David Joyce is an internationally recognized leader in human performance, strategy and decision making. He holds Masters degrees in both Sports Physiotherapy and Strength & Conditioning, as well as an MBA. He has worked with hundreds of elite athletes, including multiple world and Olympic champions and in multiple sports around the world.
Nowadays, Dave’s focus has shifted much more towards enabling major sporting organisations, corporates, start-ups and emerging leaders navigate through the choppy seas of complexity, and set themselves up to thrive in an increasingly uncertain future. He has written and co-edited with Daniel Lewindon 2 internationally best-selling textbooks on high-performance and rehabilitation, and the new edition of High Performance Training For Sports has just been released to critical acclaim around the world.

QUOTES
“It is a bit of fallacy to think that your values are permanent with you; we all change and what I valued 15 years ago, is different to what I value now”
“When you are sitting at your desk and it is all a bit too daunting, you have to eat the elephant one bite at a time”
“After 2 or 4 years, you collect your thoughts, you collect your wisdom and then you reassess your (career) journey”
“You can view strength training as skill training under duress”
“Being able to explore different movement patterns is so important for athletes”
“In 20 years of my career, the people who can hula hoop, don’t seem to get back pain… I just think people that move well, don’t get injured as much from non-traumatic causes”
“Managers need to coach, give feedback and delegate to their staff to be effective”

SHOWNOTES
1)	How David got started and high-performance journey
2)	Coaching inside and outside of sport
3)	Understanding yourself, assessing your strengths and understanding what you are looking for in your career as a coach
4)	Writing your own eulogy as a way of plotting your career and life
5)	Doing your groundwork on researching where you might want to work in the profession
6)	Your appetite for risk, career stage and how that may shape your career choices
7)	The second incarnation of High Performance Training for Sport and what has changed since the first
8)	Things David has learned from putting the book together and what he would take back into his practice working with athletes
9)	Understanding the sport as deeply as possible for an S&C coach
10)	Hula hooping, trampoline, and movement varibaility for injury prevention in athletes
11)	Looking widely outside your "trench" to see what you can pick from other industries 
12)	The key components of management for leaders
13)	The most amazing thing David has seen in training

PEOPLE MENTIONED
Andrew May
Brene Brown
Dan Lewindon
Nick Winkelman
Brett Bartholomew
Stu McMillan
JB Morin
Sophia Nimphius
Jacque Tran
Shona Halson
Matt Jordan
Rett Larson
Jeremy Sheppard
James Cleary

ASCA Podcast #72 - David Joyce

Dylan Hicks is a PhD candidate in Exercise Science at Flinders University, Adelaide. He is currently completing his thesis focused on Force-Velocity Profiling and has undertaken research with the Seacliff Hockey Club and the Adelaide United W-League team. Dylan is also the Head of Physical Education and High-Performance Academy Coordinator at Cardijn College in Adelaide. He is a Level II ASCA coach, a Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist (NSCA) and has completed a MSc at Edith Cowan University (Strength & Conditioning). His area of specialty is coaching speed and making sense of the data to improve sprint performance. Dylan has previously worked with athletes in team sports in the AFL, SANFL, A-League and NBL.

QUOTES
“Should I just invest my time in improving maximal force or should I also focus on improving maximal speed?”
“We know that we want the athletes to produce 9N/kg and 10-10.5m/s”
“Do not put all your eggs in one bucket with force-velocity profiling”
“My inkling with the training group (in my research) was that the group that was doing vertical loaded strength training was going to improve jump and sprint than the group doing horizontal based exercises”
“The biggest thing I have learned is not to put too much into the pot and strip things back into a really lean training program”

SHOWNOTES
1)	Dylan’s time in education, research and strength and conditioning 
2)	Optimization of sprint performance and assessing an athlete’s force-velocity profile in a sprint
3)	A quadrant based approach to bucket athletes based on their sprint force-velocity profile
4)	Practical sessions based on an athletes’ force-velocity profile
5)	Technical analysis and ratio of forces in acceleration
6)	Putting vertical (e.g. jumping) and horizontal (e.g. sprinting) force-velocity profiles together
7)	The changes in Dylan’s coaching practice from before starting his PhD to now and what he has found in his research
8)	Using a Bondarchuk model and keeping training programs relatively constant

PEOPLE MENTIONED
Darren Burgess
Mladen Javonic
Clair Drummond
Jace Delaney
JB Morin
James Wild
Dan Cleather
Kym Williams
Derek Everly
Antoly Bondarchuk
Ashley Jones
Nathan Parnham

ASCA Podcast #76 - Dylan Hicks

Dr Courtney McGowan is an applied sports scientist currently lecturing in exercise and sport science at the University of Tasmania. Courtney is also the physical preparation coach for Surfing Tasmania and collaborates with various organisations to conduct applied research in the areas of performance physiology and athlete preparation. Prior to her current roles, Courtney was a post graduate scholar at the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) Physiology department and completed her PhD focusing on competition day preparation strategies to enhance competitive performance in swimmers.

QUOTES
“Shorter warm ups (15-30 min) may be better for sprinting events”
“The key things with the endurance sports is looking at switching on the right muscles and focusing on activate, mobilise and potentiate phase of the (RAMP) warm up is critical”
“It doesn’t take very long at all to drop temperature after the warm up, which is an issue considering the whole purpose of a warm up”
“The key thing with any post activation potentiation before competition is what the athlete has around them to use”
“For every 1 degree reduction in muscle temperature, there is a 3% reduction in leg muscle power in cycling”
“A re-warm up at half time is very important for contact based sports where you have to be mentally and physically prepared” 
“Really good research shows a significant drop in players' work rate in first 10—15 min after half time whereas teams that use short re-warm ups after halftime have the opposite effect”

SHOWNOTES
1)	Courtney’s journey in academics and sport
2)	Controlled frequency breathing in swimming
3)	Competition day priming and RAMP warm ups
4)	Strategies for call room or transition phases between warm up and competition
5)	VO2 kinetics, clothing and considerations around warm ups for both heating and cooling depending on the environment
6)	Field sport strategies for half-time and effects of re-warm ups on work rate after half time
7)	Ambient temperature manipulations and continuous glucose monitoring for optimising fuelling for athletes in different environmental conditions

PEOPLE MENTIONED
Ben Rattray
Keith Lyons
Ron McKean
David Pyne
Louise Burke
Julian Jones
David Martin
Liam Kilduff
Mark Burley
Andrew Jones
Stephen Faulkner
Christian Cook

ASCA Podcast #80 - Dr. Courtney McGowan

Kelly Penfold is a Physical Performance coach at the QLD Academy of Sport, currently working with Men’s field hockey, triathlon and race-walking. She has been involved in athletic development from grassroots to professional and Olympic sports, including three years as the strength and conditioning coach for the QLD Women’s State of Origin Team. Her coaching experience ranges from field and court sport to endurance athletes, and has worked with youth, adolescent and older athletes. She was Head Performance Coach for Ace Performance in Melbourne prior to her QAS role where coaching speed, acceleration and agility were a strong focus. She holds her Level 2 ASCA accreditation and is an Elite coach within the ASCA Pro-scheme.

QUOTES
“Endurance first is the underlying factor that I think should always be worked on in a preseason”
“At the very start of preseason is when I start to get them confident and comfortable at running a reasonable distance”
“It is very important in any endurance sport to build kilometers in a patient approach year by year” 
“Somewhere around that 25 km mark is my minimum in the preseason to know that the hockey players will get through a normal week inseason”
“If I can give them a cue the players have in their mind, those external cues seem to gee them up the most”

SHOWNOTES
1)	Kelly’s voyage in strength and conditioning to the Queensland Academy of Sport
2)	The importance of building aerobic capacity in preseason work
3)	Approaches to develop aerobic capacity in preseason, including in semi-professional athletes
4)	How to balance strength and endurance work and using the gym to stay in touch with speed and power
5)	Using hill work and other field progressions to get players ready for accelerations and decelerations on pitch
6)	The physiological base, polarised training and building mileage year after year in players
7)	How change of direction and sprint work can be applied with triathletes
8) The footprints concept from Thorpey's former coach
9) Monitoring an athletes fitness during the season and using aerobic running tests to decide what type of running an athlete may need
10)	External cues versus internal cues and athlete retention 

PEOPLE MENTIONED
Gennadi Touretski
Nick Winkelman

ASCA Podcast #82 - Kelly Penfold

Darren Burgess is currently the High-Performance Manager at Adelaide Football Club. Previously, he was the high-performance manager at Melbourne Football Club and prior to that, Darren’s roles have included Director of High Performance at Arsenal Football Club, High Performance Manager at Port Adelaide Football (AFL) Club, Head of Sports Science for Football Federation Australia and Head of Fitness and Conditioning at Liverpool Football Club. Darren also worked as a lecturer in Exercise Science at Australian Catholic University in Sydney and completed his PhD in movement analysis of AFL and Soccer in 2012. Darren has had multiple papers published in peer review journals and has spoken at many international conferences.

QUOTES
"It took me a while to realize but we (strength and conditioning coaches) are very much in the background and I really thought in my early days that fitness could win you a title"
"In elite European football, the training dictates everything and if we can squeeze a 10 min lift in, we will, but to do so, you really need to identify your core lifts"
"We are in a skill-based sport so the skill will come first before gym work"
"In order to be very good and very prepared as a coach, you really need to know the game you are working with well"
"It is very important to expose players to as specific a match demand as possible"
"Creating competition in training is paramount both on and off the field"

SHOWNOTES
1)	Darren’s journey in strength and conditioning to the highest levels of football 
2)	Where does strength and conditioning coaches fit into a high-performance department
3)	Monitoring tools in AFL like sub-maximal heart rate tests
4)	Promoting communication and structures in a high performance department  
5)	Where S&C should fit into a schedule based on a coaches plan and the specificity of the sport you are dealing with
6)	 Being good at both the technical and personality aspects of the job
7)	Luis Suarez and the importance of consistency of exposure to stimulus on and off the pitch compared to a recovery based performance system
8)	Game specific conditioning and low tech solutions if without GPS 
9)	Getting hired in a foreign job markets and the importance of repeated exposures

PEOPLE MENTIONED
Dave Watts
Bill Gates
Cal Newport
Adam Owen
Dave Carolan

ASCA Podcast #83 - Dr. Darren Burgess

Emily Wilson has a master’s degree in Exercise Science (Maj. Strength and Conditioning) from Edith Cowan University and is an Accredited ASCA Level 2 S&C Coach. She was the strength and conditioning coach for the South Sydney Rabbitohs Harvey Norman Women’s rugby league team for the past 3 years as well as the 2020 Sydney Roosters NRLW team. Aside from her time in rugby league, she has coached and continues to work with youth representative netball players with Netball NSW and St George District Netball Association, and youth national level shot put and javelin throwers. Her areas of specialty are women’s health and performance, and youth development.

QUOTES
“Research has shown that if you talk about periods in that positive light, they are more likely to find a solution to any issues with the menstrual cycle”
“Don’t tiptoe around the subject of menstruation”
“If a female athlete is stressed, the effect on your cycle will not become apparent until 3 cycles later”
“If you a regular menstruator, you can plan out your training for the rest of the training year based on your cycle”

SHOWNOTES
1)	Emily’s journey from an athlete to a coach
2)	The relationship between puberty and development of the menstrual cycle
3)	What strength and conditioning coaches need to know about the menstrual cycle
4)	How to create a positive representation of the menstrual cycle with female athletes
5)	Alternatives to oral contraception and learning how to perform in and around the menstrual cycle
6)	The phases or four seasons of the menstrual cycle 
7)	Whether it is worth aligning the female athletes training cycle to the menstrual cycle and how you might accomplish this
8)	The myth of menstrual cycles aligning in a group of female athletes
9)	Using menstrual cycle tracking tools including apps like Flow
10)	Dealing with female athletes that are heavy menstruators
11)	How to approach female athletes with amenorrhea
12)	Resources for strength and conditioning coach around the menstrual cycle
13)	Incorporating skill 1 percenters in the warm up for gym sessions and lessons in leadership 

PEOPLE MENTIONED
Sophia Nimphius

ASCA Podcast #84 - Emily Wilson

Boyd Epley is one of the most decorated strength coaches in history and is the recipient of the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition (PCFSN) Lifetime Achievement Award. Lindy’s National College Football magazine named him one of College Football’s Top 100 Most Important People of the Century after his training program helped produce five National Championships and 356 wins in 35 years of University of Nebraska Football. He is the founder of the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA) and continues to be an advocate for strength coaches.

QUOTES
“There is greater serum GH release when utilizing 1 minute rest periods compared to 3 minutes”
“The rule of thumb is you do not start with 3 sets in this program or you may put someone in hospital”
“If the squat is done first, this offseason program becomes magical”
“Coaches can make things a complicated as they like, but it is easier to remember simple”
“Motivation is a big part of working with athletes and if you don’t take time to honor them, they’ll lose interest”

SHOWNOTES
1)	 Boyd’s journey in the weightroom from pole vaulter to the first ever NCAA college strength coach
2)	The college “power sports” and how to train for them
3)	The different influences of body building, weightlifting and research on Boyd’s programming
4)	How a Nebraska shot putter convinced the football team to attempt Boyd's offseason weights program
5)	The 10 in 40 metabolic circuit
6)	The “Epley” 1RM formula and its various uses
7)	The Performance Index, Strength Index and importance of relative strength
8)	The dangers of distance running for power sports

PEOPLE MENTIONED
Tom Osborne
Bill Kraemer
Bob Hoffman
Kevin Coleman 
Mike Arthur
Chris Eskridge
Ken Cooper

ASCA Podcast #88 - Boyd Epley

Dr. Mark Abel, is a Professor and Director of the First Responder Research Laboratory in the Department of Kinesiology and Health Promotion at the University of Kentucky. Dr. Abel conducts research to improve the safety, health, occupational readiness of firefighters and law enforcement officers. He has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals, authored book chapters, and presented internationally. He also teaches undergraduate courses in Strength and Conditioning and Sports Nutrition and graduate courses in High Performance Coaching and Tactical Strength and Conditioning. He has served as a firefighter. also owns Tactical Fitness Institute, LLC which assists fire departments and law enforcement agencies in developing legally defensible physical ability tests and offers other educational and exercise programming services to meet their health and performance goals.

QUOTES
“The number one reason why firefighters are getting injured when they are not on the ground is from physical training..."
"Firefighters that exercise are at a higher risk of injury but at a lower risk of occupational injuries than non-exercising firefighters”
“We need to understand the typical time course of recovery to recommend the appropriate training prescription for a firefighter on duty”
“The biomotor abilities that have the longest training residuals are maximal strength and aerobic endurance”
“One reason I like block periodization is you can make changes so much more frequently than linear and I think that is a huge advantage for firefighters”
“Lower HRV in the morning was significantly related with decreased performance in an occupational test in firefighters”

SHOWNOTES
1)	Mark’s career progression from personal training to the tactical and first responder space
2)	Problems with research in tactical populations and increasing compliance with the athletes you work with
3)	The issue with training while on call and differences between how different tactical occupations should adapt their physical preparation
4)	Why concurrent training, understanding training residual lengths and block periodization suits first responders 
5)	Dealing with shift work in first responders and how to adjust training
6)	The details of how block periodization can be implemented with firefighters
7)	Different options for monitoring readiness in tactical populations and why work efficiency is the next step in evaluating tactical performance

PEOPLE MENTIONED
Travis Tripplet
Paul Davis
David Joyce

ASCA Podcast #89 - Dr. Mark Abel

Janina Strauts is currently the Lead Physical Preparation Coach for the Olympic Winter Institute of Australia (OWIA). Based in NSW, she spends most of her time working with the NSW Institute of Sport (NSWIS) at both their Sydney and Jindabyne facilities. In this role she oversees the S&C support for the winter national network spanning across multiple institutes. During her years with OWIA she has worked with various winter sport athletes and coaches, including both ice and snow-based sports. Previously, Janina has worked as a Strength and Conditioning Coach for both the AIS and NSWIS with several summer sports. Janina comes from a strong sport coaching background, having also coached both gymnastics and athletics for numerous years.

QUOTES
“When athletes are really focused on making the most of the snow-time they have got, … the challenge is how do you ensure you still get the physical qualities you need done during the year without impacting the skill component”
“What we make sure is that we have all our lower body days on the last day of each training block to be really strategic about getting as much recovery as possible before their next skill session”
“I have thought about core more traditionally - a flexion, an extension, a lateral movement, a rotation and an anti-rotation”
“If it is simple, it is consistent and it is easy, it means it will be easy to track and implement”

SHOWNOTES
1)	Janina’s journey as a strength and conditioning coach starting at NSWIS
2)	Understanding how to have an impact in the yearly plan and what a normal training day looks like in winter sports
3)	The importance of posterior chain and landing mechanics for winter sports
4)	Conditioning, placement within a microcycle and the impact on technical training
5)	Gymnastics variations to develop aerial awareness and integrating sport requirements into core work
6)	Assessments that Janina uses for winter sports athletes
7)	The power of simplicity and massive IMTP testing results

ASCA Podcast #90 - Janina Strauts

Martin Buchheit is a very passionate strength and conditioning coach that progressively developed into an applied sport performance scientist, with a main emphasis on football (soccer). Martins (>200 publications) focused on intervention strategies and profiling assessments that may improve players’ physical and technical potential, using a scientific approach whenever possible. By using his background in strength & Conditioning (2 Msc), statistics (1 Msc) and his PhD in exercise physiology, he developed different training 'tools' such as the 30-15 Intermittent Fitness to program high-intensity interval training (HIIT) and the 5'-5' (now 4'-3') running test to monitor training status using accelerometers, GPS and heart rate (variability).  Currently, Martin consults and speaks for various organizations, and holds the position of Head of Performance at Lille OSC, together with the role of Head of Performance Research at Kitman Labs, and helps lead up the Performance Intelligence Research Initiative.

QUOTES
“In the context of team sport, fitness does not often make the difference in winning or losing games”
“Teams that had high speed exposures two days before games had less hamstring injuries during matches two days after”
“We know if you look at contact time with a standardized same speed run, this can be indicative of acute fatigue”
“Any data that be collected through normal practices in a football team, I like it”
“The first discussion I had with the coaches I have worked with is tell me about the players and this is definitely the best way to start to build the interaction with coaches”
“People say you should leave your ego at the door but no, you just need to have the volume control so when you need it, turn it high and when you don’t need and need to collaborate, turn it down”
"What is important with the anerobic speed reserve concept is not the exact numbers but to understand the profiling that comes with it"

SHOWNOTES
1)	Martin’s background as a strength and conditioning coach, researcher and sport scientist across the globe
2)	Building performance on a foundation of athlete health and the importance of player availability
3)	The science and art of designing a training microcylce between matches in football 
4)	Having a pragmatic view on the use of technology in sport and getting data from normal team practices
5)	Super simple standardized warmups for autonomic nervous system and neuromuscular monitoring
6)	Developing relationships, influencing the coaches you are working with and managing egos in high performance sport
7)	The anaerobic speed reserve concept, bucketing athletes and deciding training methods for each athlete

PEOPLE MENTIONED
Paul Larsen
Raymond Verhiejen
Dan Plews
Nick Poulus
Marc Quod

ASCA Podcast #91 - Dr. Martin Buchheit

Paul Downes is the Head Of Athletic Performance and Pathways at Moana Pasifika Super Rugby Franchise in New Zealand. He is a PhD candidate at the University of Edinburgh and is an accredited Strength and Conditioning Coach with the UKSCA and ASCA. Within his 18 years applied coaching experience he has worked with developmental and elite athletes in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.

QUOTES
“We used screening to tell us what we could do, not what we couldn’t do”
“In Day 1 of every week at Moana Pasifika, we invested a lot of time in relationships… to connect and calibrate”
“We used maximal velocity work as a prophylactic for injury”
“Having a bigger bench or better clean from the floor form probably wasn’t going to be a difference maker for us, our difference maker was more likely to be giving our players more movement vocabulary”
“A cognitive apprenticeship is a teaching method that really focuses on authentic learning environments and putting the learner in an situation they are likely to experience in the workplace”

SHOWNOTES
1)	Paul’s journey from the UK to NZ (and back!) in rugby union
2)	Setting up a Super Rugby athletic performance department from scratch
3)	Maximizing player availability in professional rugby union without a reserve grade or academy 
4)	Different screening options and a “typical” week in Moana Pasifika
5)	Individualizing the preparation of rugby union players in-season and player-led different strength and conditioning options
6)	Using the difference in times between COD and non-COD conditioning tests to inform training
7)	How strong is strong enough in rugby union and downfalls of over-emphasizing strength and size in rugby
8)	Paul’s research on decision making process in S&C, the differences between different levels of experience in S&C and the “cognitive apprenticeship” approach
9)	The value of the session preview, setting the intent and outcomes of a session and aligning S&C language to performance language

ASCA Podcast #92 - Paul Downes

Stephen Smith is the Human Performance Optimisation Program Manager for the RAAF at Amberley and Townsville. In this role, he is responsible for the integration of performance enhancing projects across high risk roles within the organisation. Previously, Stephen worked for the New South Wales Institute of Sport for 11 years, finishing his time there as the National Lead for S&C for the Australian Women’s Water Polo Team. Stephen is an Elite L3 Coach with the ASCA and has a Masters in High Performance Sport from ACU.

QUOTES
“Making someone back squat more or making their 40m sprint time faster is not necessarily always what success looks like (in the RAAF)”
“Physical training in the RAAF is generally delivered as a one size fits all approach and we think we can do better than that with some individualization of training.”
“We push the message of staying prepared, so you don’t need to get prepared”
“55% of our time loss injuries in the Rio Olympic cycle for swimming were for shoulders”
“Understand what the demand is and train for it, don't drop the demand to deal with whatever you have walking through the door”

SHOWNOTES
1)	Stephen’s origins in strength and conditioning all the way from NSWIS to the Royal Australian Air Force  
2)	Facilitating physical preparation in the RAAF and the similarities and differences with working in sport
3)	The technology and tests used to understand physical capacities in the RAAF
4)	Maximising employee engagement and managing physical output in the tactical space
5)	Setting up training in the RAAF based on what is required day-to-day and the nuances of managing fatigue with tactical employees
6)	Lessons in shoulder care and injury prevention from swimming and water polo
7)	The reasons for a reduction in the exposure of shoulder care work coming into competition.
8)	Lessons from sports coaches and psychological safety in the RAAF

PEOPLE MENTIONED
Phil Moreland
David Epstein
Amy Edmondson

ASCA Podcast #93 - Stephen Smith

Scott hails from Northern Ireland where he started his career as an S&C coach with the Sports Institute of Northern Ireland. Having worked with multiple sports, he ultimately became Physical Preparation Lead for British Swimming. He oversaw significant transformation of several swimmers through to Rio 2016, including multiple Olympic, World, European and Commonwealth Games Champions who broke many world records along the way. Following the Rio Olympics Scott joined British Cycling as Head Strength and Conditioning Coach. He supported sprint and BMX programs and led a national team of S&C coaches supporting over 100 athletes. A year prior to Tokyo Scott was asked to become the coach for the Men's podium sprint squad, and they went on to medal in every possible event. Scott is currently a Senior Strength and Conditioning Coach with the Queensland Academy of Sport and National Technical Lead for Swimming Australia. He is completing a PhD in neuromuscular performance. 

QUOTES
“As a strength and conditioning coach, you are vastly more effective if you understand what else is happening outside of the gym in an athlete's sport”
“When you’re coaching a program, what I learned to appreciate is that you don’t always have athletes who are going to show up to training and attack every rep and set with maximal intent because you are not working with robots… so you have to pivot and tinker and adapt”
"I think there are ways of reverse engineering performance in field sports but what you might not be able to see though is the same degree of quantifiable change in a gym variable resulting in a change in performance” 
“I would really love it if I could find a practical way in elite sport to do more job shares so everybody in a high performance team gets a better understanding of each other person’s role”

SHOWNOTES
1)	A quick recap of Scott’s career so far from Northern Ireland to the Queensland Academy of Sport
2)	Being thrust into a technical coach role in a sport you have never coached  or played before
3)	Leading from the front, leading from the side and leading from behind with the British podium sprint cycling squad
4)	The nuances of coaching athletes that are multiple Olympic and World Championship medalists.
5)	Reverse engineering performance versus being reactive as a coach and the advantages of both
6)	How you might reverse engineer performance in more open skill sports
7)	The theory behind transcranial direct current stimulation 
8)	The “Roy Keane” moment for Scott and his current work with Australian swimming

ASCA Podcast #94 - Scott Pollock

Alex Calder is the Head of Sports Science with Houston Dynamo, competing in the Major League Soccer (MLS). He is an accredited Level 3-Elite Coach with the Australian Strength and Conditioning Association (ASCA), as well as holding accreditations through the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA) and Collegiate Strength and Conditioning Coaches Association (CSCCa). Having worked in a variety of sports, he has coached at different levels of competition worldwide for the past decade. He has published several articles in relation to physical preparation and analysis. 

QUOTES
“I’ve found my niche in helping to transition players form the treatment table to the field”
“Using a pain threshold approach is just as effective, if not more effective in certain parameters, when returning players to sport”
“I’d be more concerned if a player’s absolute outputs are low compared to what their asymmetries are doing”
“I have to be careful of what is coming in a week with RTP because the last thing I want to do is clear a player on one day and then pull them out the next day”

SHOWNOTES
1)	Alex’s backstory from collegiate soccer player to becoming Head of Sport Science at an MLS club
2)	Return to play and the controlled chaos continuum
3)	The differences in rehabilitation/medical staffing structures across different countries
4)	Hamstring rehab and using the pain threshold approach
5)	The influence of Askling hamstring protocols (diver, glider and extender)
6)	The use of technology and markers to help determine if players are ready to return to sport
7)	Asymmetry and its relevance in rehabilitation and return to sport
8)	A typical week for an athlete returning to sport at Houston Dynamo and matching the theme of the team
9)	Gym and running markers for returning to play along with positional considerations 
10)	Tips for S&C coaches wanting to work overseas

PEOPLE MENTIONED
Matt Taberner
Jack Hickey 
Carl Askling

ASCA Podcast #95 - Alex Calder

Dr. Chris Gaviglio has been involved with elite sport for over 20 years working across multiple Winter and Summer Olympic sports and professional football codes in both the northern (Bath Rugby) and southern hemisphere (Queensland "Maroons" Rugby League team, Wallabies – Australian National Rugby Union team and Gold Coast SUNS AFL). More recently, during the recent 2021 Tokyo Olympics, Chris was the S&C coach for Beach Volleyball Silver medallists (Taliqua Clancy & Mariafe ArtachoDelSolar), Decathlon (Cedric Dubler and Ashley Moloney - Bronze medal), 200m sprinter Riley Day, and double silver Paralympic medallist Isis Holt (100m, 200m T35). Chris also works with Australian Female Skeleton Athlete Jacqui Naracott who won silver at the recent 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games. He also has a passion for applied sports science with interests in passive heat maintenance, blood flow restriction training, warm-up & competition strategies and power and strength development. 

QUOTES
“As I developed my philosophy, I started thinking of what is needed at the level of the muscle? How are we stressing the muscle? And how are we building that each month-to-month or phase?”
"At the end of the day, unless you are a weightlifter or powerlifter, a good 1RM that’s pretty cool but can they sprint fast or do their sport activity really well?”
“My ultimate is isometric pushing with the use of a tie-down and if you have 2 tie-downs, you can train anywhere in the world”
"I think a lot of the upper body isometric work gets missed and I will still actually train upper body isometrics even in sprinters”
“If you increase testosterone for example, your behaviors associated with that are increased motivation and determination”
“How do you heal the body? You need an anabolic environment”
“Really with BFR, it is the first set is the key when you are doing low load continuous BFR and I think we should let go of the 30 reps, but you need to go for this feeling of fullness and maybe 1 rep short of technical fatigue”

SHOWNOTES
1)	Chris’ updates on what he has been doing since our last episode (#30) including insights into the COVID State of Origin rugby league series
2)	A quick introduction to skeleton racing 
3)	Going from just getting athletes strong to focusing on specific muscular contractions (e.g., eccentric, isometric and concentric)
4)	Methods of eccentric and isometric contraction work
5)	How to measure the intensity of isometric work and the simplest explanation for yielding/hold and overcoming/push isometrics
6)	A case study with Beijing Winter Olympics silver medalist Jacqueline Naracott and the unique combination of isometrics, bands and blood flow restriction
7)	How Chris has progressed his Blood Flow Restriction work with athletes, especially in rehab space with another case study featuring Cedric Dubler
8)	The use of different rep ranges with blood flow restriction besides just high rep ranges
9)	Letting go as strength & conditioning coaches and implementing things from other coaches
10)	More resources, including practical implementations, on blood flow restriction

PEOPLE MENTIONED
Wayne Bennett
Cedric Dubler
Stephen Bird
Jacqueline Naracott
Adam Storey
Ben Patrick
Alex Natera
Yuri Verkoshanksy
Angus McIntyre

ASCA Podcast #96 - Dr. Chris Gaviglio

James Wild is a research & development and speed consultant with Harlequins Rugby Club and as a Lecturer in Applied Sport Science at the University of Surrey. Using a blend of physical preparation and biomechanics techniques with skill acquisition and motor learning principles, James has worked with coaches and athletes across a full spectrum of abilities, including medal winning teams and athletes at major international competitions. James is also a book author and has just completed his PhD in the biomechanics and motor control of team sport athletes during sprint acceleration. 

QUOTES
“We have to remember the (sprinting) technique is not an end unto itself, but should be seen as part of opportunity to create external force expression… to fit with a performance objective”
“Technique can potentially modify injury and pain whilst previous injury history and pain can also drive technique modifications as a coping strategy”
“You will find some individuals have a high step rate and rely on faster step rate for faster sprints so working towards their strength is key for that individual but you might also find the opposite”
“You’ll find the strength characteristics of the athlete will underpin the technique they are adopting when sprinting”
“I have previously investigated what effect resisted sprinting has on stride length or string frequency and for some individuals, it increases length, for others, it increases frequency and in some individuals, it hasn’t changed anything”


SHOWNOTES
1)	James’ journey into strength and conditioning and sprinting research
2)	The key performance indicators of sprinting biomechanics and how to assess acceleration
3)	Deciding if athletes are stride frequency or stride length reliant when sprinting and what to do with it
4)	Different contexts (e.g., injury history, aptitude) around using kinematic data from sprint analysis
5)	What to do if athletes are not getting faster from sprint interventions?
6)	The three strength qualities that are relevant to sprint performance and how to test them
7)	How and when to provide technique interventions with athletes 
8)	James’ philosophy on using resisted sprinting work with athletes
9)	Identifying opportunities for and then integrating speed work throughout a training week with athletes 

PEOPLE MENTIONED
Aki Salo
Ian Benzodis
John Goodwin
Pierre Samozino
JB Morin
Damien Harper

ASCA Podcast #97 - Dr. James Wild

Gareth Webber is a Strength and Conditioning Coach from Cardiff in the U.K. He has a BSc in Sport & Exercise Science and MSc in Exercise Physiology from Loughborough University and is a ASCA level 3 PCAS Elite coach. He has been involved in high-performance, professional sport for over thirteen years and has worked in three national institutes and two professional team environments across ten sports in five countries. His areas of specialty are the concurrent training of multiple physical qualities to maximize athlete preparedness for competition and the return to play process. He has presented at both ASCA and ICST conferences and has guest lectured at universities in the U.K., Asia and Australia. 

QUOTES
“Sometimes basic scientific theory, training principles and exercise technique does the world of good even in world class athletes.”
“It is a similar concept of stripping things back to a) protect athletes and b) to get some robustness into them so they could spend more time on the technical and tactical training”
“Athletes and coaches respond really well to competence and confidence in strength & conditioning coaches when first starting”
“With injured players, I try and keep the training process similar to what they would be doing if they weren’t injured… just working around the injury”
“I use a Gymaware as an extra level of data and an extra level of protection where I don’t need to go super super heavy with their lifting”

SHOWNOTES
1)	Gareth’s backstory and experience across multiple sports from rugby union to ten pin bowling
2)	The advantages of being a generalist in strength & conditioning
3)	Cornerstones of strength & conditioning that coaches should be competent in before trying to expand into other specialty areas
4)	Examples of reverse engineering robustness across different sports
5)	The softly-softly approach strength & conditioning coaches can use when first starting in a new position.
6)	Different heuristics and non-negotiables for strength & conditioning from Gareth’s experience 
7)	A typical week outline in current role as return to play process for Cardiff Blues
8)	Guidelines for bringing players back into full training from injury and examples of low-cost return to play criteria

ASCA Podcast #98 - Gareth Webber

Professor Chris McLellan is the Vice President of Sports Performance at the Florida Panthers in the National Hockey League (NHL) and Professor of Exercise and Sports Science at the University of Southern Queensland. He is also the co-founder  of Horyzen Performance LLC offering bespoke athlete profiling and strength and conditioning services to professional sporting teams and elite athletes around the world.  Professor McLellan has over 25yrs experience as an athlete preparation specialist internationally working in in the National Rugby League (NRL), Australian Football League (AFL), professional Rugby Union and the NHL. He also has a Phd in Exercise & Sports Science and Strength & Conditioning, a Masters of Physiotherapy and a Bachelor of Exercise Science. Chris’ research areas of interest include acute and chronic adaptation to strength and power training, hormonal responses to blunt force trauma and collision during contact sports and body composition, anthropometric & fibre type profiling for optimised performance and injury risk mitigation.  Professor McLellan’s research has resulted in over 120 published works in peer reviewed journals, published abstracts and presentations at national and international conferences.

QUOTES
“I think being systematic is massive in strength & conditioning”
“As a general comment based on subsequent performance in games and training, and sleep is massive, so if we can’t get back to home and have wheels on the ground by 2am, we stay an extra night”
“The biggest piece for us is we aim to develop power and strength without loading players up with a load of hypertrophy”
“We will try to manage the eccentric components of our lifts because we don’t want to make them much bigger in-season”
“If we go 10 days without a lift, we’ll start to see shifts in their force-time-power curves”
“Everyone talks about philosophy but my philosophy is keep the main thing the main thing”
“In terms of salivary hormones, cortisol is a very blunt measure so I have embarked for quite some time to differentiate a more precise measure of stress” 

SHOWNOTES
1)	Chris’ journey from police officer and age grade footballer to S&C coach and professor
2)	From academia to the Florida Panthers and what Chris brought into the program in his first year 
3)	The usefulness of accelerometry measures in the NHL and the similarity of injuries between rugby league and ice hockey
4)	Managing the density of competition and the workload of players in the NHL
5)	Dealing with the longest game in NHL history and novel nutrition approaches to help keep players fueled.
6)	The focus and logistics of strength & conditioning in-season for ice hockey
7)	Managing hypertrophy with cold water immersion and limiting eccentric components of lifts
8)	The efficacy of measuring different salivary hormones and differentiating physical and psych stressors
9)	Practical considerations for measuring salivary hormones and the minimum amount of measures need for it to be worthwhile
10)	The benefits of attending conferences and reading bona fide scientific literature for S&C coaches

PEOPLE MENTIONED
Kelvin Giles
Steve Nance
Billy Johnstone
Andy O’Brien
Aaron Wellman
Mike Keelan
Lynn Jones

ASCA Podcast #99 - Professor Chris McLellan

Des is one of the leading youth coaches and performance managers in sport and a world-renowned practitioner and speaker in the field of youth athletic development. In joining Setanta College, Des contributes to the College’s mission to deliver industry defining Education, application and insight to communities at a local and global level. 

Des joined Setanta as Director of Coaching & Athletic Development, from his position as Head of Sport Medicine & Athletic Development at Arsenal Football Club Academy, which he has held for over 8 years and where he has re-shaped the concept of player development within the world of football. He has previously served as Head of S&C at Connacht Rugby, S&C to Ireland and as Fitness Education Manager within the IRFU, where he spent over 13 years developing the IRFU’s coach and player development system. u  Over the years Des has presented at the UKSCA, ASCA and the NSCA conferences as well as many other conferences around the world. 

He also has worked as a consultant to World Rugby and the National Cricket academy in India. Des has a Masters in Strength and Conditioning and is also an Accredited Strength and Conditioning coach with the UKSCA. He also has achieved the High Performance Sports Accreditation from the British Association of Sports and Exercise Science and is a chartered scientist.


QUOTES
“What brings it all together is the performance plan and if I step into any environment, it should be apparent”
“That language (of your performance pillars) should live and breathe in all the different departments”
“We always get caught up in the negatives but we should also focus on what is good?!”
“In a meeting, it is important to ask what does the group feel and is this a journey we are going to go on together?”
“Apparently the science behind it is flawed, but I saw benefits from personality profiling with our players and staff”

SHOWNOTES
1)	Des’ journey in brief and update since our last episode including his latest work with Setanta College
2)	How to approach management structures for performance teams including setting up your Vision, Mission, Objectives and Strategy (VMOS) and Performance Pillars
3)	Refining the VMOS & making it as effective and efficient as possible
4)	 Maximising inter-disciplinary staff meetings and interventions with players
5)	The power of staff ownership in department projects
6)	Making performance development reviews/plans useful for staff and are you as good as Nic Gill?
7)	Managing staff members that might disrupt group dynamic or are troublesome
8)	The benefits of personality profiling for staff and player interaction, especially around communication preferences
9)	The cornerstones of Des' management philosophy 

PEOPLE MENTIONED
Liam Hennessy
Nic Gill
Dan Baker
Philip Morrow
Aled Walters
Steve Nabo
Bob Tisdall

ASCA Podcast #100 - Des Ryan

Glenn Stewart is a physical and personal skills preparation specialist and manager. He has extensive experience as a S&C specialist and spent two decades developing  Australia’s leading athletes and sporting teams professionals to international standards. He's a skilled researcher in physiology, biomechanics and team performance measurement. Glenn has published and presented in peer-reviewed journals and conferences.  developing some of Australia’s leading athletes and sporting teams. With a key focus on winning, he offers his experience and knowledge as a leading voice in high performance sport to assist those seeking solutions and direction to improve on their sporting results.

QUOTES
“I see the role of the S&C coach and high performance manager to make recommendations to coaches about what would be ideal training loads and sessions… and at the end of the day, the coach is ultimately accountable on acting on those recommendations.”
“When something is complex (like injury), you cannot apply rules, you can only apply guidelines”
“My number one guideline to minimize risk of injury is to do high risk activities at low risk times and if you have a high risk time, choose low risk activities”
“It’s not those events per se that are high risk (e.g., high speed running), its your preparedness for them that elevates the risk”
“Injury minimisation is an understaning of your athlete and knowing that one extra rep could be the disaster you are trying to avoid whereas one less rep is not probably going to impact their performance down the track”
“It is not always about injury risk minimization, we are in the world of high performance so we want our athletes to perform to the best of their abilities and they do that when they are injury free and have had massive training loads”

SHOWNOTES
1)	Glenn’s progression from PE teaching to the 20 plus years at the West Coast Eagles
2)	The common mental model in sport that assigns blame to S&C staff for athlete injuries and the influence of sports coaches on injury
3)	Factors leading to heightened injury risk in athletes and principles for dealing with complex scenarios 
4)	When load exceeds tissue threshold and what causes changes in tissue threshold
5)	Managing training load and high risk times vs high risk activities
6)	The concept of “great care with new” and applying progressive overload
7)	How to determine how much training load is too much? 
8)	Glenn’s system of injury risk minimization and coach accountability 
9)	The latency period for injury after high risk periods
10)	Monitoring and Glenn's preference for subjective measures
11)	Chris Judd’s first day at the West Coast Eagles and witnessing greatness

ASCA Podcast #101 - Glenn Stewart

Nathan Parnham is the Head of Performance Development at Brisbane Grammar School. His career spans over two decades having set up multiple school athletic development programs across the country, to working in professional sport in the NRL and the Rugby Australia Women’s 7s. Nathan is a bestselling author of The Sporting Parent - an invaluable resource for parents, teachers, and coaches alike in the youth sporting landscape.



QUOTES

“I don’t think there is any parent that goes about intentionally setting up their kid to fail but it is just a lack of knowledge”

“Our biggest challenge is the opportunity is very feasible for students to go elsewhere for S&C”

“Pro sport cemented the idea that consistency is king with youth athletic development for me”

“The biggest question in the youth athlete development setting is how do we try and sell the best multi-sport approach to parents?”



SHOWNOTES


1) Nathan’s update since our last episode with him.

2) The nuances to coaching kids of this generation, immediate gratification strategies and the sandwich effect.

3) The importance of briefings to start and end sessions.

4) Nathan’s practical take on the current theories of long-term athlete development.

5) Athlete retention strategies and compliance strategies in the youth setting.

6) The day-to-day of Brisbane Grammar’s athletic development program.

7) Integration with PE Department and the session structure at Brisbane Grammar.

8) The biggest things taken from pro sport and put into the education / youth space.

9) Early specialisation and the cultural influences on its appropriateness.

10) The reality of coach: athlete ratios in the school youth athletic development setting.



PEOPLE MENTIONED
Istvan Balyi

ASCA Podcast #102 - Nathan Parnham

Sarah Hervert has a PhD in Sport and Exercise Science from James Cook University and is an ASCA Associate L2 Coach. She specialises in strength and conditioning for team sports, injury prevention and rehabilitation and has a keen interest in advocating for S&C in the wider community from adolescents through to older athletes. Following the completion of her PhD, Sarah co-founded Foundations Performance & Rehab with the aim of creating a safe and welcoming environment for athletes and the wider community to undertake S&C and rehabilitation services. Currently, Sarah is also a Lecturer at the University of Southern Queensland. 

QUOTES
“Even simple things like financial projections, which you sound so boring, but at the start you need to have that stuff to have an idea of where you are going and what you need to put into action”
“If you are trying to pump through a lot of individual clients, and that’s your only source of income, you’ll probably struggle to pay a lot of bills”
“So if you’re going to open a business with a partner, you need to be really aware that if something did happen down the line, you need to have those back up plans with what you are going to do”
“Have a plan but be flexible with that plan is a big thing in business”

SHOWNOTES
1)	Sarah’s journey from James Cook University to owning a private S&C facility
2)	Advice for S&C coaches looking to open a private facility
3)	The recommended model for private S&C facilities and setting up client agreements
4)	How to implement service fee rises
5)	Deciding when the right time is to bring on more staff in a business
6)	The pros and cons of owning a business with a partner
7)	The ins and outs of cash flow and marketing
8)	Managing adversity and burnout as a business owner
9)	Sarah’s PhD on sub-elite soccer players and preventing rate and severity of injuries in soccer

ASCA Podcast #103 - Dr. Sarah Hervert

Leading a multidisciplinary team at the Australian institute of Sport, Ross has over 25 years strength and conditioning experience working across multiple sports and organisations. Since 2004 at the AIS working with development and elite athletes across sports including netball, boxing, taekwondo, judo, athletics, cycling, rowing, basketball, modern pentathlon, water polo, winter sports, gymnastics, artistic swimming, and part of the leadership team in the AIS intensive rehabilitation program. He has also work with the Australian armed forces and lectured ASCA courses in Australia and overseas. Throughout his career coaching Athletics, sprint and agility and S&C the ability to tell a story and build athlete understanding has been an integral part of optimising outcomes.

QUOTES
“As an S&C coach we are highly time limited and time poor and sometimes our intervention with athletes doesn’t resonate”
“So that understanding of what that data means is important and the last piece for is how to apply that data”
“If I can make myself redundant on the basics, on the low level stuff, it gives me an opportunity to work on the high level stuff with athletes”
“That separation between technical training and the gym is too large alot of the time with how we coach”
“Anything high velocity, high speed, I want to do it in as fresh a state as possible and this also applies to the cognitive state, like teaching somebody something new.”

SHOWNOTES
1)	Ross’ update since the last episode and background
2)	Concepts for S&C coaches to understand to maximize interventions with athletes
3)	The first things to focus on when setting up strength & conditioning programs for athletes
4)	Athletic models of movement and magnification of error learning techniques
5)	Themes in warm ups and drills and how to link sessions together
6)	Building the cognitive transfer between technical training and strength & conditioning sessions
7)	An optimal structure and sequence of strength & conditioning within a head coach’s plan
8)	Purposefully making yourself redundant with athletes
9)	Do athletes have the capability to apply force and more importantly, the rate of force?
10)	Barefoot work and core training with Kosta Tszyu

PEOPLE MENTIONED
Craig Purdham
Kosta Tszyu
Johnny Lewis
Kelly Penfold

ASCA Podcast #104 - Ross Smith

Mike McGurn is Head of Athletic Performance at Queens University in Belfast. He has a BSc in Sports Science from Temple University in Philadelphia, U.S.A. and an ASCA Professional L2 accreditation. Mike has worked for over 20 years in Professional Sports as a S+C coach preparing athletes and players for 3 World cups, 3 Olympics, EPL, Commonwealth Games, Boxing, and many other sports. In that time winning 2 World Titles in 2 different sports as well as having the prestigious honour of training 3 National Senior Irish Teams in 3 different codes.  His area of speciality is Olympic lifting and strength development in the gym along with energy system development on the pitch. Mike presents ASCA courses in Ireland, Malta and Poland as well as delivering lectures and talks in the USA, UK, Germany, and wider Europe.

QUOTES
"All they had was rugby league, tattoos and weight training”
“Firstly, what does an athlete need to be fit for purpose? Then what does the sport demand?”
“We need to look at the three P’s in athlete preparation: position, pattern and power”
“You can’t fake fitness and you can’t fake strength”
“Look at what is happening in the sport and in hard training blocks and stay away from that in your strength work”
“Don’t set your athletes up to get gold medals in the gym and then a bronze on the weekend in competition”

SHOWNOTES
1)	Mike’s journey from Ireland to US collegiate running to elite S&C in field sports
2)	The myth of sport specific training and differences between considering strength and energy system specificity for sports
3)	Building athletes to be fit for purpose based on demands of their sport
4)	The difference between sport specific and sport relevance with case studies of surfing and sprinting
5)	Dynamic correspondence, force vectors and understanding what the sport is giving the athletes to be able to “fill in the blanks”
6)	Periodisation differences between general and specifc prep 
7)	The importance of being comfortable with all the training you prescribe as an S&C
8)	The influence Dan Baker has had on Mike’s coaching career 

PEOPLE MENTIONED
David Boyle
Kelvin Giles
Yuri Verkoshansky
Dan Baker
Dan John
Joe Kenn
Paul Sculthorpe

ASCA Podcast #105 - Mike McGurn

Dr Lachlan James is a Senior Lecturer, Sport Scientist, Course Coordinator of the Master of Strength and Conditioning degree at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia, and an ASCA Professional L2 coach. He has published over 40 peer reviewed articles including 25 as first or senior author. Lachlan currently supervises 7 PhD students with research projects in the AFL, Super Rugby, Queensland Academy of Sport, the A-League and with VALD Performance. Prior to entering academia, he spent 10 years in professional practice as a strength and conditioning coach and applied sport scientist.

QUOTES
“The problem we are trying to solve is reducing the vast array of metrics we have available to us from technology down to just a few key ones”
“Choose the metric in any cluster that is more reliable and is most interpretable by the end user”
“Whatever variable we can get reliable at 100ms in the IMTP, which is typically force at 100ms, is the one I will take”
“The reality is force at a certain timepoint, RFD and impulse all contain the same information but the reliability differs markedly”
“If isometric strength doesn’t track heavy dynamic strength changes, and you are trying to use it to inform more heavy dynamic strength interventions from something like the DSI, then it might not respond in the way you think”
“You have to give feedback on contact time after each rep if assessing reactive strength with a drop jump or 10-5”

SHOWNOTES
1)	Lachlan’s pathway to becoming a world leading strength researcher at LaTrobe University
2)	Strength and power assessments and the vast array of metrics available for practitioners
3)	Dimension reduction and making sense of the various clusters of metrics available
4)	Picking between the Iso Squat and IMTP as the test of choice for lower body maximal isometric strength and the advantages of looking at net force
5)	The importance of set up in the maximal isometric strength tests
6)	Choosing between net force at 100ms, RFD or impulse?
7)	Key metrics in the countermovement jump, unilateral variations and eccentric measures
8)	What strength domains or qualities actually exist? The 5 strength qualities and their relationship to one another
9)	Issues with the Dynamic Strength Index
10)	Feasibility of assessing the different strength qualities and solutions with large squads of athletes
11)	The effect of initial strength on strength training adaptations and the merging of strength qualities in weaker athletes

PEOPLE MENTIONED
Vince Kelly
Warren Young
Greg Haff
Chris Bishop

ASCA Podcast #106 - Dr. Lachlan James

Gavin Pratt is currently the Director of Strength & Conditioning for the UFC Performance Institute in Las Vegas. He is an accredited ASCA Elite L3 coach and holds a Masters in Exercise Science (Strength & Conditioning) from Edith Cowan University. Prior to this role, he was the Performance Manager at EXOS in Shanghai, China. This involved working with multiple Olympic sports in preparation for the 2018 National Games, after which he then focused on assisting in the development of the country’s surfing program in preparation for the Asian and Olympic games. Gavin was also awarded the ASCA “Mentor Coach of the Year” in 2021 for his work with ASCA L1 & L2 coaches around the world.

QUOTES
“If we miss training the neck, we miss training a whole part of trunk-neck-head coupling”
“We are not just giving any random neck exercises, it is actually in the force vector they are deficient in”
"In MMA, strikes happen in around 300ms and as fast as 100ms with forces up to 10-40g”
“We have something called an MMA warm up: movement, mobilisation, activation”
“Another reason we use static neck exercises to start is to reinforce good posture”
“If we have them twice a week, we need to accumulate at least that average force in a fight absorbed across the week”

SHOWNOTES
1)	Gavin’s journey from TV to strength and conditioning at the UFC
2)	The benefits of neck strength for injury prevention in grappling and the trunk-neck-head couple
3)	Different force vectors coaches should be concerned with neck strength and the neck strength matrix
4)	How to test neck strength with a fixed frame dynamometer, and benefits and drawbacks of different body positions when testing
5)	Practical examples of applying the neck strength matrix with a flexion deficiency
6)	Reverse engineering neck strength from force absorption in MMA fights and differences in typical wrestler and striker neck strength profiles
7)	Other assessments used by the UFC Performance Institute to determine athlete needs
8)	 The benefits of athlete feedback to improve your performance as a strength & conditioning coach	

PEOPLE MENTIONED
Bo Sandoval
Brett Grelle

ASCA Podcast #107 - Gavin Pratt

Brendan Inkster obtained a Masters degree from the University of Technology – Sydney researching applied biomechanics and then went on to work with the Manly Sea Eagles (NRL) in rehabilitation and sports science. After a stint with the New Zealand Warriors (NRL), Brendan is now working for the Parramatta Eels (NRL) where he has gone from the rehabilitation space to heading up their pathways and women’s performance programs. Brendan is an accredited ASCA Elite L3 S&C Coach. During his 16 years in the NRL his passion for rehabilitation has never ceased, always looking for ways to improve player outcomes. When not training the Eels, Brendan has a keen interest in baseball & soccer and helping schools with their high-performance education programs.

QUOTES
"The basic model of rehabilitation has evolved for me from just supporting a physiotherapist with some running outside of the gym"
"When resources are not available, do you need a scan? No, but from an NRL perspective, I believe there is merit to it on almost all occasions"
"At the end of the day, the athlete is very accountable for the part they play in their own rehabilitation"
"I am a big believer in that you should do at least a week and preferably two weeks of normal training before you start of playing again"
"What does the normal week look like? Because if that is what they are used to doing they can probably do that in a rehabilitation schedule"
"You can have a high load metabolically and a high load neurally and the main thing you have to remember is just don’t put two high load days back to back”

SHOWNOTES
1)	Brendan’s back story and how he got his start in professional rugby league
2)	The evolution of the rehabilitation model in the NRL, interaction between different staff and the scan or no scan debate
3)	The good and the bad of current return to play systems in rugby league
4)	Roles and responsibilities in the rehabilitation and the interaction between a general S&C and a rehabilitation S&C
5)	Consulting and including athletes in developing a rehabilitation plan
6)	Roadblocks and traps in a rehabilitation process, including managing coach expectations, fast-tracking players and one person having to do it all
7)	The most challenging rehabilitation in Brendan’s experience
8)	Setting up a rehabilitation program for players, high-low days and aligning the program with the NRL squad
9)	Balancing out physiotherapy exercises with performance programming
10)	Metrics and data to focus on during a rehabilitation and appropriate exit criteria to return to play, including advantages to giving the player the final say

PEOPLE MENTIONED
Aaron Murphy
Donny Singe
Balin Cupples
Roger Tuivasa Sheck

ASCA Podcast #108 - Brendan Inkster

Tim Suchomel has a PhD in Sport Physiology and Performance from East Tennessee State University. He is currently an associate professor of exercise science and the program director for the Sport Physiology and Performance Coaching graduate program at Carroll University. In addition to his teaching, Tim is the Director of the Carroll University Sport Performance Institute (CUSPI) and works as a human performance coach with several teams. He has published 1 book, 10 book chapters and over 100 peer-reviewed journal articles on topics that include weightlifting movements and their derivatives, strength and power development, and athlete monitoring and was named the 2022 National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA) Terry J. Housh Outstanding Young Investigator of the Year. Tim is a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist with Distinction (CSCS,*D) and Registered Strength and Conditioning Coach (RSCC) through the NSCA and a Level I Performance Coach through USA Weightlifting.

QUOTES
“Accentuated Eccentric Loading (AEL) is prescribing an additional load that we can handle in the eccentric load before removing it in the concentric phase, and the other thing that has to be involved is pairing the eccentric and concentric phase so there is no delay between them”
“The eccentric duration makes a big difference in the adaptation you will get with AEL”
“If you were chasing strength from a loading standpoint, the gap between what is on the bar and what is on the weight releasers should be relatively small; however if I have a wider gap, that may favor RFD and power production”
“With AEL, I would question is does the individual have the capacity to do it and do you need AEL on every repetition?”
“One of things I would tell people first and foremost is when you are going to implement AEL 1) you don’t have to do it with everything and you shouldn’t be doing it with everything and 2) you’re probably not going to be doing this over consecutive training blocks for a long period of time"

SHOWNOTES
1)	The update on what Tim’s has been up to since our last episode (#31)
2)	The ins and outs of Accentuated Eccentric Loading (AEL) and the benefits of using AEL
3)	Why it is not always necessary to go supramaximal with athletes doing AEL and maintaining natural movement speed
4)	The pros and cons of increasing the eccentric contraction duration e.g., tempo during training
5)	AEL programming recommendations to target different training goals (e.g., hypertrophy, strength)
6)	Practical advice for implementing AEL with weight releasers, dumbbells or other tools and the best upper body exercise variations for AEL
7)	Different repetition schemes for AEL, moderating the influence on fatigue and why flywheel training is not necessarily AEL
8)	Key aspects to programming AEL for athletes and factors that influence the time course of recovery for AEL
9)	The benefits of keeping training simple for the vast majority of athletes and understanding the underpinning characteristics of how athletes achieve physical performances

PEOPLE MENTIONED
Jeremy Sheppard
John Wagle
John Hughes

ASCA Podcast #109 - Dr. Tim Suchomel

Nathan Spencer is an innovative and passionate practitioner with over 10 years experience developing and coordinating cutting edge strength and conditioning, sports science support and end stage rehabilitation service to elite athletes across the world at the professional level. Currently the Strength & Power Coach at the St. George Illawarra Dragons in the NRL, Nathan has worked extensively in both rugby league and basketball both domestically and internationally. Nathan has held roles at the Wests Tigers, Illawarra Hawks, New South Wales Institute of Sport and Orlando Magic.

QUOTES
“It was an epiphany moment when you think back to what we are taught and it is a bit more old school periodization; whereas the influence of CBAs, 3 games a week, TV deals etc, our ability to make decisions on training periodization are dictated by schedule which is dictated by money”
“In the professional basketball environment, frequency of strength and power work wins out so the initial method was to try and get 2 sessions in a week in season”
“The luggage crews with the airlines did not like us when we would travel with around 400kg of weight and bars when we went on the road”
“We used CMJ eccentric peak velocity as a marker of whether the athletes were putting in and jumping with intent” 
“When you are measuring things with force plates, you always stick to the source of truth which is force and time”
“Most of us would assume that after an activity that is high intensity in nature, it is fatiguing, not potentiating, but the fatiguing response typically occurs a day or two later so how you capitalise on that potentiation is the next question”

SHOWNOTES
1)	Nathan’s journey from UNSW undergrad to the NBA and back to professional rugby league
2)	Strength and power periodization and programming in a heavily congested competition schedule
3)	What to focus on after games in NBA for strength and power work and what these sessions would look like at the Orlando Magic
4)	Monitoring neuromuscular responses to games from a CMJ and how these responses changed strength & power prescription
5)	The metrics to focus on when using the CMJ and force plates to monitor neuromuscular response
6)	The differences between pushing isometrics (overcoming) and holding isometrics (yielding) and their use in the NBA strength & power work
7)	Adapting and taking what worked in the NBA to an different sport like Waterpolo
8)	How to make this model work of monitoring responses and adapting strength & power work for athletes if you do not have force plates

PEOPLE MENTIONED
Alex Natera
Julian Jones
Beau Ryan
Caitlin Foord 
Terence Ross
Aaron Gordon

ASCA Podcast #110 - Nathan Spencer

ACSA Podcast #25 - 2018 Roundtable Part 2 - Energy System Development

ASCA | Ensuring excellence in strength and conditioning.

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