Training Science Podcast

You can do A LOT by pure FEEL and PERCEPTION - including deciding on your shoe! So much so that even top level biomechanists like Dr. Benno Nigg recommend it. There is no one FIT FOR ALL solution; even the new SUPERSHOES could be BAD for you! Alex Hutchinson wants you to understand that there is value to both: rational, measured and all numbers, as well as the subjective, perceived and feeling bas...

If you think FANCY new methods, tools or TECH 🛠️ will be immediately a good start when working with NEW athletes, you are dead wrong ❌! Dr Matt Jordan wants you to understand that you ALWAYS have to FIRST build that trust by mainly focusing on listening. Try to learn about the HUMAN sitting in front of you, and LISTEN 👂. There is a reason they are as good as they are! In the 70th episode of The...

Work on HAVING ACTIVE EMPATHY for every human you deal with every day! Try to realize what feelings they are currently having, so that you can better voice them, and adjust for what you NEED from that person! Xavier Al Haddad wants you to understand that BEING EMOTIONALLY SMART is all about trying to care about what ELSE people have going on in their life, and HOW it may AFFECT them in their work....

Ketones are still EXTREMELY young 🐣 in what we KNOW about them in the human body - yet, they are showing some CRAZY potential 💥 for certain populations or situations. Dr Andrew Koutnik wants you to understand that certain studies have shown that for some people (including top level athletes) high FAT 🥑 and ketone based diets may be USEFUL. That does not mean that they are a magic cure for every...

EVEN if you are working with a SUPERSTAR player 😎 , they own the responsibility for their training, but YOU are responsible for their PERFORMANCE that is owned by your organization! Andreas Beck wants you to understand that you can work with any third parties, coaches, trainers, gurus 🤝🏼 and so on, simply if you include everyone in the process. BUT this process needs to be led by the PLAYER 🥇...

Yes, player availability IS IMPORTANT in professional football ⚽ - although it might appear differently, they cannot keep going around buying players every time someone cannot play! Ian Beasley wants you to understand that you are likely NOT the most impactful individual for how fit, healthy and available each player is. Yet, you are part of a highly professional and trained group of people 👨‍👦...

TRUE CONSISTENCY is when you pretty much TRAIN EVERY DAY to some degree for YEARS! Bas Van Hooren wants you to know that you don’t have to have CRAZY high volume, nor CONTINUOUS implementation of super advanced HIIT session, but simply consistently training without missing any long periods is worth much more than crazy “blocks” or overcomplicated periodisation! In the 65th episode of The Training...

Maybe, just MAYBE you don’t know enough about the MENSTRUAL cycle, female ♀️ physiology, as well as whether or not it influences training.  🤦‍♀️ ACTUALLY, we all don’t know nearly enough about it! Lauren Colenso-Semple wants you to understand that we are still quite far away from giving training based on MENSTRUAL PHASE, as well as specific recommendations around timing of various training phases...

All the models, THRESHOLDs, numbers and so on are just guides! They ALL have weaknesses and limitations, and if you don’t KNOW them, you will run into problems sooner or later with your athletes! Teun van Erp wants you to understand that ALL these models are just mathematical models; that even the best HRV and recovery gadgets are JUST using heart rate. That does NOT mean they are bad, but that yo...

How DIVERSE 👩🏼‍🤝‍👨🏿 is your support staff? Do you take ADVANTAGE of the cognitive, performance and outcome increases 📊 your team and organization can gain by simply PLANNING ahead of who the people you hire? Jo Clubb wants you to understand that the science in this area is extremely clear: EVERYTHING 🔥 will improve in your organization if you have a larger variety of gender, nationalities,...

So you are still using some FANCY 💎 assessment that is pretending to be objective, but in the END still depends on the subjective opinion ❌📐 of each person?!  Benjamin Kugel wants you to understand that it is a MUST to find THE ESSENTIALS in your system so that you are not wasting your time trying to get OUTCOMES 💪. If ANY tool is not providing you an OUTCOME, see if you can get rid of it and...

You can be a GREAT ATHLETE and have AMAZING physical abilities… or not😎. There are many top level athletes who are not that well “trained” — and that’s ok! Matt Nichol wants you to understand that skill is most important to FOCUS 🔍 on in team sports, and make everything in your practice hyper-focused to make you better at enhancing that - rather than just looking at numbers 📊 in your S&C se...

You DON’T NEED to keep pumping the GYM NUMBERS if you reach certain levels of physical fitness! GO OUTSIDE and play YOUR SPORT! Chris Tombs wants you to understand that not all athletes need to keep adding more targets in pure “fitness” areas of their skills spectrum, and it is completely fine to even at some point REDUCE the amount of training time in the gym! In the 59th episode of The Training...

NOPE! Heart rate monitoring only is EXTREMELY limited in what it tells you about HIGH SPEED RUNNING 🙁 Paul White wants you to understand that although heart rate can be useful for a variety of training measurements, periodisation, as well as prescription and monitoring, it kind of misses the biggest aspect that is currently trending in most sports: the mixed contribution of neural 🧠 and peripher...

Good old specificity also APPLIES to TASK SPECIFIC RESIDUAL NEUROMUSCULAR FATIGUE! Yes, big long words, that basically means that your jump fatigue testing might not apply that well to running ;).  Dr Jackson Fyfe highlights that any type of interference effect between strength and endurance training will be strongly dependent on the residual neuromuscular fatigue (more neural and brain related vs...

You CANNOT apply all the data and science protocols 100% into your sport! ALWAYS try to adapt whatever you find to YOUR CONTEXT! Dr Miguel Angel Campos wants you to understand that you definitely need to stay up to date with the newest findings, treat them as your FUNDAMENTALS, but then you need to adapt it to whatever you do and whoever you are working with. In the 56th episode of The Training Sc...

FAST & SLOW might be more similar than you think😄! Yet, there are still significant differences THAT MATTER in terms of daily training prescription, periodization, recovery and EVEN PACING⏳ ! Dr Phil Bellinger wants you to consider that you CANNOT work to the same daily training model across athletes with different MUSCLE FIBER typology. These differences matter for so many aspects of traini...

Even if you are an EXPERT in your field/area of REHAB, you NEED to include everyone in the athlete centred process FROM THE START - including YOURSELF 😄! Alain Sola wants to highlight to you how ESSENTIAL it is for you to INTEGRATE across all areas if you want to achieve the BEST results. This is particularly important if you are not a “one trick” pony expert, but you can cover A LOT of areas and...

ECCENTRIC exercise and training is about MUCH MORE than “just” overload, going hard and being sore - there are at least 3-4 different TYPES of eccentric training! Prof John Cronin wants you to understand that there are many DIFFERENT LEVELS 📶 of eccentric training that all have a VALID ✅ form of application - for everyone! In the 53rd episode of The Training Science Podcast, Paul and John discus...

Get AS MUCH training content AROUND the MAIN SESSION of your players done as possible 👉 you are unlikely to see them twice during the day ⏰! Dr Malte Krüger wants you to understand that players are unlikely to come back in the afternoon, so you need to design and try to join the 📅 “planification” ⚡ with your head coach. This will allow everyone to get as much of their individual S&C, techn...

TRAIN it like you RACE it - WITH fatigue 🥵, OBSTACLES🚧, loud cheering squad 🥳, annoyances etc.!  Facundo Ahumada wants you to remember that EVERY activity and sport out there can USE “GAME-BASED” drills to their advantage, AND as a HIIT stimulus 🧑🏽‍🚀 In the 51st episode of The Training Science Podcast, Paul and Facundo discuss  🤕 the situation of exercise and sport science in Argentina and...

The best COACHES, sport SCIENTISTS, professors, mentors, gurus and so on - are ALL not “that good” at their job 🤷‍♀️ - because we don’t really teach behavioral aspects of dealing with humans 🥺 David Dunne wants you to think about all the DIFFERENT context that we love to talk about and consider how often these depend on simple human interactions and behaviors - ⚠️ BEHAVIORS⚠️ is the key word her...

IF you PROGRESS players FAST 💨 through development and various teams, they are LIKELY to be lacking SOMETHING 🤷‍♀️ Dr Karim Hader wants you to understand that supporting any developmental players in football (and likely other sports ;)) requires a HOLISTIC approach to ALL ASPECTS of their life, rather than just rushing the best new hopefuls from team to team. In the 49th episode of The Training...

Xx 🤨, Benjamin Boulnois wants you to understand that not everything is BLACK and WHITE in the world of “high performance” - even in a highly BOOMING sector like CYBER security. He has lots of  cross-over insights for what we, the sport scientists, can 🦾 learn from the TECH industry.  In the 48th episode of The Training Science Podcast, Martin and Benjamin discuss 🧠 how competence, integrity and...

MAYBE, just MAYBE 🤨, all those fatigue tracking and measurement 👨‍💻 things we LOVE doing in sport science are NOT that USEFUL?! Dr Carlos Ramirez would like you to consider that there is a chance that “being tired” 😴 or even “fatigued” might not be that bad for your athletes - especially if they fall amongst those younger ones that can recover much faster than us oldies 👴🏼. In the 47th episo...