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The issue of recovery has moved to the forefront of athletic performance, especially after the articles written about how Lebron James spends the seven figures per year caring for his body. This, of course, sparked a lot of curiosity in athletes at all levels for ways they could recover more efficiently and feel their best as soon as possible.

We have seen an explosion in the number of available sleep trackers, massage guns, compression units, and other tools as athletes try to find the edge to help them feel better. I work in the high school athletics world, and I have seen more kids with their own personal massage guns in the last year than ever before. Many use these tools before games/practices to help them prepare their bodies, specifically on their calves and quadriceps with our fall sports.

I was given the opportunity to compare two of the compression units on the market—the Normatec 2.0 and the RecoveryAir from Therabody—as well as provide feedback on how they might benefit athletic trainers, specifically at the high school level.

Overview of Compression for Recovery from Exercise and Injury

For decades, compression has been a modality used in injury management, and it is the “C” in the acronym RICE (rest, ice, compression, elevation) long used by medical practitioners. It is commonplace to see an athletic trainer or physical therapist using a compression sleeve or ACE wrap to provide compression on an injured joint to help either limit or remove swelling caused by the injury.

Intermittent pneumatic compression (IPC) has also been used as a modality in the medical field to help treat lymphedema and deep vein thrombosis and help in the swelling control of an injury. The Buyer’s Guide to Pneumatic Compression Recovery Systems does a great job explaining the history and uses of IPC in both the medical and athletic performance fields, as well as some of the benefits gained from IPC.

Now you see these units in every professional sport and most college athletic facilities to help those athletes perform at their best. Before using the IPC units I compare here, I used the  Game Ready System, which provides compression and cold (through ice water) with varying attachments for different body parts. I found this unit to be helpful, but in my own practice, I have moved away from using cryotherapy as much and wanted to be able to provide intermittent compression without the added cryotherapy.

Product Comparison

I will start off with a comparison of the Normatec 2.0 and the RecoveryAir units (sold by SimpliFaster) and then discuss how I implemented them to help my athletes.

Normatec Leg Recovery System

• Price: $899
• 2-hour battery life
• 5 chambers (customizable using phone app)
• Bluetooth app control
• Works with all attachments (shoulder, hips, leg)
• 7 intensity zones (number 1–7)
• Zone Boost (provides extra time and pressure in a particular zone)
• 1 mode: Flush Mode
• Color display panel

RecoveryAir

• Price: $699
• 6-hour battery life
• 4 overlapping chambers
• Works with all 4-chamber RecoveryAir garments only
• Precise pressure control (manually adjust pressure down to 5-mmHg increments between 20 mmHg and 100 mmHg)
• Tailors pressure to size of an individual’s limb to prevent over-constriction
• FDA Type II medical device

So now that I’ve given you some of the specifics on each unit, let’s talk about the overall experience of using both units. Each is very well built and of high quality, and both units helped my athletes feel better post use—we used them weekly to help our football team make a run to the GHSA State Semifinals.

My coworker or I would offer recovery sessions during our weekend injury checks. These sessions typically consisted of 20–25 minutes on one of the compression units, followed by an ice bath if the athlete wanted it. We limited the use of the units to varsity starters, and we also gave preference to those who played both sides of the ball. We also offered sessions with the compression units after practice throughout the week leading up to the game.

Could we have done this with our Game Ready Systems? Possibly, but the model we have for the Game Ready only works with one limb at a time, and the attachments are broken up into body parts such as knee, ankle, hip, and shoulder and not an entire lower or upper extremity attachment. The Normatec and the RecoveryAir allow one or both limbs to be done at a time and go from the ankle all the way up the thigh (or hand all the way to the shoulder, in the case of the upper extremity attachment).

The feedback from the athletes was overwhelmingly good, and the systems helped the athletes feel better sooner after using the compression units compared to when they didn’t. This meant that Monday practices could be more effective since the athletes were not fighting through the residual soreness of a physical Friday night game.

We also saw a positive effect on performance with our cross country runners. We applied the compression units the day after one of their tougher workouts in the week leading up to a meet. In fact, one weekend we saw three athletes PR (by an average of 42 seconds), and the other two were a second or two off their PR.

We are excited to see how we can help our spring athletes (baseball, soccer, lacrosse, and track) recover better and hopefully see better performance.

What Separated the Two Units?

It was the small details that I found different between the two units, leading to preferred uses for each.

The Zone Boost option on the Normatec is great for those who might use the entire compression garment but want a little extra love on their calves or feet, for instance. I also found the ability to limit the number of chambers being used as perfect for the athletic trainer treating an ankle/lower leg injury and wanting to see more cycles performed on those specific areas. Instead of treating the leg as a whole, the Normatec’s ability to localize the treatment to the lower leg and ankles allowed us to focus the treatment on the injured area, specifically with ankle sprains. The Normatec was my preferred option when it came to injured athletes.

The RecoveryAir brought a more tailored experience as far as the amount of pressure it provided for the individual. The unit is said to use exact pressures based on the size of your limb within the sleeve to help prevent over-compression. Over-compression can cause discomfort and even some numbness and tingling in the limb below the area being compressed. There were times when my athletes used one of the Normatec’s higher intensity levels and it became uncomfortable, but you can quickly and easily fix this by picking a lower intensity level on the compression unit.

Anecdotally, I did not experience any discomfort with the RecoveryAir, nor did I have any athletes mention discomfort. I also personally like the feel of the overlapping chambers, which give a bit of a spiraling feel as the constriction moves up your leg. The Recovery Air also has a more gradual feel as it moves up the leg compared to the Normatec, where it fills each section individually.

Choosing the Right Option

Overall, I think both units are good, and I saw results from them both. If I am solely looking for recovery purposes, I would go with the RecoveryAir. The price range helps here, but the compression also felt smoother and more sequential as it moved up your leg, whereas the NormaTec chamber-by-chamber approach felt a bit choppier. The overall experience, both mine and that of others who used the units, was also more enjoyable with the RecoveryAir.

Because I work in a medical role, I want the capability of more targeted compression to help in injury recovery (specifically with ankles), while also having the ability to use compression for recovery purposes. I personally found the NormaTec to be a more versatile unit for those who work in a sports medicine setting at the high school or college level.

As I said before, both units are great, and we saw results with both. It all depends on the reason you’re using it—whether it is just to help you or your athletes recover faster, or if you need more versatility with the unit than just recovery.

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

By Gabriel Mvumvure and Kim Goss

“You can never be too strong!”

General George S. Patton, Jr., said this 78 years ago, in his paper “Instructions to the Third United States Army,” and it’s a motto many strength coaches endorse. But it may not be a wise approach to help athletes sprint faster or jump higher, at least when it comes to squats. Here’s a better catchphrase:

“I don’t care how much you can squat—I want to know how much you can squat in one second!”

(Lead Photo by Ryan Paiva, LiftingLife.com)

This approach to squatting is championed by Jim Napier, a two-time national weightlifting champion who competed in the 1977 and 1978 World Weightlifting Championships. He broke four American records, including a 314-pound snatch at 165 pounds body weight and a 341-pound snatch at 181 pounds body weight (figure 1).

Besides competing at an elite level, Napier did extensive research on the relationship between barbell velocity and weightlifting performance, including studying the training of hundreds of athletes. Napier summarized his findings in his three books, The Sport of Weightlifting Series.

Napier determined that for the back squat to transfer to the competition lifts (snatch and clean and jerk), the optimal speed during the ascent should be one second or less (video 1). If it takes longer than one second to rise from the bottom position, and the athlete decelerates through the sticking point, Napier says there is less transfer to explosive strength.

Before getting into the research supporting Napier’s training methods, let’s look at how to judge the effectiveness of a strength program for athletes with performance testing.

Drat, Not Testing Again!

The bottom line in track and field is what athletes can do in competition, not in the gym. However, between competitions, performance testing can provide valuable feedback about the effectiveness of an athlete’s physical preparation.

At Brown, our performance tests for sprinters include five types of vertical jumps, two horizontal jumps (standing broad jump and standing triple jump), two medicine ball throws (underhand and behind-the-back), and two sprints (10-meter fly and 30-meter acceleration).

Figure 2 shows the vertical jump profile of Brooke Ury, a sophomore hurdler and sprinter at Brown. It starts with her first test in February (COVID-19 prevented previous tests) and ends with her most recent test in November. Note that her vertical jump (no step) improved from 22.7 inches to 31 inches during this period.

Each test gives us valuable feedback about what our athletes need to focus on to perform their best. However, because it can take a complete training session to perform our entire battery of tests, we often will just administer a single test as a “spot check.” You’ll see that on the seven testing dates of Ury’s report: twice we tested only the vertical jump (arms with no step).

In addition to individual assessments, these tests collectively tell us how well our program is working. For example, since last February, five of our 14 female sprinters improved their vertical jump by an average of 6.34 inches, which is significant since their average starting result was already exceptional at 22.4 inches. As for absolute numbers, we had three female sprinters jump at least 31 inches (no step), and three male sprinters jump at least 37 inches (no step). Much of their training during the off-season was focused on weightlifting movements, especially the clean (video 2) and fast, full squats.

Why our interest in vertical jumping? One of the essential characteristics of elite sprinters is they can apply high levels of force into the ground. The more force applied to the ground, the greater the distance covered with each step. Let’s look at the best of the best.

Using data from a race Usain Bolt ran in Monaco in 2011, SMU researcher Andrew Udofa, Ph.D., determined that Bolt could apply 1,080 pounds of force into the ground with his right leg and 955 pounds with his left. Such power enabled the Jamaican Olympic champion to cover the 100 meters in 40.92 steps and run 9.58 seconds in 2009. Compare these results to Carl Lewis, who needed 43 steps to run his world record of 9.86 seconds in 1991.

Knowing the importance of power in athletic performance and ways to measure it, how significant is squatting in developing power and how much should the lift be emphasized in a workout? Let’s find out.

Crunching the Numbers

To help plan their training, weightlifting coaches have developed ratios of the competition lifts to assistance exercises. Using a “performance calculator” developed by the Queensland Weightlifting Association, here are their ratios for the back squat to the clean and jerk:

C&J*                Back Squat

154                  200

193                  250

232                  300

270                  350

309                  400

*weight in pounds

Using this formula, if a weightlifter clean and jerks 154 pounds but squats 300, they need to focus less on leg strength and more on technique.

Although a good starting point for beginners, these ratios may not apply to elite weightlifters or athletes in other sports. Specifically, the squats in most of these formulas are often too heavy, and the results of many of the strongest weightlifters confirm this opinion.

Consider the accomplishments of three weightlifters who broke the absolute world record in the clean and jerk: super heavyweights Vasily Alexeev (564 pounds, 1977) and Anatoly Pisarenko (584, 1984) from Russia, and 207-pound lifter Simon Kolecki (512, 2000) from Poland (figures 3 and 4).

In 1970, Alexeev broke the 500-pound barrier in the clean and jerk, and seven years later, he did 64 pounds more. Alexeev said he never used more than 595 pounds in the squat. Pisarenko, who claimed he cleaned 617 in training, says he could only squat 639, and there is little reason to doubt him. His teammate, two-time Olympic gold medalist Aleksandr Kurolovich, saw Pisarenko miss a 573 back squat in training but clean and jerk it just five days later! As for the lighter Kolecki, his best back squat was 518, only six pounds more than his clean and jerk!

Using the Queensland performance calculator, Alexeev should have clean and jerked 459, not 564; Pisarenko 493, not 584 (and certainly not a 617 clean!); and Kolecki 399, not 512. These results suggest these lifters did not become the best in the world despite not squatting heavy but because they did not squat heavy!

Of course, weightlifters need to perform squats in training to rise out of the low catch position with heavy weights in the snatch and clean and jerk. However, there is little value in squatting with weights that far exceed what an athlete can lift in the clean and jerk.

Sports scientist Bud Charniga has extensively studied the research of Russian sports scientists, including translating the works of Yuri “The Father of Plyometrics” Verkhoshansky. Charniga says their research confirms that overemphasizing the squat results in “a point of diminishing returns” and such training “could have the opposite of the desired effect from training which would result in making the lifter slower in the ‘explosion’ phase.” In fact, many elite weightlifters have squatted monstrous weights but had relatively low clean and jerks.  

Not to take away from the accomplishments of these U.S. Olympians, but consider the lifting ratios of super heavyweight weightlifters Paul Anderson, Shane Hamman (figure 4), and Mark Henry. Anderson reportedly squatted 1,206 pounds, Hamman officially squatted 1,008 pounds, and Henry officially lifted 953. Anderson’s best clean and jerk was 440, Henry’s was 485, and Hamman’s was 523. Using the Queensland performance calculator, a 1,206 squat equals a 931 clean and jerk, 1,008 pounds equals 778, and 953 equals 736. The current world record is 588.

The Issue Is the Tissue

Sprint and jump coaches who are anti-weight training often don’t recognize the differences among the types of weight training. They seem to believe that all weight training programs will result in athletes becoming slower and significantly bigger, which is simply not true.

An athlete can lift weights to dramatically increase their explosive strength with minimal increases in muscle bulk. Elite weightlifters often compete in the same bodyweight classes for many years, sometimes more than a decade, while continuing to increase how much they lift. In 1978, Russia’s Yuri Vardanyan clean and jerked a world record of 462, weighing 181 pounds; six years later, he clean and jerked 493 pounds at the same body weight (figure 5). He also reportedly high jumped 7 feet using a three-step approach and forward takeoff. As for his squatting ability, when he made that 493 record, his best front squat was only 14 pounds more, at 507. Noted weightlifting journalist Seb Ostrowicz said that Yuri “believed that grinding should not be allowed and valued speed in the squat over anything else.”

The takeaway is that just as you wouldn’t have a sprinter perform 3-mile runs (even though both activities are considered “running”), you wouldn’t have a sprinter or jumper use the training methods of the current Mr. Olympia. Let’s take a deeper dive into this subject.

Depending upon the federation they compete in, powerlifters usually squat to a position where their upper thighs are parallel to the floor, not all the way down as weightlifters do. Powerlifters often lean forward more than weightlifters as they descend to their low position, and they perform their lifts relatively slowly to enable them to use maximum weights. In contrast, weightlifters squat quickly and throughout a full range of motion, often bouncing out of the bottom position (figure 6). Such training influences the type of muscle fibers developed and the amount of muscle mass gained.

There are two general categories of muscle fibers, slow-twitch (type I) and fast-twitch (type II). Slow-twitch fibers have more endurance than fast-twitch fibers, but fast-twitch fibers can contract harder. Thus, sprinting and jumping would develop the fast-twitch fibers and distance running the slow-twitch (figure 7).

The type II fibers can be further broken down into IIa, IIb, and IIx. Type IIx fibers are the fastest and enable weightlifters to “generate high forces in rapid time-frames” (Serrano, 2019). How do weightlifters compare to powerlifters and bodybuilders?

First, consider that intensity is the amount of weight used in relation to 1-repetition maximum. Powerlifters and weightlifters train at much higher intensities than bodybuilders, and as such, have more fast-twitch fibers. Next, weightlifters possess more fast-twitch fibers than powerlifters and appear to possess more type IIx fibers. This difference is apparent in the jumping and sprinting abilities of these two types of athletes.

In a 1999 study published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research (McBride et al.), powerlifters and weightlifters performed three types of vertical jumps. The jumps measured were bodyweight only, jumping with 44 pounds, and jumping with 88 pounds. You might think the powerlifters would excel in the jumps performed with resistance, but the weightlifters were superior in all three tests. Thus, although the word “power” is in the name of their sport, this research suggests that weightlifters are more powerful than powerlifters.

The type of muscles activated during activities influences athletic performance, but there’s another type of tissue to consider: fascia.

One strength coach who has done considerable real-world research on how fascia influences performance in elite athletes is Paul Gagné, a Canadian strength coach and posturologist. “Think of fascia as the inner skin of the body,” says Gagné. “It’s tissue that connects and shapes every muscle, organ, blood vessel, and nerve. A tendon is a type of fascia. What athletes and their coaches must understand is that fascia envelops and intertwines with muscle fibers and therefore plays an important role in producing movement.”

Whereas muscles contract and relax to produce movement, Gagné says fascia can stretch and recoil, acting as biological springs to assist the muscles in producing more powerful movements. “Using fast eccentric contractions decreases the time it takes the fascia to stretch and recoil. In effect, the fascia becomes more intelligent, and this intelligence has specific applications to sprinting, jumping, and throwing.”

“Another advantage of fast eccentrics is it focuses on training the fascia and not the muscles, so athletes will not experience the soreness associated with conventional training,” says Gagné. “What I’ve found is that this difference has implications on an athlete’s sports-specific practice. For example, it would not be wise to do slow eccentric squats on a Monday that create high levels of soreness and come to practice on Tuesday and perform maximal sprints. In contrast, I’ve been able to perform challenging fast eccentric workouts using flywheel devices without experiencing soreness the next day.”

The Speed Squat Solution

One way to ensure that they are not squatting too slow would be to regularly assess an athlete’s squatting performance with velocity-based training devices. If the movement speed is more than one second during the ascent of the squat, the weight is too heavy.

When you are not using a velocity-based training device, base your squatting percentages on what you can perform in the clean. One practical recommendation is to avoid using more than 10%–15% of your best clean (although the top end of this range would be slightly higher with a power clean, as less weight is used). In fact, many elite weightlifters can’t tell you what they can squat because they never go to a maximum, as there is no reason to subject the spine to the additional loading with heavier squats.

Using these conservative guidelines, if an athlete can clean 200 pounds, their optimal squatting weight might be 220–230 pounds, performed for low repetitions (generally three, as higher reps recruit fewer fast-twitch fibers). Thus, the working sets for a “heavy” squat workout might be 210 x 3×3. If the squat is based on a power clean maximum, the range would be higher, so a workout of perhaps 220 x 3×3 would be more appropriate. For more precise recommendations, invest in Napier’s books, as he covers this topic extensively.

“If it looks right, it flies right!” is a popular expression among sprint coaches. Watch a powerlifting competition in which you’ll see athletes slowly grinding out a partial squat. Impressive—especially with the enormous poundages used by today’s elite lifters—but does it look athletic? Compared to the fast, full-range squats of weightlifters, we don’t think so. As General Patton might say, “Train the way you are going to fight!”

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

Napier, J. The Sport of Weightlifting Series: Books 1-3. 2017. www.strengthandvelocity.com. (One-second squat reference: Book 3: Training Manual, pages 30–31.)

Longman, J. “Something Strange in Usain Bolt’s stride.” New York Times. July 20, 2017.

Queensland Weightlifting Federation Performance Calculator: www/qwamembers.org/PerformanceCalc

Charniga, B. “Concerning the ‘Russian Squat Routine.’” Sportivnypress.com, February 8, 2018. [First published, 2001]

Charniga, B. “The Relative Value of the Back Squat in the Training of Weightlifters,” Sportivnypress.com, February 8, 2018. [First published, 2001]

Ostrowicz, S. “In Memory of Yurik Vardanyan,” Weightlifting House, weightliftinghouse.com. [Note: The athlete’s full name is Yuri Norayrovich Vardanyan, but in translations, the spelling “Yurik” has been used.]

Serrano, N., Colenso-Semple, L.M., Lazauskus, K.K., et al. “Extraordinary fast-twitch fiber abundance in elite weightlifters.” PLOS ONE. 2019;14(3):e0207975.

Meijer, J. “Single muscle fibre contractile properties differ between body-builders, power athletes and control subjects.” Experimental Physiology. 2015;100(11):1331–1341.

Fry, A., Schilling, B.K., Staron, R.S., Hagerman, F.C., Hikida, R.S., and Thrush, J.T. “Muscle Fiber Characteristics and Performance Correlates of Male Olympic-Style Weightlifters.” Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. 2003;17(4):746–754.

Mcbride, J.M., Triplett-Mcbride, T., David, A., and Newton, R.U. “A Comparison of Strength and Power Characteristics Between Power Lifters, Olympic Lifters, and Sprinters.” Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. 1999;13(1):58–66.

Travel is a part of sports at nearly every level. Professional sports teams likely have it the worst, going from coast to coast through as many as four time zones in North America. However, travel is not a uniquely professional challenge; at the semi-pro, college, and other levels, it’s common for teams to spend hours on a bus en route to their games. I still get chills thinking about the “sleeper buses” needed in many junior hockey leagues in North America.

Traveling, in whatever form, will add challenges to prepare athletes for games. It will complicate sleep, make it harder to get quality nutrition and hydration, and leave athletes stiff and less mobile. As performance coaches, it’s our job to educate our athletes on managing those stresses to perform at their best.

Depending on your role, you’ll often be able to support them directly by supplying resources like proper nutrition, supplements, and recovery tools. Here are some variables to keep in mind and manage for athletes while traveling.

Track Overall Recovery with a Wearable Device

At the end of the day, you need to have data to measure recovery. Otherwise, neither you nor your athletes will have objective measurements to go off of, whatever interventions you choose.

In a professional sports environment, teams can (and often do) provide players with some wearable device, like a WHOOP Strap or Oura Ring, among many other reputable brands. The benefit for teams using the same brand is that they provide a dashboard where coaches can see all the player data in one place.

While not perfect, heart rate variability (HRV) data collected during sleep provides an overall indicator of recovery. So, if players see a dip in their HRV while traveling, they know they should take some extra steps toward recovery. HRV can be helpful because, as you’ll notice when you look at the data, some athletes recover much better than others while traveling. Anecdotally, we’ve all seen some people who can’t sleep on planes or buses at all, whereas others can knock themselves out without a problem.

That’s a simple example, but the point is that recovery will vary, and some players will need more support than others. With the wearable data, you can identify who may need to prioritize more of the recovery tools that I’ll touch on later. From there, you can have individual conversations with athletes to discuss recovery interventions.

Additionally, wearables empower athletes to make changes even when you’re not looking at the data closely. They can see for themselves that, yes, the five-hour flight left them worse off than they thought, so they should take extra steps on their own accord.

It’s not feasible for all teams to invest in this, but the good news is wearable devices are becoming more and more commonplace. Often, athletes will already have their own, and you can talk to them about allowing you access to their data on a coaching dashboard. With my business in the private sector, we buy all our clients’ wearable devices now—but if they come in with their own, one of the first steps we take is to get access to their wearable data. I’ve written an article about why HRV is the best metric to assess recovery, which you can read for more background on that measurement.

Plan Sleep and Exercise Around Time Zone Changes and Travel

The most significant changes when traveling come from sleep. First, athletes aren’t sleeping in their own bed, which has its own set of problems, from temperature to light exposure to the comfort (or lack thereof) of hotel pillows. You’re often changing time zones, which throws off sleep cycles and circadian rhythms.

Even if you don’t cross time zones, at lower levels, in particular, it is common for teams to leave at crazy times. Sure, the NHL might bring you the day before, but in the minors or juniors, if you have a noon game four hours away, the team bus or plane will likely leave at 6 a.m., which means athletes wake up around 5 a.m. These early mornings are the nature of the sport, so let’s plan for it.

Crossing Time Zones: East to West

Often in the professional ranks, the performance and coaching staff get a say in the travel schedule. If you’re fortunate enough to be in that position, here are some considerations. In my experience, even at lower levels, as long as it doesn’t require an extra hotel night (which skyrockets costs for a team), coaching staff and management are receptive to different suggestions.

If you’re going to the East Coast from the West Coast (like New York to Los Angeles) and have flexibility around the departure time, aim to land in the evening right around a reasonable bedtime in LA. For example, if you leave New York at 7 p.m. Eastern and land at 10 p.m. Pacific, it will be 1 a.m. EST, and athletes will be ready for bed. Upon arrival, plan to shuttle the team right toward bed. This departure time allows for a big dinner before leaving and then before-bed snacks or a lighter meal upon arriving. If athletes are in bed by 11 p.m., they can be up at a reasonable hour on the West Coast and be more adjusted to the West Coast circadian rhythm.

This may seem a bit silly because you’re making tired athletes stay up late. But if they must play a game the next day at 7 p.m. PST/10 p.m. EST, and they’re on an EST schedule, they’re likely to be more tired for the game if you let them stay on an East Coast sleep schedule. Instead, try to adjust athletes to the hours of the place where they play so their internal clocks can be ready for sympathetic activity. This advice is especially true because road trips often last more than one game, and players will be in that new time zone for several days up to a few weeks.

It applies even if the team is only traveling one or two hours (although to a lesser extent) or if the team is going across an ocean and through more time zones. The principal aim is to land in the evening and get athletes to bed at a normal hour in the new time zone.

Crossing Time Zones: West to East

When going in the opposite direction, I have the opposite advice. Instead of traveling in the evening, travel in the morning. For example, an 8 a.m. flight means players wake up at 5 a.m. PST, which is 8 a.m. EST. This time is a reasonable wake-up hour, so athletes will already adjust to the East Coast time zone. When the team arrives in the afternoon, plan some light exercise as soon as possible after landing.

Exercising right before our desired bedtime, of course, is a mistake. It will accomplish the opposite of what you want. However, exercise in the afternoon has been shown to be a nice reset for our body’s temperature cycles. We’re hot when we work out, but we cool down over several hours into our sleep cycle. The same goes for our hormonal systems. A burst of cortisol and adrenaline in the afternoon sets us up for melatonin production several hours later, limiting the effects of jet lag.

Encourage or lead a 5- to 10-minute dynamic warm-up with your athletes to get them moving once they land in the afternoon. In addition to the circadian rhythm reset benefits, this warm-up will also get them moving after being on a plane where they’ve stiffened up and halted blood flow. In these instances, the goal is to land in the afternoon and get in some exercise.

Regardless of the time zone change, the principle is to align your body to the time zone you’re landing in as soon as possible. Even in the day or two before leaving, encourage athletes to start to shift sleep toward that time zone if it’s practical. Encourage movement if it’s daytime when you arrive and encourage jumping right into a pre-bed routine (after eating and other reasonable measures) if landing in the evening.

Early Morning Departure

Here’s what you should make sure your athletes DO NOT do. And I’m emphasizing this because I’ve seen it countless times. If you have to wake up at 5 a.m. for a noon game, athletes will often stay up the entire night until they get on the bus, then get a few crappy hours of bus sleep right before playing. If you train teenagers and even college athletes, you’ll be surprised how common it is.

The drawbacks to this are obvious. They get less sleep overall and lower-quality sleep in a suboptimal environment (a moving bus). They also mess with their sleep cycle by staying up all night and sacrificing any chance of significant deep sleep and REM sleep.

Instead, the solution is to go to bed earlier. If an athlete typically goes to bed at 11 p.m. and wakes up at 7 a.m., plan on them going to bed two hours earlier. Now, this might not be possible, but going through the evening routine two hours earlier helps people fall asleep earlier as well. Realistically, you can’t expect perfection here, but getting to bed any earlier will help. Then they can take a little nap on the bus before the game and be much better off than they would have been otherwise.

Set Up Your New Environment

One of the biggest challenges of competing while traveling is being away from our typical routines. Athletes aren’t sleeping in their own beds or eating their usual meals, so it’s crucial to encourage planning around this.

Sleep Environment

The ideal sleep temperature for almost everyone is 62–69 degrees Fahrenheit. If athletes already know what temperature they sleep best in (which, again, HRV data will help determine), encourage them to set the thermostat to their ideal temperature right away.

Even at the professional level, players often share a hotel room, which can cause sleeping strife in its own right. Hopefully, as a performance coach, you have done an excellent job educating them on good sleep habits, such as keeping the TV and other screens off and closing the shades to not let in artificial light. But what do you tell athletes if one roommate is up late reading, on Facetime with their partner, or snores in the middle of the night?

A simple, low-cost option is to bring a case of earplugs (the silicone ones are a bit comfier) and a bunch of eye masks for those players who want them. Again, this is imperfect, but it can offset otherwise uncontrollable factors. These can also be useful if the team stays in a busy city with more noise and light pollution than where they live.

Food on Hand

How to eat while traveling deserves its own article. However, it helps to always have healthy snacks on hand, like fruit, protein bars, and some pre-made wraps. Often, part of the job of the performance coach is to plan this ahead of time. Are you getting snacks or meals delivered to the team hotel? Are players entirely on their own? If it’s the latter, have you looked up options for places nearby to get healthy food?

This is one of those areas where the strength coach ends up doing much more than worrying about what’s going on in the weight room. Your goal is to empower athletes to plan ahead even if there are no team resources. These are details, but they can and often will make the difference between an athlete with the fuel to compete and one without.

Recovery Tools
This is the fun part you might have been looking forward to with all the fancy recovery tools and toys available.

• Normatec/Compression – One of the elements I liked a lot about the Normatec device, as I wrote about in my review here, is that it’s SO easy to travel with. The basic concept of the Normatec is you wrap it around your body (I use the legs product), and it adds compression, improving blood flow and circulation. This is called pneumatic compression. In a team setting, it’s easy to have a few of these on hand for anybody to use. Players can get a lot out of it with just 20 minutes in the hotel room.

• Myofascial Release Tools – You can’t bring a big foam roller with you while you travel, but you can pack a bunch of lacrosse balls or softballs or a few electric massage tools like a Hyperice Hypervolt or Theragun to go around. All of these fit in carry-on bags and make it through security. Encourage players to bring their own lacrosse or tennis balls in their carry-on.

Yes, this will support local recovery. But massage has also been shown to increase parasympathetic nervous system activity, making it a great tool in our arsenal for improving recovery and all the more important while on the road.

Supplements
Supplements often act as small factors. A little here or a little there, the thinking goes, makes a small, worthwhile difference. When it comes to road trips, though, two supplements can have a considerable impact on how athletes adjust to travel and recover: caffeine and melatonin.

• Caffeine – Caffeine is a double-edged tool. On the one hand, it keeps you awake; on the other hand, it keeps you awake. If the team arrives in the daytime and needs to avoid sleeping, caffeine can help reset the circadian rhythm. But if it’s the afternoon or evening at your destination, educate players to make sure they avoid caffeine. If you have one of those, “well, I drink coffee all the time, and I feel fine,” then you’ve got a bigger battle that involves much more than road trips.

• Melatonin – Melatonin, for this purpose, is the opposite of caffeine. It’ll put you to sleep. In general, I don’t recommend melatonin supplementation because it decreases the body’s ability to produce melatonin. Traveling across time zones is the one exception.

As an extreme example, if you’ve just flown to Australia and have a 9- to 12-hour time difference, your internal clock is wholly flipped when you arrive. Taking melatonin in their early evening can allow you to sleep through the night and get on their schedule. When traveling lesser distances, like 4- to 6-hour time zones, if athletes know they will have difficulty falling asleep at the new place, you can talk to them about taking melatonin.

Other Variables

We didn’t talk about how the game schedule itself can mess with your schedule. Not only are athletes traveling, but they’re also competing late at night. Luckily, I’ve also written a guide about how to recover from late-night competition and training.

Combine that piece with this one, and you’ll have the tools to best support your athletes during a crazy competition schedule.

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

Good old social media. Why is it that even with app limits and turning off notifications, I randomly check my IG and Twitter accounts multiple times every day expecting to see…well, I’m not quite sure what I expect to see. Maybe that’s why I check, for the unexpected jolt of dopamine and perhaps a feeling of self-worth that someone I’ve never met “liked” or “retweeted” my post.

Hooray, my day is now complete!

That’s never enough, though. I want more; we all want more: more likes, more followers, more retweets and reposts, more words of affirmation, more entertainment!

I had initially planned to write an article on college recruitment and how strength and conditioning coaches can maximize their time with recruits and families to leave an impact. The main focus of the article was on authenticity; however, when I started to write about being authentic, I couldn’t help but think about the last two days in which I told myself to not go on any social media, as it was causing me some anxiety (which isn’t a feeling I usually experience).

There’s something to that, and my hope in writing this article is to share with you some recent feelings and experiences with social media and how, going forward, I intend to approach these apps on my phone that are a dopamine goldmine.

How can we get back some control of our phones and our time on social media sites? How can we get the most out of these sites without spending hours on our phones each day? How can I stop comparing myself to others and not feel pressured to post and share every aspect of my program?

With honesty comes vulnerability. In sharing my thoughts, I know these will resonate with many of you. As always, I want to encourage us to realize that we can control what we see and how it makes us feel. I’ll look at three different topics around social media that I’m concerned about that, if managed appropriately, can turn into real positives. These are:

• Insecurities of not doing enough.
• Rabbit holes.
• “Networking.”

Insecurities

Like most professionals, strength and conditioning coaches look up to and try to learn from the people in the top programs with the most success. For me, in the U.S. collegiate system as a mid-major strength coach, that means looking at Power 5 Conference S&C coaches to see how they do things. If I’m watching a game on TV, I look out for the strength coaches and see how they act on the bench during games. I try and listen to any podcasts they’re on, and for the main premise of this article, I look at what they share on social media.

This can be quite intimidating, especially for a young coach in the industry—while social media can certainly educate, it can also apply small pressures throughout the day. I often ask myself questions such as:

• They’re always posting before and after pictures of their athletes. Do I need to do that more to show my value and role with the team?
• They share videos of athletes lifting every day on their stories. Do I need to share more of my guys training online to be like them?
• They do a lot of Olympic lifting. I hardly do any, but this person’s been in the industry a long time and is highly respected. Am I missing something?
• They use cryotherapy chambers a lot during the season. Am I missing something with recovery by not using these? Should I be looking into local cryotherapy places and seeing how much they cost?
• They post a lot of pictures of themselves training the team and at practice. Is that what I need to do to “be seen?”
• They post a lot of videos of themselves training. I train most days; should I film some workout highlights and share them online?
• They always have weight room videos being shared. Is that something I should ask for more of?

Don’t worry; these aren’t thoughts and questions that keep me awake at night. But they do constitute those small pressures I mentioned as I check in on Twitter and Instagram. Like most coaches, I strive to be my best, and every strength and conditioning coach seems to have a social media presence of some sort. Some are on it for what seems like hours a day posting content and replying to their followers, while others only have four pictures on their page.

Where’s the happy medium?

This all came to a head for me recently when I was back home in England for a month. I went home for my twin brother’s wedding and wasn’t able to come back into the U.S. until my work visa was sorted out, a process that took a few weeks. Not being able to train my athletes was tough—I love my job, and I love the role I play as an S&C coach getting athletes ready for a competitive season.

What made it extra hard was going online and seeing a lot of fellow basketball strength and conditioning coaches sharing the training they were doing with their guys and how they were getting ready for the season. It really got me down: not just that I wasn’t physically there to train my guys, but that every time I went online, I was reminded of this fact!

My mood started to shift negatively, so I decided I needed to do something about it. I didn’t go on Instagram or Twitter for a week. I completely shut off that stimulus and got away from the comparison game, the small pressure cooker. I took a step back from it all. This may sound very simple and very easy to do—don’t look at Twitter or Instagram for seven days—but how many of us as S&C coaches have actually done this? I would imagine very few.

I realize both those platforms are a way to keep up with family and friends, but I think we would all be transparent here and admit we use our profiles primarily as a job/hobby profile where we post things that interest us that are work-related and training-based. It really surprised me how much social media affected how I felt and how I saw myself as a coach. I’d placed a HIGH value on it all.

Going off the grid for a week was the best thing I’ve done in a while. I immediately felt better about myself and my situation. I used the time to instead plan for when I was able to come back to the States and coach the guys again. Taking a step back, seeing social media for what it really is, and being able to come back online now with a renewed spirit and perspective on it has really helped me learn to not let it get me down. I aim to use it for good, certainly not just to argue with people and create animosity when, really, there are far more important things in life than squat depth.

If you’ve ever felt some pressure/anxiety with social media, it’s okay. If there’s one thing social media is great at, it’s the comparison game and everyone showing off their best selves. Spending so much time on these apps, it’s no wonder it got to me!

So, how can we take back our control of social media and not let it get us down by pulling us into this comparison game? Below are some practical takeaways, all of which I’ve done when I felt like social media was affecting me negatively more often than positively. Try some of them out—I hope they give you a renewed feeling of control and a positive outlook when using social media:

• Consider taking a break from social media if you feel small pressures every time you check in. “Social media free” days in the week can be a great starting place here. I recently took the week off, and I’ve previously taken four months off from social media.
• Set time limits on your social media apps, for IG and Twitter combined. Mine is set at 75 minutes.
• Don’t go on social media first thing in the morning. Allow yourself some time to wake up and start your day the way you want to start it without being bombarded with other people’s business and the potentially negative effect this can have on you.
• If someone bothers you online and you get frustrated when you see their content, simply unfollow them. Try to control what you can, not what others do.

Rabbit Holes

It seems like every day on Twitter, I can get lost in a new training method, a new recovery tool, a new thread, a new book released. One of the most challenging things for me online is not getting sucked into every new piece of information I see—and I see a lot!

As strength and conditioning coaches, we wear many hats and are a source of information to our athletes for a wide array of subjects that pertain not just to physical performance in the weight room but health and fitness in general. For example, it’s not uncommon for:

• Athletes to ask about a particular diet they want to try out.
• Assistant coaches to see something they liked online and ask about that on the spot in a staff meeting.
• A certain school to do a lot of “X,” and for coaches to wonder why we don’t also do “X.”

These can be tricky conversations to navigate. Having an eyes-wide-open approach to all the information available to us as coaches is useful here so that we can at least be aware of the latest fitness trends before we are called upon to have an answer for them.

My main struggle here is going online, and then 15 minutes have passed as I’ve gone down a new rabbit hole. I’ve started half-reading a newly released article because I’d feel left behind if I didn’t know this latest content. For someone who likes to be organized, likes to have a to-do list and a structured day, this is frustrating and quite frankly dumb of me—but it’s a trap I get caught in frequently.

If this hits home with you and your social media habits, I’d like to recommend a book. It’s been one of the more impactful reads I’ve enjoyed in the last few years: Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport. We did a book study on it as a basketball program to show the team what focused hard work really looks like and how that can benefit them on and off the court.

Newport’s book highlights how our current environments and work habits focus on shallow work—replying to emails as soon as we receive them, interrupting our work to check social media on our phones or reply to texts. Shallow work is defined as “non-cognitively demanding, logistical-style tasks, often performed while distracted.” Trying to get work done while we scroll online a few times each hour with our attention getting pulled in many different directions is a recipe for average work.

Opposite to shallow work is deep work, which is defined as “professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit. These efforts create new value, improve your skill, and are hard to replicate.” Some examples might be blocking off a morning to write your team’s next training phase, having phone-free time in the day to read a research article, or diving deep into a training course you’ve enrolled in but haven’t focused on in a few weeks. I know what type of work sounds more conducive to producing a great end product and being a top coach! If you choose to read this book, please reach out and let me know how it’s impacted your work habits. I’d love to hear about it.

So, how can we avoid the rabbit holes of social media? Here is a list of practical thoughts designed to help you with this:

• Save interesting articles as bookmarks on your laptop or on a tab for you to read at a later point. Don’t let daily scrolling distract you from your actual day’s work and focused to-do list.
• It’s okay to scroll past people’s articles and blog posts. You can’t read everything about everything; be selective. It’s better to really learn new information by taking the time to actually read an article than to skim read everything just to say you’ve looked at it. Deep work versus shallow work.
• Designate a week (or two, the period is up to you) on a specific subject area—for example, sleep. Read up on everything you see posted that week on social media about sleep and nothing else. Focus solely on that specific subject area to truly learn about it and not just skim the surface of multiple subject areas.

Networking

This could be an article by itself, so I’ll keep it brief. As mentioned earlier, it seems that most S&C coaches have some form of social media presence, which is great because it gives us an insight into their methods and what they do in their jobs. With this open access, we can also tweet @them directly, give them a direct message, like their content, and comment on anything they post. So, the ability to “network” and contact peers we respect couldn’t be easier in 2022; this probably is the most accessible people have ever been to each other all over the world.

Networking, in my eyes, is building a genuine relationship with someone that includes some give and take of information, insight, and knowledge. You are reaching out to someone you respect and asking them informed questions to enhance your knowledge while respecting their time by having carefully considered discussion points already lined up. Yes, some networking is less formal; it could be a friend of a friend you are finally getting around to chatting with in the industry. However, for those people you don’t know or have any prior connection to, I think a formal message that notes down some questions you have for them is a good place to start when initially contacting them.

I’ve loved connecting with lots of strength and conditioning coaches across a wide range of sports. I’ve DM’ed lots of them and have been able to have phone calls, exchange text messages, and share interactions since then. Just be genuine and humble with your interest and approach and drop the ego, and I have no doubt you can start to build relationships with some coaches you really respect and admire. Chances are if you choose your coaches correctly, they are as open and hungry for knowledge and insight as you are. They have a growth mindset, too, and would love to connect. 

Some practical thoughts on using social media to genuinely network and improve yourself as a coach:

• Don’t force it! Give honest feedback to posts and like them if you truly want to share that you enjoyed it. Give thought to this. If you’re going to direct message them, make sure you really want to connect with this person and have talking points for them. It shows you will value their time if you’re able to get on a call with them.
• Turn your social media into a resource of great information, follow those you respect and admire in the field, and learn from them. Take the time to read their articles and study their work before reaching out. It shows care and that you’ve taken the time to study them—it’s a sign of respect.
• Make sure your social media channels reflect what you want your diet of information to look like. What we read, what we listen to, and who we follow and connect with all contribute to our diet of information. This is how you can improve your diet on social media so that you know it is a resource for positive growth and is helping, not hurting you. This will expose you to the best people to connect with.

Be Authentic

The social media dilemma: should I/shouldn’t I use social media? Should I not share what I’m doing for fear of being questioned/mocked? Should I share what I’m doing to give people an insight into who I am as a coach and what I value?

It seems there are endless questions that surround everyone’s use of social media and how we can best stay connected to people without it taking hours of our day, especially when we are at work. I hope that by me showing some vulnerability here, you know that you aren’t alone in feeling some pressure with social media and trying to use it for the best purposes. I know that I’m better off and more productive when I take a short break every few weeks: I get out of the hamster wheel, realize that the world hasn’t stopped, enjoy the extra time to actually read some of those articles on my internet tabs, and also get more time outside and away from any screen!

My final thoughts are these: share what you find interesting, be authentic with what you post, be yourself—there’s only one you, don’t be a copycat—and be sure to take some breaks along the way. What you post and show of yourself on Twitter and Instagram is your personal brand, and it’s out there for the whole world to see; just make sure that it’s truly you that people see! I hope you apply some of these practical suggestions and can use social media as a positive experience that enhances your knowledge, provides no stress, and connects you with some great people.

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

As with any specific injury, there are several factors at play with ankle and foot injuries. A few of the more commonly acknowledged factors are footwear, surface type, age/phase of development, speed/direction of applied force, and even environmental conditions, and any of them can be influential.

But what about incomplete or improper training and preparation? Where does this rank among the hierarchy of risk variables for ankle/foot injuries?

Despite our industry becoming zealots of the unwritten doctrine of not being able to “prevent” injury, I would like to continue challenging that thought. While it should clearly go without saying that no measures can totally eradicate the opportunity for injury, I think we have maintained a poor perspective on this concept. For instance, the school of thought where people believe it is negligible or wasteful to directly train the minutia and athletes get what they need from big lifts.

Regarding the foot and ankle, there are several stones left unturned that I believe are in part responsible for the alarming rate of lower-extremity injuries.

Using Research to Guide Exercise Selection

Foot and ankle injuries are problematic across almost all sports, spanning virtually all levels of competition. In fact, in a study examining the rate of lower-extremity injuries in all sports across 100 U.S. high schools, Fernandez et al. reported that ankle injuries accounted for roughly 40% of all lower-extremity injuries in high school athletes (35% of all male injuries, 49.6% of all female injuries).¹

In a separate longitudinal study (2005–2016) examining rates of lower-extremity injuries among high school athletes, Aogaichi et al. reported that across gender-comparable sports (eight total sports), ankle sprains accounted for the most prevalent injury type in 11 of the 16 sports between genders.²

There are some significant observations we can identify at the professional level as well.

In a robust (and fascinating) analytics report examining all injuries in the NFL from 2000–2014, the authors reported that ankle/foot injuries represented roughly 40% of the total lower-extremity injuries reported. We can also infer that lower leg/foot injuries (i.e., ankle/high ankle sprains, Lisfranc fractures, and Achilles injuries) account for some of the longest time to return across all injuries and may be significantly more difficult to come back from.

As I narrow the focus of this article to ankle sprains, I believe it’s important to establish that the rate and severity of ankle sprains are a combination of multiple factors, some of which we may have control over. Among some of the controllable variables, the ones I’ve found the most success with are developing foundational foot strength, including a good bit of barefoot training, addressing lower leg muscles directly, and emphasizing proprioception across exercise selections.

Strengthen the Foot (Eccentrically)

I would venture to say that improving foot eccentric strength and motor control are among the most critical but ignored aspects of sport performance. We must recognize that, irrespective of sport or specific action, almost all human movement starts from interaction with the ground (ground reaction forces—GRF). The simple euphemism for this is poor foundation, weak structure.

But in a more technical sense, the way I see this is that an inability to load eccentrically through the foot places more undue stress on surrounding structures—which includes the ankle. The longer an athlete goes without addressing the eccentric deficit, the more likely they are to develop common overuse injuries such as turf toe, plantar fasciitis, achilles tendonitis, or chronic ankle sprain development.

Think of eccentric foot control as trying to “widen” or flatten a triangle, where a wider angle equates to more surface area between foot and ground and thus a greater opportunity to disperse force. With a wider foot promoting more evenly distributed forces, athletes are not only capable of producing and tolerating greater force magnitudes, but they are also less likely to have issues with overloading or overstressing specific regions of the foot.

As this relates to chronic ankle sprains, limited eccentric foot tolerance means that the ankle will experience greater amounts of torque when accommodating GRFs. Because the foot is incapable of splaying, the base becomes narrower. This means the ankle is now required to do two things at once:

• Control excess range of motion due to the lack of stability at the foot.
• Work as more of a terminal stabilizer for the knee.

This is a fundamental recipe for disaster, and if unaddressed, it can become a significant vulnerability for the ankle joint.

Improving eccentric foot control starts with the intrinsic muscles of the foot. The intrinsic foot muscles include the lumbricals, plantar aponeuroses, foot ab/adductors, and foot flexors/extensors. The beauty is there are several things you can do that require minimum thought, without having to adjust your programming dramatically. The best way to start is by simply having your athletes get out of their shoes for portions of their training.

Training barefoot doesn’t need to be an all-or-nothing endeavor. Some portions of training are appropriate for barefoot training. For instance, whereas high force/dynamic primary lifts (i.e., squats/cleans/etc.) may be an imprudent time for barefoot work, warm-up/movement prep options, accessory blocks, and select low-level plyos are all good opportunities to get athletes out of their shoes. Removing their shoes allows athletes to have a true interface with the ground. This promotes an opportunity to emphasize foot compliance, which requires the foot to detect and mold itself to the external environment.

Another simple strategy is to have them perform more movements in reverse. Even just backward walking/marching can be effective for novice athletes or early-phase return to play (RTP). Reverse locomotion promotes a reciprocated foot patterning, and, given that forward walking/running involves almost exclusively concentric/isometric actions, this reverse pattern is a novel way to introduce eccentrics.

This is a concept Pete Bommaritto and his back dorsiflexion series first introduced me to, and it is remarkably simple yet effective for loading the foot/ankle complex eccentrically. And with this series, we get the added element of some velocity/change of direction along with eccentric loading.

Strengthen the Mediolateral Structures

Examining the mechanism of injury for ankle sprains, irrespective of type, should clearly show the significance of medial and lateral lower leg structures. The peroneal group, which spans the lateral compartment of the lower leg, plays an essential role in stabilizing the ankle/foot complex. The peroneals are criminally overlooked in training and are one of the primary components with high ankle sprains.

An even less discussed muscle, the tibialis posterior, spans the medial aspect of the foot and runs up the medial compartment of the lower leg. The tibialis posterior primarily plantarflexes and inverts the foot and is also critical for providing midfoot stability.

When the tibialis posterior is not functioning properly, athletes can become more susceptible to medial/eversion ankle sprains, as there is greater deviation between the ankle joint and foot actions with reduced medial border foot stability. The opposing muscle, the tibialis anterior (TA), also plays a critical role in supporting and stabilizing the ankle. The TA is a primary dorsiflexor while assisting in foot inversion, but an overlooked role of the TA is acting to eccentrically stabilize the tibia during rapid plantarflexion. This is key with regard to how ankle sprains occur.

While the muscles of the lower leg are primarily responsible for the extrinsic support of the foot/ankle complex, the arches of the foot play a major role as stabilizers and providing intrinsic support for mediolateral control. Moreover, the dense ligamentous bed (retinaculum) that envelops the ankle/foot junction is also critical for stability and support.

In addition to providing structure and durability to the foot, the arches also collectively disperse and generate force across the plantar surface of the foot. Having disproportionate force capabilities between medial and lateral longitudinal arches can create non-functional foot biasing that will likely destabilize both the foot and ankle. Addressing the stiffness and spring functions of the arches is essential for bulletproofing the ankle, and this goes for both acute and chronic conditions.

Sensory and Motor Functions

I mentioned above that the ankle is supported primarily by robust ligaments and a dense network of connective tissues enveloping the joint. These connective tissues are enriched with sensory and motor receptors we know as proprioceptors (fascia/tendons/muscles) and mechanoreceptors (ligaments). So, in addition to the stability and structure these fibrous tissues provide, they are also essential for things like balance, motor control, sensory function, and neuromuscular function. It’s imperative to recognize that these receptors are not stimulated (at least not significantly) during conventional bilateral movements with limited mechanical deviations. Moreover, there is a reduced proprioceptive demand as familiarity to certain movements/exercises increases.

There are two specific points where I look to emphasize proprioception and motor control for ankle sprains:

1. Relatively early in the RTP timeline.
2. Toward the end of reintegrating into sport.

Speaking to the former, the early phase applications will consist mostly of simple, controlled, and rudimentary types of drills. For instance, band-assisted pogo hops (using a foam pad), band offset hops, and hop hop sticks are all low-level drills that can be used as precursors to re-strengthening the area. The goal with early phase applications is to stimulate the area, but in a controlled and predictive way. The athlete knows what’s coming and can plan and orient accordingly.

You can use additional tools to mitigate the force impact with these drills as well. Using bands to unload mass or having the athlete work from foam pads helps to diminish the effects of force on the joint.

In the late phase applications, once strength and capacity have been established, we want to look toward drills that are more reactive and unplanned in nature. This addition of a cognitive element (perceive/react/respond) provides a substantial factor of challenging the athlete to trust the joint. As we know, a lingering consequence of ankle sprains is the fear of re-spraining the joint. Despite being fully healed mechanically, athletes often struggle to fully regain confidence in the joint, which continues to compromise play and function. This outlines why the athlete being exposed to reactionary/challenging movements is fundamental for successful RTP.

Take-Home Points

Ankle sprains are an inevitable component of sport and believing we can entirely prevent any injury is foolish. However, there is often a lot more we can do to make our athletes more robust to injury, and this is especially true for the foot/ankle. Common denominators for ankle sprains include poor foot function/strength (namely eccentric), excessive ankle joint laxity, poor foot compliance, and impaired sensory-motor function.

Additionally, the kinetic integration and complementary functioning of the foot, ankle, and lower leg working in tandem is a leading priority for minimizing the likelihood of recurring ankle sprains. We can check every individual box there is, but if the collective pieces are never challenged in concert, we are doing our athletes a disservice. (See here for 28 restorative exercises for ankle sprains.)

Don’t become infatuated by dressed-up mobility drills. While the ankle is a mobile joint, creating a great disparity between mobility and stability functions can destabilize the joint, compromising functional stiffness and force capabilities.

Lastly, don’t ignore the sensory-motor elements of ankle and foot function. This is the piece that will tie everything together by giving the athlete a better sense of trust and confidence in the joint.

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. Fernandez WG, Yard EE, and Comstock, RD. “Epidemiology of lower extremity injuries among US high school athletes.” Academic Emergency Medicine. 2007;14(7):641–645.

2. Aogaichi Brant J, Johnson B, Brou L, Comstock D, and Vu, T. “Rates and Patterns of Lower Extremity Sports Injuries in All Gender-Comparable US High School Sports.” Orthopaedic Journal of Sports Medicine. 2019;7(10): 232596711987305.

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

Conjugate training was made famous by Louie Simmons and Westside Barbell’s training method. Although his system is a concurrent system, conjugate is a piece of the Westside training method. Conjugate training simply means we rotate movements in and out of our program every week.

I’ve applied the same concept to our jump training. Just like we rotate bars or variations for max effort exercises, we’ll rotate our vertical and broad jump variations every week. By doing so, this exposes athletes to a wide variety of jump positions, which improves technique, surfs the force-velocity curve at a variety of joint angles, and creates a fresh stimulus.

How Did We Get Here?

When I began measuring jumps, I did so for the sole purpose of measuring readiness. As a byproduct, we were “working on jumping,” but we weren’t truly training the jump. We performed vertical, hands-on-hip (HOH), and pause HOH jumps. These were the most common jumps used for readiness and key performance indicators (KPI) to evalute program effectiveness. After taking enough data, I found these jumps were great tools to measure readiness and somewhat useful for program effectiveness; however, they left more to be desired because we weren’t truly developing the jump or getting the full picture of jump performance.

As I continued to measure these three jump variations, I found athletes weren’t “all-in” when performing the jumps daily or weekly. There were plenty of days athletes were excited to jump, typically leading to personal records (PRs), but also plenty of lackluster days. The monotony of doing the same jumps reguarly can lead to a lack of effort if we’re not careful. Can we use these jumps as a way to evalute readiness? Absolutely. But, over time, the athletes may not put in the same effort as they did in the beginning, leading to inconsistent results. The same argument can be made about readiness surveys, but I digress.

The next issue to consider when measuring jumps is the psychological impact of a poor jumping day. For some athletes, if their jump is down, their energy and mood is going to be off for the rest of the day. They’ll blame mistakes in practice or the game on being tired, instead of focusing on the task at hand. Not always, but it can happen.

I’ve had athletes that weren’t feeling their best yet still manage to excel in training or on the field. I’ve seen awful readiness scores using heart rate monitors, then athletes jump a PR. Fatigue is too complicated to be assessed and summarized by a single jump, and it’s important we communicate that with our athletes when performing jumps regularly.

Ultimately, I want to avoid the psychological impact of a poor jump performance, while also chasing performance increases and developing the jump weekly. This led me to using multiple jump variations over multiple weeks, which eliminated the obession over one jump output. I’ve found this develops a better jump profile and teaches athletes how to perform the skill of jumping through a part-whole approach.

Weekly Jump Layout

The basis of this system is rotating broad and vertical jump variations each week. In a typical week, our athletes perform one broad and two vertical jump variations. By rotating these variations, we’re giving our athletes the opportunity to hit PRs multiple times a week or month. This keeps the athletes coming back for more, as they’re chasing the dopamine hit of a PR.

Depending on how we organize a five-day training week, we’ll have one or two days of broad jumps and three or four days of vertical jumps. I prefer having more vertical than broad days because:

• Vertical jumps are harder to master;
• We can create more variations comparatively; and
• They give us a better picture of how the athlete is adapting and feeling.

Below are some examples of how we can arrange jumps within our training. In a normal training week, we’re working slow to fast, with the emphasis going from acceleration to max velocity. Table 1 is an example of three days in the weight room and two days of field work. Table 2 is an example of four days in the weight room and one field day. These are common layouts of training weeks, but it can be manipulated to fit our unique situation.

I prefer to pair vertical jumps with weight room days because the majority of weight room movements have a vertical emphasis. On field days, we’re training acceleration and developing qualities or skills for sprinting and change of direction (COD). For those reasons, the broad jump makes the most sense because it aligns with the horiztonal emphasis of the day. Even though top-end speed (max velocity) has a vertical emphasis, acceleration and COD requires horizontal displacement.

Vertical and Broad Jump Variations

When I began using this system, I performed four vertical and broad jump variations: seated HOH, seated, standing HOH, and standing jumps. This created four-week cycles (weeks before repeating the same variation) that naturally fit into our training system. Over time, I’ve expanded the jump library to create a longer jump training cycle. I’ve found these additional variations enhance our adaptations and improve our athletic potential.

The key to this system is rotating jumps every week in a deliberate progression (think part-whole theory). Table 3 lists the jump variations I currently use with our high school population. This differs from the dryland training table because I’ve adapted the system to my current situation. The jumps are also arranged slow to fast in terms of ground contact time (GCT) because we’re moving from strength to reactive in nature.

As the coaches, we can add or take out any variations to adapt it to our situaiton and make cycles as long or short as we’d like. The idea is that every time we come back to a specific variation, our goal is to jump a PR. This may not happen every time, but it should happen more often than not.

If you look at Table 3, you’ll notice we’re progressing from seated to standing variations. This is because it lowers the learning curve for novice jumpers while progressing from a strength to speed (reactive) focus. Seated variations give athletes more time to put force in the ground and take out the stretch-shortening cycle (SSC). By taking out the SSC, most athletes will jump higher, as it favors strength-dominant athletes and lowers technical hurdles. Standing variations require athlete’s to use the SSC to quickly reverse momentum and put force in the ground. Our fast-twitch athletes shine here because they don’t need significant time to exert power.

For novice athletes, performing jumps in general will increase their vertical. Jumping is a new skill and fresh stimulus, and their technique will improve week after week. With this system, we set these athletes up for success by lowering the technical barrier with certain variations. For example, by performing seated or hands-on-hips jumps, we’re taking out technical factors—such as syncronizing arms with takeoff—that can impact jump performance. By using a part-whole approach, athletes only need to think about a couple technical pieces when jumping which improves the learning process.

For experienced jumpers, we must provide unique and varying stimuli to induce change. These athletes have jumped their entire lives, and having them perform the same jump week after week won’t give us the same return on investment (ROI) as unique jump variations. They’ve maxed out their motor pattern development, their neural pathways are highly-formed, and if we’re asking them to perform the same jump every day, frankly, they’re going to get bored.

Intent is a key element of jump performance, and a bored athlete won’t train with intent. By “taking away” the vertical jump for eight or more weeks, athletes will be chomping at the bit to see, test, and measure their vertical. It’s like keeping a race horse in the stalls: when we give them a chance to race, they’re going to give it everything they’ve got.

Integrating Conjugate Jumping into the Workout

Integrating the conjugate jump system into training is simple because we can make it part of our warm-up, workout, or both. This all depends on the structure and flow of our training session. I typically run workouts in a circuit fashion with a multi-station warm-up. I’ve used circuits like Cal Dietz’s “Performance Circuit” and three-station supersets. This lends itself to seamless integration for jumping because it becomes a station. Typically, athletes will perform five to seven measured jumps a day. By the end of a week, this gives us 25-35 high quality data points to assess our program and athlete readiness. If an athlete jumps the majority or all their jumps over their previous PR, then we know we’re making significant progress.

If you have access to a jump mat, simply put it out with a sheet of paper and let the athlete’s record their jumps. Then we’re able to coach the room instead of recording numbers. For broad jumps, we’ll need to record the athlete’s jumps unless we have an intern or assistant coach in the room. If we trust our athletes, we can have them record each other’s broad jumps.

Another layer we can add within this system is aligning our training loads and movements with our jump variations to further emphasize a specific goal of the day. For example, I pair broad jump and squats together because they’re quad-dominant movements. I pair vertical jump and deadlift together because they’re a reflection of nervous system readiness and the deadlift will potentiate the central nervous system.

We can also align jump variations with our training loads to reflect speed or strength emphasis. During certain portions of the year, I’ll expect jumps to decrease, such as during a heavy eccentric phase, but then supercompensate six to eight weeks later. This keeps strength and conditioning coaches accountable because the data tells us if our program is doing what we say it’s doing.

The biggest benefits of measuring a jump every workout is it creates competition in the room and shows our athletes they can hit a PR even when they’re tired. Everyone is trying to out jump somebody, which leads to high intent every jump. Psychologically, it’s a massive confidence boost when our athletes jump PRs on multiple sets or during their last set of the day.

In terms of readiness, we’ll be able to see where the athletes are for the day, week, and month. As the strength and conditioning coaches, it’s our job to let the sport coach know if numbers are negatively trending so they can adjust accordingly. On top of that, we can change the workouts as needed when we see significant drops over time. By tracking numbers every session, we can also autoregulate training if we so choose.

At the high school level, we can see how jumps are impacted by specific sports and when seasons change. I’ve found at the beginning of each season, athlete jumps decline because they’re in a new sport. A new sport means new stresses, and the coaches are typically training the kids to “get them in shape.” By tracking daily, we have objective numbers to show coaches that our athletes are struggling to perform at the beginning of the season due to an acute spike in load. By the time they’re adapted and recovered, we’re almost a third of the way into the season. If I’m the coach, I want my athletes to be ready to perform the first game, not a month later.

Results

Below are the charts of every broad jump, HOH jump, and vertical jump I’ve taken with my high school athletes this year. I value the HOH jump more than the vertical because it accurately reflects the true power and fatigue of the legs. I view this as our floor of jump potential. The vertical jump has a greater technical requirement which causes greater variability until the athlete’s technique is dialed in.

In 12 weeks, male and female athletes improved their broad jump by 8” and 13” respectively. For male athletes, the average vertical improved from 24.3” to 25.1” over 12 weeks. Their HOH jump improved from 21.1” to 21.6” over 9 weeks. Our female athletes improved their vertical from 19.3” to 20” and their HOH jump from 17.2” to 18.2” over 12 weeks.

For the female athletes (Tables 5, 6, and 7), most were jumping PRs as we circled back to the specific variations. I believe this is because they were learning how to jump, but most importantly, they were learning to be explosive and move with intent—which might be the most important skill for them to learn within our setting. On top of that, most of my female athletes had never trained, which led to a heightening of their nervous system.

Looking at Tables 6 and 7, notice how the HOH and vertical jumps are trending downward for the athletes at the top of the chart. These athletes transitioned from explosive fall sports to soccer, and one was out for a month due to illness. For those on the bottom half, most transitioned to off-season leading to improved recovery. As previously stated, we can track readiness and watch how seasons and specific sports impact outputs.

With the male athletes (Tables 8, 9, and 10), there’s a greater fluctuation in jump numbers. For the broad jumps in Table 7, their skill and technique for the broad jump improved drastically which led to PRs. Yes, there’s going to be inter- and intra-muscular coordination at play, but technique is a significant driver here.

In Table 9, the athletes in the top half of the chart have either just ended fall sports or are starting winter sports. Naturally, as the season progresses, we’ll likely see a downward trend due to fatigue. For the bottom half of this chart, the majority of these athletes don’t play a fall sport and are adapting to the training.

Conclusion

The conjugate jump system is a customizable system that is effective for both novice and experienced jumpers. We’re able to improve technique, provide a unique stimulus, and track readiness throughout the year all in one system. This system helps build buy-in and gives athletes daily opportunities to chase PRs. The more often our athletes can set new PRs, the more they’ll want to train. The beauty of this system is that we can individulize it to our situation, program, and athletes. As long as our variations build upon one another, we can be as creative as we’d like and customize it to our training philosophy.

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

A quick disclaimer—the contents of this article are not inspired by my current position as a high school strength and conditioning coach. In fact, the absence of the highlighted issues kept me coming back for year six.

If not from my current position, where do these methods for losing coaches come from? Some are inspired by previous positions, while most are inspired by the experiences of colleagues and friends in the coaching industry.

Enough of the “so I don’t offend my own athletic department”—let’s get to it.

Everyone wants to fill their athletic department and/or coaching staff with great coaches. (Exactly what constitutes a “great coach” is outside the scope of this article. Fill in whatever attributes comprise your mental model of an outstanding coach and read on.)

I would argue that hiring great coaches isn’t that difficult of a task—but retaining them is another matter entirely. While this list is far from comprehensive, here are a few time-tested strategies to send even the most battle-tested coaches packing.

Starter Pack Item #1: Erratic Scheduling

We all know “stuff happens” in coaching and in life. Unexpected circumstances turn up, the schedule is altered, we pivot.

The occasional scheduling woe isn’t the focus of this section.

Instead, I’m referring to a chronic lack of planning and preparedness, the result of which is:

• Practices consistently run over.
• Pop-up meetings are the exception rather than the rule.
• Staff members are completely unable to plan anything outside of work.

To put it in more accurate terms: The head coach is holding everyone in the program hostage with their unwillingness or inability to create or stick to a plan. It’s poor leadership and a fast track to staff burnout.

And here’s a hot take: If the staff is burned out, how must the athletes feel?

I’m not here to promote laziness or complacency. Everyone understands that a coach’s schedule is demanding. Instead, I’m promoting having respect for people’s time.

I’ve lived the life of working seven days a week with absolutely absurd hours. Sometimes that’s the job. But there are a couple of ways this kind of workload can play out.

In one situation, the hours are many, and the work is difficult but necessary. Clear communication is given regarding expectations and scheduling. Despite fatigue, coaches stay motivated in the presence of clarity because there is an understanding of purpose. The end goal is at the forefront of everyone’s minds and seems attainable because the process supports the goal. The net result? The work is fulfilling.

In the other scenario, schedules are needlessly inconsistent. Coaches (and athletes) rarely know what to expect. At some point, a person feels they have no control over their schedule, and life outside of work seems impossible. If the hours were needed and the work fruitful? Refer back to scenario #1.

However, wasted time abounds in these circumstances. Schedules are chaotic and poorly communicated. Often there is no purpose to the hours spent at work. When great coaches can no longer identify the purpose behind their toil, they will leave.

To fast-track coaching departures, check out these bonus point opportunities to accentuate an inconsistent schedule:

Bonus Points for: Rescheduling team practices/functions for the head coach’s personal “stuff” (hair appointments, workouts, kid’s soccer games, etc.).

But the head coach isn’t selfish, right? They couldn’t possibly be. After all, they’re a self-proclaimed servant leader. Everything they do must be for the program because they tell everyone it is.

Double Bonus Points for: Preaching “family first” to athletes while needlessly placing stress on the staff’s families. If the staff can’t predict their schedule, it stresses their family.

Create a schedule. Communicate that schedule. And for the love of all that’s holy, stick to the schedule. It’s really not rocket science.

Starter Pack Item #2: Micromanagement of Experienced and Successful Coaches

Hot take: If there’s time for a head coach or administrator to micromanage everyone in their downline, there’s a solid chance that individual isn’t fulfilling all of their own job duties. Instead, they’re annoying everyone in their path and wasting valuable work time coaches could otherwise devote to tasks that would improve the program.

I’m going to take a brief pause to speak directly to readers who hold these leadership positions: Please don’t micromanage your coaches. Instead, empower them with autonomy.

Clearly, I’m not referring to coaches who don’t handle their business. Some coaches may benefit heavily from structured mentorship, but the subject of this article is the high-performing coach.

These high-performing coaches don’t need to be told to “carry a whistle, practice plan, and pen to every practice.” If those items are needed, great coaches will have them.

They don’t need to be told to upload their practice plans into a shared folder that never gets opened.

They don’t need to be treated like a first-year coach. A supervisor’s time would be much better spent fulfilling their own job responsibilities and supporting their coaches versus meddling in the day-to-day affairs of those coaches.

Some head coaches and administrators just can’t help themselves on the micromanagement front. If this is the case, it’s best to go ahead and rip the band-aid off and get those self-sufficient coaches sprinting out the door as fast as possible using these bonus point strategies:

Bonus Points for: A swerve well outside of one’s lane! A perfect example would be asking a coach to submit a detailed strength and conditioning plan for the athletic director’s review when the AD lacks an accredited strength and conditioning certification of any type or any real experience. For the record, “back in ’89 when I was at XYZ school, I used to run the weight room” does not often constitute real experience. If an AD is that concerned with evaluating the weight room X’s and O’s of a given sport, a consultant should be hired to review programs. I happen to know one.

This next one is so big it’s worth: TRIPLE BONUS POINTS!!! Micromanaging a coach who has had more success in their career than the supervising head coach or AD had during their own.

The supervisor doesn’t just look foolish on this one; they look insecure. If hiring successful people poses a threat to a supervisor’s fragile ego, then the supervisor is the person who should take a one-way trip out of the athletic department’s door.

Starter Pack Item #3: Not Supporting Coaches

Loyalty is preached in the profession but when the wheels come off, is it practiced? I’ll give an example: A colleague at another school and his assistant were called into a parent meeting. The athletic director and school superintendent were present. During the meeting, the parents began shouting expletives at the coaches and calling them names.

The administrators allowed it to continue.

This is 100% UNACCEPTABLE.

Let’s look at a better way to handle this. As I mentioned, some of this article is inspired by events in my past. Here’s a detailed account of what I experienced in a similar encounter.

For context, one of our athletes missed practice for an orthodontist appointment. Congruent with the contract that our players and parents signed at the beginning of the season, she needed to make up the missed practice time before playing in the next game. She could do so by attending any freshman practice scheduled that week.

Upon receiving this “news,” she stormed out of our office into the locker room. As the door closed behind her, she aired her feelings to the rest of the team in no uncertain terms.

The head coach was not amused. The athlete was directed to come back to the office. I decided this would be an optimal time to avert my eyes and check my email as the “discussion” got heated.

Thirty minutes later, I was walking through the hall. The parent of said athlete arrived on the scene, saw me, and lost her mind. I sidestepped into the front office with her in pursuit. It was such a commotion that one of the principals was already en route to intercept the debacle as it unfolded and quickly quarantined the “meeting” to his office. The parent continued to scream in my face. (To be honest, it was so over the top, I’m laughing at the memory as I type this but wasn’t laughing at the time.)

The principal (a former coach) looked at me and said, “Coach Mitchell, you won’t be spoken to this way. You can go to practice. If we need anything from you, we will let you know.”

Later that afternoon, both the head coach and I received apologies from the parent and the athlete.

That’s how to back up staff.

Looking back at the first scenario, a simple “Since you’ve chosen to berate our coaches, this meeting is over. There won’t be another until you can conduct yourself in a rational manner” would have gone a long way to demonstrate loyalty. Instead, the situation demonstrated to the coaches that the administration would allow parents to treat coaches poorly.

What is allowed is encouraged.

Clearly, the “what not to do” incident above is an example of an objectively unacceptable occurrence within an athletic department. But is it always such overt scenarios that send coaches over the edge? No. More often than not, it is a series of subtle nudges, each one putting the coach nearer and nearer to the brink of departure.

So, what might these subtle nudges look like? I’ll just bullet point a few for purposes of brevity:

• Head coaches allow athletes and parents to treat assistant coaches with less respect than they are expected to treat the head coach.
• Head coaches “correct” assistants in front of athletes or other staff rather than doing so behind closed doors.
• ADs discuss one coach’s job performance with another coach of equal or lesser rank.
• ADs “forget” to mention the accolades of some coaches during staff meetings while lavishing praise upon others.
• Blatant favoritism is shown on social media. Are some coaches/teams posted about, liked, or retweeted in disproportionate amounts?

Great coaches won’t stick around very long if they know they won’t be supported when issues arise or when they don’t feel supported in their daily operations.

Starter Pack Item #4: Using a “Lack of Family” as an Excuse to Overwork People

A fan favorite: off-loading work onto coaches who don’t have kids. They can come in earlier, stay later, and take work home, right? Absolutely, if the goal is to make them rethink coaching as a career.

As a childless coach myself, this one hits close to home.

I once went to an associate AD to discuss my sports assignments. My workload was absurd, and my sports overlapped to the point that I needed to miss eight off-season workouts with one team to travel with another. I was being pulled in too many directions, and my overall well-being began to suffer.

During the meeting, I was told (exact quote): “If you had kids, we would change your sports assignments.”

I’m no expert in human resources, but I’m sure this is not okay. Instead of filing a complaint or whatever my legal course of action might be, my next entrance into that AD’s office was to submit my letter of resignation. Every broken camel back comes from one final straw. This was mine. I wouldn’t and won’t be punished for my family structure.

As mentioned in the section above, this starter pack item often transpires in more subtle ways. Coaches without children might be given early morning or late evening responsibilities, while those with children find themselves off during these hours. More specifically, this could look like placing a childless coach in charge of monitoring the athletes while they set up the volleyball net in the gym before morning practice. Meanwhile, the head coach strolls in with Starbucks right before (or even after) the start of practice. It might also look like assigning the coach without children to sit and wait on parents to pick up athletes after a late-night arrival home from a game.

The truth of the situation is that a coach must be present in both cases. But it shouldn’t always be the coaches without kids. If it is? Those with kids who are benefiting from this arrangement should be expected to pick up slack elsewhere. At the very least, walk in with two Starbucks in hand.

When penalizing employees for not having families, it’s essential to keep a few things in mind:

First, it’s 2022. Family doesn’t mean a hetero-cis spouse, 2.5 children, a Labrador retriever, and a hamster. It can take many forms, and one is not superior to another. Personal biases should be cast aside to embrace the diversity of today’s family.

Second—and this may come as a shock to some—there are actually people who don’t want children. It’s true, and it doesn’t make their personal time any less valuable.

On a related note, some people desperately want but are physically unable to have children. Often, they aren’t sharing this information at their place of business. Punishing people for not having kids through either overt or passive-aggressive tactics is wildly insensitive. “But I didn’t know,” one might say. Exactly. Coaches should be treated fairly regardless of family status and structure.

Finally, there is a coaching shortage. Will overworking anyone in the early stages of their career, before they have kids, lead to them staying in the profession? Nope. They will probably bail for fear that they will be unable to balance their career and family if and when that time in their life arrives.

Bonus Points for: Complaining when coaches bring their children to work.

To review: Coaches without kids are second-class citizens. Coaches with kids? The children are to be heard of but never seen. It matters not to insensitive supervisors that childcare doesn’t open until 6:30 a.m. and closes at 5:30 p.m. or that the parent is at work outside of those hours due to starter pack item #1. Figure it out.

Insensitive head coaches and ADs walked uphill in the snow both ways, carrying a baby in each arm. So should everyone lower in the hierarchy.

Athletic departments that take this approach shouldn’t expect to retain great coaches.

Starter Pack Item #5: Abysmal Salaries

The final addition to the starter pack is an obvious one.

It’s simple: If people can’t afford to live, they’re going to leave. Additionally, if they can do the same job elsewhere for more money, they’re going to leave.

Who better to advocate for salary increases than head coaches and athletic directors? Yet how often is that occurring? Strength and conditioning coaches, assistant coaches, and other support staff members can shout “we are worth more” until the cows come home, but until head coaches demand these pay raises within their program, the needle likely won’t move.

I will say I’m not entirely convinced that low salaries are solely the fault of the employer. If a position opens with a salary range of $25,000–$35,000 and there are 50–100 applicants, does this communicate to the employer that this isn’t a livable wage? It does not. It communicates that 50–100 people are willing to do more for less. So, they’re going to keep paying less.

The coaching industry finds itself in a little bit of a pickle: Until the willingness of the supply chain to work for pennies is altered or those in positions of authority step up to the plate and demand fair wages, pay increases aren’t likely. Coaches will enter the profession at these rates, but they won’t stay. It’s the circle of life low retention in the industry.

Final Thoughts for Employers

It’s pretty simple; don’t do what I wrote about above. Instead:

• Stick to a schedule.
• Give coaches autonomy.
• Back coaches up.
• Treat all coaches fairly.
• Pay coaches a livable wage.

And do these things consistently.

Final Thoughts for Coaches

I’ve seen it stated that “great coaching jobs don’t become available.” This means if coaches are:

• Treated fairly and with respect.
• Empowered to make the decisions that benefit their program and athletes.
• Allowed work/life balance.

They will hold on to these positions for a very long time.

Food for thought when submitting an application to a position with frequent turnover.

If your ego says, “It will be different because I’ll be better (than the last coach)?” I’ll catch you on social media posting a “thanks for a great 2 years at X Academy” letter after you’ve figured out your predecessor wasn’t the problem after all. The problem was that the people they worked for operated using a grab bag of starter pack items, just like the ones they used to send you on your way.

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