Brando's Blog

Developing Speed for Sport

This Saturday just gone saw the first ever "Developing Speed for Sport" Workshop take place.

Held at Aegis Training, I delivered the workshop to a keen and enthusiastic group who had an enjoyable and informative day.

  The majority of the morning covered the theory of preparing athletes to be able to handle the stresses of high intensity and high speed training. I also, illustrated why many top athletes get injured and often get re-occurring injuries and how to prevent them.I also covered the theory and methodology of agility, plyomentirc and speed development.

During the extended lunch break, the group was split into teams and they designed a warm-up routine, agility,  plyometric and speed drills for their chosen sport. In the afternoon, each team demonstrated the drills, using the theory and methodology learned in the morning. Each team came up with very effective and fun filled drills. The teams found observing the other groups was just as useful as doing their own drills. The end of the workshop looked at how you might periodise a programme for an athlete, which included examples of programmes I had used with real athletes from a number of different sports.

If you are interested in attending this workshop, the next one will take place in October of this year.

The Truth About High Performance

If you are wanting to perform in a sport or even in your job to the best of your ability and reach your true potential, then you probably need to focus on areas that you may not have considered before now.

In my practise I use a truly holistic approach, focusing on my client's physical, mental and emotional health to ensure optimal performance.

What you may not realise is that a physical problem or injury could be caused from an emotional problem (known in BodyTalk as an Active Memory). One example is that all our cells regenerate every 7 years, yet injuries can affect the body for more than 7 years. So the knee, for instance that you injured 8 years ago no longer physically exists. All the cells in the knee have been regenerated. So why does it still hurt? Well, emotions can become trapped in the body (Active Memory) and cause physical pain to make you realise there is something wrong and focus you to deal with the emotional problem that is holding you back.

Without the help of someone like myself, you would need to listen to your own innate or '4 Doctors' to put this right. Unfortunately today, very few people are able to tap into their innate or '4 Doctors'.

To get a better understanding of the philosophy I use in my work, I strongly recommend you watch this You Tube video by my teacher Paul Chek filmed at the SWIS conference in Canada. Click here to view. It is in 11 short parts and I strongly recommend you view all 11.

Enjoy!

Plyometrics, Speed & Agility

On Thursday and Friday of last week I attended the UKSCA's Plyometrics, Speed & Agility workshop. The workshop took place at The Lee Valley Athletics Centre which is a world class training facility (and just a 10 minute drive from where I live).

As someone who helps condition athletes and someone who plays competitive tennis, I believe you can always learn more and improve your skills, adding to your professional toolbox.

My main goal was to brush up on the technique and body positioning during plyometric, speed and agility drills to enable my athletes to perform better in their sport.

I was not disappointed. Whilst I have already successfully completed the UKSCA Strength & Conditioning Coach Accreditation, I still picked up some great tips, especially on starting speed and maximal speed training. I was quite amazed at how fast I was able to run during the speed drills even though I am fast approaching my 39th birthday. It is amazing how just a few drills and technique cues can make such an improvement in speed.

One of the main focuses on the workshop was to get us (The Strength & Conditioning Coaches) to think for ourselves using our current knowledge to put training drills together rather than giving us lots of basic drills to copy.

I am now really looking forward to using these learnt skills to good use with my athletes.

There was a slight downside to the workshop. I managed to injure my left hand during an agility drill and sprain a number joints on my left hand. I'll live, but I'll have to take a week off from training until my hand turns back from its current black colour to normal and I regain full range of motion in the joints without any pain.

Our Sporting Stars Continue to Receive Injuries

What do Wayne Rooney, Steven Gerard, Andrew Flintoff, Simon Jones, Tim Henman and Andy Murray all have in common?

They are suffering from or recovering from injury. Why do we see the same athletes being injured time after time? Is this a coincidence?

My suggestion is that this is not coincidence, but a failure by the medical teams around them to see the big picture. What do I mean by this?

Well, the body is a complex system of inter-related systems that all affect each other. However, our sports teams use a compartmentalised approach and generally see the physical body as a system of mere pulleys and leavers.

The human body is a physical, mental, emotional entity. However, I see little evidence of any top sports teams having anyone in their team who can put the pieces together. It's a little like taking 5 blind people and placing them at different points of an elephant and asking them to describe the whole thing. They will all come up with different answers and yet not understand 'the whole'.

In addition, one of the biggest mistakes our athletes are making is eating appalling diets. Many of them eat poor quality, highly processed, high carbohydrate, low fat and protein diets which I have little doubt plays a role in the high incidence of bone fractures in footballers recently.

When you consider that one tea spoon of sugar inhibits the immune system by 50% for 4 hours and many athletes keep chugging litres of sugary sports drinks is it any wonder their bodies are not running at optimum?

From my own experience working with athletes, using a holistic approach has enabled them to stay injury free and achieve personal bests. It's very frustrating to see British athletes making such fundamental errors when the evidence is all around them.

The Cricket Jelly Bean Scandal

If you follow sport, you would have seen this week that a scandal broke out when an England Cricket player threw a Jelly Bean at the stumps whilst Indian fast bowler Zaheer Khan was batting.

Now I'm not too interested in the Sledging that goes on in cricket, but I am very interested as to why a professional sports person would have Jelly Beans on a sports field.

I am going to make a big assumption here and guess that the Jelly Beans are used as a quick source of energy during a long days play.

I can only make a further assumption that the players (and their support team) are unaware of the huge damage that processed sugar does to the body.

Below I have listed just a few:

1. Suppression of the immune system which will make illness more likely
2. An increase in adrenaline, anxiety and difficulty in concentrating which would reduce performance
3. A loss of tissue elasticity and function which can lead to injury and/or lack of performance
4. A reactive hypoglycemia which will reduce performance

I could go on and on. What is essential if you play any sport and you want to achieve optimum performance is to eat right for your metabolic type and avoid such dangerous performance lowering foods.

Bon appetite!

UK Strength & Conditioning Association Accreditation

You may remember in a previous post I mentioned that I took the UK Strength & Conditioning Association (UKSCA) Accreditation assessment at Bisham Abbey.

Well, yesterday I received the news that I had passed with flying colours. The UKSCA are attempting to improve the standard of strength & conditioning coaches working in professional sport in the UK.

Now that I am officially an Accredited Strength & Conditioning Coach (ASCC), I hope to work with more elite athletes and help other CHEK Practitioners to improve their strength & conditioning skills and make it easier for them to get work in elite sport.

The combination of the CHEK Approach along with a sound strength & conditioning knowledge and skills is in my view unbeatable.

It is my vision for CHEK Practitioners in the UK to use their expertise and help the UK's elite athletes to eliminate injuries and perform to their potential.

UKSCA Accreditation

This weekend I spent in Bisham Abbey taking an accreditation exam for the UK Strength & Conditioning Association.

The accreditation process has been set up to ensure that strength and conditioning coaches working in British sport have a standard of skill and knowledge that will enable our athletes to compete at the highest level.

The conditioning of British athletes has been a bit of a laughing stock over many years, but I see this process as a large step forwards.

The accreditation process involved giving a presentation of a case history of an athlete I had previously worked with, a practical demonstration and coaching of dynamic warm-ups, plyometric and speed drills, a weight lifting section, including Olympic lifting and a multi-choice written paper.

Strangely enough, I really enjoyed the whole experience and am looking forward to receiving my results in a few weeks time.

Olympic Weight Lifting Part 2

In my last post I indicated the potential benefits of using Olympic Weight Lifting to improve performance. But how can you incorporate it into your exercise programme?

Without question, you need to learn proper technique from a properly qualified person in Olympic Lifting. Most exercise courses do not teach Olympic Lifting, so most exercise professional are not qualified to teach these lifts. There are some good books out there that can help you with technique, but it is important to receive feedback on your technique, so you can perfect it.

By using perfect technique, you will minimise injuries and maximise the amount of weight you can lift.

So if we now assume you have good technique, how do you incorporate the lifts into your training? Initially, you need to ensure that your posture is good and your core muscles are working effectively. This may require corrective exercises or what is also called an anatomical adaptation phase of training. The next stage would be to begin learning the lifts using a very light weight. You can use a broom stick or an empty Olympic Bar.

Once you have perfected technique, weight can be progressively added. You would want to begin with a strength training phase, then a power/speed phase. Training phases should be correctly periodized through the year and I will cover periodization in detail in a future post.

Until then, happy lifting! As they say on Soccer AM, Go Big, or Go Home!

Olympic Weight Lifting

Last weekend I attended a course on Olympic Weight Lifting run by The UK Strength & Conditioning Association. My aim was to improve my own technique in The 'Clean & Jerk' and The 'Snatch' and to improve my own coaching skills of the movements so I can incorporate more of the lifts into the training programmes of my clients and athletes.

Now if you're wondering what those lifts are, it is the weight lifting done at the Olympic Games. So you now may be asking why these lifts are beneficial to athletes and people in general. Well, these lifts have similar movement patterns to many sports. Therefore, they strengthen the athlete in movements that will help them to become stronger and faster in their sport.

As most sports require speed, Olympic Lifting is a great training modality. It helps to build strength, power and speed. Now you may remember from a previous post, it is essential to build optimal strength before moving on to power and speed training.

Olympic Lifting can also be used to increase muscle mass, flexibility, posture and endurance too by correct manipulation of load, tempo, rest, reps and sets of the exercises. So it can be used as a whole body training system. Stay tuned to find out how you can incorporate Olympic Lifts into your training programme to maximise your performance.

Sports Performance Prepration Part 2

As I described in Part 1, you need to complete a Biomotor Ability Analysis and set training and performance goals before embarking on your training plan.

So once you have completed your Biomotor ability analysis, you can now focus on the training plan. Preparing your body for sport is analogous to building a skyscraper. The better an athlete you wish to be the bigger the skyscraper.

To build a tall skyscraper, you’ll need very big foundations because exercise to the body is analogous with earthquakes to buildings. So if you don’t build a solid foundation, not only will you not perform to your potential, but injury is a matter of when not if.

So when I work with athletes, the foundations are ensuring that adequate flexibility, joint stability and core conditioning are in place before moving on. Then as required by the sport, endurance, muscle gain, strength, power, speed and agility and addressed in that order.

Each area of development will be worked on for 3 to 6 weeks dependent on the experience and conditioning of the athlete and the priority based on the Biomotor ability analysis.

Watch out for a future issue when I will show you how to assess your own Biomotor abilities.