Functional Path Training

Landing

Working on landing as an isolated skill is probably misdirected work. Here is my thought process – aside from long jump, final jump in the triple jump and landings in gymnastic where sticking the landing is part of the judged routine, seldom if ever is landing a terminal action.

Much of the misunderstanding of landing comes from seeing still pictures of an athlete on one foot. There is no context of what the athlete did to get to that position or what they are going to do after that position. This is especially true of pictures of the so-called “position of no return” with the knee in an extreme valgus position resulting in a torn ACL. In change of direction the point of contact (landing) is essentially the position of the center of gravity in relation to the base of support, the goal being to change the direction of movement. Essentially you are passing through, not stopping.

For many years I was a big advocate of the stick & hold concept (Triple Flexion – Ankle/Knee/Hip) as a progression to teach proper force reduction. In certain situations, I spent an inordinate amount of time on this. I now think that I was wrong or at the least misdirected. Sticking and holding a landing and subsequently analyzing that on a force platform is relatively meaningless. It is just gathering more numbers that are essentially noise.

As an alternative I suggest a simple progression beginning with walking, progressing to easy controlled run and finally to sprint tempo. Just take a step forward and change direction 45 degrees, then ninety degrees and keep moving in the new direction. Repeat progressively getting faster. Then you can go to Jimmy Radcliffe’s speed cut and power cut progressions (This will be on a GAIN Master Class https://thegainnetwork.com/events/gain2020/ ). This will be time better spent and accomplish improved “landing” technique and will serve an injury prevention exercise.

Always relate the point of contact (landing) to where you are coming from and to where you are going. Then related this to the task that must be accomplished after the change of direction. It is part of movement and highly contextual.

Team Speed

When I the so-called experts talking about team speed and all they emphasize is acceleration, I just scratch my head. Are you watching the same game I am? Top end speed, max speed is important for team sport players and must be trained. The key concept is that in athletics you accelerate to top speed, in multi-directional sports you accelerate to optimum speed.  Top speed obviously assumes more importance depending on where you play on the pitch/field. If nothing else, it will inoculate you against hamstring pulls. I plan on expanding on this in a future episode of the GAINcast, it definitely will be a topic of discussion at GAIN.

Fit for the Test or Fit to Play for the Game

Do you want your athletes fit for the test or fit to play for the game? There is a real and distinct difference on one hand and some real lessons to be learned on the other. It all depends how the “fitness” tests are used and how they are framed in the overall context of the annual and career plan. The goal is accurate feedback in a competitive environment of the physical qualities that could determine success in the game. Selection and timing of tests sends a message. Therefore, decide what message you want to send. If you are going to use a two or three mile run test upon reporting for practice, then you are sending a message to the team that it is an endurance sport and they need to get ready for that. The game could be the opposite, but if their place on the team depends on it they will train for the test!

 

Clearing the Path or Preparing the Athlete for the Path

This post reporting Tony Strudwick’s comments is what prompted me to write this post. http://trainingground.guru/articles/tony-strudwick-why-sport-science-has-lost-its-way

Let’s stop putting inordinate amount of time in clearing a smooth and direct path for the athlete. All it does is set up unrealistic expectations. No journey toward athletic excellence is straight and narrow toward the destination without any bumps in the road, detours or breakdowns. Instead let’s shift the emphasis back to where it should be: preparing a robust adaptable athlete to negotiate any path put in front of them. To quote my colleague Bill Knowles what we have today is a "Medicalization of sport (sports medicine/sports rehabilitation): The process by which sports specific conditions and problems come to be defined and treated as medical conditions, and thus become the subject of medical study, diagnosis, prevention, or treatment."

This has resulted in reducing practice time by spending an inordinate amount of time on nonfunctional injury prevention programs, all of which detracts from what needs to be done to make the athlete better and less fragile. All this work preparing the perfect path is weakening the athlete and detracting from the ability to tolerate an adequate workload to get better. You don’t prepare the athlete for heat stress by training indoors in a controlled low humidity seventy-two degrees temperature-controlled environment or training is a weight room with temperature set at sixty-eight degrees. To get a training adaptation it is necessary to impose a training load that is age appropriate, meaningful and challenging in preparation for the chaotic uncontrolled environment of competition.

I am in no way proposing that we go back 50 years to my college football experience which did nothing but break us down. I believe there is a happy medium. We have gone overboard with our concern for athlete welfare to the point that we are placing them at risk by putting them in the competitive environment without being ready for the demands of competition.  We are being overprotective. Training load must be high, in fact it must at times be an overload to prepare for competition. We need to do a better job of using all the measuring and monitoring tools at our disposal to be prescriptive, not restrictive. We also need to measure what is meaningful and actionable. Just because it can be measured does not make it meaningful. It is time to shift the emphasis back to preparing a robust athlete capable of travel on any road.

Special thanks to Kelvin Giles, Dean Benton, Nick Garcia, Martin Bingisser, John Pryor, Steve Myrland, Bill Knowles and Patrick McHugh for their input on this post.

Good Training or Bad Training?

To understand what good training is, you must separate fact from fiction and style and marketing claims from programs that have substance and produce consistent results. Along the same line of thought beware of false prophets bearing gifts. Nothing easily attained is ever worthwhile and nothing worthwhile is easily attained. There are no secret programs or shortcuts to athletic excellence. Great training programs focus on fundamentals and build on the basics. Good training is built upon empirical evidence and best practices that has stood the test of time. Adaptation takes time; the process is predictable based on the demands imposed on the body. Nothing exotic here, it is all very basic, if someone tells you otherwise, don't listen. Take your time and stay on the functional path to the destination - optimum performance in the competitive arena.

Thoughts on Training Agility for Soccer (Guest Post by Warren Young)

This is a post by Warren Young, PhD,([email protected] ) Coordinator of Master of Strength & Conditioning, Federation University Australia, Ballarat, Australia. In my opinion Warren and his colleagues have done more to define agility and its parameters from a research perspective than anyone I know. Warren is an applied scientist who has always been open to dialog with coaches. A little-known fact is that Warren was one of the developers of the Reactive Strength Index. This post although directed to soccer, transcends soccer.

Introduction

After studying and writing about agility in sport for several years, my views have evolved. Although I have presented my own research and research of others in scientific and coaching journals, the following discussion allows for a more complete story about how I see training agility to enhance sports performance. This discussion especially applies to invasion sports, such as football codes, and my personal experience has mainly been in Australian football (AF). However, I believe this discussion applies equally as well to soccer, because both AF and soccer can both be described as “360 degree” sports, where players and the ball can move in any direction. I have decided to use examples here that are applied to soccer.

Agility in soccer

Agility seems to be a rather unique quality in soccer, and is not an easily defined skill like vertical jumping or a linear sprinting. In fact, I’m not even sure if agility should be thought of as a physical quality because it is a complex open skill. But more about that later.

Rather than debating what the definition of agility is, I think the best way to understand it is to view it in the context of a game. Agility in soccer depends on whether it is performed by the attacker in possession of the ball, or if it is performed by a defender. Many agility scenarios come down to a 1-on-1 contest, where an attacker aims to evade an opponent to progress down field, or to create time and space from opponents to pass the ball to a team mate in a more advantageous position. The aim for the defender is to move effectively to either tackle and win possession, or just to create enough pressure to produce a turnover. So agility is about “effective movement” to achieve an outcome. Effective agility is not always about how fast a player can move in multiple directions. In fact, if a defender charges at the attacker as fast as possible, this “over-commitment” makes the defender more susceptible to evasion by the attacker. To achieve a successful outcome, the movement strategy must be “measured”. A defender may approach the attacker cautiously and apply pressure simply by corralling the attacker so he or she can’t evade or get into space.

The movement strategies of both players in the contest are influenced by factors such as the position of other attacking and defending players, as well as their location in relation to the boundaries of the field. Therefore, the attacker and defender must pay attention to their immediate surrounds, and this contributes to the cognitive demand of their agility skill.

An attacker who wants to evade an opponent will constantly monitor the defenders movements to determine if he or she can be successfully deceived. If the defender shifts his or her body weight in one direction, the attacker may take advantage of this momentum to cut to the opposite direction. So the eventual evasive strategy is a response to stimuli provided by the defender. Conversely, the defender watches the attacker’s body to try to pick up clues about which way he or she will turn. To complicate the decision-making process, the defender also has to perceive the position of surrounding players in case the attacker attempts to quickly pass the ball. Therefore, the options that could play out are many and varied, and adds to the decision-making demands of the agility scenario for all players in the contest.

It is important to recognise that in soccer, each agility scenario is likely to be unique. The relative positions of the players in the contest, the speed and angle at which they are moving, and the movements of all the players around them will never be exactly the same. If a lateral change of direction is performed by an attacker or defender, the angle of the cut will be somewhat different in each agility scenario.

A Strength & Conditioning approach to agility

Returning to the question of whether agility is a physical quality or a sport skill, the preceding discussion suggests agility should be viewed as an open skill; that is, a skill that is influenced by many unpredictable factors. As such, it is not always clear who is responsible for developing agility in a team. Is it the responsibility of the football coaches who teach other sport skills, or is it the strength & conditioning (S&C) coaches who should integrate agility training into their speed program? The approach usually taken by S&C coaches is to break a skill down into component parts, and create exercises to enhance the movement. An example is the use of Olympic lifts or jump squats to develop power in a “triple extension” (hip, knee and ankle extension), with the intention of enhancing sprint or jump performance. If this reductionist approach is used to train agility, it is likely for the S&C coach to focus on the change-of-direction movement in isolation. Examples include practising deceleration or stopping hard, side-stepping, back pedalling, and shuffling. Often these pre-planned movements are directed by the use of obstacles such as cones, poles and ladders. These types of drills are now typically described as “change-of-direction speed” (CODS) rather than agility. The isolation of COD movements from agility may have been encouraged by many authors who refer to a model of agility that I published in 2002 (11). This model was an attempt to identify the various factors that contribute to agility performance, and it indicated that agility was determined by two main factors: the COD movement and a cognitive component. After considering more recent research, I have rejected this part of the model and revised it in 2015 (9) to remove the reference to CODS. Instead, agility is described as being determined by three components; technical (movement skill), physical (eg. strength qualities), and cognitive (eg. decision-making). The reason that CODS should not be seen as a component of agility, but rather as a separate skill, is because when a stimulus is included to a COD task, agility technique changes (3,7). This means that a change-of-direction movement and cognitive factors are dependent on each other, and should not be isolated. So I believe that we should try to avoid training and testing CODS in isolation, especially when the movements are directed by obstacles that do not exist on the football field.

 

 

Limited transfer from change-of-direction drills

Here are some reasons why I believe that CODS training has limited transfer to agility performance on the competition field:

1. Decision-making is totally ignored. Athletes need to anticipate opponents movements to have a fast response. This means the player can predict the opponent’s movement before it occurs, and gives the player a split-second jump on his opponent. It is known that superior skill is associated with faster and more accurate reactions (8). Anticipatory skill can only be developed by practising reacting to sport-specific agility scenarios, because athletes learn to select relevant cues from opponent’s actions that provide information about their subsequent movement (10). Anticipatory skill can not be developed by reacting to a generic stimulus, such as a flashing light. All that can be gained from this is an improvement in reaction time, which has been shown in soccer research not to relate to agility skill (2).
2. Pre-planned movements do not allow for problem solving and creativity. The ability of an attacker to “get out of trouble” when surrounded by multiple opponents or to move in such a way to find space to make a shot on goal involves problem solving and creativity. The creativity of movement is one of the characteristics that make Brazilian soccer players so exciting to watch. A stereotyped well-rehearsed COD movement is unlikely to be used in games, so players need to be exposed to a wide variety of agility scenarios to have a large repertoire of movement responses to draw from.
3. The training principle of specificity is constantly demonstrated every time we vary a training exercise. Here’s an example. I was recently doing close grip push-ups to emphasise the function of the triceps during elbow extension. Then I did a low volume session involving dips, which also involve the elbow extensors. The next day I experience soreness in the triceps, which must have been caused by the recruitment of different motor units/fibers in the triceps muscle group. This example illustrates that subtle changes to a movement produces a different neuromuscular recruitment pattern. Therefore, if pre-planned COD drills are rehearsed ad nauseam, the athlete will not be adequately prepared for the vast variability of movements that can be executed in competitive play.  
4. Studies have shown no meaningful gains in sport-specific agility tests following CODS training in either soccer (1) or Australian football (12).

Recommended ways to train agility in soccer

So how should agility be trained? There are two approaches that follow from the previous discussion. The first is training with 1-on-1 contests that are designed to replicate agility scenarios in games. Essentially, the attacker should attempt to beat a defender by dribbling the ball to a designated position. At the same time, the defender moves in response, and attempts to apply pressure or tackle to dispossess the attacker. To allow each player to experience game-like set-ups, each scenario should begin differently to create variability. Players should start in different positions within a designated space so that they approach each other at different speeds, and view each other’s bodies and movements from varied perspectives. The speed at which the players move, and the space in which they have to move, will influence their decision-making and movement strategies. Players should perform multiple trials in the roles of both attacker and defender because the agility demands are different. For example, an attacker may perform deceptive actions while watching the defender to see if he “buys a fake”, and a defender will watch the attacker and try to anticipate or react to a fake. Players will learn organically and implicitly what cues to focus their attention on. There is no need to give coaching instructions to explicitly state where the player should look and how to react. Implicit learning of motors skills has been shown to be effective (12), and more robust under pressure (4,5,6).

A second approach to developing agility skill is with small-sided games (SSG). One advantage of SSG (eg. 3 v 3 on a reduced sized pitch) is that with less players, there is more involvement in contests for each player, compared to full competition games. The greater frequency of agility events in SSG provides a more powerful training stimulus than a regular game. Another advantage of SSG is that they provide variability and unpredictability of agility scenarios. Each player is exposed to the movement styles and strategies of multiple opponents, and the position and movement of all players on the pitch must be considered in agility decision-making. Therefore, SSG are the only way to replicate the complex cognitive demands of competition. Research has also demonstrated that SSG are effective for developing sport specific agility in elite junior soccer (1) and Australian football (12) players.

I’m sure my views on this subject will continue to evolve, but hopefully this will spark some further discussion.

References

1. Chaouachi, A, Chtara, M, Hammami, R, Chtara, H, Turki, O, and Castagna, C. Multidirectional sprints and small-sided games training effect on agility and change of direction abilities in youth soccer. J Strength Cond Res 28(11): 3121–3127, 2014
2. Helsen, WF, Starkes, JL. A multidimensional approach to skilled perception and performance in sport. Appl Cogn Psychol 13: 1–27, 1999.
3. Houck, JR, Duncan, A, De Haven, KE. Comparison of frontal plane trunk kinematics and hip and knee moments during anticipated and unanticipated walking and side step cutting tasks. Gait & Posture 24: 314–322, 2006.
4. Liao, CM, Masters, RSW. Analogy learning: A means to implicit motor learning J Sports Sci, 19: 307-319, 2001.
5. Maxwell, JP, Masters, RSW, Eves, FF. From novice to no knowhow: A longitudinal study of implicit motor learning, J Sports Sci 18: 111-120, 2000.
6. Poolton, JM, Masters, RSW, Maxwell, JP. Passing thoughts on the evolutionary stability of implicit motor behaviour: Performance retention under physiological fatigue. Consciousness Cog 16, 456–468: 2007.
7. Wheeler, KW  Sayers, Modification of agility running technique in reaction to a defender in rugby union. J Sports Sci Med 9(3): 445–451, 2010.
8. Williams, AM, Davids, K. Visual search strategy, selective attention, and expertise in soccer. Res Quart Exer Sport 69: 111-128, 1998.
9. Young, WB, Dawson, B, Henry, GJ. Agility and change-of-direction speed are independent skills: implications for training for agility in invasion sports. Int J Sports Sci & Coach 10(1): 159-169, 2015.
10. Young, W, Farrow, D. The importance of a sport-specific stimulus for training agility. Streng Condit J 35: 39-43, 2013.
11. Young, W, James, R, Montgomery, I. Is muscle power related to running speed with changes of direction? J Sports Med  Phys Fit  42: 282-288, 2002.
12. Young, W, Rogers, N. Effects of small-sided game and change-of-direction training on reactive agility and change-of-direction speed. J Sports Sci 32(4): 307-314, 2014.

GAIN X – Short but Spectacular

As one who is not given to hyperbole GAIN was too short but it sure was spectacular, it was easily the best we have ever had. After ten years, we don’t have it figured out but we sure are on our way. GAIN is not a conference, it is an event, an event that is meant facilitate networking and building a community of professionals who will question and challenge each other to be the best. It directed in four prongs 1) Athletic Development 2) Sport Coaching 3) Sports Medicine/Rehabilitation 4) Physical Education with the goal to foster communication and sharing between these disciplines.

So many people have gone into making GAIN what it is today. I want to recognize them with a special thank you

Melissa Gambetta (My Wife) – The brains behind the operation, the person who does all the hard stuff to make it run smoothly

Ed Ryan who graciously gives up his time each year out of his busy schedule to do the onsite operations

Tommy McHugh AKA Tommy Tech who does all the filming, manages the web page and his dad Patrick McHugh who helps him

Rice University Men’s Track & Field who are our on-campus sponsor, specifically Brek Christensen, assistant coach.

The GAIN Originals (Still Coming to GAIN) 

 

 

Tove Shere

Adam Moss

Bill Knowles

Steve Myrland

Greg Thompson

Patrick McHugh

Phil Bazzini

Joe Przytula

The Faculty

 

Wade Gilbert, professor in the Department of Kinesiology at California State University, Fresno. Dr. Gilbert's areas of expertise include coaching effectiveness, talent development, and sport psychology. Editor - International Sport Coaching Journal | Consultant - USOC Coaching Education.

Michael Joyner MD, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine. He has done extensive work in Physiology of Elite Athletes. Elite athletic performances are experiments in nature on the limits of human physiology. Dr. Joyner uses data from real-world competitions to understand the limits of human physiology. 

John Pryor, Former conditioning coach Japan Rugby, now the conditioning coach for Suntory Rugby, Brumbies in Super Rugby and Fiji.

Jim Radcliffe, Head S&C Coach University of Oregon, a pioneer and a true master of the profession.

Martin Bingisser, HMMR Media, Swiss National Hammer Throw Coach

Nick Garcia, Athletic Development Coach & Assistant Track Coach, Notre Dame High School, Sherman Oaks, California

Steve Magness, Head Cross Country and Assistant Track Coach University of Houston

Bill Knowles, ATC Philadelphia Union Academy and HP Sports. Pioneer in reconditioning and return to play.

Ed Ryan, ATC Head Trainer US Women’s Olympic Basketball Team, Formerly Head of Sports Medicine at USOC

Randy Ballard, , ATC , Director of Integrated Performance, University of Illinois

Joe Przytula, ATC Supervisor of Physical Education and Health, and athletic trainer with Elizabeth Public Schools, Elizabeth New Jersey USA.

Greg Thompson, Elementary Physical Education Teacher Farmington Michigan, Currently Athletic Development and Age Group Head Coach, Livonia City Soccer Club

Steve Myrland, District Performance Coach for Athletics, District Wellness Director Middleton Wisconsin School District

Our Partners

Their generosity makes it possible to have the quality faculty we have.

1080 Motion - http://1080motion.com/ makes of 1080 Sprint and 1080 Quantum

Bridge Athletic - https://bridgeathletic.com/ makes of Bridge training management software

Lane Gainer - http://lanegainer.com/ makes of the famous Bullet Belt

GAIN 2016 Reflections

In the past years I have written my reflections a day or two after GAIN ends. For various reason I have waited for almost two weeks. GAIN IX was the by far the best ever. I looked back on my reflections from past GAIN”s and I always say that the most recent was the best ever. No I am not given to hyperbole. This GAIN was the best; it was a giant leap forward in all respects. The content was great as expected, but it was more than that, everything clicked I think we really struck at the essence of GAIN which is the interaction, the sharing and the learning. If you are interested you can watch my opening GAIN talk at

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWoVevqPSEA

GAIN is not a conference nor was it ever intended to be a conference. The presentations are meant to facilitate, provoke and stimulate thought, even to get people thinking differently. What makes GAIN special is the people from diverse backgrounds, sporting cultures and areas of expertise.

The 2016 GAIN Faculty

Here are some of the things that made GAIN 2016 special for me:

Steve Magness sharing his “mistakes” from this past year and lessons learned.

Jim Radcliffe and Bill Knowles sitting in the front row of every session, taking notes and asking questions.

It was the morning “wake-up” sessions at the track that woke up the brain and the body with the high quality teaching and information presented in an environment where you could feel it and experience it.

The meals where you had a basketball coach from Bulgaria talking to a cricket conditioning coach from Trinidad, where you had NFL and NBA coaches sitting with high school coaches.

It was Dean Benton and Grant Duthie showing they use Tactical Periodization and GPS data for prescription not restriction of training.

Wade Gilbert underscoring the importance of culture and of reflective coaching.

Bill Knowles sharing his work with the Philadelphia Union Academy and his athletic development model of reconditioning and return to play.

Randy Ballard sharing his solutions for transitioning the “broken and bent” incoming athletes into effective Division One athletes.

Ken Clark showing how he is turning his research on speed into practice.

It was Brain McCormick talking about the realities of LAD and making Dynamic System theory as it applies to skill acquisition understandable.

I could go on forever. I leave GAIN every year very tired and overwhelmed by the quality and volume of information. Now that I have had two weeks to decompress, review and recuperate I can’t wait for GAIN 2017, which will be our tenth GAIN. The challenge is to make it better. To make it better demands better people. If you are interested in becoming part of the GAIN experience applications will open in January of 2017. Slots for new attendees will be limited and each year it gets more selective.

We are staring GAIN events throughout the year. The first event will be GAIN swimming September 15 to 18 in Carmel Indiana. Check the website in a couple of weeks for more details.

Wise Words From Two Great Coaches

Over the past three weeks I have been fortunate to speed time with two great coaches, professional colleagues and most importantly close friends and great people – Juan Osorio now the manger of the Mexican National team in soccer and Jim Radcliffe, head S&C coach at University of Oregon. We share a passion for coaching excellence that has connected us over the years. I only wish I could have recorded my dinner conversation with Juan as he recounted the month he spent with Pep Guardiola in Barcelona and the other month with Louis Van Gal when he was at Bayern – Priceless! Juan’s passion for learning is off the scale, I am looking for him to take El Tri to new heights of achievement. During matches Juan writes his observations and comments on the game in a notebook, in many ways this has become his trademark, something the TV commentators are always pointing out. When he was asked why he writes in a notebook during the game he answered: “ A short pencil is more efficient than a long memory” wise words to ponder.

This past weekend in what has become a tradition Jimmy Radcliffe flies from the NCAA regional track meet to spend a day in Sarasota with me just catching up and talking training. In many ways that day and the week at GAIN are the highlights of my year. Jimmy like Juan is passionate and driven to learn and improve. Like Juan a 16 hour day is the norm, when I think if Jimmy I think of him as the coaches coach. Here is some sage advice from Jimmy during our conversation Sunday on recovery. “When you look at recovery always look at what you are recovering from and what you are recovering for?” Again food thought, use recovery methods strategically and wisely.

Just writing about these two guys makes me realize how blessed I am to have friends like this who are not self-promoters and genuine great people.

Injuries

Change the focus from injury prediction to injury prevention. Make injury prevention a transparent part of a comprehensive training program that addresses sport demands & individual athlete needs on a session-by-session basis. Start simple with a multi-stage warm-up that prepares the athlete for the demands of the session – warm-up to train or play don’t play to warm-up. This should consist of foundational movements - basic movement skills leading into more complex movements. Second use training to prepare for the demands of the sport, do not duplicate the sport and add stress to stress. Third focus on what the athlete can do, not on dysfunctions and deficits. Fourth be sure to do all this in a systematic and progressive manner that will yield results over time. Training accumulates; Rome was not built in a day. Simplicity yields complexity.