Archive for training
Super Squats!!
Posted by: | CommentsMy friend and MMA athlete Jay Furness has kindly published an article of mine on squatting. Its a 2 part series with the first focussing on bilateral squats and the second on unilateral squatting.
Check out Super Squats Part 1 and let me know what you think!
Definitive Deadlift
Posted by: | CommentsOne of my articles has been published on YourMMA.tv. I wrote this a while back and Jay Furness who runs the site and also trains with has kindly put it up on his site.
Its a good look at the mechanics of the deadlift and some of the common faults associated with the lift. There’s even a basic programme for incorporating deadlifts into your training, what more could you need!
Check it out over at YourMMA by clicking here and let me know your thoughts by leaving a comment on this post.
Cheers,
Brendan
To Tape or Not to Tape…that is the question!
Posted by: | CommentsI train a lot of female athletes. From elite level badminton, volleyball and netball players to aspiring high performance and young athletes as well as children and adolescents too.
One of the questions I get asked a lot by some of these female athletes is should I be taping my ankles?
Now most of these questions come from the girls who have already suffered an ankle injury in the past and have been told to tape or strap their ankle by the physio or doctor they’ve seen. ANd who am I to go against that advice eh??!!
Well I have mixed feelings about taping. As an S&C coach I know that the theory is that by taping the ankle the knee will take up the slack. The knee is a hinge joint with minimal lateral/medial rotation and no less lateral/medial flexion. So if we tape the ankle we increase the stress on the knee joint which long term causes injuries and we put the knee at a greater risk of that ligament rupture in the competition arena. With this in mind the head says don’t tape to protect the knee and use the ankle for what is intended for! Seems obvious right?
Well for me it is a little bit less obvious. Take netball for example. These girls are playing a sport where jumping and landing, contact, and change of direction are all experienced regularly. At the highest level the game is extremely physical with a significant amount of contact. The ankle sprain/ligament tear is the most common injury by far. The girls do a lot of ankle proprioception work, calf strengthening, and general strength work in the key areas yet there are still ankle injuries occurring. A large majority before I train them have already had an ankle injury of some kind therefore there is a significantly higher likelihood of a reoccurrence than if they hadn’t had one before.
So my approach for these girls is tape it up nice and tight, for games!! Technical training sessions nearly all will tape as well. Speed and agility work if they feel like they need that extra support I let them strap for these sessions but don’t encourage it.
For strength sessions I don’t allow taping as I think they need the stimulus and the foot needs to work on its own. I also like to do mobility work and balance/ankle work with no footwear all together.
So there is a spectrum in the programme but the bottom line is I want the girls to survive the games and I want to keep my job as the conditioner! If they all get crocked with ankle sprains its going to be a tough year for them and for me!!
Developing athletes its different. These individuals I like them to stay away from taping as much as possible. You can recover from an ankle ligament sprain in a few months but if that ACL ruptures its going to be a year at least before you’re at full fitness again if at all. It might buy you a few years but it could end your career! So I like these girls to moderate the use of tape and work on improving their movement without help from a second skin. If an athlete has not had a history with ankle injuries I would never encourage them to tape or strap.
Its not a clear cut issue though and it’s too easy as an S&C coach to take the view of no strapping, no taping for my girls, im anti-taping!
There is never an ideal scenario in sport!
What about you? Are you for or against taping? Leave a comment and let me know!
Thanks,
Brendan
So you want to be an S&C coach? Part 3: Continuing your development!
Posted by: | CommentsFirstly, if you’ve missed any of the past 2 parts you should go back and read them before you read this.
Click here for part 1 which is all about getting the knowledge required.
Click here for part 2 where I look at how you can get your coaching experience.
This post is all about once you’ve got some experience and are working in the industry, how do you keep on evolving and progressing into the coach that you really want to be.
We all have specialist areas of interest within the umbrella term of strength and conditioning coach. You need to have a level of competency in all the areas of job which are:
- Coaching and designing strength and power sessions and programmes.
- Coaching and designing speed, movement, and conditioning sessions and programmes.
- Rehabilitation and injury mechanisms for your sports and all sports.
- Periodisation and annual planning for the training units above.
- Nutrition, lifestyle support, psychology basic understanding and application.
- Underpinning knowledge of anatomy, physiology, biomechanics, S&C principles.
- Monitoring and recovery and principles behind these.
- Comminication with coaches/athletes and clients. For some this comes easy, for others it has to be the primary area of focus as this is what really gets you results!!
- S&C for specific populations- Rugby, MMA, Youth, etc etc.
But within these areas (and you may include more than me) most people will have a specialist interest. For me it is the strength and power training as well as movement and agility training. But I also have a strong interest in nutrition and injury prevention too. There’s a lot to keep up to date with and there are so many sources of information out there to read/watch/listen to.
The hardest thing as a full time S&C coach for me is finding the time to keep up to date, but at the same time I personally believe that it is absolutely imperative to do so!! So managing your schedule to include reading time, reflection time etc is very important. You’ll never have as much free time as when you are studying and immediately following your studies when you’re looking for work, so I would make the most of it and try to get through as many books and DVDs as you can!
I still read a fair few books, but I find it easier to digest information through blogs, websites and DVD’s.
Here are a few websites/blogs that I would highly recommend you check out:
- Vern Gambettas blog on athletic development- a pioneer in the field with a huge amount of experience.
- Eric Cressey Blog- Eric comes up with some gems of knowledge generally on the corrective exercise side of things.
- Mike Boyles strengthcoach.com website- another pioneer in the field and a wealth of information on this site.
- Strengthcoach.com podcast- a great resource to listen to on your way to work.
- Strengthpower hour podcast- a great resource featuring the one and only Bill Kraemer. Well worth listening to purely for his gems of wisdom.
- NSCA online journals- a very good resource in general that you can tap into quickly and get some good info from.
- Professional Strength and Conditioning (UKSCA Journal), most of you will be members but the journal has good overviews of research areas that are worth reading.
- Precision Nutrition- John Berardi’s website has some great nutritional information for coaches that I’d highly recommend.
- EliteFTS website- a must for the strength and power training, this site has some great practical info (including a handful of articles from myself 
)
- TNation- A bit of a bodybuilding site but some good authors on there contributing some good stuff all be it with a physique slant. Still well worth checking out though.
- UK Athletics coaching website: Some great podcasts and articles on speed training, strength training recovery and more on here.
Reflection is the Way Forward!
One of the best ways I have found to improve my coaching is to find the time to regularly reflect on what it is I’m doing. I don’t mean sitting cross legged with some whale music in the background, unless you really feel the need, its more about finding 5 minutes to think about how that session went, or how your exercise selection could be improved for the next phase of training. I always carry a diary with me and regularly write notes when I have an idea for a movement or exercise for a specific population. I also scribble down websites to check out when people mention them to me in the gym, and anything else for that matter. I keep the pad by my bed at night too so that when I wake up in the night I can remember the ideas that come up (and pass it to my therapist). Incorporating this into your week will improve your performance as a coach, so make time to do it!
Continuing Education:
This is of course a key concept, not only for developing as a coach, but also for maintaining our accredited coach status with any reputable organization.
Here’s a few courses that I’d recommend you check out along with a load of books that are worth a read too:
- Mobilis Performance Injury prevention workshops: These are written by top physio Martin Haines. This guy is an encyclopedia of knowledge and experience. The courses are good, some is difficult to apply in an S&C setting but worth the investment.
- UKSCA Annual Conference: Always an excellent couple of days and a bargain at the price. Duncan French has done a great job organizing it these last few years.
- Movement Dynamics Physical Competency Workshop with Kelvin Giles: Kelvins philosophy has been a great influence on many coaches including myself. Get to his workshops if you can.
- Optimal Shoulder Performance- Cressey and Reinold. Another great product from these guys and well worth the investment if your are interested in this area.
- High Power Plyometrics DVD: Jim Radcliffe is an authority in the area. Fairly basic but good overview of plyometrics.
- Training for Warriors DVD- Martin Rooney: A good voerview of what a practicing coach is doing with their athletes. Great watching!
- Kelvin Giles Movement Dynamics- Physical Competency screening and athletic development manuals- The best screening process out there in my opinion from a leader in the athletic development field.
- Practical Programming for strength training- Rippletoe: A great guide to periodisation from a practicing coach. Well worth a read.
- Starting Strength- Roppletoe: An in depth look at the basic barbell exercises which form the cornerstone of most S&C programmes. Great investment.
- Developmental Essentials: IYCA manual: With contributions from some great coaches, this manual is a must if you work with young athletes.
- Tapering and peaking for optimal performance- Mujika: This is the text to get if you wanrt to learn from the authority on tapering. Truly a great resource.
- Athletic Development- Vern Gambetta. Need I say more? Buy the book.
- Nutrient Timing- Ivy and Portman: Released a while ago but a good look at the science and practice behind nutient timing.
- Sport Physiologuy for coaches- Sharkey and Gaskill: Some interesting stuff on monitoring training loads as well as basic physiology which is always good to go over again.
- Theory and application of modern strength and power methods- Thibaudeau: Great little text on strength and power training with a good overview on the more commonly used methods.
- Stretch to win- Frederick: Really good book on fascial and general stretching methods. Highly recommended.
- Qualitative analysis of human movement- Knudson. A great look at kinematic biomechanical analysis of movement. Helped me a lot during my MSc studies.
- Stability, Sport and Performance Movement- Elphinston: Great book recently released from a UK physio covering screening info, progressions and regressions from late stage rehab through to healthy.
How do you want to develop?
There’s a load of different topics covered on this list from strength training to stability and stretching to nutrition. All of which are part of the S&C coaches scope of works so to speak. You need to have a good understanding of all these areas from and theory and applied perspective. All the learning material you need was covered in part 1 of this series. When you are coaching everyday you will find the gaps in your knowledge through your experience which should lead you to the right resources to check out. Following this it is down to you as the individual to decide which areas you want to develop more or less than others which for most of us will be based on our personal interests as we all like to read the things we are interested in. However its still important to keep in touch with other areas that are important within the role. For me I’ll always be happy to read up on athletic development, strength and power training, and sport specific S&C, sometimes I need to push myself to read up on nutrition as there’s always something else that you can put to the top of the pile, even though I have an interest in this.
Where are you and where do you want to be?
Identifying your areas of development is a better way to develop your knowledge than simply reading random stuff you come across on the internet or wherever else. Its nice to have time to read what you want to read, I think this is very important, but I would also recommend having a kind of must read list, which should be based on your development needs as a coach. I try to get my interns to write up a competency map as I call it when they come into the programme which is basically a profile of where they are in terms of knowledge and experience coming into the post on a 1-5 scale with 5 being the best coach you can be in that area. I usually talk this through with the individual and then identify areas of development. It works very well You need to get to a baseline in each quality in order to be able to do the job well and this should be addressed first, from there you can choose to go down a specific path to improve your knowledge in that area. Then you can bring up your weak areas when you feel like they need improving. Very often this will be triggered by something that goes on at work, or a conversation with a colleague about programming etc which meakes you think you need to brush up in that area. These are all healthy things to be doing and will improve your competency as a coach no end.
Who’s in your network?
One of the main ways you can keep yourself sharp is to pick up the phone and call up someone else in S&C. Have you ever heard that phrase ‘you are the sum of the 5 people you spend the most time with’, make sure those 5 people challenge you in some way and from an S&C perspective get you to think about your programmes and ideas. Even if you decide to keep everything the same at least you’ve rationalized your programme.
So that completes part 3 and the series as a whole. Had a load of good feedback on this series which makes me think that it was probably worth writing! Again to your success, Brendan
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So you want to be an S&C Coach?? Part 2: The Experience!
Posted by: | CommentsIn the last post in this series I looked at how to get the knowledge base required for the entry level S&C coach. Click here to read it if you missed this post!
This post is all about the key element that every S&C coach needs in abundance, experience.
I guess it’s a bit like money…..Once you have some, you’ll find it easier to get more of it (so I’ve heard)! But getting that initial experience is probably the toughest.
Experience is the key to developing into a great coach. Simply getting your hands on bodies day after day for hours on end will improve your coaching and your confidence in training people no end. It will also highlight the areas of your knowledge that you need to improve on which then should guide your reading and continuing education. There is more to strength and conditioning than standing in the weight room and designing strength programmes. You need to get out on the field and deliver group conditioning sessions, you need to write the programmes, you need to coach plyomterics and movement drills to different sports and learn the intricacies of each sport, and you need to work with hundreds of different bodies in all shapes and sizes. This is only ever going to come with time, effort, commitment and hard work!
There are a couple of mega important character traits that you need in abundance before you start you journey into S&C. The first thing you need to look at is your work ethic! Are you a hard working person willing to go that extra mile to put yourself ahead of others? I say it all the time to the interns that work with me, this job is manual labour!! Stripping bars down, putting them back up, shouting across the room at people to get them to do what you want them to do…..does that sound like you cup of tea? If not, I strongly suggest you look at other avenues for a career as it really is not for shrinking violets!
The second thing to address is attention to detail, do you let things go when times get hard, do you let standards slip? If so it’s going to be a difficult job for you and you’ll struggle to get results. Of course nearly everyone who reads this post will say “Nope that’s not me, I’m super hard working and have a high attention to detail”, but do you really? I see it all the time with interns, some of them are just not able to achieve that standard . If you’ve read any of my articles on developing skills under fatigue you’ll know I talk about TUF, SUF and DUF which is taken from Kelvin Giles work. Technique, Skills and decision-making under fatigue. Well there is also another one that is the catalyst for all three of the ones listed and that is CUF, which stands for Coaching Under Fatigue! Maintaining your standards of coaching at 7pm when you’ve been coaching for 10 hours is hugely important in this role. Of course you need to have that attention to detail when your fresh and then build on the endurance just like you would do strength, power etc….Its all so simple really!!
Okay, so hopefully you haven’t been put off this and are raring to go and get some experience in the industry so lets examine how to get that all important first opportunity.
Unless you’ve been literally burying your head in the sand for the last two years you will have seen the amounts of unpaid internships that have been advertised recently. My advice, go for these opportunities!! They give you great exposure to elite athletes, much more so than if you were getting paid to do a job somewhere else. Who’s going to trust their athletes in the hands of someone with no experience? It doesn’t make sense!
The best places in the UK to look for internships and opportunities in S&C are:
You’ve got to put your ego to one side and accept that you need to start at the bottom of the ladder! This is not dependant on age either, its all about experience. I’ve worked with interns in there late 20′s/early 30′s who’ve changed career and decided to go into strength and conditioning, as well as undergraduates with no life experience whatsoever, and pretty much everything in between! Everyone brings different strengths to the table but the search for that experience is the key!
Even though there are quite a few voluntary opportunities out there, the demand still far outweighs the supply making the job market very competitive. In short, to get that all important first opportunity whether it be internship, observation of sessions, paid work etc, you need to demonstrate to whoever it is that is potentially offering you a role how committed you are to the field before you even get in to the interview situation. I remember sending out emails to coaches asking them questions, going and meeting people off my own back, with nothing guaranteed at the end just to make connections and get some gems of wisdom from people who have been doing it a lot longer then me! Show that committment up front and people will value it. By doing this when that internship comes up with that person or organization, they will know who you are when your CV and cover letter gets through which bumps you up to the top of the list straight away! Then when you get the interview you know what that person is about so you can prepare for it better. When you’re in the interview you know a bit about the environment you’ll be working in and that will serve you well. I’m not saying that it will guarantee you the job, but it’ll probably find more opportunities come your way than if you don’t prepare in this way!
Have patience with this, keep applying along with meeting people and you will get a chance. It might not come straight away but it will come! Take each attempt as an opportunity to reevaluate your gameplan and adjust things if required. Ask for feedback from the organisation if you didn’t get the position, you might need to change the approach you’ve taken, or you might just need to keep trying the same approach, this is your call but have faith in your own game and don’t doubt yourself.
SAY YES TO EVERYTHING!!
Any little bit of experience is worth something to begin with, so seize every opportunity that comes your way and break through the doors rather than waiting for them to open. It is a competitive market place and the ones that get the jobs are the ones with the most experience. When it comes to getting paid work, every one has the qualifications. Your CV will stand out if you have a few years of working in an S&C environment under your belt when you apply for the jobs, along with that all important connection with the person who makes the decisions which comes from your meetings that you’ve arranged for a few years beforehand. To go from finishing your degree or qualification course to getting a full time paid job might be 3,4,5 or more years. Most people will leave and find something else in this time because they don’t have the desire (or the patience) required. Do you have it? You can shorten this journey by saying yes to everything that comes your way. You need to earn the right to turn an opportunity down and you’ll know when this time comes I think. Don’t be in a rush to go from voluntary to paid work either. Internships allow you to make mistakes without being held accountable! This will only happen once during your career most probably! Take advantage of it by learning from these mistakes so you don’t make them in the real world.
I worked as a door superviser when I was trying to get work. I wanted to have my days free both to train and to spend as much time in the gym as I could. I also wanted to be able to do courses in the day and learn as much as I could, and be able to get on a train to go to meet someone whenever the opportunity arose. I did this for a few years through university and a little bit afterwards too. It was hard but well worth it as the experience and knowledge I gained was invaluable.
Most S&C coaches are quite open and happy to help when people ask them questions. It can be hard to arrange meetings, but a word of advice that has served me well is be a pest! I don’t mean on a night out with the opposite sex, I mean with coaches and people that you want to meet!!. Don’t send them one email and when you don’t get a reply accept it and move on…..follow it up with another email, a phone call, visit their gym and put yourself in their life so they cannot ignore you! This is the way to make connections when you’re first starting out, don’t take no for an answer!
When you do eventually get to find a time to meet someone, turn up with a list full of questions you want answering! Don’t turn up and mope about the gym, think of every meeting as a potential job in a few years time! It’s amazing how things come around full circle in this industry and that meeting produces something in the future.
Once you’ve got your internship or that first job in the industry, make sure you hold on to it by being the best trainer you can be! And this will be covered in part 3 of the series. So that’s it for part 2, that’s how to get experience. The next part of the series will look at how to develop into the coach you really want to be once you have that first opportunity.
If you want more info on any of the stuff going on with my programmes, internship opportunities, and some free S&C info including then sign up to my newsletter by leaving your details in the box below, and if you enjoyed this post leave me a comment and don’t forget to share through facebook or twitter!
Now go and get to WORK!!
Brendan
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