Like I said last week, there was just too much information to review in 1 post, so as promised, here is part 2 of the review from Liverpool. This week’s review from the second half of speakers may be a bit less technical, except for the topics of Dr. Bryan Mann, and more applicable to sports coaches and if you look broadly enough I’m sure there are lessons you can learn here that can be implemented into your job whatever your profession. Thinking outside the box and looking at the entire picture and beyond was a major theme all weekend so I implore you to do the same. Take these concepts and see how can they relate to you. Let’s crack on.
Dr. Bryan Mann – University of Miami
I was excited to see Dr. Mann in this line up of speakers because I’ve read many of his writings around velocity based training, and as one of the world’s figureheads in that particular topic, it was pretty cool that I was going to hear from him first hand. It was soon obvious how passionate this guy is about what he does and that he just LOVES strength and conditioning and coaching. While he mainly discussed VBT he kept coming back to the idea of impacting the scoreboard. Do whatever you need to in order to positively impact the scoreboard on game day. That was take home message number 1.
A lot of the time strength and conditioning coaches like to think what we do plays a massive role and is the most important part but really it’s not. We work to support the athletes and if we train them to a point where they aren’t as strong or as fresh or as powerful as their opponent then we haven’t positively impacted the scoreboard. Likewise with the sports coach, if they don’t coach the athlete well enough to possess the necessary skills and team tactics to defeat the opposition they haven’t impacted the scoreboard. It’s always good to remember that the athlete is number 1 and we’re there to help them get better and put them in the best position to succeed.
It would be wrong of me not to have a take-home message on VBT after a Bryan Mann lecture so here is my take-home message… VBT works, it works when you prescribe exact velocities and it works when you prescribe zones of velocity. Whatever works best for you in the situation you are in use it, but VBT works. Dr. Mann shared results from a study that showed while strength levels could increase on a linear path year after year, at some point power started to plateau. However, in a group that utilized VBT in year 3, they saw a continued increase in power relative to their strength. So while a base of strength and power is needed, VBT is an excellent tool when working with advanced athletes who have been on a pathway for a few years. And whether it’s through direct velocity speeds or aiming for zones it’s up to you to decide what you can manage.
Paudie Roche – Lead academy Strength Coach, Arsenal Football Club
I’ve seen Paudie talk and present a couple times before in Thurles with Setanta college and picked up something every single time, so I knew this would be no different. His main role is to athletically prepare players throughout the Arsenal academy system and his main topic at the lab was on strength and power training in season. My two take-home points from Paudie were 1) Pick your battles and 2) micro dosing strength and power can be highly beneficial in season.
Picking your battles is so important for keeping a good working relationship between you and the rest of the staff. You can’t get your way all the time. Physios, sports coaches, managers, nutritionists and sports scientists are all going to want to have an input and will have their own agendas. Therefore, you can’t fight tooth and nail for every single issue. In a perfect world, you’d be able to control the schedule and training times but you can’t and you’re going to have to work with what you’re given and make use of a micro-dosing programming structure.
In traditional S&C programmes, you’d get all your strength work done together and then all your power work is done together. However, when using a micro-dosing effect, you might get part of it done on a Tuesday, another bit done on Wednesday and the last bit done on Thursday. Traditionalists are probably rolling their eyes and cursing me right now but it made so much sense. Real life situations are not always perfect and you can’t always use a traditional structure. You must ask yourself the question is spreading out the doses over a few days worse than not getting it done at all? I’d rather do it over a few days.
Simon Bitcon – Head of Strength and Conditioning, Manchester City Football Club
Simon’s lecture, for me, really boiled down to being open and understanding and having the ability to reframe your information for the athlete in ways they are going to understand.
Understanding your athlete doesn’t just mean understanding their body and what they need to perform but also understanding their likes, dislikes, moods and personality and their history. That sort of knowledge can only be truly gained by taking the time to get to know them on a human level and not just as an athlete. By understanding all of the above you can identify times where they may be off and take the necessary steps to rectify, or it may be as simple understanding that your personality won’t fully match player x and to get the most out of them they may need to be coached by coach y. As the old saying goes, people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.
A lot of athletes really don’t care about strength and conditioning, all they want to do is get out and play their sport. It’s important to understand that and you need to be able to educate the athletes on why strength and conditioning is important for them and how it’s going to improve their game. Simon told us how they use the reframing technique and the benefits of it by putting video packages together of the player's highlights and showing them the different movements they are doing on the pitch and how the work they do with the S&C department will positively impact their playing style. I thought it was a very interesting way of reframing.
So there we have it folks, all my take-home points from the PLAE lab summed up in two blogs. To be fair I could probably keep going but we’ll leave it there. Please don’t hesitate to leave your feedback, share the blog with friends or family and check out my social media by following the links at the bottom of the home page. As always, I appreciate you taking the time out to read what I have to say and getting this far. Chat next week,
Rory.