Last weekend I attended hands down one of the best conferences I’ve been to in my life. Everything came together nicely with incredible speakers, a top class venue and great food (Sounds funny but conference food is usually so bad!!!). While the line-up of speakers was a huge asset to the event I think the members of the crowd were as equally important to why I found this particular event so impactful! The number of people I spoke with you I thought could easily have been up in front of everyone giving their own talk was amazing. There was some top, top delegates in the crowd and it was great talking to them.
The conference was run by PLAE Perform, a sub-division of a company called PLAE. PLAE manufactures some of the best gym flooring and AstroTurf in the world and recently created it’s subdivision as a way of creating a positive impact on the coaching landscape. They recruited some amazing coaches (Shout out to my good friends Ron McKeefery and Marisa Viola. Two outstanding coaches and people who I’ve had the pleasure of connecting with over the last 12 months) to head up it’s education programme and they now organise and run incredible ‘Labs’ all around the world. This one was no different, it was held in Everton Football Club’s training ground, Finch Farm. The location was outstanding, you can tell the pride they have in their facility and the culture they are trying to achieve at Everton FC. Matt Taberner and his performance team at Everton have done a fantastic job and look after their players and their gym equally well. I just want to take this opportunity to thank them for letting us in and see a slice of what goes on.
Without rambling on for too long I’ll be breaking this week’s blog into two parts, pretty much because there was so much to learn from each speaker. I’ll be giving a breakdown from each one and some of my key take away points. While this blog is a review of a strength and conditioning conference and will include topics about our field I encourage any non-S&C folk to please read on! Get a feel for what I do and what our industry is like. As always, don’t be afraid to reach out and ask questions, like and share and comment below!
Paul Comfort – UKSCA Founding Member, University of Salford.
Okay, I really, really enjoyed Paul’s talk on training the force-velocity curve through weightlifting and it’s various derivatives. He really simplified not only different regressions and coaching points on Olympic lifts but also the science behind the force velocity curve and where each exercise fits along and how to manipulate certain exercises to move them along the curve. He stressed the importance of big picture thinking, which was a big theme for the day, through first examining what your athlete really needs, Force or Velocity?
The general argument for not using Olympic lifting and it’s variations in programmes is that it takes too long to teach and it’s too complicated, my thoughts for years. Plus, there are so many exercises out there that do the same job so why waste so much time? Paul took 8 people from the crowd and had them doing barbell jump shrugs from the knee with 3 coaching points and then cleaned up people who needed it pretty easy. It took like 5 minutes! The biggest take home for me here was not to be afraid of Olympic lifting and it’s various regressions and derivatives. I’m not going to immediately change my mind and try incorporate them into every programme I write from now on but Paul has 100% got me thinking and I can see myself using them in certain situations.
Matt Taberner – Head of Rehabilitation, Everton Football Club.
Matt discussed the use of isometric exercise protocols in returning players to play among other things. He broke down the science of why isometrics work, how they bring about adaption and the different types of isometrics there are and how different methods bring about different results. He pretty simply broke it down by explaining there are two forms Overcoming isometrics and Yielding isometrics.
Overcoming isometrics are where you’re trying to move an immoveable object. They build concentric strength and can deliver a post activation potentiation effect to the body. Great for pre-competition.
Yielding isometrics are holding and preventing movement in an object. Think of it like you’re doing a chin up and on the way down you pause half way and have to hold yourself in that position. This is a great way to build muscle.
He discussed his uses of lower body isometric exercises and how they relate to football. He explained that in football they see loads of ankle injuries and lower leg fractures. By using isometrics for long periods (Upwards of 30 seconds) he can get great change in players returning from injury by using some pretty light loads, while also increasing confidence in the injured leg and building up some mental toughness too. Also, by changing the point at which you hold, before, during or after the exercise, you can change the adaptation that occurs. So they really are bang for your book.
My big take home point from Matt was gaining an understand on how I can manipulate the adaptions I want to achieve by changing the structure of the exercise. I can get muscle recruitment by doing the iso at the start of the set, hypertrophy by incorporating a shorter hold every 2-3 reps and muscular endurance by having it at the end of each set. Pretty beneficial tool for the tool box.
Ramsey Nijem – Sacramento Kings NBA
Last but not least for part 1. I was so looking forward to meeting Ramsey and hearing him speak!! Coincidentally, I’ve followed his stuff on Instagram for quite a while and I really love the programmes he puts in place for his NBA players and the amount he shares with his following.
Ramsey put together a fantastic presentation with some really thought provoking topics that challenge some conventional thinking currently in the field. He talked all about monitoring workload and managing injury risk among players, standard enough to most coaches. He discussed how he previously prepared reports daily and flagged players to predict injury among his athletes, and why he no longer does it.
My biggest take aways from his presentation were 1) Creating impact through truth, simplicity and implementation. This means he looks at the truth of performance, the data! He reviews the data and reinterprets it in a simpler format that means something to him, his athletes and various members of the coaching and management staff. Finally, he implements simple strategies from recovery and nutrition to load monitoring of athletes, all are aimed to deliver impact to the performance on the court.
2) Communication. This sounds so simple but it’s obviously not… Being able to sit down with your head coach and adjust plans for certain players seems like the right thing to do when needs be. Having that buy in aspect from your head coach into what you’re trying to achieve and how your role can impact the players is vital, especially if they didn’t hire you in the first place. Brett Bartholomew talks extensively about this in his book Conscious Coaching. But being able to connect and educate the head coach on what you’re doing and what you need to do and why it’s important can make your life a lot easier and can aid the team in the long run. At the end of the day, either you’re impacting the team and affecting the scoreboard in a positive way or a negative way, I’d rather the former.
Well guys, this has definitely been the longest blog post so far and thank you if you’ve made it to this point. There was so much info shared and gained at the conference that I simply couldn’t fit it all in to one post so keep an eye out for part 2 dropping soon. As always, please share this post with your friends, family and on social media. Hit me up on Instagram, Facebook and twitter by following the links below.
Thanks,
Rory.