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Jack McLean and today I’m lucky enough to have my guest is Dr Phil Graham Smith we’ll be discussing everything you need to know when it comes to high performance programming and utilizing the secrets of biomechanics uh so make sure coaches to get your notepads out and of course athletes as well um
There’ll be some real key technical models that we can discuss that you can apply to your training if you’re tuning in live feel free to use the comment section below and uh text in some questions for Phil and I’m sure we can find some time a little bit later on but
Thanks for jumping on on the other side of the world Wednesday night Phil really appreciate your time mate no problem thanks for having me looking forward to this likewise yeah looking forward to the chat as I mentioned Sam Joseph colleague of mine recommended I have you
On when I I caught up with him at the ASA conference and you’re the top of the list so um I’ve done a little bit of listening with with recent interviews mate and yeah really looking forward to um yeah sharing your experience in sport but also um obviously with technology
And and in biomechanics um but I guess for the listeners that aren’t aware of your background field do you mind providing us both from an academic and practical point of view some experiences you’ve done along the way yes yeah sure um background is I I would I would find
It hard to say I’m an Co but uh I’m you know through and through by a mechanist worked with Athletics in particular Sprints long jump triple jumpers High jumpers for many many years 30 years I think now to be honest um and throughout that time I found
Linking in with physios and snc coaches understanding more about their world has helped me become a much better practitioner um I think you are you’re in a position like a biomechanist you can actually bring a lot of um dis disciplines and professions together and and unite that together
Neatly with the coach and athletes to achieve some great things so we’ll get on to that I think uh later on but my background uh I graduated in Liverpool Pol Technic back in 1992 and was fortunate enough to work then uh on a a program with the the
British Athletics Federation as it was then back in 1992 uh and I continued to work with them through the various iterations with UK Athletics uh until I left uh the country in 2013 where I went to as Spire Academy um but alongside all that I was an academic um Liverpool jumo University
Then I went over to Salford uni and within a few years of being at Salford uni I became the director the head of department and it was there where I was able to realize a vision of setting up one of if not the first snc programs uh in the
Country and uh Martin Matthews and myself um we we got together we we got I the national strength and condition Association of America and became the first undergrad program that uh graduates could actually leave with the cscs qualification so snc became quite a main stay in my life from around about
2003 um got the cscs maintain that do my CPD all that sort of stuff um we then went on you know we employed Paul comfort and then he took it on to the Master’s level and and I think most people would agree that sford has become
One of the uh focal points of excellence in strength and conditioning around the world now you know Paul went on to do some good work with some of the younger guys there uh but then 2013 um I went to Aspire Academy in Qatar uh and I left there just two
Months ago two months to the day uh to take up a position at Manon University as a reader in biomechanics and Innovation so 10 and a half years in the desert met some outstanding practitioners there um snc coaches physios and I guess it’s through them that they helped me develop you know one
In particular I think it probably comes into one of your next questions actually Alex natia uh is someone I met there uh love the guy you know he he fed me basically uh and I think through him you know I’ve actually grown as a biome mechanist you
Know feeding me with the right questions and you know so having someone like that uh working alongside you to to develop Solutions and um answers to coaching problems be it Athletics coaching or snc coaching I think is is your bread and butter as an applied bi a
Mechanist but yeah back in the UK now uh settling back into an academic role which so far so good quite enjoying the you know getting back into the classroom again yeah sure fantastic yeah yeah great Segway say Alex is most listeners I imagine be familiar with Alex’s work
Um who else have been some sort of strong influencers U mentors if you like over your career help influence your uh philosophy well has to go back really to as as I said I’m a biomechan is thrown through and it has to be Adrian Lee’s Professor Adan Le from Liverpool John Mo
University he he’s probably the man who not only gave me the opportunity after graduating at Liverpool uh he gave me um the skills the competencies the knoow of of Technology Force platforms for example you know we weren’t using iPhones and we’re using high speed cine cameras you know we were digitizing
Manually you know it was a completely different world back then but Adrien was a guy who who who who fed me the the skills and the competences and gave me the opportunity to work with UK Athletics uh back then he was my PhD supervisor and and I guess along the way
We sort of jointly came up with the the secrets of of being impactful in sport there were many uh similar programs in athletics some at Manchester met where I am now with throwers some at Leeds uh Leeds Becket some at Brunell um and and other sports and we
Were the only one really that continued way into the uh end of the 1990s into the 2000s of working with with athletes and providing continuous support to them so I’d always be thankful to Adrian there um you know as I alluded to then it it’s then the coaches that feed your
Your practical application they feed you the questions so you know Alex is is a a key example there other ones you know people know Chris bradner uh and swiss um Evan the Physio and swiss you know the these guys over Aspire or aspar would be feeding the the questions of you know
How can you assess this what does this mean you know one one of the big ones that Alex gave was um if if I’ve got an athlete who can who can squat a 100 kilos on two legs does that mean he can squat 50 kilos on a single leg you know
And I said no it’s not it’s not possible he goes I knew that but why Alex was a a why man you know why but why and and and I just sat down and you know I think there’s one of the things that you know
We can maybe can go and jump on the force plates and test it I said I don’t need to do that you know we can relate to fundamental biomechanical Concepts and just by simply looking at segmental Mass distributions and and we created an answer straight
Away within half an hour and and when we did test it on the force plates and and Chris then went on to do more looking at different variations of of of single leg uh work they were very very close to to what the the segmental route gave us so
I think you know get getting the right people in your team working you know with a desire to help performance of an athlete help develop performance you get the right questions you can filter out the nonsense get to the point quickly which is another another Factor you got to do
It quickly you can’t put together a research program and wait three months for it to get ethically approved and you know and then a year or two later you put a paper out and then you give you feedback this is about understanding fundamental principles of physiology biomechanics snc if you understand those fundamentals
You can you can answer questions very quickly for me the research side of it is the icing on the cake it’s the confirmation um and I don’t think really in in all honesty in biomechanics I don’t think there’s anything outlandishly new to feed into into wnc maybe maybe the the the the next
Thing to understand in relation to injury is recovery more than how to get people stronger and faster I think recovery might be the the next big breakthrough which has more links with the the physiologist then I guess but um as I said you know we we need answers quickly understanding the fundamentals
Can get you that without actually going to the lab to do any testing so um you know I had all the gadgets anyone could have in in Aspire and bottom line is I had Force plates in the highspeed video camera on my phone that that covered 90 odd per of
Of my provision to athletes you keep keep it simple yeah yeah simple and and like you mentioned the time in that environment is so critical so being able to have that access to information quickly uh s knowledge to be able to then give the athlete feedback then and
There is pretty important is that something that um you know in terms of the evolution of force deex was was sort of front of Mind as someone that was using Force plates throughout your career you pretty AB impress yeah um you know many many years
Ago as a as a young guy coming out of school my dad worked at a kitchen manufacturer gave me a job or he managed to get me a job in the summer and it was working on a production line filling boxes you know packaging and I’m I’m
Thinking this is hard work this turning around putting this in the box then turning there putting I thought I can make my workflow a lot quicker here and that’s the same principle that came through with with for decks at Squad weekends with the jumpers I I’d be doing
Drop jumps from 20 and 40 squat jumps counter movement jumps 40 Meer Sprint tests on the Lac um then doing some you know different tests into the sampit standing long jump and various things and I’m spending hours crunching that data in an Excel spreadsheet and I’m thinking how
Can I how can how can I become more efficient and and the other side of it was going into football clubs and rugby clubs and I’m hearing that there’s not really much connection between science and medicine we used to hear back in the early to mid 2000s it’s a medically
Driven program it’s a science it’s a performance driven program it wasn’t simply performance in the sense of athletes need to be uh you know better physically but they also need to be more robust that that Synergy didn’t exist it was um can you do a jump test for me
Today yeah but I did that for the physios two days ago why am I doing it again I did it for the snc as I did for the physio why am I doing it again and then you get some half jump that nobody’s really interested in because
They didn’t perform it well so I’m thinking hang on a minute these guys aren’t talking you need to do it once and do it well so let’s get the bilateral plates to look at asymmetries from a physio perspective return to play add the forces together to get the performance output measures of peak
Power jump height you know RFD whatever it might have been back then so that’s where for steps came about really is is a solution to become more efficient and to help communication and be a little bit more empathetic to the players themselves and uh you I think forc deck
Um is something that will I will always be immensely proud of uh the way it’s taken off globally and and a lot of credit there to my co-founder there Dan Cohen who did a lot of the donkey work leg work traveling around America doing all the you know the the conferences the
The shows and you know he really was the heartbeat of it I had I had the nice side of things of understanding forc time curves and creating algorithms to autod detect you know which made you know obviously help create a nice user experience which I still believe is is one of the things
That make it the probably the best Force plate product out there it’s it’s user efficiency less clicks of a button uh the the intuitiveness of it if you like yeah oh absolutely yeah it’s taken off and um yeah can understand why it’ be something you look back on pretty
Proudly of um it’s definitely made a big impact on many lists no doubt now in Elite Sport but also in the private practice uh being able to access technology pretty easily uh not be overwhelmed from it you know and how to use it and then like you said be able to
Spend hours and hours crunching the data but be able to apply it then and there with the ath solved a big problem but I think what what comes with that there’s a negative side to that and you know maybe this is the older dare I say wiser guy that I’ve become over the
Years I think we opened up Force plates to a wider Community you know traditionally they were they were the the tool of the biomechanist and over the years and and and credit to Rob Newton in the system that he created uh prior to force deex uh the there was a lot of old
Systems hanging around in in uh clubs institutes around the world particularly UK I you know when I was going into and there was there was the force plat there sating cupboards they weren’t being used because the expertise around processing Force data wasn’t there or the confidence wasn’t there so I guess
That’s what we we tried to create was to sort of liberate all these these Force Platforms in the um in cupboards uh and and people who had Force plates kissas amp his vertex you know creating that link to um to run it through the software which essentially was the the the first thing
We went to create a a software solution not necessarily Hardware the hardware came at a different date so yeah but the downside of it is you’ve now got people and not necessarily criticizing this there’s a lot of overthinking going on creating new new variables you know that really aren’t that that valid I’d
Say um and you you’ve now got a whole ton of Experts of of force force deck or Force plate users who I think possibly can be complexifying um what they’re getting out of it you know yeah that’s interesting what what would um what variables would spring front of mind that you’ve sort of
Picked up on over the years that perhaps are I when we when we were at University way back in the you know late 90s we were taught by engineers and physicists not by mechanist sport scientists and one of the very first sessions we had was looking at Dimensions you know what are units
You know what what are the you know what is the definition of of a of a certain Dimension and when you start putting variables together so that you know I think there’s maybe 180 plus variables that you can get out of Forex not all of them are relevant because it’s some of
It is breaking the curve down to the time at which onset of movement occurs of the time those tend to be used to derive other VAR Ables like movement time flight time but so there’s a whole load of variables but the the first thing when you you’re looking at data you can’t
Just make magic numbers up I I’ll just divide this by that so one of my there’s two things I guess one is RSI modified I I despise that metric it’s become so popular it and I don’t know who came up with it so this is not having a pop
At anyone I just don’t know where it came from dimensional analysis flight jump height is in meters divide that by contraction time or movement time which is seconds M divided by second is meters per second which is speed velocity that is not velocity so if metric has been
Created that is has got the same units as another variable velocity but it’s not velocity so therefore I I would I struggle to see how that um has been got so much traction in in a scientific community of snc coaches um when for me it’s a flawed a flawed
Variable yeah so that so do you think um because it’s so accessible it’s got a little bit out of hand now where anyone can pick it up and use it and it’s um process I’m all I’m all for creativity I’ve got a creative mind myself but I
Think what you do need is sense checks B before and and I know and and again I I I hate myself for saying this because I don’t want to be the old guy who’s who’s criticizing the young ones I I’m all for creativity but sense checks have got to
Be in place and it’s it’s it’s it’s about just thinking of something and working it all out spend time to process it reflect on it change it refine it before you start putting it on social media has been the next best thing I mean that that would
Be my wisdom you know to the younger generation I guess um I think what you know what I’ve I’ve heard from people in the past that the The Humble people who went out big time on publishing things and now now is the equivalent of that is probably the social
Media there was one very uh eminent researcher who actually stood up once and said you know what all that stuff I did in the past as a younger academic it was absolute nonsense you know but that the problem is that’s that’s a body of evidence now
Or that’s been used as an Evidence base and I think we can get consumed at times with evidence base when the evidence really is not that good so that there is a a word of caution there I guess for be creative but please put your sense
Checks in you know spend time on it take time reflect on it yeah and and and again I don’t mean to be critical you know I’m I’m just the older guy Now sort of trying to instill some wisdom in in these younger guys I mean I I’ll give you another example I’ll give
You another example isometric midf pull we know that you can get bigger scores doing an ISO squat right and ISO mid five pull has gained so much traction so much traction and and it’s clear easy to why you’re um you know it’s a pull it’s a lift you
Know it’s like doing a deadlift isn’t it you know from from you know mid-range it’s easy to administer but the the con the consistency of positioning is not is not good you know you’re not looking at you know like for like between two athletes their positions are very different the bar
Could be near the hips on one could be nearer the on the other the trunk could be for could be upright and you’re relying on strength and you know energy absorption through wrists elbows shoulders all the way through but my biggest concern is when you start then
Using that for doing uh DSi you know dynamic strength index the purest measure of DSi the purest measure has got to be squat jump over an ni or squat no Ecentric movement in a in a counter movement jump no uh stretch shortening cycle it’s purely concentric against your your Isom metric squat in
That same position everything else every other metric is contaminated in the sense of you don’t know really what you’re measuring you start looking at a myth five pull as I said it’s a it’s a it’s a pull push rather than just a push you know your
Squat jump is just a is just a push against the ground versus stretch shortening push you know so what what you’re looking at okay you may get some nice different ranges you if it’s above point8 it’s below 6 you know you might be able to make some influences from it but for for
Me I would be saying like when we first developed the iso squat way back in the the late 90s you know think it through you know don’t just go latch on to counter movement and a mid th pole just because everybody seems to be using them you
Know just think think it through from the the attributes that you’re testing rather than just jumping onto a bandwagon and yeah for for those listening in that um like you said you get caught up with what you see um on social media and and you can start to
Just follow that bandwagon when going through and trying to take a more of a calculated approach and what like fundamentally what would be the key areas of of I guess biomechanics um that we want to understand before you know creating your battery of tests do you think key areas look
Into yeah I mean years ago and and this is the first thing I did in in the first couple of months I went to Aspire um for for me the Baseline when I went to Aspire was so low I couldn’t believe you know what they were really
Doing um there was no Sports specific testing been done W with athletes so you know when I arrived the first thing we did was a needs analysis we looked at each sport that we worked with each event group in athletics and said what are the characteristics of this of this
Sport or this event from all aspects holistically biomechanics snc psychology nutrition you name it what’s the work rest ratios what’s what’s the you know the the physical attributes and from that then we we were able to hone in on what you know the top 10 qualities are that we’re looking for
Then you create the tests that are accurate fast uh preferably you can you know stuff you can do and get information that you can use straight away so that has implications on the Technologies you use uh and you build up this profile of attributes rather than just thinking
That a counter movement jump can give you everything which is is not the case so you know I I’ve heard you know counter movement Ecentric Peak velocity in a counter movement jump has been assimilated to deceleration in the change of Direction task and I’m like oh my word it can’t be
The the the level of and intensity of it self- selected versus you know deselect ating from high speed are not the same things so look at what your attribute what the the characteristics are of the the sport and then find a way of measuring it in the best safest most accurate way
Possible that that would be the advice and and if it means doing a maximal strength test rather than looking at a peak force in a squat jump you you do an isometric test yes then you you’re looking at well which one’s better you know is it an is or squat is
It is it biodex you know Isa Kinetics I would still use biodex ISO kinetics to this day from getting good measures of Ecentric quads and hamstring strength that would be my metric second to that I would then be looking ISO test be ISO squat or or even
Looking at uh joint positions in a Spanish squat you know to get an estimation of knee joint load you know rather than just doing a mid thigh pull because for me things get contaminated along along the way and if you can keep it as pure in in terms of you know the
Principles of of muscle length you know than you know joint you joint specific uh angles yeah I think you’re going to get closer to that transfer into performance yeah yeah so that it’s a bit there’s a bit there but the I guess the the key takeaways I noted down there was
First one is that having a clear needs analysis understanding the characteristics of the sport number two creating an accurate and fast reliable test um with your team so that’s quite a holistic approach bi Mech physiologists everyone’s coming together um with all their different guess perspectives and and coming a test that you’re you’re
Looking at that makes sense like you mentioned earlier for the athletes point of view you’re not doubling up and they’re going through a a process where they feel like no one’s talking everyone’s on the same page and everyone’s getting what they need um and it’s concise for the athlete and then
Three the pro then You’ ultimately getting a profile of attributes that you’re you’re designing a program from um and then when you’re looking at those S tests so it is specific like you mentioned the example of counter movement and comparing that to a deceleration and how the intensities are
We off um how what for for a quick and accurate test are you prioritizing I guess looking at the outputs of the athlete in the closest joint angles that you can with the closest velocity you can for that characteristic of the sport and sort of you’re looking at that
Compared to I guess the kinematics of the movement or do you sort of try and get some tests where you’re looking at kinematics of their Movement by filming them in training and and from a biomech point of view as well looking at how they how they train and
Perform yeah I mean we’ve been through the all you know that other going back a few years you know everyone was talking about functional functional training functional testing this that and the other you can’t I I had I had an snc guy working with some jumpers many years ago who’ convinced
The coaches that doing Drop jumps they had to have contact time of 0. one of a second and and that’s just unachievable to do it properly so the difference was a lack of understanding on the behalf of the snc coach is that the reason why a takeoff
Is 0. one of a second or you know up to 0.8 if you’re in the jump phase of a triple jump the reason why those contact times are so short is because of the horizontal speed now you remove the horizontal speed and you put someone on
A 40 C block and say I want you to do a 0.1 second contact you ain’t going to get a decent contact so this is where you can use data badly you know so establishing norms for for a 40 cm drop jump I wouldn’t want to see anything more than
02 of a second that is achievable and still being able to perform at the uh in the right way flat foot contact not too much collapse good control uh so that that’s where our our reference points come in and the normative data you know so that that’s for me is
How you would use numbers well not to try and replicate something that’s not achievable and if they do get to 0. one of a second on a 40 cm drop jump they’re going to be landing on the TOs and not doing much from the ground you know yeah not getting high yeah yeah
Yeah yeah that that’s perfect perfect uh yeah scenario there to to unpack um and and like you said howy you can easily get too complicated sometimes when you’re in the in the thick of things when things are moving too fast and you’re trying to get overly specific and you lose your
Principles yeah I mean spe specificity comes in many forms I mean you know I wrote an article with some colleagues at Salford many years ago we ran some workshops for for bases the British Association of sport and exercise Sciences on application of biomechanics into snc and we wrote an article um around
Spe movement specificity what does it mean from a biomechanics point I think I think it’s in professional strength and conditioning Journal um where we looked at yeah the the various uh qualities that you’d be looking for and trying to map exercises onto the skill so you you’d be look
Looking at a say a long jump and you say well you know how how much horizontal speed would there be how much vertical speed rotational speed uh some of it might have zero um influence like rotational speed in the long jump is not not you know not it’s not relevant but horizontal and
Vertical is then you’d look at the you know what would be the typical knee knee power uh what are the muscle lengths aint angles of muscle compar of these qualities force velocity uh whole body speed um size onto that so we created this little movement specificity framework where you’d be looking how
Does a deadlift compare to a long jump and it might have a a movement specificity ratio of about three you know doing a doing a long jump at full speed would be 100% but it’s not about just selecting things that are 100 90% And up it’s about understanding what the attributes
You’re looking for do I want something with threet shortening Cycles do I want to overload uh the the quads and the hamstrings in a certain way or the of the calf muscles then it’s not to say that they’re not important because they’ve got a low ratio it’s just how
And where do you put them into your program that that’s the key I think so you’ve got a good solid rationale of of where an exercise fits in and if there’s a choice between you know doing an isolated movement or doing something you know open chain closed
Chain whatever you can select which one has more Merit from a a time saving point of view as much as anything what what would you get more bang for your book with you what you do is you justify it’s its position in the program based on something
Rational and again that’s another I get a bit of buying you know I can if you’ve got a coach who’s adamant this is my go-to exercise then well if you have you thought about this because you get this and that from it you know and we don’t have to do
Double of it you don’t have to do that and that we can just do this one exercise it’s maybe a little bit smarter in in the way you do things so you know these are these are good questions to be having with coaches it helps it helps build that knowledge exchange it helps
Build the trust the relationship and at the end of the day we all know coach is King you know they go with what they they want but at least you’ve had that conversation and you know a year or whatever down the line they might go you know what maybe
We should try that now so it’s just about being patient not you know trying to run before you can walk and you know gradual steps but communication talking about their events their sport you know showing interest these are just basics of of getting someb you’ve got to show them that
You’re ly invested in their in their sport you know as much as they are and go back you mentioned istic testing and how that’s something that you really value for the quad hamstring do you mind going into a little bit more about that what what uh how that Feit into your decision
Making I think you know if we go back to you know why have I got involved in in changing Direction stuff well my PhD was in long and triple jump that is changing direction it’s from horizontal to Vertical changeing Direction ACL injur risk agility all this type of stuff is also changing
Direction on a horizontal platform but the mechanisms and the body movements are the similar up until the point of contact and the early part of of of contact that the knee flexion part absolutely identical if you want to break harder it’s a same same as how you
Would prepare for a long jump takeoff you know you come in at speed and you break now what we used to do was measure Ecentric quad strength and hamstring strength using biodex or or other Lio on various is of kinetic machines and they gave us the the the
Safest in my opinion the safest and most accurate data on Ecentric strength of quads and Hammet when we had to move away from uh universities for for testing and moved into high performance centers they didn’t all have is of kinetics so this is where we started looking at how else
Can we get a measure of of of leg strength we used a concept 2 dyo machine to start with and then that led to the the isos squore when we used portable Force plate so that was how we’d move from uh ISO kinetics tried something different reflected on it moved to isos
Squat mid thigh PS were in the equation then but you know ISO squat became the thing so where do where the both sit well we’ve got normative values if I’m testing uh adaptations to training I’d probably just use the um the the iso squat if I’m looking at something
Specific um like quads or hamstrings in in relation to Performance or uh injury risk i’ be testing something very close to the mechanisms of those performance and injuries eccentrics where the muscle being stretched so that’s where I would still incorporate Isa kinetics into my testing protocol maybe twice a year I know that
The best jumpers in the world have got Ecentric Peak talk relative to body mass of 5 and and a half body weights for for quads and three times body weights for E Centric hamstrings the these are my reference figures and if I can get them up to that
Um if I can get them up to those values I know that they should be robust enough to perform the the movements well be it changing direction ACLS or running and jumping for distance it’s a great answer appreciate it thank you I think you
Just you go I think I think um the point is you don’t rule out any technology you know just because something’s the flavor of the month you don’t rule it out you’ve got to weigh it up as to what it’s actually giving you you know what what are the what are the
Attributes you’re testing if I’m looking at injury risk I I test using the the me mechanism as closest to that injury mechanism as I can Ecentric how am I going to do that safely I atics until something else comes out that gives me that very specific information I will still use ISO
Kinetics you know it doesn’t stop me from doing nboard or ISO squats using the force plates because they’re the things I would still use more on an ongoing basis in the gymnasium or the clinic you know but you know I kinetics maybe twice a year all they all of the
Players and and you mentioned buying an engagement as well with the coaches and that you know the importance of um showing that you care and and that you you you’re um you know you’re passionate about the sport um in terms of I guess reporting and and you know conveying the
Your assessments uh in a format that that athletes can understand as well as tactical technical coaches what are your tips for for sports SST bi mechanists s’s in doing that effectively so just repeat that SEC sorry with with um from a buying perspective you talked about the
Importance of showing that you care yeah but then also conveying your assessments in a in a you in a format that is easy for for tactical technical coaches athletes to understand what some of your favorite ways to I guess visualize that data I think that I mean looking here what I wrote down
Um we talked about the you know the the the relationship the building I think that the buying for me once you’ve you established that relationship the buying comes from the a performance solutions approach whe when you’ve got the trust to to have those those really deep
Conversations over a coffee or a beer on a camp and and you just throw it out there you know what what what are your thoughts on this what are your thoughts on that and then when you can come up with with a a nailed on performance
Question and you you can then say you know have you thought about this you can’t say have you thought about this until you’ve got that that relationship because that’s seen as antagonistic why don’t don’t don’t start a question with why you why why do you do this you mean
Have you thought about this you know in the past you know did you do this you know what what has brought you to this working you know and and when you’ve got that performance question you can then uh which is is which is basically grow between the the two of
You the coach and the snc or the biomechanists you can then start filling your boots and and you know having having a cracker answering it in whichever way it may come out it could be just using data it could be testing I think I think that’s the other
Thing is don’t always assume you have to test you know because as I said before you don’t have to test use use and apply your Basics while yeah yes that actually brings on a good point with testing it’s probably something we haven’t brought in like um
Au what’s your stance on how often you test is it if you if there’s a obviously there needs to be a strong purpose to test the athlete um but is that you are you commonly test the athlete to see changes to see how they’re adapting to
The program and changes that need to be made um you mentioned how there’s some there’s some nor values that you’ve got do you like to see um that every few months to sort of see how how they’re tracking you sort of talk us through I guess the frequency of
Tests yeah again it’s it is about coming up with that testing in a suitable time so typically we would have a block of anywhere between four to six weeks and then a recovery week and within the recovery week you would you would do your tests which and and not
You know going to completely wipe them out there’s still a reduced load with within that week but you you’re actually getting a fresher athlete um after a couple of days recovery you really are focusing on on some quality information again um I I wouldn’t test for testing sick I
Think if you start putting things into the program because you are data driven I think that’s a problem I think data is informative when you’ve got the the the right timing for it and the right scenarios um I I look at the way fatigue monitoring is being
Administered now in in across all you know codes of football and I have to say at times I’m bewildered at how or what you’re looking for um um I did a a presentation for the is kinetics conference uh last year last March and I showed with data from how we
Test with jumpers at a Spire we would do a counter movement rebound jump where we’re looking at you know a performance metric of jump height for the counter movement and then an RSI counter movement on the drop jump side directive jump and we tested on a Sunday which is
Our day one of the week having had Friday Saturday recovery weekend and then we’ do eight sessions and test again on a on a Thursday lunchtime so Sunday was warm up and then they would do uh some Mobility then they would do a test then Thursday after accumulation of eight sessions we will
Do another jump test the same counter movement reactive jump from Sunday to Thursday we would see a 15% drop off in Jump height now I’m he in you know in the community around the for decks uh jump Height’s not sensitive to to fatigue and I’m like what how can it not
Be you know so the question then is when are you testing Okay match day minus one match day minus two match day plus two are you really expecting differences surely the the the way to be looking at whether an athlete is recovered from a game is to get some nailed on fatigued
Results so when you know fully that that athlete is totally destroyed fatigued that’s your benchmark not match day I mean I’m not saying don’t do Match Day minus one and plus two actually get some good reference data of a of a of a truly fatigued athlete so you know where
They’re at everything else and in the other metrics Force at zero velocity peakin Ecentric velocity counter movement depth all these are secondary measures um that contribute to that jump height so if if I know that match day plus two they are you know up up to the the threshold of the their best
Performances then they’re not fatigued you know they it no matter if they go deeper into a squat they’re just using more muscular effort if they go faster and and less deep they’re using more elasticity is it a strategy I I don’t like that term I I don’t think athletes
When you say to them jump as high as you can I don’t think they go should I go slow and deep or fast and short I don’t think they’re doing that so in in terms of a strategy implies that they’re consciously deliberately doing in a
Certain way is the effect of not not a strategy as such so maybe that’s me being a little bit of a being a bit pedantic one of these pet peeves I guess is there such a thing as a movement strategy or is it a is it a
Consequence you know and and if and if they are still jumping the same height what with the same Peak power are they really fatigued if they spend you know 0 Z however many seconds more you know in the concent there you know I think that’s really nitpicking and over complicating things
Really but yeah on the Strate or strategy or or just the simply the the pattern that the athletes use to to jump as high as they can um with is that something that you take note of so if there are a little bit more of a you HIIT flection compared to KN flection
And what does that mean to you like when they change strategies again it comes back to testing attributes so with with my jumpers counter movement into a rebound jump what am I looking for with jumpers the these are fast elastic people and we’re looking for this
Elastic that we used to call it the ping like as an elastic band Pink have you got your ping today so what what we’re looking for is someone who can who who can jump relatively fresh week in week out um and and maybe three weeks away from
Competing you know so they’ve got to keep this this elastic quality so I’m am looking for the their ability to react in in terms of the RSI relative to the highest jump that they can can produce so that’s that’s more of my quality there’s a reactiveness relative to the the drop height essentially
Yeah not worrying too much about how they initiated the Ecentric phase um in the counter movement jump you know so again if you think about qualities elasticity rebound effect for me is more important than looking at Ecentric Peak velocity or depth of movement yeah yeah yeah that makes sense
Yeah think a fair bit there in terms of biome mechanics yeah is there anything like on the topic that you think would be important for for listeners I guess more so the coaches practitioners that we haven’t touched on yeah look I think observations and again I apologize
If this comes across as as as been harsh but please as as an snc Community can and and this comes from a BAL point of view can you focus on the the C not just the s for sure strength has got its place and there’s a quality that we want to
Improve but for me the real nugget is in the sea the sea is where you’re going to get your transfers into performances um if you look at some of the worldclass athletes out there world record C holders they may not have set foot on an Olympic lifting
Platform you know so it’s not just about the strength side of it you know you’ve got to look at you know how are they how are they building the athlete to meet the demands of their their event or their sport so uh I I guess that’s a a takeway
Uh to try and become more biomechanic Ally minded in in your uh approach and I think then is just that word of caution to the the the younger coaches Who I wouldn’t necessarily say trying to make a name for yourself don’t try and complicate things keep things simple in terms of the assessment focus on your your attributes not the metrics don’t you don’t have to come up with something new keep it simple don’t over complicate it
Don’t become one of these these complexified you know one one of the things I was taught early doors working with with athletes and coaches way back in the 90s is is keep things simple don’t over complicate things talk their language and I think it’s not just in the snc community
I think in in the Athletics Community now you you’re getting some people who are using science as a selling tool rather than focusing on actually doing some good good conditioning work so again apology that if that comes across as being too critical but stick stick to the conditioning and do things well
Yeah yeah yeah I think um yeah it doesn’t come I mean certainly from my end anyway it doesn’t come across that way it comes across that you’re you’re clearly passionate about the field uh and you youve got um you want everyone to be I guess well informed in how to do
Things and and in this industry we can get easily caught up in the next best thing um but I think having that approach like you said just have you take a take a breath uh look at you reflect on how you’re doing things how can you be getting better with your
Processes and I mean there’s some big rocks that you’ve discussed that the importance of you know making sure everyone’s talking medically science performance team you know on the same page before working with the athlete um I mean what a frustrating experience like you said for the athlete to be
Getting pulled in all different directions um and ultimately we want to have that athlete centered approach I think that was a really important message uh for us as an industry to to uh respect um and then like you said yeah don’t get too caught up in the in
The science when when speaking to the athlete they’re probably not going to care too much about that but but have strong science processes and principles in place behind the scenes I guess um when we’re doing our analysis work and planning yeah yeah I’ve just seen a question poy said
Yeah you thought fors were bad wait until pause estimation apps fully kick in I don’t know who sent that one in but uh no yeah they haven’t got their name there PSG yeah um you know I’m I’m involved in a couple more companies now one is a u a tech in
Ino type assessment uh company called Sports centure um and then the other one is actually a POS estimation app called NSA Tech and um I think again I mean I see that written and said with a bit of a joke but there is a use for these Poe
Estimation apps for sure uh if you don’t what what’s the POS estimation so pose estimation is basically kinematically tracking movement using AI algorithms oh yeah um there are a coule out there yeah and you know as I said I’m working with the NSA Tech and um it’s a
Katar company I’ve been working with them for a couple of years now trying to develop a a a solution for movement tracking I think some of them work very well single camera uh easy to use very coach friendly and will give you some really good information but again treat it for what
It is you know if you’re wantan in sagittal play the Angles and the angle of velocities I know that NSA Tech has very favor very favorably with accents um in some changing direction task which is you know running accelerate decelerate run backwards where you’re filming is predominantly single planing you will get some
Religion it goes again it goes to what are you looking for what metrics do you want from it what attributes you make measuring they can work they can be useful so um don’t don’t don’t dismiss things on the basis that it’s not millim millimeter accurate like a icon or a
Qualis you know I I would I would argue that being able to test something on a with your you know your phone camera on a tripod with four markers on the ground wearing wearing football boots on the right surface far outweighs millimeter accuracy of going with trainers on onto
A Lono type vinyl surface in a in a lab just so you can get all marked up to do qualis integrated with Force plates everyone knows which you know a lot of biomechanists are based in universities very expensive Labs uh million million pound Labs you know it’s like you know I’m going to
Have to want to sell that service but the reality is it’s not environmentally or ecologically valid in terms of foot Footwear and surface so therefore what do I want something that’s maybe got Le accurate slightly less accurate but accurate enough information on the field in their environment or go to an artificial
Environment which is restricted for space um and and you compromising other things that are you know really important we know that if you if you try running on ice with a low friction quality you’re not going to get in the same position of wearing TR spikes on
Track you know so friction Force is is really important and making sure it’s as close as um you know what you would expect in uh in in the the real scenario of match play I think is is just as important that of gets overlooked because of accuracy yeah yeah that’s actually
Opened up a couple of questions there so on using AI your iPhone um to to get some feedback you think there’s there’s some Merit to it it’s reliable enough um to using it yeah Elite Sport I I believe so and I’m I’m happy to give anyone a
Demo of of the one I’ve been working on um uhuh not not to use this as a sales pitch but um I think change change direction um change sprinting I wouldn’t do anything like 90 degre or 180 turns I would go in and out backwards right you know where where
Your knee angle is is so you can preserve the knee angle A sagittal plane the angle as soon as you start turning rotating yeah the the the the vantage point of the the knee angle is going to be wrong so keeping things sagittal I think that it can work very
Well but that change of direction again again it look what what are you testing why why do an artificial test on changing direction 90 180 you know they sh the change all the time pre-plan movements again if you try and mimic what goes on in the
Game you know you you it’s unplanned you know you want to try and take it to the Quality you’re looking at in and in the sense of changing direction it’s more about Ecentric control and how are you breaking so looking at the breaking strategy of did I say strategy then looking at how
People break having accelerator to a velocity to go down to zero velocity to then come back on themselves running backwards I think gives you enough information about you know knee angular velocities will give you an indication of how much the knee is decelerating the body it’s not it’s not looking at knee
Moment it’s not looking at knee power but let’s not forget the you looking at knee moments and knee powers from inverse Dynamics is quite varied as well so you know you don’t have to you don’t have to get Force blat out to do a change in Direction you know you can use
Kinematics and understanding your technical model allows you then to make inferences about how breaking is occurring you know so technical models understanding the the you know the purpose of the task you know accelerate decelerate run back look at the angles the angle of velocities in the context of of uh Peak
Speed that you turnning that yeah it’s fascinating to yeah when of you interviews and I think it was brought up the technical model how Frank dick was was highly passionate about it at the time you British Athletics when building out a technical model um what are sort of your
Key principles like say the population does it need to be population specific to the sport um yeah talk us talk us through that when when you’re trying to build out a technical model perhaps when there’s not one in a in a specifical like for example thinking of like AFL um
Would you compare an AFL athlete sprinting mechanics to a you know 100 met Sprinter as an scenario um well I think that there are principles and there are there are positions which um influence how much speed you can generate so acceleration wise you know there shouldn’t be any difference you’ve
Got to question then what is a limiting factor is it the TR action from the the flaw through the that governs how horizontal and inclined you can go is it the fact that you starting more semi-upright rather than coming out of blocks it’s probably a bit of both
So you know you’ve got to you’ve got to look at what are the fundamental uh mechanics around acceleration some of which is don’t make sure you don’t plant your foot in front of your body when you’re accelerating because Center Mass behind the foot it’s a breaking effect so you want you want
To minimize any breaking but when you’re changing direction you want to maximize breaking so you you plant your foot further in front of your body and you can achieve that by leaning backwards slightly and extending your leg providing you’ve got enough friction Force um so you don’t slip then you’re
Going to break harder providing you’ve got the Ecentric control uh muscular control to do that so again that’s just looking at trunk position and leg position you know and and I think when you think about your segmental raos the trunk accounts for 64% was let’s say everything above the
Hips is 64% of the body you know so your two legs round about 30% each and everything above the hips around 64% something like that so controlling body position is going to have a huge effect on on what you’re doing so again understand understand the movement game
Best movements are not as clear cut if we were to say changing direction in in AFL or soccer it’s going to be very much situational um constraint you know it’s not like you’ve got to run and hit a take off board which is very con you know very focused and
Specific so changing direction in games there could be half a dozen or more different ways forwards to backwards forwards 90° forwards 180 sideways forward sideways back there’s very there’s all these different ways of changing direction and I think if you understand the acceleration the deceleration part of it and what governs high
Speed and what governs deceleration then you can then soon map that on the physical qualities as well and there that’s when you say you’ve got your your video analysis um you might be using AI you’ve got your kinetic testing like you said to get understanding of their capacities that
He said control you sort of marry up the two to then put a plan in place for sure yeah um what about um there you go it’s the the way you you’re linking the physical development with the injury risk of these of these types of activities and being able to be that
Conduit between different professions and the athlete to try and bring it all together around a technical model that says if you want to do this quicker and safer I suggest doing it this way and we can do technical coaching to develop that physical coaching to achieve those
Positions and also you know remedial or supplementary training with the physio you know to make them more robust so core control you know ankle stability Pro reception all these other things all all combined to create the the full package really I appreciate it well it’s been
Well over an hour Phil so mindful of your time it’s late at night um but I think the the quality of uh content that you’ve been out of to provide us mate over the last 60 Minutes has been amazing um for those that have tuned in
Halfway through or perhaps at the end um live make sure to listen to the very start um yeah Phil’s Dro gems all the way through so you can find this on our YouTube channel before we post on our podcast uh in the next couple of weeks
Um mate for for 2024 obviously at the start of the year of this recording early January um what’s on the horizon for you you mentioned a couple of business opportunities that you’re looking at you’re relocated back home um what yeah what are you excited about for for the rest of the
Year oh I would say creativity Innovation New Opportunities actually getting stuck in with students again um sharing and passing knowledge and and to to colleagues as well younger colleagues who may you know be sort of horned in on the academic mindset rather than than the the performance solutions
Mindset so trying to create more impact I think is from an academic point of view how how can we make this how can we make research more performance solutions Focus to to make sure that when we are creating an Evidence base that it’s quality evidence not this has been done
Because it’s never been done before you know I think as academics we’ve got to move away from that and and really focus on on these real real good quality performance questions that’s that’s the thing that’s going to drive me forward this next year love it and and for those that want
To follow up and and maybe have some follow up questions or or just to Simply connect and and follow your work is there a Best place uh to find you oh dear um I don’t really do all the I link LinkedIn find me on LinkedIn that’s probably the best place yeah I’ve
Not really the grasped the Twitter Arty yet but yeah fair enough LinkedIn let’s keep things professional let’s go LinkedIn yeah we’ll add that tag in the show notes and you mentioned a couple of business opportunities at the moment is there anything people should be following or or or apps or anything that
Um people should keep an eye at keep an eye on on nsat tech and as I said if you uh and sports centure keep a look out for them you know you know Val I’m through and through Val um with for de obviously so what they’re doing there
Is is so impressive how they’ve really taken the for decks on and made it a real Global entity now so keep an eye on Val um keep it real but you know watch out for sports centure and NSA Tech as well and if anyone wants a a free go
Trial period with NSA Tech give us a shout okay and say te we’ll add the links um in the show notes for those perhaps listening to the recording while driving uh don’t threat well you can find those in in the show notes but yeah thanks again Phil really appreciate it
And thank you for everyone that’s tuned in um and our next live chat you can catch us next Tuesday which will be the 9th of Jan at 4M uh interviewing Daniel Jones at the jalong football club he’s a strength editioning coach there so looking forward to seeing you guys all
Then cheers Phil thanks very much