February In Review

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
 

• Rethinking Strength Training Part 5 – Kevin Kishna
• Rethinking Strength Training Part 3 – Kevin Kishna
• 10 S&C Books For 2018
• Why The Concept of Biomotor Abilities is Bullshit – Mladen Jovanovic
• Key Concepts in Preparing for Agility and Change of Direction – Matt Kuzdub

• Private Sector Business Review

• The 2 Biggest Mistakes Coaches Make With Squatting – Cody Plofker
• Transfer of Training – Henk Kraaijenhof
• Bilateral Coordination Skills
• Bought In: Building Trust and Getting More Effort Out Of Your Athletes – Brett Bartholomew
• Tom Crean’s Year Long Coaching Gap
• Correlations, Causations, and Multi-Sport Athletes – Craig Pickering
• Digging Into Elite Sprint Kinetics and Training with JB Morin
• Relatively Stable Genius – Stu McMillan
• Race Modeling, Empowering The Athlete – Chidi Enyia

 
 
Podcasts
 

• The Legend of Nikolai Bernstein – Repetition without Repetition and Beyond
• Can Assisted Movement Facilitate Skill Acquisition – Perception Action Podcast #96
• Just Fly Sports – Michael Zweifel (self-less plug ()
• Pacey Performance Podcast #175 – Jason Hettler
• All Things Strength & Wellness #155 – Devon McConnell
• Just Fly Sports #86 – Alex Natera – Elite Strength Development for Speed
• Radio Lab – Smarty Plants
• Joe Rogan Experience #1081 – Bret Weinstein & Heather Heying

 
 
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