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May in Review

6/1/2018

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Thoughts/Quotes

Let kids define their own athletic experience - Rob Assise
We’ve been very good at building physical monsters, but I want perceptual monsters - Shawn Myszka
Poor perception leads to poor mechanics/technique
No evidence that static stretching or flexibility reduce or are related to injury - Quinn Henock
Athletes need to practice pre-competition nutrition. Practice this nutrition before practices/training - Brian St. Pierre
The best vegetables are the ones your athletes will actually eat - Brian St. Pierre
Is the goal motor learning or motor performance?
I love seeing athletes when they are fatigued - they can't hide compensations when fatigued and I can see what they'll revert to when fatigued - Tommy Flanagan
Sleep has an image problem, we stigmatize sleep and think its lazy and slothful - people wear lack of sleep as a badge of honor to be celebrated - Matthew Walker
Chronic exhaustion cost most first world nation 2% of the GDP - 411 billion dollars lost each year to a lack of sleep - Matthew Walker
Speed of movement is easy compared to speed of thought - Rich Bartel
Can’t lead if you don’t read
Increasing variability within practice enhances learning
The stability of a skill is solely dependent upon psychology - Stu McMillan
If you surround yourself with the wrong people, you’re going to do wrong things. If you surround yourself with elite people, you’ll probably do elite things

Articles

Podcasts

Research

Vigne, G., Dellal, A., Gaudino, C., Chamari, K., Rogowski, I., Alloatti, G., ... & Hautier, C. (2013). Physical outcome in a successful Italian Serie A soccer team over three consecutive seasons. The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research,27(5), 1400-1406.

The aim of this study was to examine the physical performance of a success-Serie A team of more than three consecutive seasons. 25 players participated in the study and were classified into three playing positions: defenders (n=9), midfielders (n=11) and forward (n=5). Activities match were studied by an analysis of multiple match-camera SICS ® (Bassano del Grappa, Italy) throughout the competition Italian Serie A matches played at home (n=90) for 3 consecutive seasons (first: 2004/2005, second: 2005/2006, and third: 2006/2007). Total team ball possession and time-motion characteristics were examined. Results showed that total ball possession (52.1% to 54.9%) and the number of points accumulated at home (40/48) improved in the past three seasons while that the final ranking at home were stable. The total distances covered by minutes of play were significantly different between the three seasons (118.32±6.69m.min to 111.96±8.05m.min). Distance running and high intensity activities were similar in the three seasons, while the distance covered in moderate intensity running decreased in the third (P<0.05). Variations between playing positions were found during the three-consecutive seasons, with midfielders covering greater distances than defenders (P<0.05) and forward (P<0.01). This study showed how for three consecutive seasons of successful players Serie-A team reduced their distances performed at submaximal speeds, and increased ball possession, while maintaining the high-intensity activities and the number of points at home. It is suggested that this is due to a better understanding of roles and tactics team organization, and to act collectively and individually on these parameters to reduce energy expenditure during the game to maintain a high level performance throughout the season.

Dos’Santos, T., Thomas, C., Comfort, P., & Jones, P. (2018). The Role of the Penultimate Foot Contact During Change of Direction: Implications on Performance and Risk of Injury.Strength & Conditioning Journal.

Most change of direction biomechanical investigations and current technique guidelines focus on the role of the final foot contact (plant foot contact). However, it is evident that the braking characteristics during the penultimate foot contact play an integral role in deceleration prior to directional changes ≥ 60˚; and can therefore, be described as a “preparatory step”. In this review, we examine the role of the penultimate foot contact on change of direction performance and associated biomechanical injury risk factors, and provide technical guidelines for coaching the “preparatory step” during change of direction, to enhance performance and reduce risk of injury.

Sanchez, F. J. N., & de Villarreal, E. S. (2017). Does Flywheel Paradigm Training Improve Muscle Volume and Force? A Meta-analysis. The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, 31(11), 3177-3186.

A meta-analysis of 13 studies with a total of 18 effect sizes was performed to analyse the role of various factors on the effectiveness of flywheel paradigm training. The following inclusion criteria were employed for the analysis: (a) randomized studies; (b) high validity and reliability instruments; (c) published in a high quality peer-reviewed journal; (d) healthy participants; (e) studies where the eccentric programme were described; and (f) studies where increases in muscle volume and force were measured before and after training. Increases in muscle volume and force were noted through the use of flywheel systems during short periods of training. The increase in muscle mass appears was not influenced by the existence of eccentric overload during the exercise. The increase in force was significantly higher with the existence of eccentric overload during the exercise. The responses identified in this analysis are essential and should be considered by strength and conditioning professionals regarding the most appropriate dose response trends for flywheel paradigm systems to optimize the increase in muscle volume and force

Hodges, N. J., & Franks, I. M. (2002). Modelling coaching practice: the role of instruction and demonstration. Journal of sports sciences, 20(10), 793-811.

examine existing theories and approaches that try to explain the process of skill acquisition so as to determine implications of these theories for instructional provision. This is followed by an evaluation of studies in the motor learning literature in which pre-practice information has been manipulated. Explicit learning strategies are contrasted to implicit and discovery learning methods, and current explanations for instructional eþects are discussed in terms of such mechanisms as eþects-related attentional focus and movement variability. In the ®nal sections, we review data from our own laboratory where pre-practice information has been manipulated during the learning of a novel bimanual coordination task. From these studies, proposals are made to try and explain how pre-practice information works to eþect the process of skill acquisition, including the selection and execution of a response and the processing of associated feedback. An important role is given to the existing skills of the learner in understanding the instructions and performing the desired movement. Finally, we suggest some practical implications of this empirical evidence for the teaching of motor skills.

Moras, G., Fernández-Valdés, B., Vázquez-Guerrero, J., Tous, J., Exel, J., & Sampaio, J. (2018). Entropy measures detect increased movement variability in resistance training when elite rugby players use the ball. Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport.

The application of match specific constraints in resistance training for rugby players elicit different amount of variability of body acceleration across multiple physiological time scales. Understanding the non-linear process inherent to the manipulation of resistance training variables with constraints and its motor adaptations may help coaches and trainers to enhance the effectiveness of physical training and, ultimately, better understand and maximize sports performance.

Spearritt, D. (2013). The impact of field vision on performance within an English Premier league academy soccer team: A case study.

The purpose of the current study was to develop an understanding of visual search behaviour in relation to performance outcome amongst elite level youth soccer players, within competitive match performance. Thirteen matches from an English Premier League academy soccer team (under 15 age group) were analysed using a specifically designed notational analysis system created in Microsoft Excel. Visual explorations conducted by individual players were collated, followed by their subsequent action when in possession of the ball. The results show significant visual exploration differences between higher and lower ability elite level youth players (p=0.000). The results of a series of categorical logistic regression analyses also show a clear positive relationship exists between visual exploratory behaviours that are initiated prior to a player receiving the ball and performance with the ball. This relationship remains when assessed amongst several match conditions including overall pass completion, attacking third pass completion and forward pass completion.

Nyland, N. (2010). Visual perception in soccer: a study of elite and sub-elite defenders (Master's thesis).

The general purpose of this study was to examine how soccer defenders explore the environment for and use the information to deny opponents goals from crosses into the penalty area. A specific aim was to determine which variables differentiated between elite and sub-elite players. An ecological approach was used as conceptual framework. Participants were at the Premier League level - classified as elite (n = 13, m = 28.15 yrs, SD = 3.82) and at the Reserve League and Academy League level - classified as sub-elite (n = 11, m = 18.3 yrs, SD = 1.40). All participants were filmed in at least one game (six were filmed in two game). A high zoom camera recorded and focused solely upon a single player and general game events were obtained from professional camera recordings (obtained from the clubs) using regular zoom. These two videos were edited and synchronized into a split-screen video.
Results indicate that players in the elite group are more perceptually and functionally active than players in the sub-elite group prior to a cross, by exploring more frequently and positioning themselves more with a back-towards-goal posture allowing them to visually perceive more of the actions of the surrounding forwards. However, it was not demonstrated any functional relationship between exportation and performance related to this defensive situation. Further, constraints such as the player’s posture, type of defense, distance be-tween the crosser and defender, and involvement showed some differences between the levels and may affect exploration.

Araújo, D., & Davids, K. (2011). What exactly is acquired during skill acquisition?. Journal of Consciousness Studies,18(3-4), 7-23.

In this paper we propose that the term skill acquisition, as commonly used in traditional psychology, and the philosophy, education, movement science and performance development literatures, has been biased by an organismic asymmetry. In cognitive and experimental psychology, for example, it refers to the establishment of an internal state or representation of an act which is believed to be acquired as a result of learning and task experience. Here we elucidate an ecological perspective which suggests that the term skill acquisition may not refer to an entity but rather to the emergence of an adaptive, functional relationship between an organism and its environment, thus avoiding an inherent organismic asymmetry in theorizing. In this respect, the terms 'skill adaptation' or 'skill attunement' might be more suitable to describe this process.

Teques, P., Araújo, D., Seifert, L., del Campo, V. L., & Davids, K. (2017). The resonant system: Linking brain–body–environment in sport performance☆. In Progress in brain research (Vol. 234, pp. 33-52). Elsevier.

The ecological dynamics approach offers new insights to understand how athlete nervous systems are embedded within the body–environment system in sport. Cognitive neuroscience focuses on the neural bases of athlete behaviors in terms of perceptual, cognitive, and motor functions defined within specific brain structures. Here, we discuss some limitations of this traditional perspective, addressing how athletes functionally adapt perception and action to the dynamics of complex performance environments by continuously perceiving information to regulate goal-directed actions. We examine how recent neurophysiological evidence of functioning in diverse cortical and subcortical regions appears more compatible with an ecological dynamics perspective, than traditional views in cognitive neuroscience. We propose how athlete behaviors in sports may be related to the tuning of resonant mechanisms indicating that perception is a dynamic process involving the whole body of the athlete. We emphasize the important role of metastable dynamics in the brain–body–environment system facilitating continuous interactions with a landscape of affordances (opportunities for action) in a performance environment. We discuss implications of these ideas for performance preparation and practice design in sport.

Djaoui, L., Chamari, K., Owen, A. L., & Dellal, A. (2017). Maximal sprinting speed of elite soccer players during training and matches. The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, 31(6), 1509-1517.

The aim of the present study was to compare (a) the maximal sprinting speed (MSS) attained by soccer players during matches (MSSmatch) according to their level of play (professional first French division vs. elite amateur fourth French division) and the playing positions and (b) the MSS attained by professional soccer players during 14 different types of small-sided games (SSG, MSSSSG) and match-play. All players monitored through the study performed a 40-m sprint test to assess individual MSS (MSStest) and compare it to the training and match activity, with the calculation of the percentage of MSStest (%MSStest) reached. No differences were found according to the level of play; however, positional wide players achieved a higher MSSmatch, %MSStest, and MSSSSG than central players (both defenders and midfielders) during matches and SSG. MSSmatch were higher than all MSSSSG, and MSSSSG were positively correlated with the area of the pitch (0.45, p < 0.001), its length (0.53,p < 0.001), and the number of players involved (0.38, p < 0.001). The closer SSG was to match situation in terms of rules, the higher the MSSSSG. Wide players reached higher MSS in match and SSG than central players, confirming the relevance of using SSG close to match situation to specifically prepare elite players to the maximal running speed demand of the match.

Wylie, S. A., Bashore, T. R., Van Wouwe, N. C., Mason, E. J., John, K. D., Neimat, J. S., & Ally, B. A. (2018). Exposing an" Intangible" Cognitive Skill Among Collegiate Football Players: Enhanced Interference Control. Frontiers in psychology, 9, 49.

American football is played in a chaotic visual environment filled with relevant and distracting information. We investigated the hypothesis that collegiate football players show exceptional skill at shielding their response execution from the interfering effects of distraction (interference control). The performances of 280 football players from National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I football programs were compared to age-matched controls in a variant of the Eriksen flanker task (Eriksen and Eriksen, 1974). This task quantifies the magnitude of interference produced by visual distraction on split-second response execution. Overall, football athletes and age controls showed similar mean reaction times (RTs) and accuracy rates. However, football athletes were more proficient at shielding their response execution speed from the interfering effects of distraction (i.e., smaller flanker effect costs on RT). Offensive and defensive players showed smaller interference costs compared to controls, but defensive players showed the smallest costs. All defensive positions and one offensive position showed statistically smaller interference effects when compared directly to age controls. These data reveal a clear cognitive advantage among football athletes at executing motor responses in the face of distraction, the existence and magnitude of which vary by position. Individual differences in cognitive control may have important implications for both player selection and development to improve interference control capabilities during play.

Anson, G., Elliott, D., & Davids, K. (2005). Information processing and constraints-based views of skill acquisition: divergent or complementary?. Motor control, 9(3), 217-241.

Since the middle of the nineteenth century, movement scientists have been challenged to explain processes underlying the control, coordination, and acquisition of skill. Information processing and constraints-based approaches represent two distinct, often perceived as opposing, views of skill acquisition. The purpose of this article is to compare information processing and constraints-based approaches through the lens of Fitts’ three-stage model and Newell’s constraints-based model, respectively. In essence, both models can be identified, at least in spirit, with ideas about skill described by Bernstein (1967, 1996). Given that the product of “skill acquisition” is the same, although the explanation of the processes might differ, it is perhaps not surprising that similarities between the models appear greater than the differences. In continuing to meet the challenge to explain skill acquisition, neural-based models provide a glimpse of the cutting edge where behavior and biological mechanisms underpinning processes of control, coordination, and acquisition of skill might meet.

Books

The Culture Code – Daniel Coyle

I’ve always enjoyed Coyle’s books, starting with the Talent Code – actually did an interview with him you can find here – https://www.building-better-athlete.com/blog/interview-with-daniel-coyle

He does a fantastic job of story telling, bring ideas together, and mixing science with culture. Some of his writings may be a little exaggerated with what the actual literature says, but its much less taken out of context as say Malcolm Gladwell.
Some of my favorite tidbits…

In successful groups the following happens
- Everyone talks
- High expectations, and confidence that people can reach them
- Try to help things develop organically
- Leaders show vulnerability
- Surrounded with motto’s
- Leaders are partners not dictators
- They name priorities
- People feel safe and connected

The Energy Bus – Jon Gordon

Personally I find these kinds of books a little cheesy, but it’s a quick, painless read with a few tidbits here and there. Good book to throw into the mixture of more serious reads - with short chapters and some good reminders but too much of Gordon’s self-help message gets old, fast.
2-3 Gordon books a year is plenty

Opening Skinner’s Box – Great Psychological Experiments of the 20th Century – Lauren Slater

This was a fascinating read into 10 of the greatest psychological experiments over the past 100-years. From BF Skinner to Harry Harlow to Eric Kandel to Stanley Milgram. From topics such as love to obedience to addiction to false memories. With subjects from humans undergoing lobotomy’s, monkeys separated from their mothers and having a surrogate mother, rats being rewarded with food and drugs, sea slugs and memory.
Slater does an incredible job of blending the hard-nosed details of the experiments and outcomes, to laying out a story line of each researcher, their backgrounds into their studies, and personal stories of how these scientists affect her and other psychologists.
Give this one a read!

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Interview with Daniel Coyle

6/1/2018

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We are extremely lucky today to have Daniel Coyle, best selling author, to talk to us about talent and how we really get better at things. Dan is the author of many books, his most known being the Talent Code and the Little Book of Talent.

In these books he breaks down what makes people successful. The story behind their success and the often believed "natural" ability. Short story - hard work, dedication, effort, and years of practice is what makes people successful. We often see the end-product and think WOW they were born to do that, but we don't appreciate the process, the progressions, the sacrifice, the set-backs, and the hours upon hours of practice.

I think believing that genetics are the key determinate in how well you perform in any given field is a cop-out. It's taking the easy way out for reasoning why someone may be better than you. Ask anyone who is successful why they are successful and a common response will be work. When others sleeping, they were working; when others were partying, they were working; when others were watching TV, they were working. All that extra time starts to add up over the years, and this is what Dan has brought to the forefront.

We'll let Dan take it from here, so enjoy the wise words from this great researcher and writer!

1. First off thank-you so much for doing this Daniel. I know you're a very busy guy, so thanks for taking the time to do this. With the popularity of your books, The Talent Code and The Little Book of Talent, could you give an overview of what contributes to talent and why these contributions can be more important than ones genes.

It's truly my pleasure, Michael -- thank you for having me!

The overview is pretty simple, and it consists of seven words: Your genes matter less than you think.
Historically, we've given a lot of influence to the idea that talented people possess some special twist of DNA that the rest of us lack. But science is showing us that this is largely a mistake. Science is showing us that talents -- especially when it comes to cognitively demanding skills -- aren't doled out at birth. They are grown in the brain through intensive practice. The only exception to this is raw athletic skills. So if you want to be a high jumper or a marathon runner, you definitely have to pick the right parents. But for most everything else, it's less about who you are, and more about what you do. Specifically, how you are motivated, coached, and above all, how effectively you practice.

2. The 10,000 hour rule of mastery has gained a lot of recognition over the years. For athletic or sport performance, do you feel these hours have to be specific (example basketball) - or do broad, general skills and movement/motor learning such as playing other sports also help contribute towards the 10,000 hours?

Great question, because one of the most common reactions to the 10,000-hour rule is the strong desire to practice narrowly -- for tennis players to focus ferociously on tennis, for instance, or chess players on chess. This instinct makes sense, but it's often the wrong thing to do. The reason is that, like any structure, skills are built on other skills. A broad base -- whether it's chess or tennis or anything else -- has been shown to lead to better performance. Think of Federer (soccer player until 13); Kobe Bryant (same), Steve Nash (same). They succeeded in part because the skills of one sport (recognizing patterns, anticipation, body control) gave them an advantage over players who just trained narrowly in one sport.

3. What steps do you recommend to learning skills, techniques, movements?
First of all, stare. Find a way to watch someone who's good -- watch them closely, and over and over, until you can feel yourself making the movement.

Then break it down into chunks. Small pieces that you learn over and over, and combine into bigger chunks.

All high-quality practice consists of three moves: you reach for a target. Then you evaluate the distance between your reach and the target -- what worked? What didn't? Then you reach again. Repeat.

4. What role does the brain play in skill acquisition?
It's gigantic. We talk of "muscle memory" but the truth is that your muscles don't have any memory. They're just doing what the brain tells them to do. So whenever you see an act of great coordination -- whether it's Jordan driving to the hoop or Tiger Woods hitting a perfect shot -- what your'e really seeing is beautiful brains. Circuits that have been built, refined, and made accurate and fast through deep practice.

5. What are some traits great coaches have in common?
A couple things come to mind. First, they're able to form strong connections very quickly. They connect to the heart. Second, they don't give long inspiring speeches -- rather, they deliver vivid short bites of information in a memorable way. Third, they spend lots of time designing the practice space, and planning.

6. Tell us the importance of cues and cueing and how to make cueing more effective?
The most important cue a person can get is when they see a vision of their future self. When they meet someone that they don't just admire and respect, but someone that they want to become. That causes a cascade of motivation energy that some scientists have actually measured. We're social animals, and we're driven by our sense of identity. When we see a vision of our future selves, our brains light up and we have a lot of energy that we can use to (you guessed it!) practice.

7. You've talked about having your own scoreboard, can you explain this a little further?
This comes from addressing a common problem in youth sports and in business. The problem is that the scoreboard we use doesn't reflect the qualities we want to grow -- and the solution is to create your own scoreboard. For example, a soccer coach who wants to improve passing should track the number of successful passes each game, and post it -- so that that number becomes the metric the team cares about.

8. What traits/qualities should parents and coaches strive to promote and instil in children?

Grit. Resilience. Resourcefulness. Love of learning. Which happens to be precisely the same traits they should promote in themselves. Because learning is not like waving some magical wand. It's more like a cross-country hike. It takes time, lots of energy, stubbornness, flexibility, and above all togetherness.

Thanks again Dan!

Some great information was dished out there and for even more in-depth analysis of these topics and more be sure to check out Dan's books below. Trust me, you won't be disappointed and they will change the way your live your life and work towards your goals.

   The Talent Code
     The Little Book of Talent
     Lance Armstrong's War
     Hardball

Also check out Dan's awesome website http://thetalentcode.com/

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April in Review

5/1/2018

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Thoughts/Quotes

Exploration and creativity in practice leads to exploration and creativity in games
I will take of me for you, if you take care of you for me
At every new level of success one achieves, comes even greater challenges
It's not always about being the fastest but knowing when to be fast and when to change tempo's – Korey Van Wyk
It is important to note that recovery-adaptive strategies and techniques are not sufficiently powerful enough to over come bad coaching, stupid planning, or lack of talent - Tony Sumner
Keep things more playful - increases engagement, creativity, and fun – Jake Marshall
The way an athlete changes direction when he or she can preplan movement is different from how the athlete changes direction in reaction to a stimulus – Korey Van Wyk
The technique an athlete uses is dependent upon their perception NOT the other way around – Korey Van Wyk
Are closed drills useless? No. They still provide a powerful physical load. But when training time and capacity are limited, providing that load in a coupled setting is efficient and works on all aspects of agility – Joel Reinhardt
Can we add a stressor or consequence during practice? Gives feedback and athletes aren’t 100% successful in sport – Shaun Larkin
Training doesn’t meet the demands of games - especially lateral loads/movements – Tyler Bosch
Connect the problem and solutions together – Shawn Myszka
The perception-action cycle also involve anticipatory skills – Karl Newell
Low Performance Variability DOES NOT EQUAL Low Movement Variability – Rob Gray
High performers have consistent outcomes but use a variety of mean to get there – Rob Gray
There is no 1 ideal technique – each athlete needs to find their own optimal movement solution – Rob Gray
People keep thinking about sport as a series of movement solutions rather than thinking about sport as a series of movement problem – Stu Armstrong
Thoughts for Warm-Ups
- Exploration – Don’t just do a linear lunge, rather encourage exploring different angles, depths, and stances. Add an accel out of each position to encourage adaptability of accel mechanics in various positions.
- Include Perception
- Daily Screen – Daily routine that gives athletes and coaches feedback on athletes current state and help individualize daily modality/therapy
Starting to ask my athletes to coach things or at least ask them – how would you teach this? What words would you use?
What you do Monday, effects Friday. I don’t coaches really think about this – mentally, physically, nutritionally, emotionally
Give a little bit, get a lot – Tony Stewart
I’m ok with athletes looking “bad” during agility – Korey Van Wyk

A Note on Sport Specialization

This past weekend was the NFL Draft, and as this weekend arrives every year, so do the cries from people with daily stats on how may NFL draftees played multiple sports, quotes of college coaches saying they recruit multi-sport athletes, and the claim playing multiple sports is key in them getting drafted.

A HUGE discussion was brought out by Keir Wenham-Flatt with this tweet – I encourage you to read all the branches this tweet spurred

I want to share my thoughts on this topic, as it seems I've been booked into promoting specialization by some coaches because I disagree with their commentary and language used. In today's world, having an opinion that differs from the majority gets you yelled at, called an idiot, or the worse of all... blocked on twitter.

In fact, Tony Holler, a coach I highly respect and enjoy his work, blocked me because I disagreed with his opinion on this topic, and instead of having an intelligent discourse, he blocked me and proceeded to tweet negative things about me... heartbreaking

So, here are some random thoughts on specialization

1. First I want to make it clear, I don’t think anyone is truly pushing specialization - in the terms that specialization actually exists. THIS is where I think many of these coaches go wrong – if they’d actually read the literature on specialization, they’d know that it points to NOT specializing at young ages (7-13), and instead to get involved in many athletic endeavors – and this is something I don’t think anyone is disputing.

Again if you’ve read the literature, it actually points to encouraging specialization around ages 16-18 – well guess what – That’s a sophomore through senior in HS. So if a HS kid is passionate about a sport and wants maximize his/her ability in that sport – the literature actually supports this decision.

So, that’s the difference – when to specialize, NOT if specializing is bad. I think we all agree 7-12 year olds should be exposed to as many athletic events as possible. Understand that a 7-12 year old specializing is vastly different than a 16-18 year old specializing.

2. Let's Try an Example

We have Johnny and Billy - both are HS Juniors.

Johnny was blessed with the genetic lottery - He’s a very gifted athlete. Football is his primary sport, with a scholarship on the way. He also plays basketball and track. Johnny is a 9/10 football player, and even though he only play basketball during the season (3-months out of the year), he still manages to be a 7/10 basketball player because of his raw athletic ability. Physically dominant kids like Johnny can afford to be less technically & tactically skilled in their lesser sports and still be good – hence why he is a 7/10 with only playing basketball 3-months out of the year.

And remember - When you're a good athlete you get pulled into multiple sports. It's not that playing multiple sports causes one to become a good athlete - it's being a good athlete causes one to be pulled to play multiple sports.

Billy on the other hand was not blessed with superior genetics, he's a pretty average athlete. Billy loves basketball; it’s his passion and his ultimate goal is to play college basketball - ultimately he realizes DI is out of the question and DIII is his likely route - but that shouldn't be any less of a reason to pursue this goal.

Unfortunately for Billy, he’s only a 6/10 basketball player.

So, how can Billy compete with Johnny in basketball???

Well, Billy decides to specializing in basketball. He improves his basketball specific skill set, IQ, specific perception, and learns the nuances of the game that can only come from accumulating time in that sport.

Basketball season comes around and now Billy is a 7/10 – he now has a chance to compete with Johnny. If he played multiple sports, he’d still be a 6/10 and wouldn’t see the court.

By his senior year, Billy has raised himself to a 7.5/10 basketball player, good enough to be a starter and earn an opportunity to play at the DIII level.

Who is to say this is the wrong path for Bily?

I can hear the critics – But he’ll burnout, that doesn’t sound fun, he’ll never be as athletic if he played multiple sports, etc.

But I ask – who led this situation.

It was athlete led; Billy decided this is what HE wanted, and it is wrong for an adult to criticize his decision – and this is where I get frustrated.

3. The language I see used by coaches needs to change.

Athletes NEED to run track; they MUST play basketball; they HAVE to play baseball – if they want to be a great athlete. If you're under 6'6 and don't have a basketball scholarship yet - you NEED to be playing football (these are real quotes from coaches - publicly displayed on Twitter)

Ever thought for a second that the athlete just doesn’t like those sports? That they don't like track or football or any other sport?

My argument is how is this any better than the AAU coach saying the same thing?

We get pissed if an AAU coach says - If you want to play college basketball you NEED to play AAU. If you want to get noticed by college coaches you HAVE to play AAU.

It’s the same thing – it’s an adult with an agenda trying to lead the decision.

Athletes should be encouraged to play multiple sports – no doubt. But coaches shouldn’t FORCE or MAKE HS athletes play multiple sports. If a kid doesn’t like a sport, stop trying to push them to do it.

A who cares if a kid wants to play hoops all year long, and they’re only 5’11 – if it’s athlete led and the kids passion – awesome.

4. If a HS kid can start to specialize his/her education, then why not sports?

Junior and senior HS kids are asked what careers they’d like to pursue and encouraged to specialize their schoolwork towards those careers.

My junior and senior year, I don’t think I took an English class; instead I loaded up my schedule in the math and sciences because that’s what I enjoyed.

Why is it different for sports?

Or how about this - why don't college or professional athletes play multiple sports?

If playing multiple sports is the panacea of athletic development - why don't athletes post HS do it?

5. What classifies as playing multiple sports?

I have a number of Jr. & Sr. football players who don’t play another sport but play pick-up basketball 2-3 days a week. I have college basketball players that golf 2-3 days a week. Does playing a wide variety of games in the backyard as a youngster count multiple sports?

Does this negate specialization?

6. A final piece and hardest for people to come to terms with – Specialization works!

When done right, specializing has worked for tons of athletes all over the world. Look at sports like gymnastics, swimming/diving, tennis, soccer, golf, basketball, baseball - most of the athletes in these sports have specialized from a young age. Look at countries who send little kids to specialized camps from a young age to groom them into Olympians.

Specialization works.

7. Clearly it is much more complex than
specialization = bad
multiple sports = good.

And that’s how this whole thing got started – coaches with an agenda (yes I said agenda) trying to get better athletes to play their sport.

At the end of the day Rob Assise said it best – let kids define their own athletic experience.

Trust me, I played 3 sports in HS and couldn’t imagine only playing a single sport – but I also understand everybody is different and kids should lead the decision-making process.

Ok, enough of this rant... on to normal business

Articles

Podcasts

Research

Colyer, S. L., Nagahara, R., & Salo, A. I. (2018). Kinetic demands of sprinting shift across the acceleration phase: novel analysis of entire force waveforms. Scandinavian journal of medicine & science in sports.

A novel approach of analysing complete ground reaction force waveforms rather than discrete kinetic variables can provide new insight to sprint biomechanics. This study aimed to understand how these waveforms are associated with better performance across entire sprint accelerations. Twenty-eight male track and field athletes (100-m personal best times: 10.88 to 11.96 s) volunteered to participate. Ground reaction forces produced across 24 steps were captured during repeated (two to five) maximal-effort sprints utilising a 54-force-plate system. Force data (anteroposterior, vertical, resultant and ratio of forces) across each contact were registered to 100% of stance and averaged for each athlete. Statistical parametric mapping (linear regression) revealed specific phases of stance where force was associated with average horizontal external power produced during that contact. Initially, anteroposterior force production during mid-late propulsion (e.g. 58-92% of stance for the second ground contact) was positively associated with average horizontal external power. As athletes progressed through acceleration, this positive association with performance shifted towards the earlier phases of contact (e.g. 55-80% of stance for the eighth and 17-57% for the 19th ground contact). Consequently, as athletes approached maximum velocity, better athletes were more capable of attenuating the braking forces, especially in the latter parts of the eccentric phase. These unique findings demonstrate a shift in the performance determinants of acceleration from higher concentric propulsion to lower eccentric braking forces as velocity increases. This highlights the broad kinetic requirements of sprinting and the conceivable need for athletes to target improvements in different phases separately with demand-specific exercises.

Spearritt, D. (2013). The impact of field vision on performance within an English Premier league academy soccer team: A case study.

Previous perceptual-cognitive skill research in sport has often applied laboratory-based protocols to examine differences amongst elite and sub-elite performers. Contemporary research within the area has started to move away from such protocols and has begun analysing visual search behaviours within competitive adult soccer matches. The purpose of the current study was to develop an understanding of visual search behaviour in relation to performance outcome amongst elite level youth soccer players, within competitive match performance. Thirteen matches from an English Premier League academy soccer team (under 15 age group) were analysed using a specifically designed notational analysis system created in Microsoft Excel. Visual explorations conducted by individual players were collated, followed by their subsequent action when in possession of the ball. The results show significant visual exploration differences between higher and lower ability elite level youth players (p=0.000). The results of a series of categorical logistic regression analyses also show a clear positive relationship exists between visual exploratory behaviours that are initiated prior to a player receiving the ball and performance with the ball. This relationship remains when assessed amongst several match conditions including overall pass completion, attacking third pass completion and forward pass completion

Nyland, N. (2010). Visual perception in soccer: a study of elite and sub-elite defenders (Master's thesis).

The general purpose of this study was to examine how soccer defenders explore the environment for and use the information to deny opponents goals from crosses into the penalty area. A specific aim was to determine which variables differentiated between elite and sub-elite players. An ecological approach was used as conceptual framework. Participants were at the Premier League level - classified as elite (n = 13, m = 28.15 yrs, SD = 3.82) and at the Reserve League and Academy League level - classified as sub-elite (n = 11, m = 18.3 yrs, SD = 1.40). All participants were filmed in at least one game (six were filmed in two game). A high zoom camera recorded and focused solely upon a single player and general game events were obtained from professional camera recordings (obtained from the clubs) using regular zoom. These two videos were edited and synchronized into a split-screen video.
Results indicate that players in the elite group are more perceptually and functionally active than players in the sub-elite group prior to a cross, by exploring more frequently and positioning themselves more with a back-towards-goal posture allowing them to visually perceive more of the actions of the surrounding forwards. However, it was not demonstrated any functional relationship between exportation and performance related to this defensive situation. Further, constraints such as the players posture, type of defense, distance be-tween the crosser and defender, and involvement showed some differences between the levels and may affect exploration.

Dello Iacono, A., & Seitz, L. B. (2018). Hip thrust-based PAP effects on sprint performance of soccer players: heavy-loaded versus optimum-power development protocols. Journal of sports sciences, 1-8.

Using a crossover design, eighteen soccer athletes performed 5 m, 10 m, and 20 m sprints before and 15 s, 4 min, and 8 min after two PAP protocols. The PAP conditioning activities consisted of hip thrust exercises loaded with either 85% 1RM or a load for optimum power development. The resulting 5 m and 10 m sprint performances were impaired at 15 s following both protocols. At 4 min and 8 min, meaningful improvements were observed for the three sprint distances following both of the protocols. Meaningful differences were found when comparing the two PAPs over time: greater impairments in 5 m and 10 m following the 85% of 1 RM protocol after 15 s, and greater improvements in all sprint distances after 4 min and 8 min following the optimum power development protocol. Positive correlations between the hip thrust's 1RM and power values and the overall individual PAP responses were found. This investigation showed that both heavy-loaded and optimum-power hip thrust exercises can induce a PAP response, with the optimum-power development protocol preferred due its higher efficiency.

Preventing Hamstring Injuries – Part 1: Is there really an eccentric action of the hamstrings during high speed running and does it matter?

A review of Van Hooren and Bosch article that argues isometric exercises may be more effective at reducing hamstrings injuries and more easily and smartly programmed into busy training schedules than eccentric exercises.

Preventing Hamstring Injuries – Part 2: Is there really an eccentric action of the hamstrings during high speed running and does it matter?

Van Hooren and Bosch respond to the questions and comments posed by Shield and Murphy in part 1

Bolger, R., Lyons, M., Harrison, A. J., & Kenny, I. C. (2015). Sprinting performance and resistance-based training interventions: A systematic review. The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, 29(4), 1146-1156.

Books

Unblievable – Katy Tur
- Read this in about 16-hours. Easy, interesting read as Katy tells her story as she follow Donald Trump during his presidential campaign.

Applied Sprint Training – James Smith
- Solid, thorough read of fundamentals of acceleration and sprint development. A lot of it is based on track & field, but James works to make it applicable to field/team based sports.
  - Sport is a contest of movement, movement between sports is much more similar than different
  - While elite sprinters accelerate up to 60-70m, the bulk of it (90%+) is done within 30m. Thus the bulk of acceleration can sit in this range
  - Enter the season fit, the sport will take care of itself
  - Anyone can run relatively fast, but no one can sprint well without proper training
  - Weight lifting is not the only means of strength training

News

Pick-Up Dr. Stephen Osterer’s Recovery for Baseball Manual – HERE.

Stephen is a bright and awesome guy, and this manual is a heavy hitter for not only baseball players but all athletes. It comes with a 180-page PDF, Monitoring Document, and Online Resources! Seriously, this is a must have for all things recovery. (Not an affiliate link, I receive no monetary gain from promoting this)

See past Reviews below
- January
- February
- March

0 Comments

March In Review

4/1/2018

0 Comments

Thoughts/Quotes

Your movement signature is not strength. It’s your ability to put meaning and action to your perception as quick as possible – Harjiv Singh

Don’t go into innovation & entrepreneurship if you don’t have an extremely high tolerance for humiliation. Tons of people, even potential customers, will mock you until you get it right…the entrepreneurial journey to success is long & difficult – Alex Osterwalder

What I fail to comprehend is Y everyone is so darn sure that fatigue causes ACL injuries... or any other injuries... is this taught in the standard curriculums? – Tim Hewett

You have to know the rule before you can break the rules

My complaint with Physical Therapy is they label you, describe your condition, give you restrictions, give you generic exercises/modalities, and tend to put people on a reductionist solution path.

It’s better to be strong with some asymmetries than have no asymmetries and be weak

We can make athletes learn better by performing worse – pull into dysfunction/error can highlight the athletes awareness of problem

Return to play should emphasize the whole athlete NOT just the physical

Many coaches still believe that the only/best way to train force absorption is the catch portion of Olympic lifts.

Perceptual information and movement are interlinked; training should reflect specific information-movement couplings.

All things being equal – best posture wins – Vince Anderson

Try acceleration the whole race – Vince Anderson

Generally, the athlete moving fastest at 50m will beat the athlete that reaches 50m first – Stuart McMillian

Articles

Podcasts

Research

Tsoukos, A., Veligekas, P., Brown, L. E., Terzis, G., & Bogdanis, G. C. (2018). Delayed Effects of a Low-Volume, Power-Type Resistance Exercise Session on Explosive Performance. The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, 32(3), 643-650.

5 × 4 jump squats at 40% 1RM with 3 minutes rest shown to potentiate performance (CMJ, RSI & RFD) 24-48 hours after session.

Araujo, D., Davids, K., & Hristovski, R. (2006). The ecological dynamics of decision making in sport. Psychology of sport and exercise, 7(6), 653-676.

Decision-making behaviour is best considered at the level of the performer–environment relationship and viewed as emerging from the interactions of individuals with environmental constraints over time towards specific functional goals.

Bruce, L., Farrow, D., Raynor, A., & Mann, D. (2012). But I can’t pass that far! The influence of motor skill on decision making. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 13(2), 152-161.

Motor skill influenced the performance of the required action, but not necessarily the decision made. Performance is superior on a coupled perceptual-motor task relative to a de-coupled perceptual-cognitive task. Motor skill performance was commensurate with expertise.

Liefeith, A., Kiely, J., Collins, D., & Richards, J. (2018). Back to the Future–in support of a renewed emphasis on generic agility training within sports-specific developmental pathways.Journal of sports sciences, 1-6.

The authors propose that generic agility can play a role in operationalising movement development through facilitating skill transfer: thereby enabling the learning of new skills, reduce incidence of injury and facilitating re-learning of old skills during rehabilitation and Return-to-Play processes.

Buckner, S. L., Jessee, M. B., Dankel, S. J., Mattocks, K. T., Abe, T., & Loenneke, J. P. (2018). Resistance exercise and sports performance: The minority report. Medical hypotheses,113, 1-5.

Although there is a large body of cross-sectional literature providing a rationale for resistance exercise for sport, its implementation is largely based on the following: 1) An increase in muscle size will produce an increase in strength and 2) a stronger muscle will increase sports performance. However, there is a lack of evidence to support these assumptions. The weight of evidence suggests that resistance exercise may indirectly impact sports performance through injury prevention, as opposed to directly improving sport related abilities.

Jeffreys, I., Huggins, S., & Davies, N. (2018). Delivering a Gamespeed-focused Speed and Agility Development Program in an English Premier League Soccer Academy. Strength & Conditioning Journal.

It can be argued that what is crucial is not speed and agility, but how the capacities are exploited in the game. Speed and agility will be ineffective unless they can be combined with the ability to employ these capacities to effectively perform the tasks of the game. Optimizing these capacities requires a sophisticated development program that addresses the full gamut of potential constraints to performance. This article outlines how such a development program has been set-up at an English premier league soccer academy.

Warren, C. D., Brown, L. E., Landers, M. R., & Stahura, K. A. (2011). Effect of three different between-inning recovery methods on baseball pitching performance. The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, 25(3), 683-688.

The purpose of this study was to determine which of 3 forms of recovery were the most effective after an inning of pitching in baseball. Three different measurements were used to determine which recovery method was most effective; the difference in blood lactate (BLa) levels was used as a biological measurement, average pitching speed was the physiological measurement, and the psychological measurement was done on how the pitchers perceived their pitching and recovery. The recovery methods that were used were passive recovery (PR), active recovery (AR), and electromuscular stimulation (EMS). Seven college men aged 21 (62 years) who were National Collegiate Athletic Association Division II college baseball pitchers were assessed during game play simulations. Blood lactate levels decreased significantly from the premeasurement to the postmeasurement with the EMS recovery method (p , 0.0005); however, BLa did not change for PR (p = 0.017) or AR (p = 0.134). Perceived recovery was also found to be best in the EMS and PR conditions. These findings suggest that EMS is an effective recovery method between innings of pitching

Previous investigations of strength have only focused on biomechanical or psychological determinants, while ignoring the potential interplay and relative contributions of these variables. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relative contributions of biomechanical, anthropometric, and psychological variables to the prediction of maximum parallel barbell back squat strength. Twenty-one college-aged participants (male = 14; female = 7; age = 23 ± 3 years) reported to the laboratory for two visits. The first visit consisted of anthropometric, psychometric, and parallel barbell back squat one-repetition maximum (1RM) testing. On the second visit, participants performed isometric dynamometry testing for the knee, hip, and spinal extensors in a sticking point position-specific manner. Multiple linear regression and correlations were used to investigate the combined and individual relationships between biomechanical, anthropometric, and psychological variables and squat 1RM. Multiple regression revealed only one statistically predictive determinant: fat free mass normalized to height (standardized estimate ± SE = 0.6 ± 0.3; t(16) = 2.28; p = 0.037). Correlation coefficients for individual variables and squat 1RM ranged from r = -0.79-0.83, with biomechanical, anthropometric, experiential, and sex predictors showing the strongest relationships, and psychological variables displaying the weakest relationships. These data suggest that back squat strength in a heterogeneous population is multifactorial and more related to physical rather than psychological variables.

Nagahara, R., Takai, Y., Haramura, M., Mizutani, M., Matsuo, A., Kanehisa, H., & Fukunaga, T. (2018). Age-Related Differences in Spatiotemporal Variables and Ground Reaction Forces During Sprinting in Boys. Pediatric exercise science,20(XX), 1-10.

There was a stage of temporal slower development of sprinting ability from age 8.8 to 12.1 years, being characterized by unchanged propulsive force and decreased step frequency. Moreover, increasing propulsive forces during the middle acceleration and maximal speed phases and during the initial acceleration phase are probably responsible for the rapid development of sprinting ability before and after the period of temporal slower development of sprinting ability.

Sugisaki, N., Kobayashi, K., Tsuchie, H., & Kanehisa, H. (2017). Associations Between Individual Lower Limb Muscle Volumes and 100-m Sprint Time in Male Sprinters.International journal of sports physiology and performance, 1-19.

Individual differences in 100-m-race performance cannot be explained by the muscularity of specific muscles, and 23% of the variability in the performance can be explained by the relative difference between the muscularity of gluteus maximus and quadriceps femoris; faster runners have a greater gluteus maximus relative to quadriceps femoris.

Books

Been another slow month…

Captivology – Ben Parr – Parr documents the stories of those who have successfully brought their ideas/projects to public awareness. Has some decent parts and gives some good thought as to how to attract people to your cause and build trusted followers.

News

1st Annual Sport Movement Skill Conference – Honored to speak at what will be an incredible conference. Shawn Myszka has put together a knockout line-up of speakers and even an international call to Ireland to speak with Keith Davids, Ric Shuttleworth, & Mark O’Sullivan
Our 4th Annual Elite Performance Clinic is fast approaching on Saturday, April 14th. We hope you can join us for this great event.

0 Comments

February In Review

2/28/2018

0 Comments

Random Thoughts/Quotes

Only the athlete can see the problem from his or her perspective, thus they must develop the skills to search for their own unique solutions

An athlete’s motor solution is the result of what they sensed and perceived in that moment. They selected a motor solution they thought would be correct, even if you as a coach think it is wrong. You must ask how they arrived at that solution

Force is easy to improve, easy to measure, easy to justify. Coordination, perception, rhythm are all much more difficult to measure and justify, thus we tend not to seek to improve as much as strength –Stu McMillan

A coach should never apologize for having standards of excellence, so always remind athletes that your time is valuable, and that you will spend it wisely – Dan Pfaff

Most training and practice tasks are performed simply because they have always been done that way, or because there is a misplaced belief that the only way to improve something is through repetition and more repetition – Fergus Connolly

The acquisition of perceptual-motor skills is highly task-specific

People somehow think doing something predictable over and over again will somehow make an athlete better at doing something that is unpredictable

Closed drills close the door to many different movements, and thus reduce and get in the way of allowing an athlete to be adaptable and creative

To improve decision-making you need to make decisions – coordination needs context. Drop the drills and build movement scenarios – Nick Winkleman

An increase in muscle mass does not appear to enhance force production

We often practice for practice instead of practice for performance

Skilled movement is not simply learning muscle commands or movement and repeating them

You can’t just “adjust” a psoas. If anybody has ever done a cadaver, you’ll know you literally have to move internal organs to reach the psoas, so poking your fingers isn’t actually doing anything

Getting out in nature is a natural anti-depressant and mentally restorative

There isn’t a single version of you – what/who you’re surrounded by influences behavior/mindset/

If you want to enhance player buy-in & real culture, focus on players that aren’t playing a lot, tell them their development plan, what they can do to improve & your interest in them. It’s easy to forget those on the bench, but many times, they drive the culture – Bhrett McCabe

Dexterity is the ability to find a motor solution for any external situation, that is, to adequately solve any emerging motor problem correctly, quickly, and resourcefully – JD Hitting

Pre-planned movements do not allow for problem solving and creativity – Warren Young

Effective agility is not always about how fast a player can move in multiple directions, it’s about effective movement to achieve an outcome – Warren Young

Articles

Private Sector Business Review

Podcasts

Research

Wylie, S. A., Bashore, T. R., Van Wouwe, N. C., Mason, E. J., John, K. D., Neimat, J. S., & Ally, B. A. (2018). Exposing an" Intangible" Cognitive Skill Among Collegiate Football Players: Enhanced Interference Control. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 49.

This data reveals a clear cognitive advantage among football athletes at executing motor responses in the face of distraction, the existence and magnitude of which vary by position. Individual differences in cognitive control may have important implications for both player selection and development to improve interference control capabilities during play.

Sugisaki, N., Kobayashi, K., Tsuchie, H., & Kanehisa, H. (2017). Associations Between Individual Lower Limb Muscle Volumes and 100-m Sprint Time in Male Sprinters.International journal of sports physiology and performance, 1-19.

Individual differences in 100-m-race performance cannot be explained by the muscularity of specific muscles, and 23% of the variability in the performance can be explained by the relative difference between the muscularity of gluteus maximus and quadriceps femoris; faster runners have a greater gluteus maximus relative to quadriceps femoris.

Jackson, R. C., Warren, S., & Abernethy, B. (2006). Anticipation skill and susceptibility to deceptive movement.Acta psychologica, 123(3), 355-371.

Participants (14 per group) attempted to predict direction change from video of expert and recreational rugby players changing direction with and without deceptive movement. Confidence associated with judgments was recorded on each trial to seek evidence regarding use of inferential (heuristic-based) and direct-perceptual (invariant-based) judgments. Novices were found to be susceptible to deceptive movement whereas skilled participants were not; however, both skilled and novice participants were more confident on trials containing deceptive movement. The data suggest that the skill-level difference in sensitivity to advance visual information extends to deceptive information. The implications of this finding, and the importance of considering the underlying process of anticipation skill.

Buckner, S. L., Jessee, M. B., Dankel, S. J., Mattocks, K. T., Abe, T., & Loenneke, J. P. (2018). Resistance exercise and sports performance: The minority report. Medical Hypotheses,113, 1-5.

Although there is a large body of cross-sectional literature providing a rationale for resistance exercise for sport, its implementation is largely based on the following: 1) An increase in muscle size will produce an increase in strength and 2) a stronger muscle will increase sports performance. However, there is a lack of evidence to support these assumptions. The weight of evidence suggests that resistance exercise may indirectly impact sports performance through injury prevention, as opposed to directly improving sport related abilities.

Moir, G. L., Brimmer, S. M., Snyder, B. W., Connaboy, C., & Lamont, H. S. (2018). Mechanical limitations to sprinting and biomechanical solutions: a constraints-led framework for the incorporation of resistance training to develop sprinting speed.Strength & Conditioning Journal, 40(1), 47-67.

The effectiveness of resistance training methods on sprinting performance is not always demonstrated experimentally. Accelerative sprinting is limited by the the requirement of a foreward-directed ground reaction force during progressively shorter stance phases that accompany higher sprinting speeds, whereas maximal speed sprinting is limited by the application of sufficient vertical impulse during stance, constraining minimal stance durations. Considering the mechanical limitations and the biomechanical solutions used by the fastest sprinters from a constraints-led perspective provides a framework from which practitioners can explore the incorporation of resistance and sprint training in the development of long-term training programs.

Oranchuk, D. J., Robinson, T. L., Switaj, Z. J., & Drinkwater, E. J. (2017). Comparison of the Hang High-Pull and Loaded Jump Squat for the Development of Vertical Jump and Isometric Force-Time Characteristics. Journal of strength and conditioning research.

While there was a significant main effect of training for both groups, no statistically significant between-group differences were found (p ≥ 0.17) for any of the dependent variables. However, medium effect sizes in favor of the jump-squat training group were seen in SJ height (d = 0.56) and SJ peak power (d = 0.69). Loaded jumps seem equally effective as weightlifting derivatives for improving lower-body power in experienced athletes. Since loaded jumps require less skill and less coaching expertise than weightlifting, loaded jumps should be considered where coaching complex movements is difficult.

Latash, M. L., Scholz, J. P., & Schöner, G. (2007). Toward a new theory of motor synergies. Motor control, 11(3), 276-308.

Driven by recent empirical studies, we offer a new understanding of the degrees of
freedom problem, and propose a refined concept of synergy as a neural organization
that ensures a one-to-many mapping of variables providing for both stability
of important performance variables and flexibility of motor patterns to deal with
possible perturbations and/or secondary tasks. Empirical evidence is reviewed,
including a discussion of the operationalization of stability/flexibility through
the method of the uncontrolled manifold. We show how this concept establishes
links between the various accounts for how movement is organized in redundant
effector systems.

Mehrab, M., de Vos, R. J., Kraan, G. A., & Mathijssen, N. M. (2017). Injury Incidence and Patterns Among Dutch CrossFit Athletes. Orthopaedic journal of sports medicine, 5(12), 2325967117745263.

A total of 449 participants met the inclusion criteria. Of all respondents, 252 athletes (56.1%) sustained an injury in the preceding 12 months. The most injured body parts were the shoulder (n = 87, 28.7%), lower back (n = 48, 15.8%), and knee (n = 25, 8.3%). The duration of participation in CrossFit significantly affected the injury incidence rates (<6 months vs ≥24 months; odds ratio, 3.687 [95% CI, 2.091-6.502]; P < .001). The majority of injuries were caused by overuse (n = 148, 58.7%).

Books

Been a slow month for reading books, only managed a measly one

Training Camp: What The Best Do Better Than Everyone Else – Jon Gordon

News

Check out our 4th Annual Elite Performance Clinic coming up on Saturday, April 14th. We have a great line-up of speakers and practitioners who will share a ton of practice info. Great opportunity to network and meet coaches in our field and we’d love to have you. For more info, check-out - https://www.building-better-athlete.com/elite-performance-clinic.html

My friend, Brett Bartholomew, put together an awesome resource that discusses the art of coaching. Check out his course as Brett covers everything from cueing, dealing with difficult athletes, various coaching styles, and human behavior. It’s a great extension of his recent book – Conscious Coaching – which is a game changer in the coaching World. Check it out this new resource - HERE

0 Comments

Private Sector Business Review

2/3/2018

0 Comments

Owning a gym/performance facility is the goal of many young and experienced coaches. You get to be your own boss, do things your way, set-up and organize a facility, get the equipment you need and want, and have total control of programming.

I got into the private sector for many of those reasons - and overall I wanted to coach and coach my way.

BUT, little did I know the various facets of owning and operating a business take their toll. Not only that, if you have no experience with business (most of us studied exercise science or the like, NOT business classes) many of the facets of pricing, marketing/advertising, website design, accounting/book keeping, insurance/liability, taxes, payroll, etc can be daunting tasks.

So I asked some friends in the private sector to give some short answers on some of the above topics.

These are coaches who have made and run a successful facility for years and have been through the ringer when it comes to these business questions.

No doubt you'll learn from their answers and hopefully their guidance can help facilities maximize their efficiency and effectiveness of their programs.

Blue = Rich Schimenek - Trois Training
Instagram - @CoachSchimenek
Twitter - @CoachSchimenek

Red = Joseph Potts - TopSpeed Strength & Conditioning

Instagram - @TopSpeedLLC
Twitter - @TopSpeedLLC

Green = Drew Heisler

Instagram - @HeislerTrainingSystems
Twitter - @HeislerTraining

Orange = King

Instagram - @King_Performance_Systems

Purple = Engineered Per4mance

Instagram - @Engineered_Per4mance
Twitter - @EngineeredPer4m

1. What ages do you work with? How do you break-up ages/grades, ie do you have a middle school group, high school group, college group, etc? Do you ever run into issues with a family that has a high school kid and middle school kid but don’t have the same training times/groups for them?

I work with athletes from 6th grade up. I only separate the high level high school and college athletes in their own group, every other session is a mix. The athlete schedules around here are really hard to work with, almost all of my athletes have some sort of “not required, but required” summer sessions with their fall sports teams. I will usually write the day’s session for the high school athletes and regress for the younger athletes, it’s what has worked the best so far.
In a perfect world I would love to break up by age group, but right now it would leave us with smaller groups that don’t maximize our time in the gym. Minnesota summers are weird like that, with the lakes around here there isn’t a ton of interest in training during the afternoon because every kid wants to be on a beach or a boat at that point.

As I general rule I only work with high school aged athletes or above. However, depending on the level of maturation we have had several 7 th graders join the program. We do have a youth class for athletes aged 5-12 that meets twice per week during non-peak hours.

I work with athletes from 6th grade and up. In an ideal world groups would be set up by sport and age. In the real world I have had to put groups together where middle school and high school kids have had to work together. I have had groups where some of my adults have had to work with some of my high school kids. It is not ideal but until I have such a demand that I have to hire more trainers, I have to make it work as best I can.

I work with mostly High school and College athletes. I do break it up that way, I have Youth, High School, College, and Pro groups. I have not ran into that problem yet.. But it is a good idea to find a solution for that before the program comes.

We have multiple groups starting with EP4Kids (3-6 year olds). We bring these little guys over from local daycare centers and travel to ones around the metro to do this class focusing on motor skill development and play. EP4Teens (mostly made up of 7-12 year olds but based on training experience. This class is focused on learning general exercise safety, technique, explosive moment and play/competition. Alpha Athlete is our sports performance program (mostly high school and collegiate athletes.) This is our general sports performance and athletic development class focused on creating general athleticism. During the summer currently we have a specific class for elite high school, top tier collegiate, and professional basketball players. After a growing interest we will have a separate collegiate and a separate professional basketball program this coming summer.
We have a few families that have kids in different groups which causes a problem with their scheduling. However, most seem very understanding of the need to separate the programs based on the needs analysis of the different ages and training history.

2. How do you structure payment - Pay per session? Monthly Packages? Set start and end blocks of training – August 1st – October 31st = $x? How did you come up with your pricing structure? How did you decide on price points? If you’re willing to share – can you share what your prices are for your packages – if not, I completely understand.

We do monthly payments during the school year and a package payment over the summer. We charge $150/month for 3 days of training and $120/month for 2 days during the school year. Summer sessions are around the same price, but for marketing reasons I do it as a training package. For example, this summer was $350 total, which was about $13.50 per session. Last summer was $450, but we had 3 more weeks of training than this summer. I base the summer packages off how many weeks we train and what I want for price per session.
My pricing was determined by my personal cost of living and what I know people will pay around this area. Also, being a small business I’ve found it’s easier to charge like this since I have to enter everything by hand. Packages mean fewer checks to enter and cards to swipe, but monthly over the school year allows me to track who’s paid and who hasn’t each month. I wouldn’t recommend it for a big facility, but it works for us.

We charge per session. To set my price I called around to local commercial gyms and found out how much they charged for personal training and prorated that out to allow for the semi-private versus private setting. Our sessions run $40-50 each depending on the package the athlete enrolls in.

I offer group rates of 180$ per month for 2x per week training and 240$ per month for 3x week training. I offer a daily group rate of 25$ per session and private sessions are 50 per hour. My rates have gone up a bit over the years, as my original pricing was fairly low. I have learned that charging a higher rate leads to more clients who respect you, your time and will work a little bit harder than those who want the world for less. I have also found that I am better able to provide high quality training when I am working with groups of 3 or 4 rather than 5 to 8. To keep the quality high and to attract the right clientele my rates will settle somewhere near charging 25$ per hour per person. This stuff is my least favorite part of owning.

This is what I am currently working on restructuring. We currently do Monthly packages. But are working on adding in blocks of training instead of just the monthly option (1month, 3months, 6months, 9 months, and 12 months). I try to keep the pricing as reasonable as possible, especially for the high school and youth athletes.

All of our sports performance programs are month-to-month memberships. Due to the fact that the athletes participate in a wide variety of sports they need the ability to leave during season or when training/school/life outside of here becomes too much. They are year round to tailor to all sports and not separated by training time blocks. We do offer specific “speed/conditioning” blocks over school breaks for athletes that are back in town.
All of our adult fitness classes, however, are based on contracts. The longer they commit the cheaper the price. This structure allows for stability within the business because I can count on that amount coming every month regardless and helps drive all business/ marketing decisions.

I came up with the structure by essentially reverse engineering what I needed to make to keep the business operable (utilities, rent, payroll, etc.) Our business plan was based on a three year building process where I would essentially not take a salary and always give anything extra back into the business, whether that be new equipment or employee, to keep pushing forward until we are where I need to be. I have many friends that started gyms across the country and many of them essentially just guessed what the market would pay and all of them are running into issues raising prices to match what they need. We have always believed our product is valuable and you must treat it that way. When I fist started doing market research I went to a big global box close to us that charges less than $20 a month. When I asked how they sustain that they said they have 2000 members. I then asked how they accommodate that many members and he told me “well maybe 10% show up”. These people are helping no one. If 10% of my athletes are showing up I have failed but I understand the business, that’s just not us. On the other hand, I have talked with a guy that lives in LA and he had to keep raising his prices over and over to force some accountability among his very wealthy clientele. Also I knew of one other facility that is in the sports performance world in the area and has been around with no competition for a very long time and they have gotten complacent in the programming/care of their athletes. I knew I wanted to be more expensive than them to prove to the athlete that we are more valuable. All of this to say I believe the price needs to be set at 1. what you need to make. 2. Enough to value your product/education/risk/ time. 3. Enough to force the members to value the product enough to show up and get results.
Pricing:
EP4Kids (1 day per week, 30 min sessions): $35/mo
EP4Teens (2 days per week, 1 hour sessions): $80/mo
Alpha Athlete (4 days per week, 1 hour sessions): $145/mo
All sport specific classes including elite/pro basketball (3-4 days per week): $145/mo Adult fitness (unlimited classes, 1 hour sessions)
12 month commitment: $135
6 month commitment: $145
3 month commitment: $160
month-to-month: $175

3. Do your athletes schedule for specific days per week at specific times – 2-days per week on Tues/Thurs; 3-days per week Mon/Wed/Fri – or do they have unlimited sessions or can they come in on any day/time?

Summer: Set schedule of day/time every week. We see a lot more athletes over the summer and have to schedule accordingly to avoid chaos.
School Year: Suggested scheduling. I try to encourage the athletes to show up in a set schedule but allow flexibility to accommodate the things that come up during the school year. Got a big test? Don’t train that morning. Want to travel to a football game on Friday? Let’s train Mon/Wed/Thurs this week instead. We don’t see as many athletes during the school year so it’s easier to allow some flexibility in the schedule. Every athlete has my cell phone number and is encouraged to communicate as things happen.

They are allowed to book during any day/time that we’re open

In an ideal world I would set up my 3-day programs on Mondays-Wednesdays-Fridays and my 2-day programs on Tuesday-Thursday. I have some clients who are available on the same days each week and others who have to change their schedule a bit each week. If they purchase a package, I make sure they are able to train either 2 or 3 days per week.

The schedule is based off the program the athletes sign up for (Weight room, speed or unlimited) We do speed Tuesday & Thursday and weight room work Monday, Wednesday, Friday.

All of the sports performance programs are set schedules ranging from 1 to 4 days per week depending on the program. We have three Alpha Athlete classes (6:30am MTThF, 5:30pm MTWTh, 6:30pm MTWTh). This typically provides enough freedom to work around our athletes busy schedule and avoids Friday evening (which we found people just wouldn’t show up to). Our adult fitness classes are unlimited. Each day is a different focus so we work with the client to decide which days/times/classes to come to to best meet their goals but ultimately it is up to them when they come.

4.Do they schedule online, and if so what platform do you use? Are athletes limited on the # of times they can come in during a week?

We’ve tried scheduling online through a few programs and I’ve found it just works better in person. It forces the athletes to interact with me to set their weekly schedule and to take responsibility for the schedule they ask for.

They do schedule online, we use the Mindbody service. I recommend that they not train more than 4 times per week.

I don’t do online scheduling but creating an option for that is a feature I will have on my revamped website

All scheduling is based off the programs, or if they are personal training clients. For athletes we do a max 5 times a week.

We do online scheduling. We use Mind Body Online as the platform. Each athlete has a username and password to log into the app or website and reserve there spot in a class. The adult fitness classes are capped at 10 people so after 10 sign ups the class is closed. The Sports Performance program is sold out so we just don’t sell any more after a specific session is capped and we expect them to show up to that session each week. When the athletes get here they check in on an iPad at the front that tells the coach and our staff who is showing up etc.

5. What challenges have you found with your current system?

The only problem is when people try have flexible scheduling over the summer. We see about 100 athletes a day in the summer and it’s a huge problem if kids are jumping sessions or asking for special times.

Mindbody updated their app and it lost functionality in several areas. It’s been that way for a couple of months now. Kids also forget their password and end up making multiple accounts for themselves which is annoying.

I hate talking about money with my clients. I hate it so much that I have actually avoided telling clients they are due for payment and as a result I have allowed plenty of clients to train for free. Another big weakness of this industry is how much of our work is unpaid. I am sure you spend a large amount of time planning your athletes training and unless you have that time built into your rates, you aren’t paid for it. My fiancé is an attorney and she gets paid for sending an email. She gets reimbursed for driving to a settlement or a closing (she does real estate law). It makes me realize how much work I do for free. While I know it isn’t reasonable for us to get paid for all the time we spend working I would like to get paid for more of my time.

There hasn't been many challenges so far, luckily. A lot of people complain about having to register for a "program" rather than just having random sessions when ever they want, but that alone speaks for the commitment of those athletes. The athletes that buy into the "program" and are committed, love it.

We are constantly tweaking things so we are more than happy to admit a mistake and change the way something is being done. Currently we have athletes in all different sports/seasons/times of school/etc and these variables are causing some issue. Our coaches are great at regressing/progressing/lateralizing exercise and changing the volume for a specific athlete but I want more control over that.

6. If you could change one thing about your current system, what would it be?

Auto payments or EFT would be really nice, we just haven’t found a system that works for us yet.

When the app was fully functional I had 0 complaints outside of the lack of a multi-client check in option.

I want to figure out a system of recurring monthly payments. I don’t want to handle money directly from my clients and I want to get rid of daily payments. As I mentioned above, I would like to set up a system where I am paid for more of the time I put into the business.

The one thing I am working on, is guaranteed monthly income, when doing the monthly payments, athletes can stop coming and there goes that income, with long term commitment or automatic payments it would save a lot of time and fix that problem.

Our solution to the above problem is I am currently developing an iPad app that each athlete checks in at the beginning of a workout. The app asks for basic information regarding readiness (sleep duration, if they ate recently, when was last competition, next competition, current injuries, mood, etc). This will then put the athletes into 3 different categories that ranges in volume, intensity, and recovery methods.

7. What advice would you give to new or even experienced performance gym owners on pricing?

Know how much you’re worth, find how much they’ll pay, and get those two numbers as close as possible. I realize private training isn’t for everyone, but you are a professional and have bills to pay.

Find out the cost for similar services within a 40-50 miles radius and be competitive with those, but also bear in mind your own experience and worth. I would laugh at an inexperienced/novice coach charging as much as one with years of experience.

Figure out your worth and charge accordingly. Do not undercut yourself. This is a great industry to be in but you might not want to train people all day for the rest of your life. Figure out what you need to charge in order to put some money away each month.

Don't be the cheapest facility just to get clients. Value your time. Provide the athletes more than what they are paying for.

I laid most of my advise out in the previous question. The thing I want to reiterate is you must value yourself. I had very hard time with that out of school as a chiropractor at first and then certainly as a coach. I listened to a podcast once with the advise to imagine a projector shooting out the back of your head that shows who ever you are talking to exactly what you are thinking. People pick up on what you really feel versus what you are saying. If you believe your product is valuable your athlete will too and everyone benefits.

8. How far do you pull athletes from ie 20mile radius? What is the size of your market/how big is the city you run your facility in?

St. Cloud has a population of about 50,000 and is surrounded by a few smaller towns that add about 20-30,000 more people. There’s 7 high schools within 20 miles of the gym that we draw from, with a few kids driving from farther than that. Almost all of our recruiting is from word-of-mouth and athletes bringing friends in. We do some marketing in the form of apparel, buying ad space in sport programs where our clients play, and giving gift packages to local fundraisers, but all of these account for about 5% of our marketing. I would say 95% of our clients are from referrals and “bring a friend” days from our athletes.
Social media is the king of marketing for me. My athletes beg to be on my Instagram and you’re a local celebrity at high school if you make it on there. I have no idea how this became a thing, but it’s been great for business and awareness with the kids in this area.

We will occasionally have athletes come from up to 70-100 miles away to train but routinely draw athletes from up to a 30-40 miles radius. The city we operate in has a population of 53k, with bordering cities at 130k. The population within a 50 mile radius is estimated at 2.4 million.

I honestly couldn’t tell you how far our clients travel in terms of miles. I would say most of my clients travel between 5 and 25 minutes to the gym. I opened my facility in a small town because the rent was low and I had very little money. I am looking to move the gym or open a second location in a much more heavily populated area.

In recent months we have had athletes (college and professional) commit to driving 2-6hours to come train at our facility. It isn't a HUGE market here, and new gyms seem to pop up every week now a days. Our city population is about 320,000.

We chose Ankeny because it has a massive sports market. The city itself has a population of 59,000 and is currently the third fastest growing city in the US. They value their sports performance here and always have. When I was growing up Ankeny athletes were always incredible and the parents and fans were great. I chased that to this community. The vast majority of our athletes are local and live within a 5-10 mile radius. We have a couple that come from Carlisle, Waukee, and West Des Moines (about 20 miles in any direction) and that seems to be the farthest people have traveled.

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January In Review

1/31/2018

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Random Thoughts

Don’t water down the perception/information – Shawn Myszka

It is unwise to pull the movement out of their respective equation – Shawn Myszka

When trying to develop “technique” it needs to be done in open environment – never de-coupling a movement/action

Manipulation of constraints can lead to successful development of motor patterns, decision-making

Rather than just trying to mimic a movement pattern – place athletes in representative environment where they must discover appropriate movement solutions

Performance is superior when perception–action is coupled. It is unwise to un-couple this process – Rob Gray

We perceive in order to move and move in order to perceive – Shawn Myszka

You need decision making before the technique – the process of learning a technique cannot interfere with the perception. The problem is we as coaches learn in the opposite - We learn technique/biomechanics, but omit the perception. Instead we should emphasize perception and build technique into the athlete’s perceptions.

A skilled mover changes his or her movement based on their interaction/perception of the environment and task

The essence of sport is movement – Bruce Lee

Sports are really just a problem solving activity with our movements are used to solve those problems – Shawn Myszka

Soccer has about 600 cuts in a game – Sophia Nimphius

What is ideal agility mechanics? There is no consensus - I have found that what is perfect for one is not perfect for another though this is contrary to popular belief.

We as S&C coaches should be sitting in on film meetings, meeting with coaches, etc

The environment should be variable to have continuous changes so athletes have constantly make differing decisions

Movement variation is a deviation from “norm” – so movement variability can be seen as the athlete searching for more an effective solution.

Adding pressure/anxiety can quickly reveal movement dysfunction. When we don’t add pressure/anxiety to training, athletes will break down in competition

What should/can coaches do
- Be more hands off
- Aim to facilitate
- Encourage exploration and creativity. Applaud failure

Because of coaches incomplete knowledge of practice variables, they are often inefficient in their practice session

Learning is a problem-solving process in which the goal of an action represents the problem to be solved and the evolution of a movement configuration represents the performer’s attempt to solve the problem.

Sources of information available during and after each attempt to solve a problem are remembered and form the basis for learning

Critical for learning – a) an action plan, b) feedback

To increase learning, one must increase information

Be aware of trying to fit an athlete into what we deem as an ideal technical model, fit your coaching to each athlete’s current model.

I've found improving an athletes understanding of sport IQ, sport objectives, and sport flow improves movement strategies because the athlete now better understands the end goal, and with that in mind, they have a better understanding of more optimal solutions.

The whiteboard initiates the process, practice develops it, and games mature it

Sport movement is unnatural and continually evolving

You only get so many live bullets, practice them

We can’t only consider commands going from the brain to the body – efferent - Rob Gray

We need to consider afferent commands – information coming from the body to the brain – Rob Gray

You can’t take an action out of its context and only train movement. Athletes need to learn how to adapt movements using afferent information from the environment

Behavioral decision-making is a complex, temporally extended process, and it makes little sense to consider a putative optimal decision prior to, or independently of, the behavioral expression of that decision during performance

Perceptual-cognitive strategies are task dependent the time to perform an action and the accuracy of decisions are more consistent when performers are required to perceive to act than when they perceive to communicate – For example, athletes required to perform a sport action in comparison to when they were required to report a decision or judge a situation pressing a button

Sports performance comprises two primary components; the ‘how’ (referring to technique), and ‘what’ (referring to tactics)

An unanswered question in the literature is whether technical ability (how) affects the ability to make a decision (what)

Perceptual-cognitive skill can be considered to be what one is able to perceive and understand; perceptual-motor skill refers to what one is able to perceive and do through movement

Repeated exposure to a stimulus may produce stronger representations between the stimuli and associated performance

The most prevalent method of assessing perceptual-cognitive skill in team sports has been to use video-based tests of decision-making ability where perception is uncoupled from an action. These essentially cognitive tasks result in an obvious reduction in ecological validity when comparing this to testing which takes place in-situ

Totally conscious of not making errors can self-disrupt the most basic, fundamental skills by making the athlete aware of a skill they otherwise do subconsciously

Coaches are often forced to sacrifice long-term cures for short-term fixes

A coach should be aware of technical deficiencies in the skills of athletes but must find ways to correct deficiencies with minimum conscious awareness of the athlete

Podcasts

Research

Guadagnoli, M. A., & Lee, T. D. (2004). Challenge point: a framework for conceptualizing the effects of various practice conditions in motor learning. Journal of motor behavior, 36(2), 212-224.

This paper explores the effects of practice conditions on motor learning, specifically looking at contextual interference and knowledge of results. Learning is related to information arising from performance, which should be prioritized during training/practice. The challenge point hypothesis is presented.

Ajemian, R., D’Ausilio, A., Moorman, H., & Bizzi, E. (2010). Why professional athletes need a prolonged period of warm-up and other peculiarities of human motor learning. Journal of motor behavior, 42(6), 381-388.

The warm-up for high level athletes needs to seen as more than just general ie raising body temperature, preparing tissues, increasing CNS – but rather as a chance to recalibrate fine motor skills

Amazing Athletes With Ordinary Habits: Why Is Changing Behavior So Difficult?."International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, 12(10), pp. 1273–1274

We all know that eliminating non-desirable behaviors can be difficult, even when there is a clear understanding that poor habits are detrimental. Athletes often know the benefits of diet, exercise, and drinking less alcohol, yet short-term bursts of enthusiasm are more common than long-term change. Academics in behavior change consistently report that efforts to change health behaviors, such as the ones mentioned, have had limited success.
Experienced coaches and sport scientists often represent the “front line” when it comes to promoting changes in an athlete’s behavior and positive habits. Unfortunately, change is often difficult; some athletes will resist change, as the effort required to change poor behaviors may not always seem to be worth it. Or, perhaps fear of the outcome stifles initiation and following through with desired changes.
Trying to get athletes to sleep more is a common example of trying to modify behavior to improve performance. Many will agree that sleep is a pleasant activity. Additionally, sleep researchers have revealed many benefits of consistent sleep for the athlete. The fact that most individuals actually like to sleep and complain when they do not get enough sleep suggests that it should not be difficult to get athletes to improve sleep behavior. However, athletes often obtain well below the general recommendation of 8 hours of sleep per night.
Potentially one of the hardest things to change is the use of electronic devices before bed. How do we get our athletes to limit or stop Instagram and Netflix time creeping into sleep time? How do we get athletes to prioritize sleep over “the fun stuff.”? Athletes can have knowledge and desire, but continue to miss out on what is good for them. We can know something and even believe that changing a behavior is important and yet still do nothing. Clearly, changing behavior is more complex than just common sense. If it were simple we would all make the changes we know we should make.
Behavioral modification has been theoretically discussed and applied by many. More recently, Bill Beswick (British sports psychologist) presented a model that discusses 3 drivers of behavioral change, credibility, reliability, and intimacy, all underpinned by trust.
In elite sport, credibility is crucial; on one hand there are the necessary qualifications to consider, and on the other hand, and perhaps even more important, is “street credibility,” which is typically related to the level of experience possessed by the sports scientist or coach. It is relatively easy to provide athletes with basic sleep information, but to be effective it can be important to consider issues such as late-night video games and caffeine use that are unique to the elite athlete. Sometimes “experts” in their fields cannot connect and engage with the athlete if they do not fully understand the athlete’s world. The second driver Beswick refers to is reliability. How many times have you heard a sport scientist promise to deliver a report or follow-up with the athlete, yet fail to deliver? If you are not reliable, athletes’ trust can be lost and athletes may not want to work with you. The third driver is intimacy, similar to emotional intelligence and reflecting how in tune you are with the athlete. How well do you listen, observe body language, and understand the athlete’s mood without even talking? Will the athlete open up to you about what may be interfering with his or her sleep or just lie and tell you everything is going fine? And, of course, many athletes may actually like sport science but not like the sport scientist they work with.

Florent Lebon, Célia Ruffino, Ian Greenhouse, Ludovica Labruna, Richard B Ivry, Charalambos Papaxanthis; The Neural Specificity of Movement Preparation During Actual and Imagined Movements, Cerebral Cortex

Current theories consider motor imagery, the mental representation of action, to have considerable functional overlap with the processes involved in actual movement preparation and execution. To test the neural specificity of motor imagery, we conducted a series of 3 experiments using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). We compared changes in corticospinal excitability as people prepared and implemented actual or imagined movements, using a delayed response task in which a cue indicated the forthcoming response. TMS pulses, used to elicit motor-evoked responses in the first dorsal interosseous muscle of the right hand, were applied before and after an imperative signal, allowing us to probe the state of excitability during movement preparation and implementation. Similar to previous work, excitability increased in the agonist muscle during the implementation of an actual or imagined movement. Interestingly, preparing an imagined movement engaged similar inhibitory processes as that observed during actual movement, although the degree of inhibition was less selective in the imagery conditions. These changes in corticospinal excitability were specific to actual/imagined movement preparation, as no modulation was observed when preparing and generating images of cued visual objects. Taken together, inhibition is a signature of how actions are prepared, whether they are imagined or actually executed.

Jarvis, P., Turner, A., Chavda, S., & Bishop, C. (2017). The acute effects of heavy sled towing on subsequent sprint acceleration performance. Journal of Trainology, 6(1), 18-25.

Eight athletes performed sprints under three different weighted sled conditions – 1x50% body mass, 2x50% body mass, 3x50% body mass followed by unweighted sprints (15m) after 4,8,12 min rest. Significantly faster sprint times for 3x50% body mass protocol following 8min rest compared to 1x50%, 2x50%

Faubert, J. (2013). Professional athletes have extraordinary skills for rapidly learning complex and neutral dynamic visual scenes. Scientific reports, 3, 1154.

A distinguishing factor explaining the capacities of professional athletes is their ability to learn how to process complex dynamic visual scenes.

Young, W. B., Miller, I. R., & Talpey, S. W. (2015). Physical qualities predict change-of-direction speed but not defensive agility in Australian rules football. The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, 29(1), 206-212.

Reactive strength and sprint acceleration are important for COD speed, but those qualities are not associated with defensive agility performance.

Farrow, D., & Robertson, S. (2017). Development of a skill acquisition periodisation framework for high-performance sport. Sports Medicine, 47(6), 1043-1054.

Unlike physical training, skill acquisition does not currently utilize periodization to plan, monitor and evaluate programs.

Guadagnoli, M. A., & Lee, T. D. (2004). Challenge point: a framework for conceptualizing the effects of various practice conditions in motor learning. Journal of motor behavior, 36(2), 212-224.

Motor learning is related to the information arising from performance. Authors look at practice variables such as skill level and task difficulty.

Greenham, G., Hewitt, A., & Norton, K. (2017). A pilot study to measure game style within Australian football. International Journal of Performance Analysis in Sport, 17(4), 576-585.

Game style was measured using 12 performance indicators. This analysis can highlight areas of concern in specific play periods or phases and help with organizing training drills and practice.

Gabbett, T., & Masters, R. (2011). Challenges and solutions when applying implicit motor learning theory in a high performance sport environment: Examples from Rugby League. International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching,6(4), 567-575.

Aim of this paper is to describe some of the challenges faced by high-performance coaches and athletes who may wish tot use implicit motor learning to frame potential solutions with respects to Australian NRL.

Books

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Coaching In The Private vs Public Sectors

1/23/2018

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I've spent the past 5-years coaching in both the private and public sectors. That's 5+ years owning my own sports performance facility working with athletes from 1st Grade -> Middle School -> HS -> College -> Professional -> Adults.

In a few months, I'll also be wrapping up my 5th year handling the Strength and Conditioning duties for various college teams ranging from baseball, lacrosse, golf, and tennis. I also spent my 4-month internship at the University level at the University of Minnesota, primarily working with football, hockey, basketball, swimming, and wrestling.

While short in comparison to others experiences, this timeframe does give me a pretty decent amount of experience and appreciation of both sectors, and many of the nuances of each.

Young coaches are often dealt with the task of deciding which field to enter, and unfortunately in our field, the deeper you go into one field, the harder it becomes to switch to the other field; so understanding the pros and cons of each sector can help young coaches hopefully make better career decisions.

I'd like to add that as a whole, both fields need to do a better job of coming together and working together INSTEAD of competing against each other. A week doesn't go by where I don't see some quote or tweet or hear from an athlete about a coach in the public sector bashing the private sector.

"They only want your money"
"Why would you pay when you can get the same thing here for free?"
"Only selfish athletes seek out private sector training"
"Private sector coaches just use flashy gimics that look cool in videos"

Believe it or not, most private sector coaches are NOT in it for the money; they're actually in it for the same reasons public sector coaches are - they love to coach, they love to work with and be around athletes, they want to make a positive impact. Another believe it or not, many, if not most, coaches in the private sector are not making much money, they're just trying to make ends meet and provide for their family.

I also know, athletes only seek out services from the private sector when they feel they're missing something from their school. I know, the quality of product I'm able to provide is much better in my private facility over with my teams. The 20-30 athletes at one time, freshman through senior athlete experience, 1-hour time window, and facility/equipment restriction all handcuff many aspects that I'm otherwise able to provide at my private facility.
Before bitching about athletes seeking out the services from a private facility, ask yourself

Is your weight room open on Saturdays?
Is your weight room open on Sundays?
Is your weight room open at 5:30am?
Is your weight room open at 8:00pm?
Is your weight room open over holidays seasons (day before/after holidays)?
Do you listen to your athletes and ask for their opinion during the training process?
Do you assess your athletes and seek to individualize their training?
Is your training really optimal for each individual athlete, especially when there are 20-50 athletes training at one time?

Instead of getting mad at your athletes and holding it against them, how about you look at yourself and auditing your own program. If a team sport athlete of mine sought after private training, I would understand why and I wouldn't get upset that they need the team training and they're being selfish. I would understand the limitations I can provide and know the athlete is just seeking what's best for them.

So in no particular order, here are some broad categories pertaining to each the private and public sectors...

Caliber of Athlete

In the public sector, you generally get to work with higher level athletes (I know the field of HS S&C is growing, but when I speak of public sector in this sense, I'm speaking of college or professional).
If an athlete playing in college, they have some quality skills and talents, although many may not be very skilled in the weight room.  Heck I’ve worked with college kids that can’t skip, squat, do a push-up, pull-up; but when they’re on the field/court, they are very impressive.

In the private sector, you're typically dealing with HS and middle school kids, and often kids who are absolutely new to a performance program. When I was young I wanted to own my own facility so I could work with professional athletes.  I was going to train these athletes with advanced techniques and create absolute monster’s!
That’s everyone’s dream right?
Well quickly you’ll learn that this probably won’t happen.  Heck if you work with a handful of college and professional athletes, you’ll be pretty lucky.  More than likely, most of your population will be young beginners and general population clients that are very poor at the basics.

Understand that 90% of your clients will never be ready for most of the advanced and intense training regimes we read and study.  Advanced tri-phasic, shock method, stimulation method, Westside, French Contrast, APRE, etc are all great, but in most private settings, these will be out of the realm for most of your clients.

Now don’t get me wrong, there are gyms out there that have elite athletes and can train with some of these advanced methods, but understand this won’t happen overnight.  Most of the time you’ll be teaching the very basics – how to squat, skip, row, push-up, hex bar deadlift - over and over and over again.

Hours

Oh the hours of being a S&C Coach!  No matter the sector, you’re going to be working some long, crappy hours.

First get used to being up by 5:30am every weekday, and that’s late.  I arrive at my facility around 4:45am every morning to get things prepared for 5:30am groups. Some college S&C’s arrive even earlier and often have a pretty decent commute to get there!

If you are not a morning person, you should start looking for a different career, because by the time regular Joe’s and Jane’s wake-up, we’ve already put a couple hours under our belt.

If the early mornings weren’t enough, then the 12-16 hour days might be.  In a public setting, coaches are typically there from 5:00am until 3:00-4:00pm.  Don’t forget about traveling with the team to games and working weekends.

At my facility, during the summer it’s pretty much straight through 6:00am until 7-8:00pm.  During the school year, I’m a little more lucky because it’s 5:30-11:00am then off until 2:30pm, and then go 2:30-9:00pm.

No matter your choice, they are LONG days, and not only that but you’re on your feet for the majority of it.  Standing, walking, demonstrating, jumping around, and building excitement for this long, everyday takes its toll.  This is one of the first things coaches learn when they enter the field.

Periodization

In the private sector, you'll typically get an athlete for an extended period of time, and KNOW that you'll have that athlete for 2-4 years.

In the private sector, you don't know whether you'll have a certain athlete for a month, 3-months, 3-years. Obviously you hope they return for your services year after year, but in many cases you might only get an athlete for a certain 3-month stretch every year, and then not see them for 9-months.

This means how you program and introduce concepts is vastly different between jobs. Knowing you have multiple years, and will be with an athlete for 11-months of the year allows you to have a much better idea of how to plan and progress athletes.

Not knowing if you will have an athlete for 1-month or 3-months changes how you approach their training. You might exclude things that have longer learning curves, you will have a greater sense of urgency, you might stick to progressions longer, etc.

Planning for athletes in the private sector involves much more conversation and daily/weekly tweeks to an athletes program compared to the public sector - some coaches enjoy this, others do not.

Duties of the Job

Working or own your own private gym is great and all, but be aware you’ll be wearing many different hats.

My “cool” title as owner and head of sports performance is nice on a business card and it allows me to design programs for all my athletes and plan out all the aspects of physical preparation.

Now what you don’t see are all my other titles: receptionist, marketing and advertising, janitor, account manager, handy man...

Toilets clogged? That’s my job.
Floors/Rubber Flooring (3000 sq/ft worth) need vacuuming/mopping for the 3rd time this week? That’s me.
Finished working a 14-hour day now benches and tables need wiping down and laundry needs to be done? I’m on it.
Phone calls and emails are piled up? Guess I’ll spend the next hour taking care of those.
Need to restock on toilet paper, garbage bags, disinfectant, light bulbs, soap, and protein supplies? I’ll make an errand run.
50 saved receipts from the past month need to be entered into a spread sheet? Hopefully you're well versed in excel

There are a ton of non-pretty tasks and jobs that need to be done, and if you’re in the private sector, that’s your job! If you're lucky you might be in a position where you can hire cleaning services or are in a public building that does some of these jobs, but it's been my experience that most of these jobs fall upon the business owner.

In the public sector, these jobs are probably not your worry. You don't have to worry about the bathroom, or vacuuming the facility, or taking phone calls, or worrying about marketing/advertising, or filling out spread sheets, etc. You also probably don't have to worry about equipment issues or putting together new equipment - there are people for that.

That being said, you may be part of hiring committees, leadership committees, required to attend athletic meetings, and sport coach meetings - so getting used to sitting in on hours of meetings becomes normal.

Pay

There has been a rise in S&C pay in the past 5-years, and were now seeing strength coaches with salaries of 400k or more. The average DI head Football S&C is making around ~200k - that's damn good money.

That being said, there are still plenty of assistants, Olympic sport S&C's, and S&C's at the DII, DIII, and HS levels making penny's compared to Football S&C.

A rising tide raises all ships - coaches making more money and getting seen as more and more valuable is only a positive for our profession.

Instead of getting jealous or thinking so and so is making 300k! I'm a way better coach. Understand it can only be seen as a positive that coaches are getting paid better and it will only positively effect coaches at all levels sooner than later.

In the private sector, understand, you probably won't make much money during your initial years - especially if you're the one starting the business. With all the expenses it takes to get a facility running and keeping it rolling, it's takes some time before things start paying for themselves.

I spent my first year owning my business sleeping on a futon in the back storage room on my facility. I lived on protein shakes and $5 pizza's from Little Ceasar's. I hustled for every penny, busted my ass for every client, and knocked on every door I could to get things going.
No one saw what that first year was like, no one saw the 1am working on a programs or a project around the facility; no one saw the Sundays; no one felt the fatigue from coaching for 16-hours; no one felt the hunger from not eating solid food for days at a time .
But this is why I'm picky about every penny I spend, this is why I don't like not coaching every session - because no one can understand what I sacrificed to now have a gym filled with athletes and they'll never understand the sense of urgency and energy needed every single day.
People take for granted when they see something without appreciation for how they got that way. New interns or coaches take for granted having every session filled with athletes and think that's normal BUT they didn't go through any of the pains or hustle that got it that way.
That being said, I truly think everyone should go through periods of their life where they struggle, they're poor, they're living week to week, they have to hustle for every dollar, go hungry - it's makes you appreciate the small things and the experience and lessons learned serve you well down the road.

Sorry for the rant, but the beauty of private coaches is they don't have a ceiling for pay. If they do a great job, organize a well structured business, and are able to charge for their services - they can continue to increase their earnings.

In the public sector, minus being at a Power 5 conference, you're typically set in your salary for multiple years. Teams could win championships, athletic programs can have tremendous success, but the S&C coach will likely stay at their set salary.

This is a major reason coaches move quite frequently, in search of those higher paying jobs. So even though we see DI coaches making 200k-400k, understand there are far more coaches at other levels/schools still making 25-40k.

Benefits

One of the often unseen benefits of working in a public setting is the benefits a coach receives. Typically, full health insurance, matched retirement, PTO, and vacation.

In the private sector, don't expect any of that. No health insurance (hopefully your spouse can provide that), you're responsible for long-term financial investments, no built in sick days or vacation.

I have many friends in the college realm, and depending on the sport(s) they coach, they typically get 2-3 stretches of the year where they won't have any teams for 2-3 weeks. So typically, a solid 4-6 weeks with no teams - great opportunities for vacation and/or a chance to recharge their batteries and catch up on project, programming, etc.

In the 5-years of my business, we've never been closed for more than 3 days in a row. I've taken one 10-day vacation for my honeymoon. If I get a weekend of no coaching, it's a small miracle.

As coaches get older and start families, many of these added benefits are huge and may override some of the potential luxuries of the private sector.

Freedom

Working in the private sector generally gives you a lot of freedom in terms of programming, duration, and timing. While coaching in the College setting you’re usually restricted to certain time frames and restricted hours; in the private sector, I can spend just about as much time as I want with an athlete and coach at many different times.

I have said this before, and will continue to say it - I'm able to put out a better product in my private facility than I am with my college teams.

Why?

Better athlete to coach ratio
More time
More space
Better able to individualize training
No restrictions from sport coaches or head S&C coach

In many instances S&C coaches are at the will of their Head Sport Coach. If a Sport Coach wants his team to Olympic Lift, you’ll likely have to implement Olympic Lifts. If a Coach wants his athletes to run 300-Shuttles, you’ll probably have to follow his or her will.

Also, many assistant S&C coaches are also at the will of the head S&C coach. So they may be implementing the head S&C's program or have certain restrictions based on what the head S&C stipulates. So even if it’s something you don’t agree on, you might be forced to include exercises/drills you don’t want to.

Now coaches for years have gotten around this by doing whatever pleases their coaches, but in low doses. If coaches have good rapport and experience with their Head Coach, they can often talk to them about why they don’t want to do certain things or are given freedom to do what they please. But for many coaches, the big boss runs the show and what he or she says, goes or you may risk losing your job.

Overall

There are plenty of pros and cons of each the public and private sectors, and it really comes down to each individual coach.

As a former athlete, I'm driven towards the team setting and to me nothing beats a big game. But as a coach, I feel more impact and more influence as a coach in the private sector.

As I get older, the public sector may be a better calling with the less physical stress of being my feet for 14 hours, added benefits, less stress of owning a business, and more time off for family.

For now, BBA is what I enjoy most. The population of athletes, freedom and growth as a coach, individual attention able to provide for each athlete... plus I get to bring my dog to work everyday too!

You might also enjoy a Podcast I did with Matt Gifford (NXLevel), Steve Brown (UW-Oshkosh), Zach Cahill (Northern Illinois), Korey Van Wyk (Northwestern College) where we talked about working in the public vs private sectors.

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Product Review: Open Barbell VBT

1/13/2018

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Open Barbell is a VBT tool that records average and peak velocity. It also comes with a free App, that allows the user to use more in-depth metrics such as percent loss, absolute loss, set loss, minimum set, maximum set, etc - but this does mean a cell phone(s) does have to be out on the floor.

The Open Barbell is small and compact (about the shape and size of a soda can). So it's very easy to transport and move from bar to bar - MUCH easier than a Tendo Unit. The unit itself, has a very small screen that immediately gives off average and peak velocity - you can see athletes reading off scores for each other in the video below. As you can see, the Open Barbell requires a plate to be used as an anchor (uses a magnet) and can be difficult to read because the screen is so small.

Go to for vertical power development. #hexbarjumps

A post shared by Michael Zweifel (@bbaperformance) on Nov 9, 2017 at 9:23am PST

Pros

Size - it's the size of a soda can, so you can easily travel with it in a backpack or even from rack to rack
You can scroll through past reps
Price - a typical VBT tool is around $1-3K, while the Open Barbell is only $250
The App allows for much more detailed metrics to be used and gives the user greater options

Cons

The screen is very small. You need a partner, to closely look at the score to give you immediate feedback. Unlike a Tendo or GymAware where the athlete can see the score, with the Open Barbell the athlete must be told their score.
I bought the magnet bar attachments, and they are not all that durable and come off the bar if dropped or rack sharply. I would recommend just using the bar straps that come with the unit.
The unit shows 2 numbers - average velocity & peak velocity, BUT shows average velocity in Large Font while peak velocity in Small Font and this CANNOT be changed. You literally can't read the peak velocity reading without being about a foot away - You cannot stand above it and read it. It would be nice to be able to switch which reading is in Large Font as their are times measuring peak velocity is more meaningful than measuring average velocity.

Overall, the Open Barbell is a nice VBT at a good cost. It has some shortcomings but is a very nice inexpensive alternative to the more expensive versions. I personally think VBT is an overrated tool and most of the VBT tools are way overpriced given, in my opinion, their limited uses. But if a VBT tool is in your future, the Open Barbell is a good choice.

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Product Review: G-Flight

1/13/2018

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G-Flight is a product that allows for a number of jump metrics to be measured. It uses a beam between the two units to measure air/ground time. After a jump the G-Flight displays information on jump height (in cm), GCT (in ms), and RSI. The G-Flight is small and can easily be stored in a backpack or pockets for great portability. It doesn't require batteries, just needs to be charged between uses.

http://www.exsurgo.us/gshop/

Beta Model

Pros

Cost - I picked up one of the beta models, so the cost was only ~$150
Portability
GCT - I love this application, something that a Just Jump Mat doesn't provide (The newer computers can provide it for the Just Jump Mat, but not the traditional computers).
RSI - G-Flight immediately displays RSI, again another amazing tool that saves a ton of calculation time

Cons

Since I picked up a beta model, it has cords and these can get in the way, are easily bumped, and overall annoying. The newer model DOES NOT have cords so thats a big upgrade.
The two units cannot be very far apart otherwise the beams won't registered jumps, so the jumping "window" is usually only about ~20 inches wide. Jumpers can also NOT have any forward or backward motion of their jump otherwise they'll move outside the "window" of the beams. This leads to a few missed jumps.
Again, my beta version gives jump height in cm - not inches. This is fine for research purposes but for relevancy to my athletes it's not useful, so I don't even use the G-Flight for jump heights - only RSI or GCT. The newer version does display inches, so much nicer for us Americans :)

Overall, the G-Flight is a really nice tool, and the final versions sound like they have removed many of the cons of the beta version, which is a sign of a company working to continue progress and make improvements. Personally, I still prefer the Just Jump Mat for ease, efficiency, inches, less missed jumps, and being able to do running jumps. Yes, the Just Jump Mat gives inflated numbers and is 3x the cost but for my purposes, it works. BUT if on a tight budget, the G-Flight would an ideal choice.

For my purposes, I really like the use of GCT and quick RSI readings - something the Just Jump Mat either can't do or takes time to calculate which slows down the flow of our sessions. So currently, my use of the G-Flight consists of measuring GCT of depth jumps or testing RSI - both of which are very valuable testing and monitoring tools.

Overall, for only $200, the G-Flight is well worth the money. For more info, check their website below...

http://www.exsurgo.us/gshop/

The New, Updated Version of G-Flight

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Interview with Daniel Coyle

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February In Review

Private Sector Business Review

January In Review

Coaching In The Private vs Public Sectors

Product Review: Open Barbell VBT

Product Review: G-Flight

Michael Zweifel CSCS-

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