One Track Mind

Every child should have the opportunity to participate in sport without being subjected to violence. However, research has shown that in reality the opposite is true, with more junior participants experiencing psychological, physical or sexual violence in sporting environments, than not. Join host Sam Robertson as he speaks with researcher Dr Mary Woessner on some of the reasons behind these numbe...

What’s the latest training product or method taking the sporting world by storm? On which problems should organisations be trying to get ahead of their competition now?  Join host Sam Robertson  as he provides his observations on seven of the most common themes that have emerged on his journeys and interactions in 2022. Topic 1: Learning: the next competitive advantage? Topic 2: A matter of princi...

Football (soccer) is making a change. Long criticized for being slower to innovate in performance practice than other sports, the emergence of new data sources is leading to the creation of new roles and responsibilities in the game. These roles, combined with an influx of staff talent from other sports is helping to break down silos between coaching, physical performance and analytics. On part 1,...

Football (soccer) is making a change. Long criticized for being slower to innovate in performance practice than other sports, the emergence of new data sources is leading to the creation of new roles and responsibilities in the game. These roles, combined with an influx of staff talent from other sports is helping to break down silos between coaching, physical performance and analytics. On this tw...

Australian football has a long-standing reputation as a leader in high performance. So which new areas are clubs focusing on in order to drive performance to never before seen heights? And with increased challenges to resourcing in the wake of a global pandemic, how exactly will they bring new ideas to fruition? To find out, host Sam Robertson sits down with the high performance leaders from the A...

When it comes to successful sports start ups, we’ve probably all got our favourite example or story.  But for each one of these successes, there are many more examples of companies not thriving or even surviving. So what is it about a start up that signals this potential reward is high enough to warrant the significant risk? Is it the idea, the founding team, the stage of the company or all of the...

It’s an understatement to say that entrepreneurship in sport is exploding. Franchises across the globe are making considerable investments, the start up scene is burgeoning, university courses have emerged to train the next generation, and even some professional athletes have turned part-time entrepreneur. Of course none of the success of entrepreneurs can be achieved without the support of sports...

Some of the many issues with injury prediction modelling have been discussed on multiple occasions on One Track Mind. But what if we could reach this 'Holy Grail'?  How far away would we be from this scenario eventuating? What would need to happen in order to get there? And is it even a world that athletes want?  On Part 2 of this series on injury prediction,  host Sam Robertson talks ab...

Some of the many issues with injury prediction modelling have been discussed on multiple occasions on One Track Mind. But what if we could reach this 'Holy Grail'?  How far away would we be from this scenario eventuating? What would need to happen in order to get there? And is it even a world that athletes want?  On this first of a two-part episode,  host Sam Robertson talks about some o...

Genetic testing in sport has emerged as a cost-effective and accessible tool to identify an individual's potential for sporting performance, trainability, optimal exercise selection, recovery strategies and injury risks. But just how strong is the evidence behind this practice? What are the risks and rewards? And to what extent is this growing industry being regulated - if at all?  On this ep...

Wearable technology is proliferating at a rate of knots - from smart watches to heart rate monitors, posture-correcting sensors and even our mobile phones, almost anyone you talk to is using some personal health data from at least one of these devices.  But despite the obvious performance benefits, are we creating an over-reliance on the information we gather from wearable tech? Do we really have...

Skill is the defining feature of a successful athlete in many of the sports we play and love. Yet, it remains one of the most controversial areas of high performance methodology. How much practice is optimal? How variable do we need to make it? How hard should it be? And how do we know when what is learnt in practice has actually transferred to competition? On this episode,  host Sam Robertson is...

Baseball is often viewed as one of the more traditional team sports. However, it’s recently been at the forefront of the analytics revolution in sport and is one of the most data rich, technology adoptive sports out there.  This week’s episode has something for everyone – whether they're a baseball fan or not. Host Sam Robertson is joined by New York Yankees Director of Performance Science, D...

We’re all familiar with examples of child sporting prodigies - social media posts of a four year old footballer masterfully dribbling past opponents or videos of a young Tiger Woods come readily to mind. But the reality is, these examples are anomalies - far from the norm and the pathway to getting there perhaps not desirable even if it was attainable for more children.  The enhancement of talent...

On the last episode of One Track Mind for 2021, host Sam Robertson is joined by New Zealand strength and conditioning legend Professor John Cronin (JC) The topic? Wearable resistance training. Lightweight wearable resistance training involves external micro-loads, sometimes as little as 0.5% of the users body mass, being applied to different segments of the body - such as the legs or arms. These l...

On this episode, host Sam Robertson is joined by high-performance coach Neil Craig and skill acquisition expert Professor Damian Farrow in a general discussion covering all things high performance coaching.  Topics include: - The new skill sets required by the modern coach - Areas for improvement in training and practice - Structuring coaching departments around the head coach, and - Future innova...

In the blink of an eye, the volume and type of options available to the sports fan has exploded. The digital age has seen not only the battles for hearts and minds, but also eyeballs on screens, extend to other forms of entertainment, from live streaming to online gaming. The digital age has also meant that it’s a lot easier for sport businesses, broadcasters and organisations to measure what thei...

None of the latest breakthroughs in science come into mainstream practice without academic publishing - submission of a manuscript based on a study or experiment, which is then peer reviewed to assess its quality.  Although this might not seem like an issue for sport, much of what goes on in the gymnasiums, playing fields and even front offices of sporting organisations has its roots in something...

It is often said that sport is the great leveller - that once participants enter the track, court or field of play, their background, beliefs and even the fiercest conflicts all become temporarily irrelevant. But in many aspects, the gap between the conditions and privileges afforded to certain sports and athletes but not others, is as large as it’s ever been.  However, there is an increasingly lo...

Intuition, gut instinct, educated hunch. Whether its contemplating who to select in an upcoming football match or hesitating to travel down that inner city, darkened alleyway, we all use our gut instincts every day.  But it’s in our workplaces, where we often consider ourselves at our most organised and objective that an over-reliance on intuition has the potential to create problems. So how do we...

Consider some of the big decisions that you make in your job? Whether it’s setting a yearly plan, deciding what technology or infrastructure to invest in, or even hiring and firing staff, chances are there will be a lot to contemplate before settling on the final choice. Questions like ‘How long do I have to make the decision? How much information do I need to collect? What don’t I know? And who e...

We all have them and a lot of the time, they’re influence is unavoidable. Biases are quite simply, part of the human condition. But despite considerable exposure in the media, research and even popular culture, much of the discussion has centred on viewing biases as flaws of the human condition.  In this second episode of our four part series into decision-making, we look at what biases mean for i...

Decisions. We all make thousands of them every day. From the once in a lifetime question that we spend weeks, months or years contemplating, to the subconscious choices that we don't even know. On this episode, we present the first of a four-part deep dive into decision-making in high performance sport, all to be released over the next month in the lead up to the season three return of one tr...

The Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games were perhaps two of the most different in recent memory, due largely to the required measures that were put in place in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. For most athletes, this meant interrupted, and/or heavily modified preparation, as well as some never before seen competition conditions. For some insights into these experiences, on this week’s mini-e...

Sport scientists face one of the most rapidly changing roles in all of sport. The second half of this two-part episode proposes 5 further 'adaptive tools' -   new types of training, skill sets, operational processes or even mindsets - that sport scientists can call upon to not only help adapt to changing conditions in their workplace, but also to thrive and take advantage of these antici...