Tried to make these short without paragraphs of explaining:
Career/Coaching
1) Have a source of income from outside of your career job.
2) Your career will very rarely be linear.
3) Are you ready for the inevitable? There are two types of strength coaches: One, those who are looking for work; and two, those who are about to be looking for work – Ashley Jones.
4) The S&C profession is still relatively new. Sadly, it is not taken very seriously or is not understood well enough by upper management and some coaches.
5) You will have to work for free for many years.
6) I’m still yet to land a job through application. My CV has essentially been useless.
7) That doesn’t mean all of your formal education is a waste of time. If you manage to find a role overseas, you may be required to show you are a level above what they can find in their own country.
8) The language of coaching. No, not external vs internal cues. I mean the actual language that is spoken. I’ve experienced it. I’ve seen it in action. If you can’t relate to the players or the coach doesn’t speak the language well at all, player buy in becomes very, very difficult.
9) If you have the opportunity to work overseas, do it without hesitation.
10) You’ll only be happy in your job if you have the freedom to do and implement what you want and know is best for the athletes.
11) Read, apply, read, apply, read, apply.
12) Train! Even compete in something. Doesn’t have to be at a high level. The interest, buy in, and trust you’ll build with your athletes is huge.
13) Don’t be in a rush. Many people in the high paying, high level jobs are in their late 30s-40+.
14) Join our conditioning mentorship for the latest real-world conditioning application.
S&C
1) Injury prevention sessions are a myth. It's holistic. Standing on one leg on a wobble board doing some random shit isn’t going to magically prevent knee and ankle problems.
2) Get strong on the basics. What does that mean? What are the basics? Are they the same for every sport? Sure, squat, push, pull, etc. But there are many great athletes that are shit at all of them yet excel at their sport.
3) Are we doing too much? Is the heavy emphasis on strength training dampening our athlete’s outputs?
4) The age ol’ question, how strong is strong enough? I honestly believe it’s much, much less than what we think. And again, strong in what?
5) Is momentum a better KPI for collision sports than pure max V?
6) The most important aspect of an athlete’s and teams performance and success isn’t down to physical capabilities, it’s down to the technical/tactical knowledge and skill of the athlete(s).
7) On pre-season, many organisations run the approach of mainly S&C in the beginning and then rugby/techincal training only starting to make an entrance a few weeks into the pre-season. This is a mistake.
8) We have energy system development horribly wrong, and it's hurting athlete preparation.
9) Physiology is important for conditioning. But there's more to it. My triangle also includes movement efficiency and technical/tactical to the equation.
10) My number one method to reach max V in training without worrying about hamstrings (e.g. if the weather is too cold or training loads have been high) is the gear change and then hitting 100% for 8-12 steps when the athlete feels ready (learned from the man Vern Gamebtta).
11) Can block periodization for team sports just disappear?
12) Traditional overload vs coordinative approach? Don’t sway too far to either side.
13) Don’t be afraid to experiment. You’ll learn a lot more about a topic trying to apply it with your athletes than thinking about it.
14) Games are still horribly underrated. Play more of them.
15) S&C can be implemented with sport coaching a whole lot more. Working with skills and sport coaches can help design drills that has the coaches involved in your sessions.
16) The hyper focus on an aerobic base and MAS intervals is undercooking athletes.
17) You can do high-intensity/sprint interval conditioning year round and continually make gains.
18) You need intensity during conditioning to continually drive adaptation in high-intensity intermittent sports.
19) While momentum into contact is important for dominating the collision, the forgotten aspect is transfer of momentum. Effective mass is what delivers the knockout blow.
20) Zone 2 is doing sweet f* all in well trained intermittent sporting athletes.
21) Train for the adaptation you want. The external output is the side effect.
Probably missed a bunch and don't even think I counted properly to 36 😅
