Am I? I coach athletes as well as general population. Some people use that as a dividing line. But I know plenty of other S&C coaches who “do personal training” too, you know, to pay the bills. It’s like a dirty word, something they’re ashamed of. I enjoy it, it’s great for my coaching (so many different movement patterns to work on and cue) and very rewarding to see people attain their goals be that becoming pain free or completing a 10k for the first time.

So are S&C coaches just better than personal trainers? There are plenty of personal trainers helping their athletes (or clients) lose weight, get fitter, feel better about themselves and enjoy longer life and are very good at it. They have to motivate people who aren’t very motivated, provide encouragement to and engage with people who have very low self esteem and body image difficulties as S&C coaches have to. I’m sure there are poor personal trainers about as I’m sure there are bad S&C coaches too. Given the size of the market for personal training, PTs are certainly are better than S&Cs at marketing.

Qualifications? Plenty of personal trainers have sport science degrees. Plenty don’t. The same in S&C. The majority of PTs will have a REPS qualification, I haven’t done one so I’m not in a place to comment on the quality. S&C has undergrad and postgrad degrees and an industry qualification designed to provide a level of quality assurance. Not all coaches have any of them, plenty of coaches don’t have a UKSCA accreditation and criticise the qualification. As far as I can see, there’s not a lot else that’s available to separate the two professions.

Lots of PTs say they’re strength and conditioning coaches and what’s to stop them? If the field itself doesn’t take the qualification seriously, then why should anyone else? This should be the seal of approval to give peace of mind to athletes and general population that the person they’re hiring is of a certain standard and that they remain there. There’s a reaccreditation process to ensure that people update their skill sets and continue to develop knowledge and experience, simply remaining accredited should mean that the coach at least remains at a certain standard.

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Firstly, I don’t have a lot of statistics in front of me, or the inclination towards digging around for them and I do recognise that English teams have had some success with Wasps, Leicester and Northampton all reaching the finals in the last 5 years. So, my conclusions are based on this season and only Saracens making it through from the 12 team Aviva premiership, 2 making it from the 14 team top 14 and 5 through from the Rabodirect pro 12. It’s a numbers game.

Essentially the pro 12 is a miniature Heineken cup. There are 4 teams from Ireland, 4 from Wales, 2 from Scotland and 2 from Italy. Their national team squads are divided up between either 4 or 2 teams with a sprinkling of foreign and other homegrown talent. In England, the best players are spread between 12 teams and in France, between 14. This is a substantial dilution. The French teams have no salary cap and can supplement this dilution with world class foreign talent, the premiership clubs struggle in this regard.

The rabo direct teams all train and play with more international standard players day in and day out than any of the English clubs and play against higher quality players. This also serves to accelerate the development of any younger players in the squads. The conveyor belt of talent from Munster and Leinster are demonstrative of this and this undoubtedly will impact upon the national teams. The England squad has been picked from 7 different English teams (1 other from France and 1 in Wales), the Ireland squad from has been picked from 3 teams (1 other from Wales, 1 from Connacht in the extended squad), with limited time together as a squad, this will surely too have an effect.

I’ve been impressed so far with Stuart Lancaster and the decisions he has been making. Is this England’s bright new dawn? I fear not. I used to enjoy the regional matches, I can’t see England competing until a structure like that is introduced and I certainly don’t see blowing the salary cap as a sustainable way forward.

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I think, if forced into either camp I would have put myself in the second, but this is what got me thinking. It’s all very well, discussing the amount of hours deliberate practice someone needs or the use and success of talent transfer schemes (which I have definitely talked about) or indeed issues with the original research. The fact is, in order to get good at something, you have to do more of it. As a general rule, those who practice more and better at whatever activity, get better at that activity. The more I drove while learning, the better I got. The more I played the piano, the better I got. The more I weightlift, the better I get. Simple.

The reason talent transfer probably works is because of some similarity between sports and those who make the successful transfer are excellent and intelligent athletes. They will likely have spent a lot of time practicing at being an athlete, in whatever sport, and developed good lunge, squat, brace, push, pull, run and jump patterning. No desk jockeys have and will ever transfer to become a top sportsperson. They will also have good cognitive abilities to learn the technical aspects of the new sport. Even then, talent transfer isn’t consistent, look at rugby league players crossing to union. OK Jason Robinson, Chris Ashton, Mat Rogers and maybe Lote Tuquiri have done well, but what about Iestyn Harris, Chev Walker and Andy Farrell, maybe they didn’t have enough practice at the skills or there was a poor transfer strategy.

In any case, I personally think it’s a pointless argument. Genetics are important, significantly in particular sports like rowing and horse racing where being tall or short are important. We see athletes who adapt more and quicker physiologically than others too, maybe that’s another important genetic aspect. But then, practice is important. I don’t think it’s too much of a push to hypothesize a trend towards those who practice more at rowing, among the tall guys, make better rowers.

So what does it actually matter if it takes 10,000 or 6,000 hours? If we could identify the types of people who only take 6,000 hours do we only select them to coach as it takes less time? (And how would we identify those people? By genetics? Now there would be irony!) Of course we don’t, people will take however long it takes. It’s the coach’s job to make sure they get there at all.

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The first is surrounding proprioception and balance. I’m not going to get into a debate here about definitions of the 2, for the sake of argument let us just lump it all together as both are related to barefoot training. Barefoot shoes establish a closer contact with the floor than a standard training shoe and in theory gives more cutaneous feedback aiding joint position sense. When in a training shoe you are elevated off the floor on a lump of EVA foam which compresses, creating an unstable surface increasing the challenge of maintaining balance. Does that increase the proprioceptive activity further up the kinetic chain? Is a barefoot shoe making training easier?  Or shifting more focus to the foot and ankle?

The next question I have is what are we using it for? Surely they increase foot strength, although I’m not sure how this has been measured. And if this is true, to what degree? The foot doesn’t switch off once it is in a shoe and switch on when you put a foot glove on, so the difference may not be as huge as perceived. No doubt loading of the architecture of the foot will increase though as you take away the shock absorbing abilities of a training shoe. How well does this cross over to sports performance, particularly if the sport you play involves wearing a training shoe? And will removing that shock absorbing capacity have other impacts?

It would be interesting to track injuries associated with barefoot training. This is more likely to be an issue with those embarking on barefoot running and doing so in an urban environment. I think that there’s definitely potential for an increase in impact injuries to the sesamoids particularly with poor technique and other biomechanical deficiencies. Having raised these questions though, I personally quite like barefoot training, particularly during warm ups where possible, however if I can get away with doing it in socks and keep the £125 a pair of vibrams costs in my pocket I will. For me, for now, it remains another tool in the toolbox rather than a full time pursuit. That might change after the barefoot debate at UKSEM, after which I’ll be quite prepared to eat my words if necessary.

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I read a piece in the new York times the other day, it was about barefoot running. To be more precise, it was about how barefoot running can save the world. All it takes is a shift to the balls of the feet and all ills are solved, the article cited a couple of cases where people had changed technique and were now injury free. It can be a very efficient way of running when done correctly but it’s definitely not the answer for everyone.

I work a few days a week doing biomechanical analysis at Profeet running store often seeing people who are carrying injuries and we try to work out what the mechanism is behind that issue and resolve it. Now, the majority of people will run for 2-3 sessions per week and be training for either general conditioning or with a race in mind. Quite often their running style and motor patterns have been grooved over many years and the time and effort required to change these patterns is significant, too significant for many to make the shift to forefoot running. For some, the changes needed are purely technical and they are the ones who will make the transition fairly smoothly if they want to. They will be very body aware and as such will be able to make the positional changes needed to run forefoot.

For others, it’s more a question of function. They don’t have the requisite strength and or flexibility, or inclination to develop the requisite strength and or flexibility in order to aid a change of running style. For those people, the best course is to maintain the current running style and work on bang for buck areas to reduce risk of injury. Namely correct shoe and orthoses, management of training volumes and, depending on potential injury mechanisms, a manageable strength and conditioning intervention. For some, structural issues will be the limiting factor. These will often simply have to be accommodated for with a footwear and orthotic intervention.

So before everyone starts going nuts for forefoot, barefoot, pose and backwards (yes, it does exist) running techniques you need to ask a few questions. Is your current running style a problem? Are you physically able to change it? Are you motivated enough to change it? Either way, get yourself down to Profeet to get checked over.

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For example I work with one person who is 70 years old and he wants to improve his skiing. For him, getting into an overhead squat isn’t going to happen and even then he does it once, what does that tell me? It tells me he can overhead squat once, he has decent mobility and good postural control…for 1 rep. Instead of that I use a squat with hands in front for reps, once we hit a 20 rep target we change, progressing to split position and lateral squats and then, hopefully, to lunges. It gives me an idea of the mobility and postural control over time, and some idea of strength and metabolic abilities. It’s a form of functional movement screen (without the trade mark at the end).

I was reading/watching some pieces about a Quotidian Movement Screen that Matt Price in Canada is using which is certainly very interesting and is another way you can utilise a movement screen, especially with a group of athletes you see very regularly. I also like some of the bits Vern Gambetta talks about regarding overloading a system to see it break down, taking the athlete out of their comfort zone. One of the best movement screens I find is to get someone to run fast. If possible film them in frontal and sagittal planes and watch in slow motion, you will very quickly get to see where the issues are. Plus it has transfer as most sports involve running quickly. Watch side on and you’ll quickly pick up on pelvic tilt, postural control and flexibility issues. Watch from behind and you can see ability to control transverse plane movement as well as other flexibility and postural control abilities. It’s a hurdle step, lunge, rotational control, core strength and hamstring length screen in one.

The FMS will suit certain situations and scenarios and it does give some quantitative data. But I also don’t think we should be afraid to work in the qualitative environment. If you can take video and have access to dartfish (or other video analysis software) then getting joint angles and ranges of motion is great. If not or if time is for that kind of analysis is an issue, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with comparing before and after videos by eye, particularly in earlier stages of development where progression is greater.

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I’ve read studies looking at jump squats and testing profiles at % 1RM jump squat (not a test I’m too keen on), % 1RM back squat, % bodymass and selected loads. These use different methodologies including accelerometers, force plates, video cameras, bar trajectory, centre of mass trajectory, smith machines and squat racks. There are studies looking at cleans, power cleans, hang cleans, mid thigh cleans, pulls and snatch derivatives but nothing comparing them. That would be a complicated study design. So once you’ve narrowed that lot down and decided on something you can actually use as a measure, works with your athletes, that you have the contact time to implement, that works in increments it’s actually possible to load a bar in, you have your load-power curve. Sweet…so what now?

Do you train at that peak power? To the left? To the right? For how long? Sets and reps? That’s one exercise you have a load-power curve for, do you get it for multiple exercises? Suddenly that becomes a lot more testing, that’s going to impact on your contact and training time. You can’t really use it purely to prescribe training loads except for that one exercise, but  you can use it to test the effects of your program design, you can see how each block has effected, if at all, that profile. For me I think that using squats is probably the best exercise for familiarity and ability to load it all along the force velocity curve and I have a myotest which makes it fairly easy to measure. It’s still something I’m playing around with at the moment but I’m looking forward to using the data.

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I’ve been annoyed throughout the whole competition really about the coverage and stories coming from the England camp and am sure that they were very much blown out of proportion given the need to fill column inches and minutes on 24 hour news channels. I understand the need to relax and unwind between games and the England management, I think, were right to give the players a little free reign to decide how to do that.

I’d have preferred to see more attention on why the management and players didn’t know who the majority the starting XV were. Why was no consistency in selection between the autumn internationals, 6 nations and world cup apparent? Why were they using untested combinations and players out of position in the quarter final of the world cup? Why can’t England clear a ruck? Why can’t they create, identify and attack space on a rugby pitch? These are more pertinent questions than ‘did Mike Tindall go on to another bar?’. Who cares about that? I know I don’t.

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One of the exhibits at the royal observatory was the planetarium, it was basically a tour of the universe (a very small part of it iI guess) showing you around some constellations, the solar system and some highlights of deep space. Apart from a nagging feeling of how inconsequential and small we all are, something else stood out to me. N.B. Incidentally, if you are prone to bouts of depression, perhaps avoiding the planetarium and maybe physics in general is a good idea.

The interaction between the very big and the very small is what stood out though. The gravitational forces at play. Moons orbiting planets, planets orbiting around stars and stars around galaxy centres but also electrons around nucleii in atoms. It’s all connected. It’s exactly the same thing in the human body. We strive to know the interactions and how certain things impact upon each other. A lack of flexibility in the big toe for example completely alters running efficiency, the muscles that become active and dominant, the direction of ground reaction forces and the torques placed on joints. The better we understand those connections, the biomechanics, and use them, them better we do by our athletes.

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I recently had some time to use (not to kill, who wants to kill time!?!) between sessions south of London. Inspired by a Ben Goldacre blog on nerd days out, I decided to check out what was in the area (http://www.nerdydaytrips.com/) and headed to the millennium seed bank at Wakehurst kew gardens. Despite not being into plants, gardens or gardening I enjoyed the few hours I spent there and was impressed by the seed bank project.

Basically, they collect seeds from around the world and store them incase of biblical floods to preserve a record of as many plant

Person looking at small stuff

species that currently exist as possible. They research different ways of storing and germinating seeds and share that research with the world. They have examples of how some discoveries have helped progress medicine and their labs all have windows so you can see the scientists at work (ok, it’s not that exciting looking at someone staring down a microscope but the sentiment is there). It got me thinking, is there any way I can possibly link what I saw to strength and conditioning and get a blog out of it? I think there is.

There is so much knowledge in S&C that could be shared in order to better help and inform other areas. I know ‘tactical’ strength and conditioning is big in the US helping police, fire departments and the military, are we as good at that over here? Why stop at those professions? Manual labourers, office workers and farmers would all benefit from education on core function and training, the occupational health officers around the country should have our help. We all bitch about our young athletes not doing enough in schools, do we offer to help the teaching profession? How many PGCE PE courses have S&C input? By doing this we help ourselves, more jobs in the field to be filled by the growing numbers of coaches/researchers. These are questions I don’t know the answers to but are certainly area for growing the field over here.

Tenuous link? Perhaps. Valid point, I hope so. Even more tenuous/tedious links to S&C in the coming weeks? Definitely.

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