Keir Wenham-Flatt is the Director of Athletic Performance and Coordinator of Football Performance at the College of William and Mary in Richmond, Virginia. Keir has worked with professional teams on four different continents and is well known for physical preparation for the sport of rugby. He is the founder of rugbystrengthcoach.com, which provides rugby strength and conditioning information, discussions, and online coaching. Wenham-Flatt went to W&M after spending two years as the Head of Strength and Conditioning for the Toshiba Brave Lupus Rugby team in the Japan Top League.
Wenham-Flatt earned his Bachelor of Science in Sport Science from the University of Leeds in 2008 and his Master of Science in Strength and Conditioning from the University of Bolton in 2012. He is an NSCA Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist and is qualified in Functional Movement Screening and Olympic lifting. Kier has written for multiple publications, including Rugby Coaching, International Rugby Coaching, Muscle and Fitness, Men’s Fitness, Mike Boyle’s “Strength Coach” podcast, and Global Sport Coach.
Keir discusses what factors he believes are crucial to building speed and conditioning for team sports. He gives his insight into developing mental toughness as it relates to team sport play as opposed to track and field. He shares ways to make training more effective and his view on the health/performance spectrum in team sport athletes.
In this podcast, Joel and Keir discuss:
- “Stress inoculation” of timed sprints for team sport athletes.
- Ideas on training coordination in team sport athletes.
- Methods of using grappling to train athletes in contact or collision sports.
- The difference between linear velocity and game speed for team sport athletes.
- Utilizing Mladen Jovanovic’s agile periodization system.
Podcast total run time is 59:51.
Keir has spoken to SimpliFaster about rugby and football S&C.
Keywords: rugby, coordination, grappling, mental toughness
