If you operate to the parameters within your line of sight and don’t look beyond, you will never be prepared for what is round the corner…

What is the performance problem we are trying to solve as sports science and medicine staff?

Being ready for the next battle is vitally important however, being prepared for the game overlooks how we might increase player capability, training availability and squad selection to tolerate the season and perform across the war. If the training paradigm is modeled on getting fresh for game demands, ‘the game’ itself being the most violent physical load exposure a player experiences, then perhaps much of training prescription is just noise, entertaining players whilst keeping them happy but in fact doing very little to enhance the playing product or performance beyond current levels whilst increasing the cost of injury to the organisation, team and player.

Taking athletes and players beyond their current theoretical maximums, showing them what they can achieve and building new super powers (capacities, capabilities, physical attributes) that support them in delivering performance consistently or at new and exciting levels for some, requires a change in mindset (click here for Protective Vs Performance Bubbles) . Adding utility to the players arsenal and weaponry requires MDT staff and coaches to look past the current terrain and on to to the horizon. To do more, not less, to be less fearful of injury and fragility and more concerned with robustness and capability. In doing this we will move both the game and players to new levels of performance.

  • Can we reduce injury risk if we don’t expose players to forces greater than they experience in a game?
  • How can we develop and upgrade the athlete’s engine, suspension, brakes and tyres so that they can endure repeated abuse at the edge of the maximum performance demands that they experience?
  • Beyond the technical and tactical training load demands should we revisit the training philosophy?
  • From a physical development and injury burden/cost perspective, does it make sense for sporting organisations to divorce the physical from the technical/tactical development process? and
  • Should coaching staff be part of an MDT approach rather than leading it?