Simple things

Happy children are happy when they’re loved; made to feel good, and good about themselves.

When we are happy, we try and, if we try often enough, two things occur: we find pursuits we enjoy and have talent for and we make progress in things we don’t.

Christmas gift: Exercise routines to use over summer

Merry Christmas and a safe and happy holiday to everyone

downloadable PDF: 2018 Xmas exercise routines

Brains not brawn

Solve the problem that is my perceived deficiency as a player or solve the challenge of todays game, as it’s playing out in front me? Those are the choices. Too many young people get stuck in the former and, therefore, don’t recognise and adapt to the challenge of the game. Why? Fear and insecurity; a focus on what they can’t do over what they can. They also don’t know, because no one points it out, that their brains are a remarkable learning machine. Every child has a super computer between their ears that is a far more powerful tool than any physical capacity could every hope to be. There is no magical transformation when it comes to calming and quietening the mind, but we are all capable of learning to be better at it if the commitment is made. Tell and show your children that greatness is between the ears and not in the hands or feet. A sharper mind is the real goal, and it's available to all.

Who is ultimately responsibility?

What is a coach responsible for? Safety, yes. A constructive learning environment, yes. Progress, kind of?? I can be confident in outcomes on the basis of work completed (that's the purpose of an evidence-based teaching) but the learning curve contains different truths at either end. Near the beginning of the curve, the curriculum holds the key to learning. As we move further from the start, the curriculum holds much less of this power. Mature skills can't be programmed so much as discovered, and discovery is the responsibility of the athlete and not the coach.
The athlete-coach relationship remains vital but it needs to evolve where responsibility is concerned. Too many young athletes become stuck or develop learned helplessness because the coaching environment doesn't facilitate the transfer of ownership and responsibility.
From my point of view there are two separate dimensions to this phenomenon. The first involves young athletes having responsibility for extra-curricular activities such as injury-free. A small homework routine is vital because it signals to the child that they are responsible for more than simply turning up and doing what they're told to.
The second dimension of learned helplessness occurs when coaches fail to teach principles of movement. An explanation of how forces and motion create specific sporting skills provides scaffolding onto which the individual can layer what's unique about them. In the absence of this, children will simply mimic others. They plateau at the level of general competency.
The process of specification is the act of learning and adapting to the unique physical challenge that every body provides. Know your sport; know your body. 'Knowing' is the responsibility of the individual but it is incumbent on coaches to ensure athletes learn this lesson.

Core strengthening 2018, November routine

If you are new to our core strengthening routines, please take a few minutes to read the background information contained with the September routine:

core-strengthening-2018-september

The November routine continues the theme, introduced in September, of circumferential conditioning.  That's sciency speak for using core muscles to oppose gravity when it acts against us from the front, the sides, and the back. 

As always, apply the critical rules:

• be patient and work according to the doctrine of correct shape
• breathe at all times, even if only small breaths are possible
• The core muscles are postural muscles, and the greatest influence on posture is the time between gym sessions.  Move more and be still less

Kindness be with you.

Core strengthening 2018 November - downloadable PDF

The Nordic curl

Hamstring injuries are a common occurrence in high intensity running, and the risk appears to rise with age.  Any muscle can be injured with overuse (too much volume/ insufficient rest) and overload (too much intensity or incorrectly used) but age creates an additional issue, which is tightness.  A tight muscle that is also weak is much more likely to be injured than one that is simply weak or overused.  My strong advice to anyone with tight and weak hamstrings is to regularly 'stretch-stress' the muscle to improve working length.  Exercises that stretch-stress the hamstrings include inchworms, reverse inchworms, and aeroplanes (single leg Romanian deadlifts).  The good news is that stretch-stress doe not require external load - body weight is sufficient.  Stretch-stress exercises are ideal warm-up exercises for gym and sport.
Sprinting is a special case for hamstring injuries because the muscles are loaded through a large range of motion, and a high volume of high intensity work is performed.  Even a comparatively short, 50m, sprint involves ~20 repetitions per leg.  That's a lot of work under maximal power conditions!
Fortunately, the risks can be easily improved and there is one exercise, in particular, that displays excellent efficacy for reducing hamstring injuries: the Nordic curl.  Clips are available below for inchworms and single leg inchworms, which we use with other variations to stretch and strengthen the hamstrings, as well as the Nordic curl.

inchworm

reverse inchworm

nordic curl - no partner needed

nordic curl - partner assisted

group versus individual coaching

One of the more unexpected observations I’ve made as a coach concerns the acquisition of self-responsibility.  Children with a high component of individual coaching can be less adept at taking responsibility for themselves.  Assuming my sense of this is valid, that’s potentially a big problem with a simple solution: strike the correct balance of individual versus group coaching.

Group coaching has significant advantages over one-on-one: the need to be responsible for oneself, and modelling of responsible behaviours by other children.  I hold the view that coaching and teaching environments are not primarily driven by the expectations of adults (teachers/ coaches) but by the conduct of other participants.  This is not to diminish the role of a prescription or of feedback; both are essential, but rather it’s a statement about how important modelling is in the development of behaviour.  As adults we often fixate on the ‘what’ over the ‘who’ when we coach and the desire to ‘individualise’ and ‘specify’ reflects this.  Again, information is king, but what we seem to miss in the prescription process is the role that interpretation and ownership plays in how information is used.

My strong advice to parents and coaches is to seek group participation as a starting point.  Care is needed to ensure group coaching is productive and challenging but it does not need to be over-managed.  It’s more important to ensure all the critical departments are active than it is to constantly massage the group dynamic or over-handle the prescription.  Individual coaching should be used to test what’s learned and sharpen minds and tools; for questions rather than answers.

Run, run, run

Pre-season is under way for 2019 winter sport.  The focus, at this time of the year, is running.  The off-season is an important time to recharge mentally but it’s often also catastrophic for many young people as all the strength and fitness built up over the season degrades to nothing with months off their feet.  The two big conditioning targets in the off-season are fitness and run skills or speed work. 

Fitness tends to be misunderstood.  I am applying the non-specific or general meaning, which is cardiovascular or aerobic capacity.  Cardio takes months and years to grow to a high level, but the good news is that once we are fit it also takes months to degrade.  Fitness reflects time on task, and longevity.  The first conditioning lesson for young sports people is this: you can’t do without simple fitness, and it takes years to grow.  Start now.  Tip: don’t have an off-season.  Play another run sport over summer or run for its own sake.

Most of us have experienced what we interpret as a drop in fitness after a short break but, assuming we were truly fit to begin with, that’s not what’s really occurred.  Work output is a measure of supply (e.g. cardiovascular fitness) and demand.  Whereas ‘fitness’ takes months to degrade significantly, strength and anaerobic capacity degrades rapidly.  A drop in anaerobic capacity causes an elevation in heart rate because what we can’t supply in one system, we must provide for with the other.  The ‘drop off’ in work capacity after a short break is not a reduction in supply (fitness) so much as an increase in demand.  Strength makes movement efficient and less efficiency (via reduced strength/ high intensity work capacity) means a higher movement ‘cost’.

This interaction between supply and demand or fitness and strength provides us with not one but two essential conditioning targets during the off-season: fitness and strength.  Strength can be targeted in two ways: in the gym to make muscles and critical joints stronger or on the field with high intensity running.  The advantage of high intensity running, or speed work, is its specificity; it enhances the very tools we need in the coming season.  Gym work is important, however, as it permits us to deconstruct the engine and rebuild from common denominators upwards.

The effect we can expect from high intensity running is an improvement in running at lower intensities.  As we become stronger, we become more efficient and that means being able to work at high power outputs for the same basic cost.  We find it easier to run!  In so much as how we ‘feel’ when we run is the greatest predictor of the likelihood that we will do it, becoming a stronger runner is a good strategy to support running for fitness.

All the best for the off-season but don’t kid yourself.  Season 2019 starts now.

Us not me

Team sports hold a couple of important advantages over individual pursuits.  Key among them is the opportunity to spread the psychological or emotional burden.  Playing by yourself places all the spot light and all the responsibility on you.  Paralysis is common in young sports people, in team and individual sports.  It expresses as the tendency to repeat the same mistakes; to struggle to identify and manage alternative actions and strategies.  It happens when we fixate on ourselves and our actions.  We stop ‘seeing’ other possibilities.  Team sport provides a solution: rather than thinking about your actions, observe and consider others instead.  Trust your skills – it’s not important what level of ability you possess.  Watch the game and your teammates from your position and imagine what you can do to support them.  By placing team function and performance above that of any individual we avoid contracting our point of view, which is the basic problem of paralysis.  When we fixate on the problem, we can’t see the solution.  Our brains are very clever problem solvers and what they usually need is more information – look around you; see what’s happening.  Let your instincts guide you.

Core strengthening 2018, October routine

If you are new to our core strengthening routines, please take a few minutes to read the background information contained with the September routine:

Core Strengthening 2018 September

The October routine concerns another critical state of the core segment, that being a healthy spinal column.  One of the basic functions of core musculature is to protect the spinal column from unhealthy loads but the column must itself have a healthy range of motion to begin with.  Too much sitting and insufficient activity tightens joints and soft tissues.  The routine involves performing a staple of Yoga practice, the sun salutation A-version.  This version introduces simple standing and bridging positions with variations of a neutral, flexed and extended spine.  Controlled, easy breathing is necessary throughout.  Be kind to your body and work within safe limits.
There is a link on the page to an excellent video with coaching pointers.

Core strengthening 2018 October - downloadable PDF

Can there be such a thing as 'professionalism' in childhood?

It's common among coaches I interact with to refer to an absence of professionalism among their child participants. I understand what they're getting at but is it reasonable to expect adult-like behaviour in children? 
Immature behaviour in adult sports people is common place and that says two things for me: 1) stress and pressure destabilises, and 2) maturity is complex and can take decades to grasp.
The expectation of responsible, mindful behaviour in children is appropriate but it needs to be reasonable for each child. It also needs to be seen for what it is: akin to asking them to brush teeth or clean bedrooms. As adults, we need to be patient and endlessly supportive if that's what it takes.

Why does sport stall in the teenage years and what’s the solution?

Most children experience a performance plateau in their middle teens – slightly earlier for girls.  Understanding why depends on knowing what drives skill development in pre-adolescence, and how adolescence changes the rules. 

Though there are exceptions, growth when we are young tends to enhance tools for movement.  At the same time, the immaturity of movement skills provides a strong flow of new information to the motor centres in the brain to build the ‘instruction manuals’ for movement.  The spontaneous extension of movement capacity combined with rapid motor learning means that simple biological growth is the basic driver of skill development in pre-adolescence.  The onset of puberty changes everything because when growth begins to slow in late adolescence, everything else slows down to.  

The connection between general athletic and specific sporting skills provides clues as to what can be done to keep things moving forward and it also explains why it most often doesn’t.

Let’s use the example of a young child learning to play football.  There are two discrete and complementary outcomes at work.  At one level, running around trying to kick a football enhances all facets in the act of running around: accelerating and decelerating, changing direction, capacity for exercise etc.  On another level the child is learning the specific skills associated with football. 

For young children, sport and athletic development is of mutual benefit but what happens to athletic development as the sporting skills reach a high degree of maturity?  Let’s go back to the example of the young footballer.  Early on, getting to the ball is the predominant feature of training and run skills are, consequently, the limiting factor.  The ratio of kicking to running is low.  As ball control improves, running ceases to be the limiting factor and ball control assumes more and more of the training focus.  From this point forward, the run stimulus is defined by what happens with the ball.  Athletic development becomes constrained because movement is increasingly specific and not general.  How does this explain a performance plateau?

The connection between the development of specific/ sporting skills and general athletic skills only appears to be mutual or circular because it is largely so when we are very young.  The connection is in fact vertical.  Basic movement skills are the ‘building blocks’ for specific or contextualised movements.  We can’t catch a moving ball without first being able to move, or without grasping skills.  In young children, ‘sport specific’ movement is only loosely so.  The immaturity of the brain and body means it is mostly general.  Athleticism determines the boundaries of what’s possible at the level of specific skills.  Consider two individuals at football training: one is much quicker than the other.  We can say that the additional quickness expands the range of possibilities with respect to ball control and tactical advancement.  Athleticism determines everything that is and is not.   

Adolescence/ puberty is not only the period during which the body stops growing but for talented young sports people it is also the time when sporting skills reach a high level of maturity and general athletic development begins to plateau.  In the absence of additional biological capacity and extension of athletic skills, an individual depends solely on finding marginal gains in comparatively advanced sporting skills.  That is beyond most individuals and most coaching environments and is the reason for the teenage performance plateau. 

The solution is to seek further development of athletic skills which, as we have discussed, were the building blocks of the sporting skills all along.  However, for the reasons explained, these can’t be ‘wrapped’ into the sport skills program.  They need to be targeted and conditioned separately.

You might have noticed something missing in my explanation of the causes of skill development: coaching.  Coaches like to believe (and I am one) that we are indispensable.  Without us children wouldn’t know which way round to put their swim suits on let alone how to swim!  This is bullshit pure and simple.  The biggest human influence on skill development is other sports people.  The greatest constructive influence coaches have is to engender a positive and productive environment.  This is not to say that coaches don’t provide useful feedback, they do.  The point is that most of what appears coach-driven is spontaneous and self-driven via the standards and modelling other individuals provide, biological growth, and athletic extension.  The gift of coaching is a framework that educates and inspires. 

Core strengthening 2018, September routine

We need to begin with definitions for core stabilisation, and strengthening.  Stabilisation refers to the pattern of muscle activity in the 'core' region (above the pelvis and below the bottom rib) when we place the lower back and pelvis under load.  The basic idea is that we need to keep this region stable or within healthy motion limits as intensity of movement is raised.  The core region needs to be relaxed when we need to pick something up off the floor but very stiff when we jump or sprint.
Humans have an inner layer of core stabilisers attached to the spine, ribs, and pelvis and an outer layer of much larger power muscles.  The design and position of the inner or deep core stabilisers allows them to function throughout the day primarily to maintain healthy spinal shape or posture.  The muscles of the outer layer produce much larger forces but they're not designed for continuous activity; they're 'phasic', which means on and then off.  Dysfunction of the two layers is common due to the volume of sitting and poor breathing patterns in our modern lives - we don't move a lot and that means muscles and patterns of muscle activity become weak.
Stabilisation is any activity that focuses on the position of the torso relative to the pelvis and lower body, and on the shape/ position of the lower back relative to the pelvis.  Examples include squatting and lunging exercises as well bridging positions and Swiss ball exercises.  Loads must be low enough to permit control of the torso/ lower back position and motion.
Core strengthening occurs any time we stimulate the stabilisers but it generally involves 'targeting' these over other muscles, i.e. the core musculature is the dominant feature or the limiting factor.  Prone bridging is a good example.  This is analogous to the idea that a dumbbell curl is a biceps strengthening exercise though chin ups involve significant amounts of biceps activity.


Individuals make two big mistakes with core strengthening:

1. overworking - too much intensity or accumulated fatigue corrupts patterns of activity, resulting in muscle substitutions.  There is often also a failure to correctly stabilise the lumbopelvic (core) region.  Prone holds held to failure are an excellent example of this
2. poor regulation of breathing leading to dysfunction of the inner layer and substitution of activity by the outer layer: weak and ineffective deep muscles and overactive outer layer muscles

Specific considerations are needed to avoid these issues: 

• be patient and work according to the doctrine of correct shape
• breathe at all times, even if only small breaths are possible
• use lots of variation to provide a large body of information/ feedback for the brain to work with.  Variation is also an excellent strategy with which to avoid overworking muscles
• stimulate in all planes and axes: prone, supine, and lateral/ anti-rotational bridging strategies in addition to simple whole body motion

The core muscles are postural muscles, and the greatest influence on posture is the time between gym sessions.  Move more and be still less

Core strengthening 2018 September - downloadable PDF

Strength without additional muscle is a big thing for athletes

One my boys approached me the other day regarding conditioning planning for sport.  His coach had requested that he not gain weight and the impression I had was that this was considered an unusual request.  In the regular gym community, I only ever received that request from women but among sports people it’s entirely around the other way.  There are few sports in which extra mass, even via additional muscle, is an advantage.  Athletes need more strength but not more weight.

Why is more muscle a disadvantage?  The answer is that the extra weight slows the body down.  Let’s use an example.  An athlete weighing 100kg who adds an additional 5kg of lean muscle (now weighs 105kg) must improve speed or mechanical efficiency by 5% to offset the extra weight or he will slow down.  It’s a better strategy to make the body stronger without adding the weight.  A stronger body at the same weight is automatically more powerful: more grunt per kg.

I should add at this point that strength and muscle mass are not the same thing (it surprises me that common knowledge hasn’t caught up with this yet).  Strength is a function of muscle and the nervous system – the brain and the nerves that control muscle activity.  All tasks are skills where the brain is concerned, and by improving the organisation of existing muscle potential we raise task skill and strength.  In fact, most of what is often conceived of as muscle-induced strength gain is skill-induced improvement.  A bench press that advances from 50 to 100kg – double the weight – can’t easily be explained as the result of a 50% increase in muscle mass!

So what are the basic considerations for minimising muscle mass gain and maximising strength improvements?  The first thing to say is that we are searching for the sweet spot between high loads, needed to drive strength improvements, and those variables that stimulate and facilitate muscle hypertrophy.  The precise position of the sweet spot is found over time by making small variations in the basic formula.  The basic variables are: variation, volume, frequency, and large movements versus single joint or isolation motions.  Minimising the effect on muscle growth is more or less the same as controlling the likelihood of growth taking place:

·        Lots of variation of large movements to avoid overworking specific muscles

·        An emphasis on movement skill development and the postural/ joint function foundation to drive up biomechanical efficiency

·        Lower training volume and frequency, but maintenance of high intensity to drive strength gains

The critical variable is training frequency.  The sweet spot is found when frequency enables strength development and controls muscle gain.

Notes on the warm-up

The purpose of a warm-up is to ready for the contest.  We cannot know what will be required of us in the first moments, so we must be ready for anything.  That’s a big ask!  How do we become ready for anything?

A complete warm-up comprises three phases: a structural phase during which blood flow is raised and the neuromuscular system is readied for intense exercise.  This phase should always begin with simple cardio: jogging, skipping etc.  Dynamic stretches and basic movement patterns are then used.  Every part of the body needs to be exercised.  The rhythm phase is next.  This phase involves speed and agility drills progressing from low to high energy states as movement rhythm is achieved.  The final phase is the sport-specific patterns.

Warm-ups are most often, in my experience, poorly thought out and organised but there is only one catastrophic fault, which is to not raise the bodies engagement to the highest energy state.  Energy begets energy and if we wish to be fully plugged in and ready then we need to find that state in the warm-up.  Different bodies and personalities have slightly different calibrations in this regard but a coach can’t be too cute and it’s a safe strategy to work every individual intensively.  

The highest energy state is not found quickly regardless of how hard it appears the athletes are working.  It takes many reps and several minutes repeating simple movement sequences.  Explain your expectations: develop rhythm in your movements – consider and control the critical executables.  Once you feel you have rhythm, begin pouring the energy in.  Only one repetition or set can be the best on the day, and that’s what we need to find.  Once we’re there, we’re done.

You know you have your formula correct when your athletes start the contest with quick, reactive movements and decision making.  Anything less is a sign you’re missing the high energy states.

What kind of person makes a good coach?

I can assure you that this post is not moralising, irrespective of how it may appear.  The various environments I work across have allowed me to learn the values or traits needed to underpin good decision making when we are responsible for someone else.  That’s in fact the first truth that needs to be understood: coaching, like teaching, involves being responsible for others.  That being so, the first and most important trait of a good coach is that they are not self-centred.  Coaches, like any other professional person, are entitled to their own journey but a good coach places the athlete first. 

Coaches need to be curious and empathetic.  Both require that they are not especially ego-driven.  Effective coaches understand the basic principles of adaptation, of efficient movement and energy transfer, and the technical and tactical principles that define their sport but they also recognise through experience that sport is constantly evolving in it’s practices and, for this reason, that an open mind is essential.  Insecurity is a common problem among coaches and, like self-centredness, it shuts down curiosity and diminishes empathy for others.  Empathy is the ability to ‘feel’ from the standpoint of another.  Sport is always a mix of psychological and physical factors and empathy is needed to understand subtle influences and the nett or full effect of everything.

The final basic traits of a good coach are organisational and communication skills.  An unresponsive or improperly organised coach wont be able to knit the various departments together and a program with gaps cannot function any better than a car missing wheels or doors.

Altogether, the basic traits of a good coach permit them to make good choices for their athletes; to know what influences are missing or incorrectly applied and when to simply be patient.  Whereas adults change very little month to month or year to year, it’s the nature of sport that an athlete must change.  It’s also the natural state of childhood.  Good coaches, who are themselves adults, have to drive change and be sensitive to it.  There is an obvious natural tension to this which is why these traits are essential.

The journey makes the champion. Part#2

Lessons from the dominance of east Africa runners for young Kiwi athletes

In most sports, the obvious exception being Rugby, NZ cannot compete with other countries in a battle of participation numbers and programs of such extremes so as to filter for outliers; genetic freaks of nature.  Our sports must play by different rules.  To drive our young athletes to extreme fatigue; to assess them against an ‘ideal’ and support them accordingly (or not) is to pitch us into a war we can never win.  So it is that sports such as tennis and swimming find themselves falling further and further behind historical levels of achievement.  I should preface quickly by saying I work in both of these sports so I am familiar with organisational models, as well as coach values and attitudes.  I don’t make these statements lightly or blindly.

In the above model, participation drives not only the development of sporting skills and capabilities but it also drives basic athletic development.   Certainly, there are sports and countries with excellent and longstanding positive attitudes to the importance and role of athleticism, but the prevailing practices of early specialisation and very high time on task are displayed in high injury and drop out rates.  Those that are left standing have the stuff of champions, so the model says.  In NZ, we have practiced, and still do in the majority of clubs and bodies, the same ideas.  Our coaches believe there is a correlation between high outcomes and the development of adult behaviours during childhood and the possibility of achievement in open grade and adult competition.  Examples of non-sporting achievements, such as the academic and musical accomplishments of the gifted, are given to support the ideology.

This thinking is catastrophically false.  To begin with, sport has an athletic foundation – more basic movement skills and capabilities are needed with which to participate and drive the development of specific sporting skills.  There is no such physical foundation, beyond basic sensory abilities, in music or academic programs.  The practices of the gifted are also not useful guides for those closer to the middle of the bell curve.  The basis of their achievements is not merely the countless hours on task but also that their gifts reward these hours of practice.  Each of us has an upper limit on how large a dose the brain and body can assimilate and adapt to.  It is the nature of the gifted, those at the right edge of a population bell curve, to be able to cope with and adapt to more and not the other way around.  The third lie of the outlier model is drop out.  The catastrophic levels of drop out in sport and exercise tells us, if we care to listen, that when it is no longer fun or interesting it is no longer of use.  At what age would we ideally like participation to peak at?  The answer is late twenties to early thirties.  More than a decade beyond the time our current practices achieve.  By itself, that should be food for thought; grist for the mill of change.

I could talk for hours on this subject but I suspect you are probably already glazing over so I will wrap this up with a question: what do we believe is the most important outcome of sporting programs dedicated to the ideal of excellence?  The answer is to maximise participation when it is of greatest value.  That is not during childhood but during adulthood.  If we wish to produce champions, our children must stay involved for a lot longer.  The current ideology – fit the kid to the ideal – destroys any hope of this.  Instead, we need to see them and treat them as they are.  Help them to be the best version of themselves.  With that idea and perspective in mind, we will make different decisions.

an extended discussion about ownership

I posted, recently, an idea that came from a conversation with one of my participants. She has been a good student but she became a great one when she decided she wanted more from her training - when her level of ownership increased.

This next thought is part2 of that discussion. There is a view among adults that the obvious connection between doing and outcomes renders the coach or sporting body responsible for those outcomes.

This idea implies that I have control of the student. Clearly, I am an influence but that's not the same as control. I don't make decisions for them. Indeed, the importance of ownership means I must avoid as far as practicable taking ownership and responsibility away from them. My job is to provide a learning framework and a safe environment that nourishes. Outcomes depend on levels of engagement and time, both of which are out of my control.

If you're struggling with levels of engagement in a young person, you could consider reducing efforts to control and giving them more responsibility.

http://sportperformancenz.blogspot.com/2018/08/if-survival-is-problem-ownership-is.html

article review: what all runners can learn from the East African masters

Fascinating and insightful dissection of the running practices and biologic markers of east African runners.  It suffers, unfortunately, from the reductionist view point of scientists and concludes with little by way of an explanation for why they're so successful.
The basic reason is numbers.  Sport, like every other human v human contest, is a battle between participation statistics.  Large participation numbers expand the possibility of genetic outliers and that's what's been happening in east Africa for 50 years now.  What do I think the east African outliers are to explain their dominance?  Psychological resilience and fractional gains in biomechanical efficiency.  The Africans are very small and light, and have terrific spring at the same time.  They produce easy power and they're extremely efficient.  Superimpose these basic functional characteristics on high participation numbers in extremely demanding programs, and it's a certainty that you're going to strike genetic gold.

original article: africa-calling-runners-can-learn-east-african-masters/

What is ‘high gear’ and why is it an important target for many young female athletes?

Intensity of movement and quality of movement are not comfortable bed fellows. The basic reason is obvious: the harder I work, the harder it is to maintain fine control.  Athletic development and sport have the ultimate goal of maximising both but practice requires that we separate them to ensure that the contamination of fatigue and intensity doesn’t impair skill development.  The reverse is also true and we need to ensure that practice also involves opportunity to ‘open the throttle’; to push the boundary of how hard we can work.

It’s uncommon for female athletes not to understand and buy in to the importance of finesse and control in athletic endeavour (low gear) though it can be a challenge for boys.  Conversely, boys take risks and embrace competition, and this means I don’t often have to ask them twice to rip into something at full noise – high gear. 

True 100% is hard to achieve, even for experienced athletes.  What most of us think of us as 100% effort can be as low as 70-80% of what’s possible.  There are several reasons why but not the least of them is regular practice and a clear sense of purpose.  In short, we can’t be concerned about what others might think or be restricted by low self-perceptions of ability if we wish to properly work in high gear.  All athletes need a balance of intensity and control in their physical conditioning.

Clearing up a misunderstanding about improving ‘balance’

Balance involves localised muscle reflexes.  Our joints and surrounding soft tissues sense position and a sudden change in position, sufficient to destabilise the body, causes reflexive activation of muscles to keep us stable.  As we age, these reflexes tend to soften leading to more falls.  The reflex itself can be strengthened by practicing small stabilising actions, e.g. standing on one leg, but what the reflex actually expresses is tissue strength.  Of the two components: the reflex, and the muscles activated by it, tissue stiffness and strength is the biggest factor.  Isolating or subtly provoking the reflex, for example ankle balancing, is far less effective in improving balance than a whole movement program involving control of body position: big movements like aeroplanes, single leg squats, and step ups strengthening function on many levels including balance.  Note: where the feet and ankles are concerned, spend more time moving barefoot.

If survival is the problem, ownership is the solution

One of my young female participants asked me last week what she could do to improve her throwing for water polo.  I replied that she was already strengthening the correct structures and movement patterns.  One week later she set new personal bests in the gym by way of effort, execution, and performance.  What changed?  The answer was ‘purpose and ownership’.  S (let’s call her that) has a specific want and she decided so herself – no one else informed her it was important.

The reason I raise the example of S, is parents and coaches regularly express a desire for their children to achieve more but don’t know how or under what conditions this might occur.  S provides the answer.  When the child wants an outcome and is willing to take ownership for driving the process toward it, we are on our way.  Why?  Positive psychology (more about this shortly).  New outcomes require positive energy and that’s what ownership brings.

Survival mode is a bad thing for children

Children in relentlessly demanding sporting programs can fall into ‘survival mode’: “I have a lot of work to do and getting it done is my priority”.  Developing a strong work ethic is vital but it shouldn’t require an expert to recognise the problem a survival mentality creates.  Childhood is first and foremost about learning.  Joy and adventure depend on an individual making and owning their choices in an environment with suitable variation.  In my experience, survival behaviour almost always occurs in environments in which the child is given little control but is instead instructed on what to do more-or-less all the time.  The obvious question to ask about such circumstances is: what is the agency for change?  Repetition begets capacity for work but it isn’t of itself a stimulus for improvement.  Where children are concerned change requires children to discover for themselves what they’re capable of.

Strengthening the hamstrings. Part3of3. The Nordic curl

The Nordic curl is the holy grail of hamstring strengthening exercises.  Few exercises display such high effectiveness in the reduction of sporting injuries (research link below).
The Nordic curl is also one of the safest and simplest exercises to use (video at bottom).

The preventive effect of the nordic hamstring exercise on hamstring injuries

video: the nordic curl

Strengthening the hamstrings. Part2of3. The thrust & roll

Part1 of this series - the reverse aeroplane - stretches and strengthens the hamstrings with particular emphasis on working the muscle through a full range of possible motion.  Loads in the reverse aeroplane are not large but focused.  Part2 - the Swiss ball thrust & roll (T&R) - increases load but continues the theme of Glute co-involvement.
The swiss ball thrust & roll can be done with 2legs (an ideal warm-up even when you intend to advance) and 1leg.  The T&R can be viewed in the videos below.
The critical coaching points are these:

1. two discrete movements: thrust with soles against the ball, and the ball close to your bottom.  Don't move the ball during the thrust
2. with the hips held high, slowly roll the ball away from your body toward full knee extension.  Roll only as far as your high hip position permits - no hip drop is allowed   
3. roll the ball back to your bottom, and lower your hips onto the ground.  Repeat

video: 2leg thrust & roll

video: 1leg thrust & roll

Strengthening the hamstrings. Part1of3. The reverse aeroplane (1leg Romanian deadlift)

This post gets the award for the longest title!
Hamstring weakness and tightness is a significant functional impairment.  The hamstrings are a critical sprint power muscle, and long hamstrings are also vital for efficient mechanics at the pelvis and lower back.
The first exercise in this series is one of our favourites: the reverse aeroplane.  We prefer the term 'aeroplane' over the classic Romanian deadlift because we use many variations that don't require a barbell or dumbbell, including this one.
Set up in an aeroplane bridge: neutral torso pivoting over one leg - the 'T' shape.  Note that the knee should be 'soft' - not locked.  Reach down to the floor with your hands and then slowly walk out into a bridge.  The unloaded leg remains in the air.  Lift the back leg as high as possible and then walk your hands back toward your pivot leg.  Strike the heel to the floor and then lift yourself back up into the aeroplane bridge using the hamstring muscle.
The reverse aeroplane involves hamstring stretch and shortening.  It's an ideal warm-up exercise and very useful as well in metabolic conditioning.  A hamstring muscle that does not cope well with an exercise like a reverse aeroplane is not likely to respond well to repeated high intensity exercise, so it's an excellent assessment tool of functional capacity especially in group scenarios.
The classic barbell or dumbbell loaded single leg Romanian deadlift is an outstanding hip-dominant exercise due to the comprehensive involvement of joints and segments, and the requirement of neutral joint motion for the exercise to function at all - it's very safe!

video: the reverse aeroplane (1leg Romanian deadlift)

The journey makes the champion. Part#1

I showed a young swimmer images of two different elite swimmers.  One is an Olympic champion and world record holder and the other swimmer is not.  One exemplifies the modern athlete swimmer: heavily muscled with wide shoulders tapering to nothing at the waist – a triangle.  The other is lean but blocky and unremarkable by comparison.  I asked my young swimmer to point to the image of the champion.  Naturally she pointed to the most impressive physique, and she was wrong.  The unremarkable looking swimmer is Natalie Coughlin; perhaps the greatest kicker in the history of competitive swimming, male or female.

The point we discussed was the difference between trying to reach for an ideal in the pursuit of excellence, versus undertaking a journey to make the greatest use of what you’ve got.  Champions are not champions because of the talents or skills they have but as a result of their journey to discover what they’re capable of.  Young athletes need to strive to be better but they need to understand; to learn to understand, that they can be more than the sum of the parts.

Sport asks questions and solutions needs to be found, and only the individual can truly understand what that means.

I had a school visit this morning with Year 6 kids (9-10 y/o) doing PE. Here's what I observed

It's cross country season so the theme today was lots of running disguised as play.  Here's what I observed: boundless energy, very good runs skills each and every one of them, and, above all, not an ounce of resistance or complaint - every child participated at full noise in every game or task with a grin.
These kids need nothing more than as many opportunities as they can possibly get to play.  They're like wound springs.  Release them, and watch them go.
There are some lessons in all of this for teens and adults:
1) Fun is king.  It distracts, it motivates.  Other people make things fun
2) The 'energy cost of movement' is the critical physical factor.  When the 'cost' to move is low, the pleasure derived from and the amount of movement likely is high.  Energy cost is determined by body weight (low is good) and basic motor skills (high is good)
Fitness (and the lack of it) is always a circular state: light bodies with great skills enjoy moving and that, in turn, promotes low body weight and motor skill development.  The circuit breaker is movement.  Move more and spend your exercise time growing movement skills.  (if your gym can't adequately explain how to build movement skills then go find a better one)

The essential 5 stretches and 1 massage

Teaching children to take some responsibility for themselves is not easy and it takes plenty of time.  It's helpful to first ask yourself whether you believe the task at hand is interesting or fun, or more like brushing their teeth.  If it's the latter then we are going to need to keep them honest until maturity takes over, just like we do with teeth brushing.
For young athletes, stretching and self-massage is essential.  Before puberty, fewer children need to stretch & massage, but from late puberty they all do.  The trick is not waiting until they need it, to teach them how.  Start them young and by the time it's important, inertia is working for you.  The routine in the link below is a small - about 5min - daily intent.

PDF: the essential 5 stretches and 1 massage

Who should be responsible for playing strategy?

Responsibility for strategy is different in team versus individual sports.  Athletes participating in individual sports must take responsibility for strategy while the complexity of team sport means coaches have a far greater obligation.

Why?  Strategy is a function of what you bring to the table by way of skill and capacity.  There is little to be gained from trying to play a game style you don’t possess the tools for.  No one knows (should know) better than you what you possess relative to the demands of the contest so game planning should be your responsibility.  Of course, it makes sense to consult others; especially during junior years.  In team sports, individuals must contribute ideas – the All Blacks are an excellent example of player involvement – but there are so many moving pieces that directorship from the side line is essential.

In reality, job responsibility in sport should be fluid.  A little less for the athletes when experience, maturity, or fatigue present obvious obstacles, and more as leadership and experience grows.  Communication and honesty are critical.  We are in it together, and our connection must be strong enough for us to trust each other.

article: Netball: The day the Silver Ferns finally turned on coach Janine Southby

The ten rules for teachers and students

click on the link below for the article.  the 10 rules are a great summary of the conditions that best support learning

10-rules-for-students-and-teachers - Open Culture magazine article

Managing and preventing overuse injuries in sport

Unless a young athlete plans to substantially and permanently reduce loading (time in sport)*, healthy soft tissues (muscles and tendons that are not irritable or sore) depends on striking the correct balance between work and restorative influences.  The tipping point is unique to the individual and takes time to find, especially when tissues are grumpy to begin with (image at bottom).

Restorative factors (deposits in the image below) include rest, massage and stretching, and improved tissue strength and joint range of motion.  There are other positive influences, such as adequate nutrition and hot/ cold therapies, but it's helpful to first understand and gain control over the major influences.  The stressors can be thought of as influences that further diminish tissue resilience.  Resilience is lowered anytime we impose additional stress on to already irritable joints and soft tissues.  Tight joints and poor management of posture are especially strong impairments to tissue health. 

The basic idea is that of a bank account, with deposits and withdrawals.  Healthy tissues are in the black while symptoms of injury and irritability represent an account in the red.  The critical fact about highly active bodies is that 'health' is a fragile condition - a bank account fractionally in the black.  This leads us to three important facts about managing and preventing sport overuse injuries:

1. small net improvements in restorative factors and stressors, e.g. marginally better posture and posture management, might be all that is needed to restore tissue health
2. 'transformation' is not necessary, only improvement.  The key is to understand the trajectory of tissue condition: are things getting better or worse.  Provided condition is improving it will eventually 'tip' back into health.  When we assess risk factors we aren't seeking to impose an ideal on a body but rather to determine the health trajectory and find obvious places to intervene
3. overuse injuries are like icebergs: 80% asymptomatic (below the symptom line) before 'the straw breaks the camels back'.  This explains the apparently innocuous causes of injuries that people experience.  The point is to be aware of the health of your body before a manifest problem occurs.  Massage is particularly useful in this regard - compression of irritable soft tissues hurts and a reduction in tissue sensitivity to compression is a good sign of restoration

How much time will be needed to regain soft tissue health is not fixed.  It depends on what tissue is affected (muscle versus tendon), how high frequency factors impact the tissue (e.g. sporting skills), and the emotional or psychological resilience of the individual.  Sometimes, more than a little bit of trial and error is needed.  Be patient and use common sense.

*athletes must push the margins and that means a lot of stress as well as an inherent risk of a 'speed bump' (e.g. an injury).  Risk and reward in sport are bed fellows.

Awareness is vital, and threatening at the same time

When we don’t know what we can’t do, it doesn’t bother us not to try.  Young children are unaware.  They are ‘have fun’ machines, dedicated to doing anything that makes them feel good.  They are also exceptional learners entirely without conscious intention.  When we are young we believe because we have no reason not to. 

At some point around puberty, this begins to change.  We begin to want and not just do.  We become aware of the rules that govern cause and effect.  We become aware of our limitations.  For young people, the onset of awareness can also be the onset of performance anxiety.  What if I don’t get the assignment completed?  What happens if I fail the test?  I’m not as good as those kids!

Awareness of fallibility brings the possibility (perceived) of loss and failure.  As parents, there simple ideas that we can reinforce to help them:

·        Show them life’s small victories.  Children are inclined to raise very high expectations of themselves.  Contextualise their achievements.  If we don’t show them, they can come to believe they are failing when progress is all around them.  They can also lose patience.  We are never the finished article as children and they need to understand that

·        Remind them to occasionally slow down and appreciate life.  The energy to compete is drawn from a more basic sense of well-being.  Balancing fun and ‘living in the moment’ with formal responsibilities is highly individualised.  Many children need help learning to switch off

·        Hug them as often as you can and praise them for their efforts.  Results are never more important or meaningful than the effort that goes in to achieving them.  Every effort is a victory

The All Blacks are the winningest team in elite sport history - here's why

The All Blacks have a 77% winning record over 115 years.  That is a remarkable statistic in all of elite sport.  These are the basic reasons why.

1. A multi-level development system.  There are not less than 5 levels culminating in the ABs: club, school, provincial, franchise (super rugby), and finally the All Blacks.  There is constant debate about the length and clutter of the rugby season (10 months from March to Dec) but the complexity of the system has one major positive effect which is multi-level, incremental player development.
2. The greatest example of succession planning of any sports team.  After the 2014 football world cup, Germany lost their captain (Lahm), their great strike weapon (Klose), and their defensive organiser (Schweinsteiger).  The effect of these loses was an exit in the group stages of the 2018 tournament.  France was similarly affected after the 1998 football world cup.  After the 2015 RWC, the All Blacks lost four of the greatest players to wear the black jersey: Carter, McCaw, Nonu, and Smith.  In the time since, they have lost 3 of 31 games (better than 90% winning record).  There is incredible depth in NZ rugby, but a balance still needs to be struck between introducing new players and maintaining standards.  The All Blacks do that better than any other elite sports team.
3. Belief and skills to match the ambition.  All Blacks players don’t merely expect to win, they are certain they can.  I recall reading many years ago about an overseas player saying of the All Blacks: “You never really beat NZ, they just run out of time (every now and again)”.  There is a relentless intensity that can be seen at every level of rugby in NZ that demands a matching skill set and athleticism.  Pace, space, and points rewards adventure and execution, and instills belief at the level of the team and the individual. 

The All Blacks are fallible, but they possess an unrivalled resilience and adaptability.

The mexican wave - a super core exercise

Your core is the middle segment of your body between the pelvis and bottom rib.  Because it contains no bony structures aside from the vertebral column, the core permits large motion.  This motion allows us to bend, twist, and reach.  Too much motion can hurt the spinal column and impair global movement of the body so we are designed with a set of guide ropes to limit and control core motion: the core stabilisers.
In real or functional settings, the core muscles work together to define safe and effective movement.  We need lots of core stiffness when global (whole body) loads are high, for example when we run or tackle bodies in sport, and minimal stiffness when loads are low and large ranges of motion are needed, e.g. during a Yoga class.  Like all motor abilities, core stability requires a healthy and strong postural foundation.  Simple core strengthening and stabilisation exercises are important in this regard.
The most basic of all core strengthening exercises involve 'anterior stabilisation'.  Exercises, such as bridges and most swiss ball exercises, require you to set your pelvis and lower back in a neutral position and then hold that shape while external forces are applied.  This is an effective but imperfect strategy because the two sides of the torso - the front or anterior side and the back or posterior side - are not stimulated together in any meaningful way.
The Mexican wave is one solution to this challenge.  You will need a light jump-stretch band and a floor.  The exercise can be viewed in the video below. 
Begin in the 'dead-bug' position lying on your back with your arms and legs straight and pointing to the ceiling.  The band should be tight around your feet and in your hands.  Slowly pull the band apart by lowering your arms and legs.  Spread your legs as well to activate your butt muscles.  Remember to breathe at all times!

video: the mexican wave

Should you over-weight a basic sport skill?

Over-weighting involves adding extra weight to a device, such as a racquet or club, or to the hands or body when an athlete is performing a basic sporting skill such as hitting, throwing, or stroking.
The short answer is no, not ever.  There are good reasons not to do it.
No two individuals produce force in exactly the same way though the pattern may appear very similar.  Each body possesses a unique set of physical tools that the brain uses to construct movement skills.  The length and weight of the arms and legs, hands and feet have specific values in the program that drives the skill.  If we artificially change any of these values, the program becomes contaminated with false information and possibly corrupted.  Additionally, the strength of joint structures is a function of the normal loads they are subjected to.  Sudden increases in leverage, by holding a heavier than normal object, causes large increases in stress on structures that stabilise the limb concerned.  Back injuries in sport are common examples of structures subjected to inappropriate loads.
Why is over-weighting done?  The premise is that we want to make muscles stronger and there is no more specific a conditioning target than the basic skills themselves.  There is, however, an important difference between conditioning a system in it's natural state and one with an artificial value somewhere in the chain.  Strength is a basic resource or tool.  Muscles or joints that are not as strong as we would like them to be can and should be strengthened but we do this by targeting at a level 'below the desired outcome'.  This is a truism in all of biology as well as sport.  Runners train at varying distances/ intensities but never carrying heavy packs or objects because to do so reduces efficiency and corrupts their movement.  Ditto swimmers.

Skill, and not strength, should always be the primary coaching target

Movement skills and strength interplay: one facilitates the development of the other, but the primary tool is not strength it's skill - the brain drives the body. everyday of the week I witness the effect that improved execution has on subsequent muscle force production in the very muscles we're supposed to believe underpin efficient execution in the first instance. The key takeaway for coaches is not to sweat the strength component - this will develop provided we advance the skill. the art of coaching is about 'how' and not 'how many'

Don't want to exercise? Take a lesson from young children

Very young children move clumsily, but they’re designed for exploration.  They have amazing leverage (thick muscle bellies and short limbs) and extreme joint and segment range of motion (very loose joint structures).  The benefits of this arrangement can be witnessed anytime we watch a young child squat; it’s effortless.  Contrast this with the elderly: poor leverage (lean muscles and comparatively long limbs) with extreme joint/ segment tightness.  The movement of a young child may be clumsy, but the steps of an elderly person look perilous by comparison.

The biomechanical characteristics of a young child make it both less likely that they will fall over when inspecting something on the ground and very easy for them to get back on their feet should they do so.  There is an appealing theory of motor learning that says that the brain performs an automatic risk versus reward analysis before choosing a motor action.  By this theory, the design of a child’s musculoskeletal system highly incentivises movement.  By the same theory, the very old would be subconsciously encouraged not to move.

The two critical factors in both cases (young versus old) are range of motion and strength.  A body possessing excellent range of motion and physical strength will acquire movement skills more easily both because the act of doing so is simpler and perhaps also because the brain will subconsciously encourage it.  I am a big fan of postural exercise modalities, such as yoga and Pilates, for adults.  They raise feelings of wellness that arise from working critical muscles and joints through long ranges of motion, but they may have the additional benefit of improving the subconscious desire to want to exercise.

PDF file: Don't want to exercise? Take a lesson from young children