Speaking, Speaking and More Speaking

It's been a really busy couple of weeks for me. I've been delivering a number of seminars and it's been great to get out and speak to so many coaches, athletes and students about what strength and conditioning can offer to sports performance as a well as general health and wellbeing.


On February 14th I spent a couple of hours in the company of a group of enthusiastic triathletes. This was the first session in a 4 part seminar series looking at various aspects of strength and conditioning and how to improve performances without having to spend endless hours out on the bike, in the pool or pounding the streets.



During the first 2 hour session Itook the group through the underpinning theory and concepts of strength training before moving into the gym to put participants through their paces. The practical element really brought the theory to life and gave participants real world training techniques that they could go away with and start using straight away.

The icing on the cake was a group ride led by Phil Gray from Total Racing International Coaching. For more details of the remaining events visit the multisportlink website

I then had a 05:00 start on Tuesday to make sure I could hook up with Neil Parsley down in Manchester to start putting together our presentation on Total Training for Combat Sports which forms part of the Smart Fitness Functional Training Summit. I spent the morning with Neil at the English Institute of Sport in Manchester (a place I used to frequent often when I worked for the EIS!) and we spent the whole morning throwing ideas around. The end result is what I think in my humble opinion is going to be a superb presentation, between the two of us we have some great concepts and Neil can bring some 'behind the iron curtain' training techniques that have to be seen to be believed. I can't wait until April and I know we have a number of top ranked MMA athletes attending the seminar, so it will be great to see what they think and have to say about our presentation.

Needless to say, the guys in this clip have not influenced our training methodology!

The next day I met with a business group to discuss a forthcoming project that I'm helping develop with fellow strength coach Nick Ward. The project is still in the early stages and I don't want to give too much away but we think we have a pretty special product that we will be making available to a select group of executive business men and women in July. The Executive Athlete Performance (EAP) Programme is unlike anything else out there at the moment and it's going to be a great challenge to work with high performing business men and women and opening their eyes to the training processes used by elite atheltes which in turn will help boost their business performance.

On Thursday I had the pleasure of speaking to a group from Northumbria University about Smart Fitness. The topic was business related and I spent 2 hours with the group and discussed the reality of setting up a business and the challenges faced during a difficult economic period. It's not until you take time to reflect on what you have actually done during the past 18 months that you realise just how far you have come.

The final speaking engagement was yesterday where I spent the morning with a group of tennis coaches based in the North East. Smart Fitness have been providing strength and conditioning support for the regions up and coming tennis players since August 2008, and during discussions with the Academy Director (Chris Sanderson) we struck upon the idea of sharing their training principles with the regional coaches to help improve the overall development of players within the North East region.

This session was the first of several sessions to be run throughout 2009 and focused on how strength and conditioning can benefit young players. I explained how improvements in a players 'gross athleticism' will tranfer to improved performances on court and once the underlying theory had been covered the group moved through to the indoor tennis centre where myself and Joe Wear put the coaches through their paces, showing them exactly what we are looking for when it comes to developing strong and robust tennis players. The next session is scheduled for March 23rd and will focus on the development of multidimensional speed and agility for the young tennis player.

So it has been a pretty busy couple of weeks and whilst it is always great to meet and spread the word I still enjoy getting back onto the gym floor.

Triathlete's World

A new triathlon magazine hits the shelves this month. Triathlete's World ran 3 trial issues last year and is now publishing monthly. Aimed at newbie triathlete's like me this is, in my opinion a welcome addition to some of the more 'hardcore' tri mags currently out there.In this months edition you can pick up some top tips on bike handling "triathletes who train on their mountain bike in the winter gain a huge advantage over those who simply stick to the roads" - I'm sure anyone that attended the TRI Winter training camps at Whinlatter will agree! There's a good round up of the latest turbo trainers to hit the market with a comprehensive review of each model. I've also got a 3 page piece explaining just how strength training can make you stronger and faster. If that wets your appetite for more information then check out the Smart Fitness and TRI seminar series. The first seminar takes place next week, looking at how strength training can boost performance and you will have an opportunity to find out exactly which moves you need to perform and then have a chance to try them out in our 'hands on' session. We still have a couple of space left so check out the events section.

Ten Percent Gone

I can always rely on my good friend and colleague Alwyn Cosgrove to keep me on track. This morning I received one of his regular updates and it made me realise just how quickly time passes. Read on for a little reminder that you should be working hard toward your goals.


It's now the 5th of Feb.

We have already passed one full month into 2009, and are now one-tenth of the way to 2010.

10% down, 90% to go. Doesn't seem that long since the start of the year does it? Time flies. Whether you're having fun or not.

How are your New Years Resolutions holding up?

If you're behind schedule or have lost focus a little bit - start today. Set some New Month Resolutions!

Maybe you want to lose a stone by may Bank Holiday. Start by setting a goal of 12 weight training workouts to be performed in Feb. And get the first one done tomorrow.

It's never too late to make massive changes.

Coach Dos Seminar - Online Registration Now Available

Just a quick update to let you all know that we now have an online registration page for this great event on the Smart Fitness website! I hope that everyone in the area will make the trek up to beautiful Newcastle to hang out with us for that weekend!

Precovery

On Thursday night I attended the North East Strength and Conditioning Forum at Newcaslte Uni. As always this is a great event and a chance for all of the local coaches to get together and talk about all things related to training.

This session focused on Recovery and Regeneration and I kicked things off with a presentation that gave an overview of the whole area. We looked at the various types of fatigue and the different intervention strategies before introducing the group to the recovery pyramid.


Friend and Colleague, Nigel Stockill then demonstrated some innovative equipment that has been developed by Optima Life to help coaches and athletes keep an eye on training load. Using heart rate variability and EPOC the heart rate monitor can provide the coach and athlete with a useful tool for monitoring training stress, allowing them to programme appropriate recovery methods.

The final session was deliverd by Dr Duncan French (head S&C for GB Basketball), despite being a doctor Dunc has a real ability to cut things right back to what really is effective in a real world situation. His presentation followed on nicely from mine and he focused on how to get 'easy wins' when working with his players and we were fortunate enough to be shown exactly what Dunc does to help his players recover whilst competing (these guys had 27 flights in 6 weeks last year - that gives you an idea of why recovery is so important for them).

Whilst everyone seems to be jumping on the recovery bandwagon, and I still believe it has an important part to play in the training process, I decided to throw a spanner in the works and ask a couple of questions to get everyone thinking.

1. Many athletes report perceived quicker recovery and an bility to increase training load...but this is not always a concurrent improvement in performance! Should we be messing around with the bodies natural recovery mechanisms?

2. Immediate use of artificial means which facilitate restoration (recovery) can weaken the natural ability of the body to restore itself and promote supercompensation. Is muscle damage a pre-requisite for hypertrophy? Could this increase the risk of ‘overtraining’ (UPS) or injury?

3.Prolonged use of any given means of restoration (recovery) will decrease the recuperative effect. Eastern block experts recommend that the same recovery strategy should not be applied more than once or twice a week in the same form.
Can research findings be generalised to athletic population? Might recovery strategies offer short-term benefits at the expense of long-term adaptation?

Duncan French followed up on my thoughts and suggested that maybe we have this whole thing back to front. We are so busy worrying about getting people recovered as soon as possible that we could in fact be negating some of the processes that we actually need to enhance performance. He made two very useful observations:

1. Are we looking to recover from a training stimulus ready for the next training session, or are we looking to recover from a match ready for the next one? If we are looking to recover from training then we may actaully want to leave the body to do it's own thing. Chris Barnes from Middlesborough FC spoke to me after the session about research looking at the heat proteins that are needed for many of the adapations we look for from training. Research is now showing that some recovery methods such as cold baths may in fact blunt the functioning of these heat proteins. If we are looking to get ready for another game then, yes, we may actually want to help speed the recovery process up.
2. Instead of thinking about RECOVERY....we should be focusing on PRECOVERY (I know, he has spent far too long in America!). When working with his players Duncan spends the majority of his time making sure they are in the best possible physical state before they start to train or recover and this is done by putting in place interventions that take effect long before training event starts (training diaries, sleep/naps, pre-workout meals).

It was a great night and the main message to come from it was that whilst recovery and regeneration is very important, we should really be focusing on getting the basics right before attempting anything else.