasing this perfect technical model, perhaps what we want to chase is dexterity (Bernstein, 1960s).

 

The ability to find or organise a movement solution for any emerging movement problem under any situation and in any condition.

”How do you reconcile the struggle to fill the gap between the orderly approach of rote repetition and the chaos of the sporting action, and the need to reign it back in so I have more control.  Would you say that people do struggle with this middle bit like I imagine they do?”

 

”As I found my way towards an ecological approach I realised that for the first 5-6 years of me working with NFL football players I was the traditionally minded individual that you were speaking to.  I was chasing a rote repetition perfect technical model of almost any movement action or technique that the athlete could organise or coordinate.

 

 

At the end of the 2012-2013 season I remember asking myself the question really poignantly, ”Are the players performing on field because of the work we do, or in spite of the work we do? And I didn’t like the answer to that question.  I very rarely saw them behaving with this perfect technical model that we had beaten the path towards with that traditional approach.  If the athlete couldn’t behave in that way, I just felt they needed more repetition, or more feedback, or more instruction or more consistency.  I realised I was neglecting decision making, I was neglecting perceptual information and I was really separating and segregating those processes of the human movement system.

 

Dexterity doesn’t live in the movements or actions themselves, but it lives in its interaction with the environment

 

So if it’s about interaction with the environment then that environment has to present some ALIVENESS.

When you chase that perfection you’re actually doing the athlete more harm than good when you do that.  I was treating them with kid gloves, and  somewhere along the way they became less prepared to adapt to the environment when the environment was going to ask that of them 50, 60 or 70 times a game in an NFL game on Sunday.

 

I can still manipulate constraints and scale the information so it’s a little less.  So it isn’t this complete free for all.  Self-organisation that goes a long with an ecological dynamics rational is not like a free for all, we don’t just let it go.  It’s not like I don’t ever explicitly suggest or attempt to facilitate changes to behaviour for the athlete – but I let them try to figure some shit out on their own at times too!

 

Shift our hat from being a dictator to a little bit more of a facilitator by setting an environment where we don’t have all the answers and by attempting to manipulate the constraints so it does MEET THE ATHLETE AT THEIR CHALLENGE POINT, which is an art in and of itself.

”How would we as coaches make our way more towards the end of the coaching spectrum that you are talking about?”

We want alive learning activities not drills

”How can we immediately interject more ALIVENESS into the problem?  If we are viewing sport movement behaviour as a problem solving activity, then how can we actually turn this into a problem that has has dimensional levels to it?

How can require more from the behavioural organisation of the movement system with PERCEPTION, COGNITION, INTENTIONS OR DECISIONS?

 

 

Cones are just boundaries!  The only thing worse than a cone is an agility ladder!

 

We would remove those cones and put bodies there to promote aliveness.  Rather than being inundated with information from coaches, let them reconnect with their own information about how their environment might be changing (which the environment in and of itself won’t be and with a cone the environment won’t be changing).

 

 

It doesn’t have to be an overly chaotic or complex environment, it could be just one where at least there are some moving bodies in it, that the athlete has to become sensitive to and attuned to because those moving bodies and the space they occupy, angles, speed and posture will all dictate the behaviour of the athlete who is going through the ”drill.”

We don’t need a tonne of messiness but we likely need either an opponent or a team mate in the space.  How do we make it look and feel more like sport? (Notice I didn’t say identical to sport).  An 11 vs 11 is the most representative but we don’t often exist there because they can’t always handle the amount of information from that complexity, so we might have to scale it down to 1 vs 1 or 1 vs 2, 2 vs 2, 3 vs 3 or more small sided game activities that we can all do if we use some more aliveness.

 

”Is there any place for closed drills, for example, you’ll hear coaches saying, we are just getting them warmed up before we drill down and then chuck them in.  Is there any place for closed drills?”

 

”If you adopt an ecological dynamics framework where our relevant scope and scale of analysis is on the performer-environment relationship, and that athlete, particularly in a team based sport such as American football, isn’t going to have to coordinate, control and organise their movement behaviour NOT related to an OPPONENT or an alive environment, then I do not believe there is very much need at all.

 

Now it doesn’t mean that you couldn’t do it if you were trying to get them to open up their ACTION CAPABILITIES.

 

In order to act upon what we perceive we must have the action capabilities in order to act!  All that is saying, is that I have to have access to that strategy within my movement toolbox.  For example, if this situation requires me to execute a cross-over cut but I have tremendous knee tendinitis and I can’t cross-over on that leg I might have to scale down the information down to such a level that the athlete can explore and instead have a live opponent who is stationary.  This will reduce the complexity and aliveness- the opponent isn’t moving.  But at least if it’s a human and not a cone, they can still reach out and touch you, they are much bigger and even just putting a human there changes the behavioural organisation and what an athlete has to perceive.  There are likely not looking down at the ground any more for that cone and instead looking at the posture and position of the opponent.

There might be a place for more closed drills (on a spectrum of fully closed to full open) but not in the traditional sense where we are telling them exactly how to move, exactly where to move, when to move etc.

 

That I think is the danger.  Or, the situation where we are chasing the same model for everyone; talk about thinking as though we have all the answers!  Movement behaviour in sport is a lot more complex than that!  If you took the top 10 running backs in the NFL and presented them with similar behaving movement problems to solve, guess what?  No two movement solutions are going to be the same.  They could both functionally solve the movement problem- they would all make the defensive player miss (the tackle) but in their own authentic and unique way.


”The other end of the spectrum to what you are talking about is linear progression, it involves doing X drill, okay that’s successful, now we move onto this, making it more complex or whatever progression it might be.  On the side you’re talking about the linear progression is not so obvious.  How would you advise people to try and make sense of that to allow them to feel more confident in that world?”

 

Respect the non linearity and coach to the athlete’s model

”First we have to acknowledge, at least from an ecological dynamics rational, and we when look at complex dynamical systems, is behaviour and the interactions that lead to that behaviour is NON LINEAR.  So small changes to the way that something that unfolds from a context standpoint, could lead to huge changes in the way in which the behaviour emerges.

We never stand in the same river twice.

Second point is we are constantly presenting the athlete different situations or contexts to test the stability or flexibility of the movement solution.  If we start to see movement behaviour that is ‘stickier’ that maybe is emerging on a more frequent basis, well I want to test that ability to match or emerge in different problems.  So I’m going to change positions and speeds of opponents and use different size spaces to work in.  And all while I do that we are basically perturbing the system to see what else may emerge.

 

How do we chase it to begin with? Usually what I do if athletes are new to me I get them to be much more comfortable being uncomfortable, and I know that people say that all the time!  So I try to inject more non-linearity and more complexity of the problems right off of the the bat.
So what we will do is give them some safety by putting them in the middle circle of a football pitch, with 5-8 athletes positioned around that circle and I’ll say you are going to go in (all at the same time) and you’re going to execute any number of movement strategies.  You’re going to explore and search and see what’s in your tool box.  You’re going to change direction and make evasive action and at times you can accelerate and decelerate and they’re all cutting in relation to each other.  So it starts off in a pretty unrepresentative way (in the the game) but there is a lot of aliveness and a lot of non linearity but that’s where I begin!
Once we get them to come out of their shell and get them comfortable in the autonomy and re-organisation of those degrees of freedom in what they are perceiving, how they are intended to act all of a sudden they can put it to use in more representative problems and it’s there where we can have more linearity and more progression!  We can take it in a step by step linear fashion, where first the opponent isn’t moving at all in a 5 x 10 yards space and the athlete’s only intention is to execute a cut in that space in relation to the stationary opponent.  Notice I don’t say ”you have to cut in this fashion”, I’m just getting them to become more sensitive to the information which channels and guides their movement.  Next the opponent has to be moving, maybe first it is straight towards the athlete but not very fast and in a more predictable fashion.  Over time you simply progress the difficulty and uncertainty and the complexity and aliveness of the problem.  After that I can have them do any number of things- the defender can change the angle they come in etc and it’s still a 1 vs 1 problem at this stage.  I didn’t tell the athlete exactly how to move but I have enough control of the environment as the coach.  And I am keeping their perceptions and actions coupled so their movement behaviour is in relation to a changing problem, not a tonne of aliveness but enough that they can become sensitive to key movement information variables.

 

 

Top 5 Take Away Points:

  1. Decontextualised isolated drills- where there is rote repetition – is being prioritised but it’s time to adopt an ecological dynamics model
  2. One’s adaptability is still likely to be the calling card, the higher the levels of skill and mastery we go.
  3. ALIVENESS – We want alive learning activities not drills
  4. We never stand in the same river twice – so respect the non-linearity of movement.
  5. We can still create progression within an ecological dynamics approach

 

Want more info on the stuff we have spoken about?

 

You may also like from PPP:

 

Episode 400 Des, Dave and Bish

Episode 385 Paul Comfort

Episode 383 James Moore

Episode 381 Alastair McBurnie & Tom Dos’Santos

Episode 380 Alastair McBurnie & Tom Dos’Santos

Episode 379 Jose Fernandez

Episode 372 Jeremy Sheppard & Dana Agar Newman

Episode 367 Gareth Sandford

Episode 362 Matt Van Dyke

Episode 361 John Wagle

Episode 359 Damien Harper

Episode 348 Keith Barr

Episode 331 Danny Lum

Episode 298 PJ Vazel

Episode 297 Cam Jose

Episode 295 Jonas Dodoo

Episode 292 Loren Landow

Episode 286 Stu McMillan

Episode 272 Hakan Anderrson

Episode 227, 55 JB Morin

Episode 217, 51 Derek Evely

Episode 212 Boo Schexnayder

Episode 207, 3 Mike Young

Episode 204, 64 James Wild

Episode 192 Sprint Masterclass

Episode 183 Derek Hansen

Episode 175 Jason Hettler

Episode 87 Dan Pfaff

Episode 55 Jonas Dodoo

Episode 15 Carl Valle

 

Hope you have found this article useful.

 

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