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Xceleration Sports Performance Labs in Austin, Texas was among the first sites in the US to acquire a 1080 Sprint to evaluate and improve athlete sprint performance. Matthew Neel explains the benefits of the system for speed training.

Xceleration Sports Performance Labs Founder Matthew Neel explains the benefits of the 1080 Sprint.

Transcript

We spent nineteen years developing the most comprehensive speed training program, and in those nineteen years we have never come across something as game changing as the 1080 Sprint.

Our whole business is based on finding what limits an athlete’s speed and finding as many limiting factors as possible and doing everything we can to correct them. The 1080 Sprint allows us to see those things instantaneously. We can see whether it’s a force production problem, whether it is a turnover problem, or whether it’s a peak speed issue and just their movement speed alone.

The 1080 Sprint has really allowed us to expand our teaching and coaching capabilities. The instant feedback and the ability to give cues that we were never able to give before has really been one of the greatest advantages of the 1080 Sprint in our facility.

The ability to not just measure and see what an athlete’s made of, but actually being able to give them real-time cues and being able to change what they’re doing instantaneously as they feel it and see it visually coming back to the screen and looking at it has been a great asset to us.

For instance, when we are training athletes to run a faster 40-yard dash, we need to see exactly when they are reaching their peak speed, how much power they are producing and where they produce that power. We also like to see how long they’re producing that power. And if we can look inside an athlete’s 40-yard sprint and start to break it down and start to tear apart things and look at, well, they may have hit their peak speed at ten yards, and we need them to hit it at twelve yards, for instance. Or they can only hold their top speed for two or three meters, then we know exactly what area we need to train and develop.

The information that you get back from a 1080 Sprint test is going to give you more data that is applicable to a specific sport of specific position, more comparable than any data that you are going to receive out of typical combine test that we use currently. And used in conjunction with it’s a great tool to look inside that athlete and see what level they can actually play or perform.

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Electronic data is very valuable when it’s easily acquired, consistently used, predictive, and cataloged. The beauty of new technology designed by such companies as Freelap is that they’re created with the sprint coach in mind. As the systems upgrade, coaches become more informed about their athletes’ progress.

A coach who commits to the process over several seasons will create an environment where everything that was done at the track is accounted for during training and life outside of practice. This culture of accountability will lessen the number of injuries, subpar performances, and the gap between potential and actual personal bests.

Improve Performance

Increased expectations improve performance. With electronic timing, a savvy coach can point to practice run times and show an athlete how specific race performances are tied directly to individual training paces. If the athlete cannot consistently hit the necessary intensities in practice, they will not be able to hit certain goals later in the competitive or championship phases of the season.

When all athletes on a team are measured, everyone is held accountable for what they are, or are not, doing. Accurate timing of every repetition combined with realistic expectations helps athletes stay on task. Accountability can prevent sprinters in a training group from hiding in a slower pack or sandbagging until the last few repetitions.

No matter the percentage of effort, it’s critical sprinters hit the expected times in practice. As proven by research, if an athlete throws off an entire workout by running the incorrect effort, far-reaching negative ramifications can occur. It can mess up the training day, the next day, and even the next meet.

If runners are training under a bi-polar system that calls for a 70% effort on a recovery run day, and they go out and blast 90% effort, they won’t be able to regenerate properly. Most likely, the eve of the recovery runs will be too tough, and the body will be so exhausted, it will take more days than planned to recuperate from multiple high-intensity sessions.

On the other hand, if the sprint group is supposed to run a maximum velocity workout by hitting intensities that are at least 93% effort to create adaptations for speed, a coach can use less than optimal times to encourage athletes to move faster.

Intervene During Sessions

Coaches sometimes have athletes who are workout warriors. These sprinters have a “never say die” attitude and will run through a brick wall for their coach or team.

Many coaches were raised under the old school mentality of toughness, never complaining, and having a “do or die” leadership style. Combining a coach and athlete who are both super tough can lead to what can be called a “harmonious disaster.” It becomes a harmonious disaster because neither side sees the potential pitfalls when training. Both are willing to sacrifice future great performances at the altar of toughness.

Using a timing system helps coaches relinquish their grip on completing a workout no matter how ugly the intervals look on the stopwatch. It can be difficult for a coach to stop a session once it’s begun. However, if the coach is trying to target performance in practice, and an athlete fails to hit the expected effort, the coach needs to decide how to proceed.

Does the coach increase the rest, reduce the number of intervals, or stop the workout entirely? These questions can be answered based on a myriad of factors. The coach needs to have a conversation with the athlete who’s not hitting their times to figure out why. Could there be a hidden illness or injury?

If these questions are not answered, both the coach and the athlete risk making matters worse. If the coach uses a timing system, the decision about whether to adjust the training session becomes a moot point.

Typically, if a hardworking consistent performer fails to hit an appropriate pace for three intervals in a row, it’s wise to drastically reduce or wholly shut down the workout for the day.

Train Groups

When training many sprinters, catching the times of all athletes as they cross the finish line of a training interval is one of the biggest challenges of coaching. Even the most experienced stopwatch operator will struggle to capture all of the splits for each interval.
Freelap’s new device, the Freelap Relay Coach BLE & Tripod, captures many performances simultaneously, uploads the times directly to a cloud or database, and sends the data directly to an iPhone, Android, iPad, etc.

Before this innovation, electronically timing large groups was difficult at best. Now coaches no longer need to furiously scribble down times between repetitions. The Relay allows a coach to spend more time talking with their athletes throughout the workout and significantly cuts the time it takes to set up the next flight of sprinters.

If a coach has a limited number of staff members and no electronic timing, their only option is to hold the stopwatch. Electronic timing ensures that everyone’s results are tabulated. With longer intervals, it’s not a huge issue to be off by a tenth or two. With short intervals like 10, 20, and 30 meters, accuracy becomes much more important.

When sprinters bury themselves in a pod of athletes, it’s difficult to catch a dramatic fall off during practice. Coaches who review the data in real time during recovery periods between intervals can make individual and correct choices about what to do when a practice seems to go off the rails.

In my experience, Freelap Relay grabs all the times almost instantly and removes as a factor the speed of a coach’s trigger finger. A coach can accurately evaluate significant figure deviations among athletes in a training group. Some coaches could argue that they’d just have the athletes run individually. But even with short intervals, this is time consuming and reduces the competitive boost athletes get from pushing one another down the track as they run side by side.

Train Individually and Coach Remotely

Athletes occasionally have to train away from their coach. Some are even self-trained. Electronic timing may be most valuable when an athlete trains remotely due to an international schedule or family vacation.

Electronic timing may be most valuable when an athlete trains remotely.

Electronic timing works as a second set of digital eyes to help a sprinter keep tabs on their efforts. Feedback is imperative to assure the intended quality is met so the sprinter doesn’t go too fast or too slow.

Professional camps like ALTIS, MVP, and HSI have to contend with athletes training a great distance away from their coaches. It’s difficult for an athlete to get accurate data when trying to start and stop a watch on their wrist at exactly the right moment.

Electronic timing allows the coach to remotely access results in real time during long distance training or competition. Coaches can track an athlete’s training, make suggestions for upcoming practice sessions, and talk to the athlete about concrete aspects of their training.

Assess Technique and Event Drills

The best coaches in the world have the ability to use their naked eyes as if they were high definition slow motion cameras. These coaches are also excellent communicators.

Some coaches have become videographers or stopwatch heroes. Using a watch or camera erects an imaginary wall that detracts from the visceral experience. When a coach has their eyes up, they can take in every step. A coach can often immediately tell if an interval was run at the right speed just by looking at the sprinter’s biomechanics and hearing their cadence off the ground.

If a coach is race modeling or doing technical drill runs, watching becomes even more important. Race modeling and technical runs are very taxing on a sprinter’s central nervous system. It matters for the coach to focus on the athlete, making sure they’re executing the drills to perfection and offering feedback. Electronic timing frees up the coach’s eyes to make the most of every moment they’re on the track with their athletes.

Measure Progress and Collect Data

Coaches will quickly see trends in training when they create databases of all athlete times from daily training sessions. Coach Holler has used Record, Rank, and Publish as program staple for decades. Every day his athletes see, within their own program, where they rank next to their peers. Coach Holler believes this helps motivate his athletes during what can be a very long indoor/outdoor season for Illinois high school kids.

The trends help show what athletes typically produce on a given day or week in training and help predict the end of season outcomes. The data gives a glimpse of what to expect from future workouts and performances. Narrowing down what can be expected in the near term helps guide the coach in what should happen in future training or event selection.

Data collection helps the coach and athlete know whether they’re on, ahead, or behind schedule from previous seasons. A coach can also use this information to help sell rookies on how they compare in training to successful athletes who have come before them.

Having a date base to monitor progress gives an athlete a statistical roadmap for what’s required to run an All State, All American, or Olympic standard performance. The digital road map gives some insight on what it will take to achieve greatness, and this knowledge can be empowering. The information also helps set up daily goals. A sprinter, for example, can apply the data to set paces for future longer sprints like the 400-dash or 800-meter run.

All of the acquired data should be cross-referenced with data and charts developed by other coaches who have done the intellectual heavy lifting. The charts of Daniels, Mann, McMillian, Purdy, and Winckler are mentioned throughout the Sprinter’s Compendium.

Eventually, a coach will have a database to guide informed decisions instead of a gut feeling. Date becomes predictive, and the coach becomes a statistical soothsayer.

Since you’re here…
…we have a small favor to ask. More people are reading SimpliFaster than ever, and each week we bring you compelling content from coaches, sport scientists, and physiotherapists who are devoted to building better athletes. Please take a moment to share the articles on social media, engage the authors with questions and comments below, and link to articles when appropriate if you have a blog or participate on forums of related topics. — SF

The Transfer of Physiological Training Effects

While the activities encompassing strength training and endurance training are substantially different in technique and movement patterns, they have a direct link where the learned adaptations of one can have positive influences on the other.

Strength training improves an endurance athlete’s work economy and enhances peripheral blood circulation for better perfusion of oxygen during local muscle contraction. By increasing the absolute strength of muscles, an endurance athlete can increase the efficiency of the muscles; this allows for operation under low levels of blood circulation common in intense exercise.

A direct transfer of learning from strength training also improves endurance capacity by having a positive effect on the growth of slow-twitch muscle fibers and increasing the oxidative energy in local muscle mitochondria.

For muscles involved in both activities, strength training increases tendon stiffness and the muscles’ elastic properties. This transfer increases storage capacity and function during the eccentric contractions of running mechanics.

Also, hormonal responses to training are directly tuned to the intensity, duration, and type of exercise being performed. Strength training’s anabolic effect combined with the catabolic effect of endurance training sometimes lead to a negative transfer of learning. The correct prescription ratio of strength-endurance is key to maximizing hormones’ positive effect in training.

Theories: Identical Elements and Transfer-Appropriate Processing

There are two theories about why positive transfer occurs.

Under the identical elements theory, the degree to which two tasks are similar determines the efficacy of transfer. These elements can be abstract, like an athlete’s mental state, or grounded, like the specific characteristics of a skill movement pattern.

The second theory is transfer-appropriate processing. This refers to the similarity of cognitive processing between two tasks. Examples include dual-task, rapid decision-making, and attention control.

Although strength and endurance training are very dissimilar activities, the identical elements theory does apply physiologically. Transfer-appropriate processing may have a role in strength training’s cognitive effects on endurance performance, especially when hormonal influences are considered.

Transfer of learning occurs when prior motor skill acquisition impacts subsequent motor learning, positively or negatively. Positive transfer occurs when previous learning experience allows for easy facilitation of learning a new skill or performing within a new context. It’s theorized that positive transfer occurs because of an already established motor pathway as it applies to a similar skill and/or similar performance framework.

The overhand throw of a baseball, for example, positively transfers to the overhand throw of a football. Although the throws are not identical, the motor firing sequence is similar, and learning one after the other benefits from positive transfer.

Under the identical elements theory, positive transfer can also apply to training adaptations in endurance athletes. The idea is that physical training enhances the performance capacity of untrained muscles in a generalized manner. This is seen in endurance athletes who primarily train the legs yet see an increased capacity for endurance in the upper body.

Keep in mind, there are many other influences at play yet to be uncovered by the research.

Since you’re here…
…we have a small favor to ask. More people are reading SimpliFaster than ever, and each week we bring you compelling content from coaches, sport scientists, and physiotherapists who are devoted to building better athletes. Please take a moment to share the articles on social media, engage the authors with questions and comments below, and link to articles when appropriate if you have a blog or participate on forums of related topics. — SF

References

• Issurin, V. B. (2013). Training Transfer: Scientific Background and Insights for Practical Application. Sports Medicine. 43(8), 675-694. doi: 10.1007/s40279-013-0049-6.
• Magill, R., & Anderson, D. (2013). Motor Learning and Control: Concepts and Applications (10th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Waiting until the final few weeks of the season to finally focus on speed is a thing of the past. The old-school long-to-short approach of training sprinters, which has been a staple of track and field coaches for decades, has steadily been phased out and replaced with a more modern “speed first” approach.

In my first few years of coaching, I struggled to get the best athletes—specifically those that had never experienced the sport, to come out for Spring track at the high school level. They thought track was “just conditioning,” and they believed that sprinters trained by jogging lap after lap around the track. I knew that I would have to change that perception in order for us to become an elite program. I wanted our sprinters to get faster, learn that the focus is always on “speed first,” and maybe most importantly, enjoy the training.

Out With the Old and in With the New

Remember the old go-to workout, a 10x100m at 70 percent with one minute of rest? A few years back, this was one of the first workouts that popped up if you typed “track and field training for sprinters” into Google. One day of the week could have been 10x100m, and another day might have been 8x200m with short recovery. Don’t get me wrong: Extensive tempo workouts have their place in the training program. However, they are much more relevant in the off-season or possibly on recovery days.

If you want fast athletes, you have to train them fast. Speed, speed, and more speed. When determining how you are going to set up your training plan, you first have to know the demands of the events your athletes will be running. For short sprinters, the focus should be heavily on the alactic anaerobic energy system and training at max speed in the five-second range (give or take a little).

As a high school coach, you may only get two to three actual training days per week after you take into consideration your meet schedule (meets have to be considered training sessions, and hard ones at that) and the recovery or easy days in between training days. Each mesocycle of your training plan should have at least two themes (maybe three): a primary and a secondary. The goal is to train your primary theme twice a week and your secondary theme once per week. But this is in an ideal world, and high school coaches don’t live in that world.

Most weeks don’t have four or five optimal days of training, so we really have to prioritize and train what is most important when we have the opportunity to do so. Extensive tempo isn’t going to be very high on my priority list, so after I plug in the acceleration, max velocity, and speed endurance work, there probably won’t be any room for those 10x100m workouts. Trust me, that’s OK. When you find yourself able to incorporate the themes that are most important to your athletes, everything else just seems to fall into place.

Recruiting the Modern-Day Sprinter

Just about every town has that person who watches all of the fancy training drills on Instagram and YouTube and then magically transforms themselves into a self-proclaimed “speed trainer.” They go out and buy fancy equipment in an attempt to look like they mean business. There’s no rhyme or reason to what they are doing, as it’s usually just based on the latest training video that popped up on their social media feed. Yet, athletes still gravitate to them.

This has to change. The speed trainer in every town should undoubtedly be the sprint coach for the track and field team. That would only make sense, right? To make that the case, we as coaches have to do our part to run a proven, effective, and appealing sprint program and recruit—yes, recruit—these athletes from the hallways of our schools.

First and foremost, we need to take the “speed first” approach to training our sprinters. This is not only an effective way to make our athletes faster, it is also appealing to those that haven’t been exposed to the sport of track and field. If you aren’t building your sprint program with this approach, and instead continue to put your sprinters through long/slow reps with short recoveries on the track to get them “tougher,” and laid-back jogs around the neighborhood to “get them in better shape,” then this could be the reason why that speedy wide receiver scoring a bunch of touchdowns on Friday nights won’t come out for your track team.

Athletes love to compete (well, most of them anyway), right? Just like the old saying, “as iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another,” the more competitive your practices are, the more your athletes will improve. This is where the Freelap Timing System comes into play. The Freelap electronic system was a recent purchase of mine, and I’ll start using it when we begin training for our indoor season in November.

I’m the head middle school coach in my district, which is a huge advantage for me when developing relationships with our football players and getting them out for the track team in high school, but that’s a story for another day. I’m currently in the heart of football season, but I’d be lying if I said I haven’t already been brainstorming ways that I’m going to implement the Freelap system into my track and field training program. It’s a game changer, bottom line.

What better way to make your practices more competitive than to time and rank EVERYTHING? With Freelap, that’s possible with minimal effort. We will time our athletes during all of their training sessions throughout the week. (I’ve always timed them, but there’s something about electronic timing that makes it more official than the trusty old stopwatch … not to mention how difficult it is to accurately time multiple sprinters at one time with a stopwatch). They’ll be timed and ranked in their block work, fly runs, and exchange zone run-throughs for spots on our relay team.

The more my athletes enjoy the training, the more positively they talk about it with their peers. What better way to get more athletes to join your team then to have your current members do the recruiting for you?

Record, Rank and Publish (aka ‘The Tony Holler Approach’)

I’ve always been the type of coach to keep detailed and organized records. Recording, ranking, and publishing the results from meets, workouts, lifting sessions, etc. is a great way to add legitimacy and excitement to your program. Athletes love to see where they rank against their teammates, where they rank in the state, and how much they’ve improved over the course of a season and throughout their career. They’ll talk about this during the school day, and before and after practice. This is another great way to get the word out about your program.

I created a website for our program and post all necessary information to it, including schedules, meet results, records, etc. (see image above). I try to post as many photos and videos as possible throughout the season. The kids love to watch race videos and flip through photos of themselves competing.

If creating or even purchasing a website for your team isn’t an option, don’t fret—Google Docs is here to save the day. Google Docs allows you to create spreadsheets, text documents, and slideshow presentations. Most importantly, it allows you to share those documents with anyone on the internet. If you have a social media account such as Twitter or Facebook, you can post links to the Google docs you create that include your training results, photos, and videos for everyone to view.

A Blended Approach to Training the ‘All-Around’ Sprinter

In 2014, I had a special group. Maybe it was my “once in a lifetime group.” My top four sprinters all had the potential to run sub 11.00 100-meters, sub 50.00 400-meters, and a legitimate 200-meter in between. The toughest decision was how I should train them. Should their training be focused on speed and speed endurance, just letting the 400m take a backseat? Or should it be Special Endurance 1 and 2 to ensure they were primed to make a run for the 4x400m state title? How about a blended approach that just might give them the opportunity to make a run for state titles in anything from the 100m up to the 400m? I chose to experiment and go with the blended approach. This was against my better judgment, and initially I was hesitant to steer away from the “speed first” approach, but I convinced myself it was best for this group in order to give them a chance to go for the gold in everything.

Early in the season, the mesocycles focused on acceleration, max velocity, and speed endurance; later, it was Special Endurance 1 and 2. That doesn’t sound too far off base, right? But the issue was that absolute speed development wasn’t present in the later mesos. Don’t get me wrong—there were positive results from this approach. But I feel that I sacrificed speed, and that proved a costly mistake.

Our top four guys in the 100m that year had season PRs of 10.69, 10.83, 11.14, and 11.20. The 200m season bests were 21.88, 22.01, 22.06, and 22.82, and our best 4x400m splits were 48.5, 48.8, 49.2, and 49.9. (Unfortunately, those splits were not all run during the same race.) This group stood atop the state rankings and was one of the elite teams in Ohio that season in all three relays. The 4x100m team ran a season PR of 41.75 and was third at the state championships. Our 4x200m group ran 1:26.75, finishing second at state with a time that ranks them in the past decade’s Top 10 in Ohio. The 4x400m guys had a season PR of 3:18.47, but ran 3:22.89 at state and finished eighth.

What if I had stuck with my initial plan and kept their training focused on developing them as short sprinters? Would each of my four runners have been able to run at least a tenth of a second faster in the 100m, running 41.3 and some change as opposed to 41.7, putting them on top of the podium as state champions instead of in a respectable third-place finish? Their 1:26.75 state runner-up finish in the 4x200m was impressive, but this group was capable of running in the 1:25s. Was too much time spent blending their training and attempting to make them dominant in both the short and long sprints? Did this approach prevent them from reaching their full potential? The goal was a state title and we fell just shy of that.

The Road to Redemption

The only option was to regroup and shift the focus to the New Balance Nationals. The All-State foursome went on to run at nationals two weeks later. In the two weeks between the Ohio state championships and the New Balance National Championships, we took more days off from training, to rest, relax, and focus on some fine-tuning before we packed up and headed to North Carolina.

This group went on to feature three-time All-Americans, with a third place in the Swedish relay (100m-200m-300m-400m), fourth place in the 4x100m relay, and sixth place in the sprint medley relay (100m-100m-200m-400m). This was just what they needed after falling just short of their goals at State. I couldn’t have imagined a better way for them to end their high school careers together than to become All-Americans.

The school records and All-State and All-American performances from this group etched their names in the history books of our school and community. They hold nearly every one of our school records in the sprints and sprint relays. All four athletes were also very successful in other sports for our school. Yes—successful multi-sport athletes do still exist.

Set Your Athletes Up for the Future

My intentions for this article were not to talk about individual success stories of the athletes I coach, but since I mentioned so much about this group, I figured it was only right to give a little background information on where they are now. Two of the mentioned athletes are currently running track in college at the Division 1 level, while another is a running back who gets meaningful carries for a well-respected football program in the ACC.

Establishing relationships with college coaches and consistently sending athletes to the next level, regardless of division, is a great way to build your program while helping your community develop well-rounded and educated student-athletes.

Gary Gibson had high school PRs of 7.04 in the 60m, 11.02 in the 100m, 22.06 in the 200m, and a 4x400m split of 48.5. Gary was All-Ohio six times and a three-time All-American in track and field. He is a walk-on member of the track and field team and a biology pre-med major at Ohio State University.

Darrin was an athlete that I was extremely proud to have for four years of high school track and field. Darrin was a three-year starter at running back on our football team and started getting offers after his sophomore season. He could have easily chosen the popular “I’m just going to focus on football” route, but he didn’t. This was huge for our track and field program. He enjoyed the sport and knew it helped him on the football field. Darrin’s high school PRs include 11.14 in the 100m, 22.30 in the 200m, and a 49.8 4x400m split. He was a five-time All-Ohio and a three-time All-American in track and field. Darrin attends Pitt University, where he is obtaining his undergrad degree in natural science and then heading to PT school.

Joe Harrington was another football standout that ended up falling in love with track and field. Joe’s high school PRs are 6.87 in the 60m, 10.69 in the 100m, 21.54 in the 200m, and a 4x400m split of 49.2. He is an eleven-time state qualifier, nine-time All-State, and three-time All-American, and holds six school records. Joe is attending the University of Akron on a track and field scholarship and majoring in criminal justice.

Not every elite athlete has the aspiration to compete in college athletics. Everyone chooses their own path. Nathan’s high school PRs are 10.76 in the 100m and 22.01 in the 200m, and a 4x400m split of 48.8. He had one of the most decorated high school careers in our school’s history, as he was an eight-time state qualifier, seven-time All-State and three-time All-American. He certainly ended his athletic career on a high note.

Since you’re here…
…we have a small favor to ask. More people are reading SimpliFaster than ever, and each week we bring you compelling content from coaches, sport scientists, and physiotherapists who are devoted to building better athletes. Please take a moment to share the articles on social media, engage the authors with questions and comments below, and link to articles when appropriate if you have a blog or participate on forums of related topics. — SF

Creating generalized adaptation and aerobic conditioning may have its place in the general population of untrained to moderately trained non-competitive individuals provided the risk remains low.

But it has no place in the sport-specific world of athletic training.

I would be surprised to hear any professional athlete’s coach say that they plan “workouts of the day” which have no sequence nor progression under an annual training program, macrocycle, or even a microcycle that’s designed to achieve peak athletic performance.

The importance of training specificity cannot be overemphasized for high-level athletes. Generalization only goes so far in developing top-level sport skills and efficiency. Too often, coaches neglect to research what methods are best for optimum training benefits for an individual athlete. Instead they operate traditional conditioning programs that serve an entire team as a whole.

General training creates general athleticism and average athletes in my opinion. In this article, I challenge CrossFit’s claim that it’s a “survival of the fittest” sport. I rest my case on the fact that the world’s most elite athletes across all professional sports train by the “survival of the smartest” theory to preserve their longevity in sport and maximize peak performance via specifically calculated and cyclical, periodized programming.

Established Recommendations

Assigning high-volume repetitions and speed to technically demanding exercises opposes USA Weightlifting’s (USAW) recommendation to keep “repetitions to three or less on technical exercises [Olympic movements] and five or less for strength exercises (e.g. squats), and never continue repetitions if form is breaking down,” (Mullins, 2015).

Assigning fast high-volume reps to technically demanding exercises opposes USAW, NSCA guidelines.

CrossFit’s entire foundation is based on a total-body fatigue, forced-adaptation model, risking form breakdown and injury with every passing repetition. The National Strength & Conditioning Association (NSCA) aligns with the USAW philosophy, and stresses the importance of exercise order for maximal adaptation gains and the insurance of safety (Mullins, 2015):

“Power exercises require the highest level of skill and concentration of all the exercises and are most affected by fatigue. Athletes who become fatigued are prone to using poor technique and consequently are at higher risk of injury. The explosive movements and extensive muscular involvement of power exercises also result in a significant energy expenditure. This is another reason to have athletes perform such exercises first, while they are still metabolically fresh.”

This rule is ignored in most CrossFit programs.

High-repetition power and strength exercises are interspersed with high-volume multi-joint movements which ultimately lead to the exhaustion of all metabolic systems. The body responds with generalized fatigue and poor recovery and, accordingly, generalized and incomplete adaptation between workouts.

Going forward, this company’s mission should emphasize educating its athletes on the proper execution of movement as well as the risks involved when undertaking this inherently intense form of activity.

Target Populations

Some CrossFit facilities are run by well-educated exercise science professionals who make an effort to ensure all participants are practicing safe technique and sound progressions with individualized program design. One such individual is Dr. Mike Young, Director of Performance and Research with Athletic Lab in Cary, NC. When incorporating CrossFit programming into his Sports Performance and Athletic Development facility, he takes the following approach:

“I look at health on a continuum with diseased state being on one side, healthy being somewhere in the middle, fit being somewhere beyond that and performance oriented on the far side of the continuum. Generally speaking, I’d say CrossFit is best for people in the middle. I don’t think it’s appropriate for people who are not yet ready for intense training. Likewise, it’s not appropriate for the more specific training that CrossFit, by its very nature, does not provide.”

It’s one thing to teach a skill, but it’s an entirely different undertaking to teach the skill and have the ability to explain why this skill is applicable in a performance capacity and how it fits into an athlete’s long-term progression. If one cannot back up a workout or an exercise on a physiologically sound basis for future adaptation and progression, it has no business being executed.

General adaptation and aerobic conditioning programs have no place in sport-specific training.

In the sport-specific world of athletic training, Dr. Young states:

“When training for sport, I recommend training progress from general to specific over the course of a training program. Likewise, I generally suggest that intensities start lower and progressively increase over the course of the season. Finally, I like to see volume operate inversely to intensity over that time. So intensity and volume should rarely, if ever, be high concurrently. CrossFit has the potential to violate all of these recommendations.”

CrossFit Benefits

CrossFit’s long-term benefits are under researched. Several studies, however, have found there are potential benefits to aerobic capacity and body composition from this type of high-intensity functional power training.

High-intensity interval training attracts individuals looking to improve their fitness levels with minimal time commitment. Typically, the workouts take a very short amount of time, averaging between 5 to 20 minutes, and reap maximal caloric burn due to the continuous nature of the workload, relative intensity, and minimal rest periods.

In some workouts, the goal is to achieve as many rounds or repetitions as possible before the allotted time is up. Other workouts focus on the best time to completion of a given set of exercise rounds. A combination of power and Olympic lifts, cardio activity, gymnastics, and other body weight movements is used to stimulate positive adaptation of maximum aerobic capacity and improvement in body composition.

Researchers in one study had participants follow a 10-week CrossFit-based high-intensity power training (HIPT) program of traditional power and Olympic lifts. Specific exercises included squats, deadlifts, cleans, snatches, and overhead presses performed in a nontraditional fashion; participants completed the designated number of repetitions as quickly as possible (Smith, Sommer, Starkoff, & Devor, 2013).

After HIPT training, body fat reduced by 3.7% among all individuals, both males and females. Oxygen consumption relative to body weight increased in all participants with a 13.6% and 11.8% improvement in VO2 max for men and women, respectively. This was independent of the changes in body mass, which are often attributed to improvements in oxygen capacity.

Safety Concerns

With more than 10,000 CrossFit gyms (boxes) throughout the country, intense scrutiny should be placed on this company’s mission and training principles to decipher whether this is an efficacious and safe form of athletic conditioning.

Any emerging form of exercise or diet should be challenged using evidence-based practices to properly validate that the program is safe and effective for the long-term health and well-being of all participants. Long-term is the key word here.

In a review of the pros and cons of extreme conditioning programs such as CrossFit, a 2013 survey asked CrossFit participants to disclose any injuries that had prevented them from working, training, or competing over the past 19 months (Knapik, 2015). The 132 respondents averaged 5.3 hours a week of exercise during this time, and 74% claimed to have sustained an injury during that time, with 7% having an injury which required surgery. The most common injuries were to the shoulder (32%), spine (28%), and arm (20%).

Others reported carotid artery dissection (CAD) and exertional rhabdomyolysis related to CrossFit activity. The four CAD cases were attributed to lifting significantly more weight than previously lifted (20% more) and/or performing exercises with rapid twisting movements.

CAD can result in a partial blockage of the carotid artery, a partial tear in the vessel wall resulting in a hematoma, or a total rupture and subsequent aneurysm. The goal of treatment is to reduce the neurologic deficits and stabilize blood flow.

Repetitive eccentric contractions produce the muscle damage leading to exertional rhabdomyolysis (Su, 2008). Extreme muscle breakdown causes muscle enzymes and electrolytes to leak, including creatine kinase, lactate dehydrogenase, and myoglobin, and potassium.

When myoglobin levels in the blood exceed 3mg/L, it spills into the urine (myoglobinuria) and produces a tea or cola coloration. Myoglobin damages renal tubules, which can lead to tubular necrosis. If renal blood flow is further limited by high exertion levels and dehydration, the kidneys become less capable of clearing the muscle breakdown products which can lead to fatal complications (Su, 2008).

The very nature of CrossFit workouts brings an increased likelihood for these overexertion injuries to occur.

A similar survey using CrossFit’s main website included 386 participants who met the inclusion criteria for CrossFit participation (Weisenthal et al., 2014). Data from the study concluded that injury rate during the previous six months was 19.4% of total participants who experienced at least one injury; males were injured more frequently than females. Reported injuries were fewer among individuals working with a trainer. And females had a lower incidence rate, likely because they sought a coach before training.

Shoulder injuries occurred the most during gymnastic movements, and the lower back was most often injured while power lifting. These participants had no discomfort before performing these movements.

High-risk should not be confused with ineffective since most exercises provide some benefits, although the aim of exercise should always be to maximize benefits and minimize risks (Mullins, 2015).

Two very high-risk exercises commonly performed in CrossFit boxes are unassisted pistol squats and kipping pullups, which are rarely executed with proper technique.

In the pistol squat, the lordotic curve of the lumbar spine should be maintained, the knee should track over the toes with virtually no mediolateral shift, and the heel should remain in contact with the ground. Rounding the back is a compensatory mechanism to achieve depth and places unnecessary strain on the lower back.

Kipping pullups hyperextend the lumbar spine, unlike traditional pullups which allow the spine to stay neutral. Hyperextension of the spine has long been contraindicated by medical professionals due to the high potential for injuring the spinal discs, nerves, and joints.

With a nearly 20% injury rate, however, the jury is still out about whether the risk-benefit ratio is in an athlete’s favor. Similar rates of injury are seen in gymnastic and power and Olympic lifting sports.

Since you’re here…
…we have a small favor to ask. More people are reading SimpliFaster than ever, and each week we bring you compelling content from coaches, sport scientists, and physiotherapists who are devoted to building better athletes. Please take a moment to share the articles on social media, engage the authors with questions and comments below, and link to articles when appropriate if you have a blog or participate on forums of related topics. — SF

References

• Knapik, J. J. (2015). “Extreme Conditioning Programs: Potential Benefits and Potential Risks.” Journal Of Special Operations Medicine: A Peer Reviewed Journal For SOF Medical Professionals, 15(3), 108-113.
• Mullins, N. (2015). “CrossFit: Remember What You Have Learned; Apply What You Know.” Journal Of Exercise Physiologyonline, 18(6), 32-44.
• Smith, M. M., Sommer, A. J., Starkoff, B. E., & Devor, S. T. (2013). “Crossfit-Based High-Intensity Power Training Improves Maximal Aerobic Fitness and Body Composition.” Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 27(11), 3159- 3172. doi: 10.1519/JSC.0b013e318289e59f.
• Su, J. (2008). “Exertional Rhabdomyolysis.” International Journal of Athletic Therapy and Training, 13(5), 20-22. doi: 10.1123/att.13.5.20.
• Weisenthal, B. M., Beck, C. A., Maloney, M. D., DeHaven, K. E., & Giordano, B. D. (2014). “Injury Rate and Patterns Among CrossFit Athletes.” Orthopaedic Journal of Sports Medicine, 2(4), 2325967114531177. doi: 10.1177/2325967114531177.

I love the definition of consortium: “An alliance, partnership, or coalition of people pooling resources for a common goal.”

That’s it! That’s what our consortium is all about. Our common goal? Speed.

“I recruit slow kids,” has never been said by any coach in the history of football or track. Speed is universally revered.

Finding speed and training speed are not the same. Recruiting fast kids should be the number one goal for football and track coaches. However, once you get fast kids, what are you going to do with them?

Chris Korfist and I are speed coaches seven days a week. Our lives have become a quest to improve a skill that has been a part of the human experience since ancient times. Chris and I both have deep roots in football. We have assembled an incredible lineup of speakers for the benefit of coaches and athletes in multiple sports. Without question, the Track Football Consortium is unlike any clinic you’ve ever attended.

Here are my five reasons to attend TFC-4.

Stuart McMillan of ALTIS

Stuart is best known today as a sprint coach. One of his athletes is Andre De Grasse, the 21-year-old darling of the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics where he won one silver and two bronze medals, proving himself the heir-apparent to Usain Bolt.

In addition to Andre De Grasse, Stuart has worked with the following world-class sprinters:

• Ameer Webb, USA
• Dwain Chambers, UK
• BeeJay Lee, USA
• Wilfried Koffi, Ivory Coast
• Marlon Devonish, UK
• Christian Malcom, UK
• Akeem Haynes, Canada
• Jeremy Dodson, Samoa
• Curtis Mitchell, USA
• Schillonie Calvert, Jamaica
• Jodie Williams, UK
• Ella Nelson, Australia

Stuart also is very proud to have coached Kaillie Humphries and Elana Taylor. Humphries (Canada) won gold medals in the women’s bobsled in 2010 and 2016. Taylor (USA) won silver in the women’s bobsled in 2014 and bronze in 2010.

In his early years, Stuart made his mark as a strength and conditioning coach in Calgary, Canada, and Newcastle, England. He has since spent his time working with Olympic bobsled athletes, soccer athletes, NFL football players, and professional athletes of all types.

Stuart McMillan, alone, may be enough to sell TFC-4 to coaches everywhere, but I have four more reasons to attend.

Speed: The Most Neglected Skill

Bear Bryant said, “Luck follows speed.”

Speed is a priority in football and many other sports. Football coaches love speed, but most treat it as a genetic trait, not a skill. Do some football coaches recruit speed and then neglect it?

Anyone who coaches modern football with old school methods should consider attending TFC-4. Modern football is a game played at breakneck speed. Football players of the past were big and bulky and wore big bulky pads.

Today, sprinters dominate games wearing tights and almost undetectable shoulder pads.

In a recent interview, Josh Bonhotal, Director of Sports Performance for the Purdue men’s basketball team and presenter at TFC-4, described a mistake made by coaches everywhere.

“Too often, I see coaches overemphasizing conditioning during the offseason and never developing absolute capacities of strength, power, and speed. In particular, a common mistake is to attack repeat sprint ability when you have never truly developed speed and thus sprint ability itself,” Bonhotal said.

Are some high school football players faster on Monday than Friday? Practice is a grind. Football coaches demand full speed on every rep, every day. If you’re a football coach whose team is faster on Friday, I want to meet you.

Speed is the key to modern football, but too many football practices look more like boot camp than track practice. If “playing fast” is your mantra, speed considerations should be the lynchpin of weekly practice.

Do all track coaches understand speed development? I don’t think so. Too many track coaches are addicted to lengthy practices with heavy emphasis on strength, conditioning, and general fitness. The same coaches are fearful of max-speed sprinting in practice. Some track programs never spike-up and sprint. They just run and run and run.

Too many track programs have a distance coach at the helm. Sprinters are often seen as soft and lazy because they require so much rest and recovery to grow faster. Daily practice and consistent hard work are keys to distance running. Many coaches make the mistake of holding sprinters to the same standard as distance runners.

Don’t get me started on the typical weight room program. Arbitrary lifts. Arbitrary sets and reps. Many in the weight room don’t seem to understand the difference between bodybuilding and speed development.

Many coaches are addicted to the process. When process trumps content, performance suffers. What’s more important, ten hours of terrific football practice or an amazing game on Friday night? It’s the content that matters most, not the process. There’s no magic in ten hours of practice. Content must drive the process.

I believe the majority of football players practice in a constant state of fatigue. Too many sprinters have the same experience in track. If you are interested in learning about sprinting as a skill instead of a location on a chromosome, come to TFC-4.

A Pooling of Resources and a Clash of Ideas

Don’t expect repetitive presentations. Expect a clash of ideas. Chris Korfist and Stuart McMillan are terrific sprint coaches, but they may be from different planets. At TFC-4, we welcome dissent.

I am the oldest presenter at age 57. Blake Selig, who just graduated from UCLA, is the youngest at age 22. Chris Korfist of Slow Guy Speed School is the most unique clinic speaker in the country. We have Josh Bonhotal, the Director of Sports Performance for the Purdue men’s basketball team. Five high school football coaches will talk. Three Californians will speak: Black Selig, Joel Smith of Just Fly Sports, and Coley Candaele of Vista Murrieta High School.

John O’Malley, who coached Sandburg High School to a 7:37.36 4×8, will also talk. O’Malley coached Lukas Verzbicas, who owns a 3:59.71 mile in high school. Alec Holler will share the training methods he used coaching the Illinois 2016 high hurdle champion Travis Anderson (13.59). Dan Fichter of WannaGetFast and Irondequoit High School (New York) will present at his 4th TFC.

Living in the information age, we have the opportunity to read countless articles and watch videos until our eyes glaze over. But reading and watching videos represent passive learning.

The best learning happens when we are in action, when we are in the middle of a clash of ideas. We learn when we are interacting directly with those who have something to say.

Find a championship program and visit a practice. Take a respected coach out for breakfast. Drink a beer with a coach and argue with him. Be an active learner. Attend TFC-4.

Reflexive Performance Reset

Reflexive Performance Reset™ (RPR™) is a system that athletes and coaches can use to address pain, flexibility, and performance immediately. RPR was a part of our first three consortiums. Those who attend TFC-4 will have the opportunity to participate in four RPR sessions. This year, all breakout sessions will be available in a video package so attendees will have access to every missed presentation.

Football Coaches: Evolve or Perish

Charles Darwin taught us about natural selection. Football coaches instinctively understand the need to win football games. The career of a losing football coach will be painfully short.

Despite the proliferation of entrepreneurial 7-on-7 and personal trainers, track and field remains the gold standard for verifying football talent. Running track improves football’s most paramount skills. Teams with speed and power win games.

Mark Branstad of Tracking Football reports, “Make no mistake, the dozens of D1 football coaches and recruiting coordinators we’ve met and spoken to ALL say they prefer multi-sport athletes over specialization. They ALL say they look at track data on recruits and discuss how it equates to football.”

If you want to survive, take a look at the top of the food chain. What can we learn?

The Minnesota Vikings entered this season without their starting quarterback, Teddy Bridgewater. In their second game, the Vikings lost the best running back in the NFL, Adrian Peterson. Shocking the world, the Vikings have opened the season at 5-0, the only undefeated team in the NFL at the time of this writing. Defensively, the Vikings look to be the best in the NFL. Some are comparing them to the 1985 Chicago Bears. What makes the Vikings defense so special?

So the NFL loves track athletes. How about NCAA football? Alabama is 6-0 and ranked number one at the time of this writing. Does Alabama have track cred?

Here is the breakdown of Alabama’s twenty-two starters for their October 8th 49-30 win over Arkansas according to Tracking Football.

• 17 high school track & field athletes
• 8 offensive starters ran track
• 9 defensive starters ran track
• All 4 starting defensive backs ran track
• 2 of starting defensive backs were track state champions (Fitzpatrick & Humphrey)

When looking at high schools, I chose to look at the best state based on total FBS recruits (big time scholarship football athletes). Texas, of course, is number one with 1,263 recruits in the past three years (421 per year). Florida was close with 1,204. California had 994.

Do the elite football players in the best football state in the US run track? The answer is yes. An overwhelming 72.9% of the 1,263 football recruits from Texas ran track.

Even though we’ve had coaches from over twenty states attend our consortiums, most of our audience comes from Illinois. Is football the same in Texas and Illinois?

• FBS Recruits Last 3 Years: Texas 1,263, Illinois 243
• Percent of Recruits Running Track: Texas 72.9%, Illinois 44.9%

Thanks to Mark Branstad from Tracking Football for providing these statistics.

The connection between track and football is indisputable. Speed and explosive power are the common threads of both sports.

It’s not enough to simply say, “Speed is a critical skill for football players” or “Sprinters need to improve their speed.” You can repeat the phrase “play fast” hundreds of times without changing the speed of your athletes.

How do you develop speed? How do you practice during the week so your team can play fast on Friday night? If speed is your prime objective, what does strength training look like in the weight room?

At TFC-4 we’ll pool our resources and find some answers. Then we’ll question the answers until we discover what works.

Track Football Consortium IV will be held on December 2nd and 3rd at Hinsdale High School, less than fifteen miles from both O’Hare and Midway Airports. For more information, go to TrackFootballConsortium.com and sign up today.

Since you’re here…
…we have a small favor to ask. More people are reading SimpliFaster than ever, and each week we bring you compelling content from coaches, sport scientists, and physiotherapists who are devoted to building better athletes. Please take a moment to share the articles on social media, engage the authors with questions and comments below, and link to articles when appropriate if you have a blog or participate on forums of related topics. — SF

There are infinite ways to improve as a coach. However, there are a few in particular that helped me progress from a young and inexperienced coach who relied heavily on having talented athletes in order to be successful, to the coach I am today, possessing the base knowledge needed to properly develop my athletes. The two things that helped me improve the most were continuing education and the implementation of training aids into my practice sessions.

Continuing Education

Opportunities to become more knowledgeable on virtually any topic are literally right at your fingertips. From the click of a mouse to scrolling through the social media feed on your mobile device, information is available to you in a matter of seconds. Continuing education is a must-have. If you want your athletes to respect your knowledge and believe in your approach, it’s imperative to seek out opportunities to become more educated on the latest trends. Successful coaches know that taking the same approach to training year after year has become a thing of the past, as sport-specific training methods are improving rapidly and the “how to’s” are there for the taking.

Whether you are able to set aside some time to attend on-site training such as camps and clinics or to access instructional videos and articles from your home computer, becoming a more knowledgeable coach is crucial for the proper development of the athletes you work with.

There are companies and organizations all over the United States that offer continuing education, and I am personally a big supporter of taking advantage of them. While most of us find it hard to set aside a whole week, or even a just weekend, at any time during the year to attend on-site training courses, if the timing is right and you’re able to make it, I highly recommend jumping on the opportunity.

My first exposure to continuing education was simply attending a camp that some of my athletes had signed up for during my first year of coaching. I brought a notepad and stayed off to the side, just observing and taking notes. It was an eye-opener for me to see knowledgeable and experienced coaches teaching specific drills and progressions. From that point on, I was hooked.

Blogs are another great source of information. There are many different sites out there; you’re bound to find one that fits your wants and needs. It can be very beneficial to have access to constantly updated information that often comes from coaches who are in a similar position as you.

Training Aids

As a coach, I believe that it is our responsibility to ensure that our athletes are engaged in our training sessions. Therefore, we have to grab their attention to get them to focus on the task at hand. Just like students in a classroom, athletes will mentally check out as soon as instruction becomes monotonous and boring. A great way to keep things interesting is to implement training aids into your practice plans. They also add to the overall effectiveness of the training. There must be 1,001 different tools you can get your hands on to benefit your overall program, but there are a few in particular that are at the top of my list. Some are cost-effective and don’t place much of a dent in your budget, while others may take some time and effort to raise funds for in order to purchase.

Mini hurdles (some people like to call them “banana steps”) are a must-have for my practices. We use them on a weekly basis for a variety of different drills, but most specifically for the “Wicket Drill” or Max Velocity Drill. Over the years of training, I’ve found that these aids are one of the most effective ways to develop proper maximum velocity mechanics. There are articles posted online that show how to build your own mini hurdles, making them extremely cost-effective and definitely worth looking into.

Sometimes the appeal of certain types of equipment to our athletes can be enough to make using them worthwhile. For instance, young athletes love speed sleds. They see online videos of them being used and think they’re the best thing in the world. I’m not a huge believer in heavily weighted resistance when training speed, but if used properly, it can be beneficial. Perhaps most importantly, the athletes buy in and get excited to use them. When using weighted sleds of any type when training for speed, my general rule of thumb is to ensure that the resistance is light enough for the athletes to still be able to achieve the proper positioning and body angles during acceleration. (I only use speed sleds for distances up to 30m.)

I also use plyo boxes. Athletes love to compete with one another to see who can achieve the highest standing box jump, and they also look forward to the variety of other plyometric drills we do with them. Foam rollers and lacrosse balls help reduce soreness and speed up recovery. These are items I’ve seen some coaches require their athletes to purchase and bring with them daily. Medicine balls are another useful tool. They have many uses, ranging from a focus on core to plyometrics, and even acceleration.

Choose the Coaching Tools That Suit Your Needs

All in all, these were just a few examples of coaching tools that have helped me. Everyone’s situation is different, so what works for me may not work for you, and vice versa. If you’re one of the many coaches out there looking for ways to better yourself, better your program, and help your athletes succeed, I hope these recommendations help. The opportunities are endless.

Since you’re here…
…we have a small favor to ask. More people are reading SimpliFaster than ever, and each week we bring you compelling content from coaches, sport scientists, and physiotherapists who are devoted to building better athletes. Please take a moment to share the articles on social media, engage the authors with questions and comments below, and link to articles when appropriate if you have a blog or participate on forums of related topics. — SF

For most consumers, the idea of monitoring movement through wearable technology is new. However, coaches, trainers, and athletes have been using lightweight sensing devices for more than a decade. While the consumer markets have focused on activity tracking and coaching, the power and accuracy available in today’s wearables are bringing lab-grade technology into the field for specialized use cases. This includes everything from tracking your golf swing to concussion sensing.

At Scribe Labs, we developed a wearable sensor for running, called RunScribe. Over the past year, we’ve amassed what we believe is one of the largest databases of “real world” run data comprised of advanced metrics, including: symmetry, flight ratio, pronation, pronation velocity, footstrike type, shock, impact Gs, and braking Gs. At last count, we’ve captured more than 45,000 runs, 200,000 miles and 245 million steps. From those runs, we’ve calculated more than three billion run metrics. So yeah, we’ve got a lot of data. With that data, we have a unique perspective on what works—and what doesn’t—when sports professionals bring wearable tech into their programs.

We’ve captured more than 45,000 runs, 200,000 miles and 245 million steps.

The Wearable Tech Opportunity

First, let’s start with the opportunity. Wearable tech offers substantial benefits. These include the following.

Real World Data

By capturing metrics “in the wild,” wearable data reflects an athlete’s natural movement. It doesn’t provide a complete or accurate picture when you’re restricted to lab environments or video analysis that can only evaluate narrow aspects of an athlete’s performance — like one or two steps of a marathon. Running on a treadmill is different than running on a trail [1,2]. With wearables capable of capturing every footstrike of a race or training program, we can get a much more accurate and nuanced view of performance, form, and risk.

Small and Unobtrusive

The last thing you want is to impede an athlete with technology. Today’s wearables can weigh just a few ounces and transmit information wirelessly. This means that athletes can focus on performance without distraction.

Low Cost = Democratization of Data

With the cost of advanced sensor tech dropping, many of these systems are priced below $200. This finally makes them accessible for everyone from high school track teams to the pros.

A Better Yardstick

When advanced metrics are accessible on a consistent basis, coaches and therapists can quickly quantify progress in performance and injury recovery, and identify areas of weakness. A couple of examples of this are:

• A coach can watch an interval session and see the entire team successfully completing intervals at pace, but some individual athletes report struggling. Looking at the data, that coach can then determine what changed in the running mechanics over the last few intervals and get a better picture of how fatigue affects those athletes. In turn, coaches can add specific drills that address those kinematic changes.
• A therapist who suspects that over pronation or high pronation velocity is contributing to a patient’s knee pain can try multiple orthotics or shoe inserts in one session. They can then collect objective data quickly and inexpensively, to see which insert may have the best result before sending the athlete out on a longer run.

Understanding Variability

Variability is a natural part of running, and understanding it is the Holy Grail. Mechanics change with pace, shoes, terrain, and fatigue. It is not unusual to see a 30% difference in a particular metric when an athlete changes terrain. Wearable technology gives an opportunity to understand variability in ways that haven’t been possible before.

For instance, while you may have previously just assumed that a forefoot striker is always a forefoot striker, this is not necessarily the case. You may shift your footstrike pattern based on the shoes you’re wearing or the terrain you’re on, or as you get fatigued over the course of your run. The understanding of variability is a huge missing piece in the way that runners are assessed and helps to make decisions on training programs and shoe wear.

Understanding Specificity

Many runners don’t understand the importance of training specificity. In order to race successfully at a given pace, an athlete needs to spend significant time training at or near that pace. Many of us that don’t train with a coach or a group will often do the same thing in training almost every session and then whine about not getting faster. Movement patterns and footstrike characteristics can be very different at race pace, as compared to an athlete’s standard training pace. If you run the same pace every day in training then, by default, that becomes your race pace. Real-world wearable data illustrates these differences and can help athletes and coaches to develop pace-specific programs.

Wearable Sports Tech Risks

Wearable technology can provide more meaningful running metrics that capture real-world performance. However, as with any technology, there are risks and reasons to be cautious.

Accuracy and Consistency

Sensor technology has become increasingly accurate with incredible processing speeds, but the devil is in the details of what you do with that raw sensor data. We’ve all heard that the accuracy of step counters and activity trackers can be off by as much as an astounding 20% [3,4]. Validating metrics through third-party research is critical to becoming a trusted tool.

Scribe Labs is one of the few wearable tech companies to publish our research and validation studies on Running Unraveled. In the rush to take advantage of wearable technology opportunities, we’ve seen a substantial range in accuracy and consistency. If coaches and athletes make training decisions based on new metrics, it’s important to research the validity of the data. Companies are always working to improve accuracy and handle outliers, but it’s important to have transparency in data accuracy and validation.

So Much Data

Did we mention that we had three billion calculated footstep metrics? That’s a lot of data, and it can be overwhelming. New metrics are less understood and there can be a learning curve to grasping their implications. Wearable technology is shortening the time frame between academic study and practical application. This is exciting, but it can also be daunting. New communities are popping up where athletes, coaches, and trainers share how they use wearable technology in their programs. Scribe Labs publishes its research and use cases on Running Unraveled.

Oversimplification

There is a deep human desire to narrow down complex information to its simplest form. In a sport like running, this can cause more harm than good. In analyzing the RunScribe community data (all three billion footsteps!), there is very little that we can generalize about running. At first glance, what seems like common sense gets twisted.

For example, to the naked eye, many world-class runners appear to be very light on their feet, so you might assume they have low impact Gs and shock. And yet, looking at data from an Olympic runner with sky-high shock values, we could see they’ve learned that higher impact values and a shorter ground contact phase help utilize elastic energy to propel them forward. However, many average runners wouldn’t be able to withstand that level of pounding for long.

There are also a number of generic “metric targets” around stride rate (180 target) or contact time (200ms) that don’t hold true for everyone, or even show consistent correlation to hitting goals. In a study done at the 2015 New York City Marathon, we compared stride rate to finish times and found almost no correlation. But we did find that flight ratio is much more likely to correlate to finish times.

Coaching

Many running wearables provide real-time feedback and coaching through a mobile app. This makes a lot of sense. “You’ve given me all this data—so tell me what to do with it!” The problem is that most of these coaching applications fall victim to the risks we’ve outlined.

The oversimplification of advice can range from being slightly useful to dangerous. Providing guidance without accounting for variability or context is a huge risk because we know there is no “one size fits all” advice for runners. For example, the Golden Rule of a 180-step rate was derived from legendary coach Jack Daniels, when he was observing middle and long distance runners at the ’84 Olympics. The key to this “rule” that is nearly always missed is that these athletes were running at race pace. We see some apps and coaches assuming that a 180-step rate should be a target at every pace. It shouldn’t.

Integrating Wearable Tech Into Your Practice: Coaches

So how are coaches and trainers using wearable technology in their practices? We’re seeing the RunScribe system used in very different ways, based on the type of user. For coaches, RunScribe data quantifies performance and progress, but also helps solve very specific issues. Here are some examples.

Establishing a Baseline

If you’ve got a healthy runner, get their data snapshot. This allows you to do an in-depth assessment, identify areas of potential concern (rapid and extreme pronation, large asymmetries, high shock values, and big differences in metrics in different shoes), and track progress. Additionally, if a runner does get injured, having a baseline assessment of their metrics can help coaches determine when they are fully recovered.

Tracking Progress Holistically

For running, it all comes down to pace. But we know that the way athletes get to pace can be very different. Traditionally, there have been limited metrics to guide a runner’s training, like cadence, pace, and heart rate. While useful, these metrics don’t provide a holistic view of performance. By tracking change against an athlete’s baseline, a coach can see if progress is being made with efficiency metrics like flight ratio and contact time, but with an eye toward maintaining consistent motion and shock metrics. Slow and steady improvements can win the race and keep a runner healthy.

Solving Problems

Coach and author, Steve Magness, wrote a case study on how he uses RunScribe data to help his athletes run a better race. By breaking down interval sessions, he can see when his athletes are hitting their rhythm, and can help train them to find their rhythm faster without exerting needless energy.

Understanding Fatigue

The implications of pace on mechanics are relatively straightforward: As running speed increases, impact Gs, pronation, pronation velocity, and flight time usually increase; whereas contact time drops because our feet spend less time on the ground. When fatigue is introduced, the dynamics change: Impact Gs can rise as pace decreases; contact time can increase even though a runner maintains pace. Understanding how a distance runner’s mechanics change to compensate for fatigue can open up opportunities for training to target areas of weakness and combat the impact of fatigue [5].

Integrating Wearable Tech Into Your Practice: Clinicians

For sports doctors and therapists helping athletes recover from injury, or adjusting mechanics, wearable technology is supplementing and—in some cases—replacing, lab-based systems like high speed motion capture and force platforms. In the case of RunScribe, data collection and analysis tends to have a faster turnaround time than traditional lab-based equipment and can be extremely helpful in gait retraining scenarios. Therapists can send their clients out into the real world and find out if changes seen in the lab are maintained outside.

Here are some examples of applications of wearable technology being used in clinics today.

Environmental Assessment

Wearable technology allows sports pros to capture client run data in the wild, establishing a baseline for a runner’s mechanics in their preferred environment—on a treadmill, track, trail, or road. Understanding the impact of variables on a runner’s stride creates deeper and more meaningful insights during the assessment process.

Risk Quantification

Advanced metrics can provide deeper insight into a runner’s symptoms. Pronation excursion and velocity, symmetry, footstrike, impact Gs, and braking Gs frequently provide a clearer picture of a runner’s issues.

Motion-Capture Enhancement

Accurate wearables eliminate the need for manual calculation of metrics from video footage. Physios and PTs can use advanced metrics to reinforce and quantify what they see in video footage. When tracking progress for injury recovery or the impact of orthotics on stride, wearables rapidly illustrate the changes in a runner’s mechanics.

Asymmetry Identification

Symmetry imbalances are a natural part of runner’s stride, but identifying substantial asymmetries—particularly in footstrike patterns, pronation excursions, and pronation velocities—help to assess the severity of issues and the effects of treatment over the course of multiple sessions.

Objective Feedback Loop Creation

The success or failure of a treatment plan is frequently based on a client’s ability to stick to the plan. Overdoing it or overexerting is common. By using wearable technology between appointment periods, clinicians can monitor the effects of the plan and also evaluate objective data to ensure the runner is sticking to the program.

Wearable Sports Tech Is Not a Threat

No wearable device is ever likely to replace the value a coach or clinician can bring to a runner. That wealth of knowledge and the ability to analyze the many components of a runner’s history and form is invaluable. By providing reliable and accurate measurement tools in the field, wearables like RunScribe put more meaningful data in the hands of sports professionals, which allows them to perform in-depth real-world assessments, track change, and quantify progress. As this data becomes more accessible and more broadly understood, we can learn to train smarter and improve treatment programs as a community.

Since you’re here…
…we have a small favor to ask. More people are reading SimpliFaster than ever, and each week we bring you compelling content from coaches, sport scientists, and physiotherapists who are devoted to building better athletes. Please take a moment to share the articles on social media, engage the authors with questions and comments below, and link to articles when appropriate if you have a blog or participate on forums of related topics. — SF

Bios

John Litschert is the biomechanist and co-founder of Scribe Labs. Prior to co-founding Scribe Labs, John worked at the U.S. Olympic Training Center and at Colorado State University where his focus was on gait analysis.

Tim Clark is CEO and co-founder of Scribe Labs. Tim’s background in engineering has spanned consumer electronics to sports technology. Previously, Tim worked at Red Octane (Activision), MetriGear (Garmin), and the U.S. Olympic Training Center.

References

1. Nigg, Benno M., Ruud W. De Boer, and Veronica Fisher. “A kinematic comparison of overground and treadmill running.” Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise 27.1 (1995): 98-105.
2. Wank, V., U. Frick, and D. Schmidtbleicher. “Kinematics and electromyography of lower limb muscles in overground and treadmill running.” International journal of sports medicine 19.07 (1998): 455-461.
3. Sasaki, Jeffer Eidi, et al. “Validation of the Fitbit wireless activity tracker for prediction of energy expenditure.” J Phys Act Health 12.2 (2015): 149-154.
4. Dannecker, Kathryn L., et al. “Accuracy of fitbit activity monitor to predict energy expenditure with and without classification of activities.” Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise 43.5 (2011): 62.
5. “The Unescapable Fatigue Effect.” Running Unraveled, 1 August 2016, www.runningunraveled.com/2016/08/01/the-fatigue-effect.

All training programs should integrate Electrical Muscle Stimulation (EMS) to contract muscles forcefully. The best minds in sports performance all agree that EMS is a valuable tool, particularly at the highest levels of performance. However, professionals in all sports—particularly at upper levels—do not fully understand the applications and benefits of EMS technology. Many coaches and trainers have purchased EMS devices but have not yet integrated the technology into their regular day-to-day routine. With just a little knowledge, you can help your athletes make big improvements.

You may face two obstacles to making the best use of EMS for athlete performance and health. First, you cannot learn about EMS without holding a device in your own hands. Like any technology, you must fiddle with it and, through trial and error, find out what works and what doesn’t. With some of the stimulation units, consumers often complain that user manuals do not teach how to best use the technology. Rather than reading a book on how to use barbells, massage tables, or treadmills, your own determined practice can find the best application for any tool in question.

The second obstacle to using EMS regularly to aid athlete development, recovery, and rehabilitation is that many individuals feel that only certified physical therapists can use it. Your initial caution is commendable, but I can see no good reason why only physical therapists are best qualified to use EMS on athletes. EMS contracts muscles forcefully. Isn’t this what training athletes do themselves on a daily basis in the weight room, on the track, and on the field? Coaches and strength professionals understand the principles of progressive loading, recovery, and work-to-rest ratios, and the careful integration of multiple training elements in a complementary fashion.

These are the same principles required to master EMS technology with an athlete. Any coach that is comfortable with implementing effective conventional training programs should have no problem understanding the value and applications of EMS for their athletes. We must not take the attitude that coaches are children, not to be trusted with such sophisticated technology. People are using smartphones on a daily basis with technology that is a thousand times more sophisticated than a simple EMS circuit board.

But before everyone rushes out and purchases a new EMS unit, we should talk more about how it can optimize the preparation of your athletes. There are infinite reasons to use the technology on a daily basis, particularly in professional sport, where the schedules are ambitious and the wear-and-tear on athletes is significant. Remember, we are all breathing, walking, and talking because of our brain’s ability to send electrical impulses throughout all areas of our body in an exceptionally coordinated fashion. Without electricity, we would cease to be thriving organisms.

Although electricity can be considered a hazard, in the right amounts and forms, it can be used effectively to further our health and well-being. In some instances, innovative medical researchers, like Dr. Bjorn Nordenstrom, have done truly amazing things. Dr. Nordenstrom successfully used electricity in the treatment of cancerous tumors. While we do not expect all EMS users to solve the world’s health problems, we can expect to find simple and effective ways to improve muscle function with some straightforward guidelines.

Here are six reasons why the sporting community—both competitive and recreational—should embrace EMS technology on a broad scale.

Research has proved that EMS works. Positive results support the use of EMS for strength enhancement and performance gains. Like any training tool, you will achieve optimal results when using the technology appropriately in terms of specific settings, timings, frequency, and overall volume of work. In cases where EMS did not produce performance gains in trained athletes, the researchers did not use the technology appropriately in conjunction with a well-organized training program. This is the key. Simply slapping on the pads and turning up the current is not enough. You must have clear goals and objectives for EMS, as well as a plan for how and when to use the technology.

Coaches maximize EMS benefits when they integrate the units with well-planned conventional training. Many research studies say the use of EMS alone, at best, provides the same benefit as voluntary training; that EMS is no better than regular training methods. Because EMS requires no central nervous system input, it will not fatigue the brain of an already over-taxed athlete. The combination of conventional training and EMS provides a significant advantage over either method alone because the cumulative effect of both methods provides a boosted training scenario with less energy cost to the athlete. This is a win-win proposition, especially if the stresses of life and training over-stimulate an athlete’s nervous system.

EMS delivers a clean, complete muscle contraction. Our athletes are over-inundated with excessive “noise,” but not from iPods or fashionable headphones. Accumulated stress—both physical and psychological—can not only create excessive fatigue, but also interfere with athletes’ thought processes and autonomic signals within their brains and bodies. If we rely solely on voluntary strength training to prepare athletes, we are selling them short. Using an EMS, an athlete can contract a muscle group more completely and cleanly than by lifting weights. EMS bypasses the “noise” and works directly on the muscle to get a complete contraction. This is particularly important when targeting fast-twitch muscle fiber, which you can preferentially target with the correct stimulation frequency.

If you plan to use EMS as a sole means of eliciting strength gains in muscle, you can be certain you will get a more effective muscle contraction—albeit using an appropriate amount of current—than when training three times per week. However, I do not recommend that you rely exclusively on EMS for your strength training unless you are using it for rehabilitation purposes, or you are trying to reduce wear-and-tear on a specific joint structure. EMS works best when integrated with a conventional training program that requires a coordination component for more efficient transfer of the training adaptation. You will achieve the best results by supplementing conventional voluntary training with EMS sessions in proper proportions, supported by general conditioning and recovery.

Using EMS makes us more intelligent coaches and rehabilitation professionals. Not only does the use of EMS make us think more about the recruitment characteristics of skeletal muscle, but it also helps us to diagnose problems related to fatigue and injury in both the peripheral and central nervous systems. When an Olympic weightlifter suffered a significant knee injury, voluntary strength training was not restoring the atrophied quadriceps muscle. In essence, the lifter’s brain was not allowing the muscles to contribute fully to the movement of the knee joint in basic squatting and pulling motions. Because the message from brain to muscle was not getting through, inhibition was dominating the program. Even when my team started using EMS, the amount of current required to contract the quadriceps muscles on the injured leg was two to three times that of the healthy leg. As a diagnostic tool, the EMS unit also indicated when the inhibitory response was dissipating, and larger volumes of conventional exercise could be successfully reintegrated into the athlete’s training program without re-injuring the knee.

The reconditioning specialist, Bill Knowles, brought up a good point that all peripheral injuries are also “brain” injuries. A muscle injury damages the connections between mind and body and thus disrupts the brain. EMS helps to repair those connections and work through the inhibitions created by the brain’s self-imposed protective mechanisms. In the case of the Olympic weightlifter, the use of EMS was essential in moving past the obstacles and inhibitions to provide maximal recruitment of that muscle group on the injured leg, particularly since we could strengthen the quads without stressing the knee joint. Once recruitment patterns were re-established and, the quadriceps muscle was fully restored through both isolated EMS use and superimposed EMS training, the knee did not present any further problems for the athlete.

In cases of both fatigue and injury, the signals between the brain and the body are easily disrupted. EMS can not only restore, but also enhance those connections. Additionally, EMS can help assess the neuromuscular system by monitoring the amount of current required to contract the muscles in question. As the neuromuscular system improved through the rehabilitation process, less and less current was required to attain a full contraction. Monitoring the levels of intensity on the EMS unit can show the progress of muscle rehab (and the central nervous system) in injured states.

EMS facilitates recovery. In tight schedules, when athletes might not have the time or energy to implement recovery and regeneration protocols, EMS is an extremely useful tool. Active recovery protocols that encourage circulatory mechanisms within the body help facilitate a more complete and expedient recovery. Optimally, athletes can implement tempo running, but sometimes stationary bike intervals or swimming-pool exercises can hasten recovery. Because not all situations are optimal, other tools can aid recovery. Athletes can take the EMS units home after training and apply them while riding home (not while they are the driver, of course), or when sitting down and reading or surfing the web. Typically, an athlete places the EMS pads on larger muscle groups and employs a pulsing program not only to promote circulation, but also to loosen muscle and reset tone.

EMS is effective in situations where athletes must travel. Long trips and waits in airports can be not only exhausting, but can also lead to the stiffening of muscles and joints. If athletes perform periodic recovery protocols with an EMS unit, they can keep their bodies supple and well-maintained, in terms of oxygen circulation and the removal of waste products. Athletes report feeling significantly better after using the EMS unit on their trip, and some sleep better when they arrive at their destination.

It is also important to note that athletes using maximal strength, power, and speed protocols with EMS have reported feeling more recovered the next day in terms of muscle looseness and joint mobility. EMS has the ability to essentially reset muscle tone and provide athletes with not only the means to contract muscle more efficiently, but also to relax and de-contract muscle more effectively. This benefit is critical in explosive cyclical movements, such as sprinting, where the nervous system is required to contract and de-contract muscle in a very short amount of time, at very high speeds. EMS can help these athletes minimize muscle stiffness, cramping, and general peripheral fatigue.

Current portable EMS devices are exceptionally convenient. My first EMS was a large device that fit in a medium-sized suitcase. EMS devices now are slightly bigger than a smartphone and can pack a pretty good punch. The portability of the devices, combined with easy-to-use adhesive electrodes, make them a strength training and recovery tool that you can carry in your pocket. As mentioned previously, the travel benefits of EMS are obvious. Having one in every athlete’s gym bag is an obvious solution for getting that extra edge, particularly if you don’t have an entourage of support staff to help you with recovery and massage. If Bill Gates wanted a personal computer on every person’s desk, why can’t every athlete have a personal EMS unit in their equipment bag? The portability, power, and efficacy of these devices are indisputable.

My recent conversations with a number of professional sports teams (NFL, NBA, and NHL) confirm that athletes who rely on their bodies for their income realize the benefits of EMS. The schedules and demands of the regular season are so stressful that every athlete needs help with their recovery and the maintenance of strength. EMS provides a simple, convenient solution to this problem.

It is important to note that not all EMS devices are created equal. Less-expensive EMS devices are available online in the $100-$300 range. While it may seem that this is a cheap way to get into the market and still get the benefits of electrical stimulation, there are some significant shortcomings with the cheaper units in terms of power, flexibility, and build quality.

I chose to work with Globus Sport and Health technologies on their SpeedCoach series of muscle stimulators because they have very robust and powerful units. Their lead sport technology engineer, Giovanni Ciriani, created programs and protocols that work with athletes. We work iteratively to determine which programs yield the best results with athletes in different sports, and we make changes to accommodate their needs. In the last few years, we have developed programs and protocols that no other company has in their units. Because we work with athletes on a daily basis, we have the ability to monitor progress and make changes where necessary. This information is funneled back to Giovanni at Globus, and he makes the necessary adjustments to waveforms, frequencies, pulse widths, and timings.

My hope is that more and more coaches and athletes recognize the benefit of EMS technology in the next few years. The technology has not changed much since the 1970s, but we have made great inroads into the development of the protocols surrounding the technology. This is where the big advances will be made: The optimization of protocols and the most efficient integration with conventional methods. Such advances can only be accomplished by working with EMS and athletes on a daily basis. So don’t wait any longer—get yourself a high-quality EMS unit to advance your knowledge and improve the development of your athletes.

Since you’re here…
…we have a small favor to ask. More people are reading SimpliFaster than ever, and each week we bring you compelling content from coaches, sport scientists, and physiotherapists who are devoted to building better athletes. Please take a moment to share the articles on social media, engage the authors with questions and comments below, and link to articles when appropriate if you have a blog or participate on forums of related topics. — SF

Dr. John P. Sullivan is a Sport Scientist and Clinical Sport Psychologist. He has more than 20 years of clinical and scholarly experience, and he has worked with the same team in the National Football League (NFL) for the past 16 years, coordinating clinical care and sport science.

Freelap USA: Clinical mental health has focused mainly on symptoms stemming from concussions in sport, but depression and other challenges of the human condition affect athletes just as much as the rest of the population. Can you go into the reason that the profession of psychology should move towards a compass model instead of being typically on the bottom of many organizational totem poles? The brain is the top organ, yet it is often left until the end of any investigation into complex problems.

John Sullivan: What I think you are asking is what the barriers are for sport psychology to be optimally and fully integrated into sport. First, I would say that this question certainly has cultural context for each sport organization, so there is not just one model for all organizations. That being said, sport psychology and the brain sciences continue to take a one-down position in sport which is—in part—due to a lack of education about the brain and a few lingering myths in sport.

In general, we tend not to learn much about the brain in our education systems. In fact, unless someone has specialized in the study of the brain, there would be very little working knowledge about its impact on our daily lives. What is even more concerning is our lack of knowledge about brain health as the driver of our quality of life. That is one of the many reasons why Chris Parker and I have written the book, The Brain Always Wins (release date October 2016), to assist in closing this gap in knowledge.

To be clear, when I use the term “brain,” I am not speaking of “the mind,” as they are very different scientifically. That is, the brain is our organ that drives eleven other sub-systems, and the mind is our consciousness, which science (to date) does not fully understand.
The first myth in sport that often acts as a barrier is the belief that performance and health are separate concepts or processes. The evidence is clear that our ability to perform in any context is based upon our health, and this starts with the brain.

The second myth is that “mental toughness” and “grit” are sufficient, or even protective, barriers against the actuality that sport is trauma. The actual evidence about mental toughness and grit is that they have little to no scientific validity. The importance of context is ignored (most significantly, psychophysiology) and, when used as blunt tools or terms (which they often are, such as an athlete/individual being blamed for not being “tough” or “gritty” enough), we are ignoring the point that performance is comprised of many factors.

Mental toughness and grit have the illusion of validity, and people have belief bias concerning the terms because they seem to make sense. However, in actuality, they are overstated concepts that lack validity. The scientific truth is that the brain is wired to survive—so performance and survival are not about toughness or grit, and instead are the result of training, which allows for adaption, and eventual evolution.

The third myth that shifts us away from including the brain in sport is that we desperately want to believe that sport and high performance are achieved via a simple formula, consisting of engaging in repetitions or perhaps having the right genes. However, the reality is that high performance is a complex multifactorial process that includes the brain every step of the way.

Although I think that psychology as a field can do more to advocate for incorporating brain health, it is also the case in sport that we critically need to work with others in sports medicine and sport science in a transdisciplinary fashion. This would require genuine collaboration with licensed and properly trained professionals, including licensed sport psychologists who have completed proper training in sport. It is also key that sport organizations advocate for these sorts of positions as a priority.

Freelap USA: Many sports technology companies try to ride the excitement of pro sports for bigger markets because venture capital (VC) money wants a big return on investment. This has left coaches feeling used or having management invest in the wrong technology because science—specifically biology—was out of the equation. Can you share how teams can invest into sports technology wisely, as nothing is perfect but it must be valid and accurate/precise enough to be effective?

John Sullivan: Since sport technology is a free market system, it can be difficult to differentiate what is actually “science” versus “marketing.” Furthermore, with the technology we have available to us at this time, we can measure almost anything. So, one way to answer your question is to provide critical questions that should always be considered when utilizing sport technology:

• Is there any chance of harm?
• Why and what are we using the technology to assess/measure?
• What are the ultimate goals?
• Who will be handling the data? (e.g., How are you protecting the data and who has the competency to interpret it?)
• How will the data be used, as well as what validation research has been conducted on the technology itself (e.g., construct, signal, laboratory, and ecological validation)?

In the September edition of the International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, you can find a commentary on this topic. “Wearable Technology for Athletes: Information Overload and Pseudoscience” was a project that I had the pleasure of working on with Dr. Shona Halson from the Australian Institute of Sport, and Dr. Jonathan Peake, Lecturer in the Faculty of Health, Queensland University of Technology.

Freelap USA: Injuries and burnout are real at lower levels and continue up to the pro levels. What do you feel is a great resource for coaches to help with the retirement of elites and even very successful athletes at lower levels? Giving up a sport forcefully because of age or injury is rough, and this process is often neglected with sports psychology because athletes usually come for help with cliché problems like “choking” and other similar things. What are good resources for this?

John Sullivan: Retirement from sport—either by choice or otherwise—comes with inherent challenges and health concerns. There has been a great deal of psychological research conducted in this area (e.g., 95,000 scientific articles on retirement from sport, and 2,090,000 scientific articles on psychological factors related to injuries (1)). A critical issue, considered another way, is the extent of involvement and support within organized sport with the goal of helping athletes transition from sport (e.g., by providing education and career planning), as well as having a focus on the integration of well-established psychological science in rehabilitation from injuries. Although some transition and planning programs exist, they are often not based on best practices or even sufficiently funded. A good starting place for learning more about this is the International Society for Sport Psychology’s (ISSP) “Position Stand: Career Development and Transitions of Athletes” (2).

We can all be doing a better job for this effort by asking for such programs within our organizations, including a team of properly trained professionals who can support and facilitate care. Furthermore, sport coaches and strength and conditioning practitioners can engage with continuing education to increase their awareness and competency regarding identification of issues, and thus know when to refer to licensed psychologists if/when brain health issues arise.

Another resource comes from the National Athletic Trainers’ Association (NATA), which has led a multi-association call for increased competency (3,4). They will soon also be offering further continuing education focused on brain/mental health.

Properly executed sports medicine and sport science require collaborative efforts, so increasing our working knowledge of other areas will allow us to increase the health of those we serve. Noting that health is the foundation of high performance ensures that talent is protected and allowed to develop.

Freelap USA: Sleep is a very popular topic of discussion, but few teams actually assess sleep beyond subjective questionnaires. Could you show how teams need to slow down and audit the process instead of skipping over things and giving superficial advice? Many athletes need more than casual suggestions like setting their alarms differently, darkening their rooms, or changing mattresses. Sleep is often disturbed by overreaching issues or personal problems like financial and family stressors, and athletes are human. Could you share anything you think teams are missing the boat on?

John Sullivan: There is no single panacea, but I would say that the lack of proper assessment, interpretation of data, and tailored, systematic programming with athletes are all keys with regard to sleep.

From my observations across a range of populations and cultural contexts—e.g., youth to elite sport, and individuals on different continents—I think that sleep is often misunderstood and underestimated. What I see with regard to sleep being misunderstood has to do with proper human intelligence/expertise, programming, and tools. The work needed to educate individuals about sleep is varied and complex, and this challenge is typically intensified when dealing with athletes who have a tremendous amount of human variation and demands on their systems. What I have observed with regard to programming is that sleep is either being ignored or there is no systematic approach to enhancing sleep behaviors. The belief is often that providing information alone will lead to the desired changes. Although providing information is an element of behavior change, it is far from sufficient to facilitate lasting change.

Importantly, tools that are used to evaluate sleep have often not been properly evaluated for their reliability and validity, so they offer little to no value. In some cases, where the tools/assessments are scientifically appropriate, the recipients of the data are not trained and therefore unable to translate the data accurately, so no value is added even still. Sleep is any organization’s No. 1 performance enhancer because of its protective factors for the brain and, ultimately, its impact on optimal performance and brain health.

Freelap USA: Fatigue is always seen as a neuromuscular factor, which oversimplifies the situation into a weak muscle or lack of specific exercises. While strength and conditioning is clearly a prime variable, general fatigue from meetings, emotional strain, and countless human components are also factors. Can you go into some fresh ideas that coaches can tap into regarding fatigue without getting too esoteric? Right now, we are seeing a lot of pseudoscience creating confusion here. It would be great to know how we can manage fatigue better without just doing the known physiological monitoring.

John Sullivan: A helpful way to think about fatigue is to understand that our brain is very focused on energy management because it stores very little of its own energy. Therefore, if we do not establish habits that provide energy balance, our central nervous system (CNS) reacts by shifting into varying degrees of survival. This, in turn, reduces essential adaptation throughout all of our systems and sub-systems (e.g., enteric nervous, cardiac, endocrine, skeletal, and neuromuscular systems).

This domino effect emphasizes the crucial need for systematic assessment of a performer’s habits through examination of strengths and areas for development—the outcome of which should be a developed plan that increases readiness and resiliency. Everything we do loads the brain, thus impacting our energy balance: Therefore, an ecological assessment (e.g., in situ review of daily activities) is key to assisting a performer and protecting their ability to recover and, in turn, increasing their readiness, resiliency, adaption, and evolution.

Similar to the points raised above regarding implementation of tangible plans related to sport technology, injury, and sleep, there is no single answer or “6:00 abs” response to share. Instead, it is critical for athlete success and care that we take a comprehensive and collaborative approach to proper assessment, interpretation of data, and tailored, systematic programming based upon sound scientific principles.

Since you’re here…
…we have a small favor to ask. More people are reading SimpliFaster than ever, and each week we bring you compelling content from coaches, sport scientists, and physiotherapists who are devoted to building better athletes. Please take a moment to share the articles on social media, engage the authors with questions and comments below, and link to articles when appropriate if you have a blog or participate on forums of related topics. — SF

References

1. Google Scholar search conducted 9/8/2016
2. Stambulova, N., Alfermann, D., Statler, T. and Côté, J. “ISSP Position Stand: Career Development and Transitions of Athletes.” International Society for Sport Psychology (2009).
3. Neal, T.L., et al. “Inter-Association Recommendations for Developing a Plan to Recognize and Refer Student-Athletes With Psychological Concerns at the Collegiate Level: An Executive Summary of a Consensus Statement.” Journal of Athletic Training. 48(5) (2009). doi: 10.4085/1062-6050-48.4.13.
4. Neal, T.L., et al. “Interassociation Recommendations for Developing a Plan to Recognize and Refer Student-Athletes With Psychological Concerns at the Secondary School Level: A Consensus Statement.” Journal of Athletic Training. 50(3) (2015). doi: 10.4085/1062-6050-50.3.03.