Two Coaches & a Coffee

Season 2, Episode 30

• Darren Burgess & Jason Weber • Season 2 • Episode 30

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Can you imagine a world where managing player fatigue could significantly reduce injuries in professional sports? Today, we're tackling this critical issue head-on with insights from Darren Burgess and Jason Webber. We'll start by dissecting the AFL's off-season buzz, including player trades and how the Adelaide Crows are handling the tumultuous "silly season." Then, we shift gears to the NFL, scrutinizing the early rounds marred by lackluster performances due to limited preseason play. Adam Thielen's suspected proximal hamstring tendon injury serves as a case study, shedding light on the causes and complexities of preventing such injuries in high-stakes sports environments.

How do overloaded match calendars and player fatigue contribute to injuries, and could these factors be more formally acknowledged in sports science? Using Manchester City's Rodri as an example, we explore the blurred lines between acute and non-contact injuries and the role of coaching in managing these risks. We delve into the intricacies of differentiating between preparation failures and inevitable injuries, emphasizing the balance needed between performance data and coaching decisions. This discussion isn't just hypothetical; it's a call to recognize and address the impact of an ever-demanding sports schedule on player health.

Lastly, we explore the cutting-edge methodologies behind monitoring and preventing athlete fatigue and injuries. The importance of combining physical metrics with behavioral observations cannot be overstated, and we illustrate this with a hypothetical scenario involving AFL player Callum Mills. Objective auditing processes and reliable data are crucial for making informed decisions about player welfare. We also discuss the essential role of open communication between coaches and players, highlighting the continuous evolution needed to enhance player health and performance. Join us for this enlightening episode as we bridge the gap between sports science and practical application in the world of professional sports.

SpeedSig Intro

Sponsored by SPEEDSIG.com

Jason Weber:

Good day and welcome to Two Coaches and a Coffee Darren Burgess and Jason Webber. Here with you Again, darren. We're a little bit late, but we're getting it done. We're finally. We're having another crack. How's things?

Darren Burgess:

Going alright, mate. It's a bit of a silly season in the AFL because it's the end of the season for most of them in two teams who've got the grand final, and so there's all kinds of player trades and you know meeting with different players and you know having conversations with players around why they should maybe pick the Adelaide Crows and you know things like that. But the people who are in charge of that are having way more than I am.

Jason Weber:

But yeah, been some interesting conversations this week, mate. The one I keep throwing out is the old Billy Bean. There's only one team that has a good year. They win the last game of the year. Everyone else at some point it sucks because you lost.

Darren Burgess:

And there were some tight games over the weekend.

Jason Weber:

man, You're sad because you didn't make the finals. You're sad because you didn't make the finals. You're sad because you went out in the first week, second week, whatever.

Darren Burgess:

Everyone sucks it until they win the GF. Yeah, the other interesting at the other end of the spectrum is the NFL, and some of the commentary around that at the moment is that the skill execution is really, really bad. And the commentators are sort of the ones that I'm listening to and I'm sort of saying, yeah, wait till sort of round five or six, because you know very few players play in the preseason so you know it takes them a while To edge up.

Darren Burgess:

I know we've beaten that horse before, but it's just interesting having watched a bit of NFL Red Zone, which is one of the greatest nine hours of television that God put on the earth. I'll just say what I tuned in. Anyway, you've got a couple.

Jason Weber:

Well, I guess, while we're on NFL of interest, on the weekend the Carolina Panthers, who are not slated to do very well this year, took the Las Vegas Raiders apart very, very methodically, did a great job, but out of interest. There just something that's become a trend in the AFL probably well, it's probably the last 10 years, but the old proximal hamstring tendon right. So we get the guy taking. Usually in AFL it's the guy who takes the kick, swings the kick leg through it, gets pushed from behind and then he lands on that kick leg so his leg's fully extended. He's at speed bang. Proximal tendon. I've seen a few proximal tendons go in heavy contact, heavy contact where the guy's flexed over. But this guy, adam Thielen, if you get a chance it's worth a look. Yeah, no, wide receiver Is he? Yeah, yeah, he's actually an interesting story. He's one of the lowest drafted players ever.

Jason Weber:

He was in my fantasy team like four years ago, so that's why I thought Maybe he got his speed work together and he got off the line, mate, and he's out Anyway he takes this.

Darren Burgess:

He did it on the weekend, did he?

Jason Weber:

Yeah, great reception. So great reception. I think it was maybe 30 yards out, might have been a bit longer. Anyway, he's charging at the end zone, straight down the middle. He's got two dudes on his hammer ball lobs over, he takes, you know, the ball over his shoulder and as he does it he's reaching and instead of maybe diving, which probably would have crushed anyway, he sticks his right leg out instinctively because the throw was bang on him and made the two guys hit him and that he grabbed straight for his string. You and I both know the guys at the Panthers. I haven't directly asked them yet, but it looked for all money like a proximal hamstring tendon. How can you prevent that? I don't think you can. It looked for all money like a proximal hamstring tendon and the only, how can you prevent that?

Jason Weber:

I don't think you can. I think that's probably why I brought it up. From the ones I've been involved with, I could probably think of one or two, that one in particular, who has done his tendon twice now in the AFL I think he's done both sides. For Martin, he's a flexibility issue. He is super, super tight, beyond the realms of reasonable range of motion, like it's not even okay, like he can barely touch his knees in flexion, like he's horrific. So you kind of got to wonder that really limits the degrees of freedom.

Jason Weber:

You have to play a dynamic game where you have to get into weird positions, and particularly AFL, where you have to play in the air and then often land weird which is the same as the wide receiver in question. He landed weird playing the ball in the air. So there's two parts to it. How can we chat? How can we condition for it? Um, I think very, very difficult. I think there is a case for um. There's some dynamic drilling you can do which is very hard to explain here, but it's kind of like a bozov jump if you want to look that one up on your uh, on google or something, but a bozov jump where you're pitched over the front, and I have done some Bozov jump where you're pitched over the front and I have done some work in that space where you're actually dynamically asking the hamstring at lower intensities during training or rehab to load up long.

Jason Weber:

But I think the reality is this is maybe the second part of this that I wanted to bring up was how does it get classified as an injury? Now I've stood in front of a board review that they've complained about a number of hamstring injuries and I've sat there and said we had two big tendon injuries that were collision-based. They weren't just running straight line and pop, they got hit in weird positions. One was pushed from behind a kick, one was taken front on and got flexed over. Yet that all gets caught up in your statistics which, as you would know, darren injury statistics in our choice of career can be significant. Yeah, I think the proximal hamstrings. For mine, for the most part it's an acute contact injury. I haven't seen a proximal tendon explode just by running. I'm not sure Someone else may have.

Darren Burgess:

Having done a proximal hamstring tendon in Recently, april. I've not kicked a ball since Jason. Yes, because it exploded, and when I say exploded I mean yeah.

Darren Burgess:

Yeah, exploded and anyway it was in a Pushed in the back whilst trying to reach what I thought was a really high ball, but in reality it was probably like waist height in my, in my old man's, soccer. Yeah, it was. It was an unusual position, but how does it get classified? In one hand, if I put my sporting director hat on and I'm overseeing the high performance department, I'm saying it is your job to prepare these guys for every position and girls for every position that they are going to be in in a game. Yep, it's your job to prepare that. And a soft tissue is a soft tissue is a soft tissue. So I can understand the general manager, sporting director, saying that and I will hold you all accountable for the injury that you did to our best um I love that that you did.

Jason Weber:

That's speaking from experience, right? So? You, you personally did it that is.

Darren Burgess:

That is one way to do it. Um, there are. There is no doubt that there are soft tissue injuries that are unpreventable. I think I've mentioned before when I first had my trips overseas, 2003,. I went to a conference in the UK and the guy speaking don't even know who he was, but he was a Fulham doctor at the time said put up a graph with a correlation between earthquakes and hamstring injuries, and it was a perfect correlation. I just thought that is brilliant. So I think you probably have to classify.

Jason Weber:

That's called for the nerds in the group that's called a spurious correlation. That's the technical term for that.

Darren Burgess:

They're not related. No causative relationship.

Darren Burgess:

We're going to get judged on those, but I agree with your caveat on them. So when you are getting judged, there'd be a big asterisk on them. Yeah, Because the reality is we're getting judged on them. So when you are getting judged, there'd be a big asterisk on them. Yeah, the reality is we're getting judged on them. The question I have for you, before you settle in on this hamstring one is on the weekend Arsenal played Manchester City. Yeah, Both teams reported to be you know, projected to be number one and two, in whatever order you'll take it at the end of the year. So a lot's on the line and Manchester City's arguably their second best player. But you know they've got so many of them. A guy called Rodri does his knee suspected ACL. The incident looks like an ACL. He's come out recently and said about the loads that they are under and the constant games and how he's fatigued. It's only around game five and he's already fatigued, maybe game six. He's already fatigued because of what they did over the.

Jason Weber:

I guess my question to you is Sorry, man go back Because of what they did over the.

Darren Burgess:

Oh, I'm sorry over the summer. Yeah yeah, champions League, yeah, yeah, the Euros, all of that stuff.

Jason Weber:

All of that stuff. Yeah, so the Euros are a big one.

Darren Burgess:

So they had no break, zero break. And it's getting worse and worse and worse. And I'm putting my Feef Pro consultant hat on here and some of his quotes have been amazing for the Feef Pro cause, because he's just come out and said they're treating us like animals and you wouldn't treat horses like this and all this sort of stuff Does his knee. Now that doesn't get included in fatigue-related injuries, but I suspect it does I think it should 100%.

Darren Burgess:

Now it's no one's fault, by the way. It's the fault of the people who are arranging the match calendar.

Jason Weber:

Yeah.

Darren Burgess:

So, whoever they are, they're the ones that just keep putting games after games, after games after games. 100%. It's nothing to do with Manchester City's people and the way they manage them.

Jason Weber:

No, no, but let's go back to our normal. You know we're not judging people, but just use the hypothetical of the situation. The coach at some point has a and I think man City's coach at some point has said he pulled players out some weeks ago, I thought but they have the option, based on whatever data they have available, to say, hey, this guy needs a spell. Now the question would be are they doing testing at some point that provides an insight? Now, I'm not saying this happened, but it does happen.

Jason Weber:

Sports science guy or head of performance or director, whatever, gets some information, some solid information, to say this guy's gassed right. We've got a couple of bits of evidence that are saying, hmm, he's off. He's off by quite a margin. Goes to the coach and says, hey, this is where we're at. I recommend this course of action, maybe one game off. Coach says no, he's got to go. So that, then, is also a challenge, because, from a decision perspective, the director of sports done his thing, he's delivered the appropriate recommendation, but the coach doesn't take it right. So then you end up with an outcome that could have been averted but is not.

Darren Burgess:

So this is like our 30-minute podcast, where I could just get started on this because this is exactly what I do for FIFPro and talk about it and if anybody wants the FIFPro workload report. It is a thing of beauty and it's scary as all hell. We're going to have players this season from man City, chelsea plus some of the other big Spanish clubs who are playing around about 81 games in a season, which is madness.

Jason Weber:

And you'd say that pretty much mostly 100% game time.

Darren Burgess:

Well, this is the thing that we are just and we've put together a high-performance advisory network, and one of the things we discussed on our last meeting was match minutes is one indicator of load how many minutes you played. But let's paint the scenario of Rodri playing. They played in Europe midweek and I don't even know if this is true, so we're just speculating by the way, we're just making stuff up.

Darren Burgess:

Yeah. So he comes off the bench and plays 15 minutes and you as a sports scientist or a performance director, go great, we've managed his loads. Fantastic. Big pat on the back, we got through. Okay, coach is happy, we got Arsenal on the weekend Magnificent.

Darren Burgess:

He's still travelling from wherever they were in Europe on Wednesday night. He gets back on Thursday morning at 3am or he stays over there and flies back, gets back mid to late Thursday. So there's the effect of travel, there's the effect of poor sleep. 15 minutes of game time, the stress and the mental load of watching a Champions League game midweek All of those things are important. Travel wherever they travel to.

Darren Burgess:

Then he's got to then get himself up for the next game. So, even though match load like four minutes, yeah, that's a factor, of course it's physically more important but mentally demanding to sit on the bench, be watching the game, be thoroughly invested be when am I going to come on? When am I going to be needed? Coach annoying fitness coach says to warm up every 15, all of that stuff. So it all comes in. So then my question becomes if what you decided or what you suggested happened and the sports scientist says I'm just seeing something in Rodri. That is not quite right and goes to the sporting director, and she then goes to the coach and they have a discussion and say Rodri's too important, we're going to play him. Yes, the sports scientist has done their job, whoever that is. And then the sporting director she's done her job by taking it to, in this case, pep Cardiola.

Jason Weber:

Yep.

Darren Burgess:

Because we're making it up, yeah, yeah, I just want to say that, again, we're just dressing this up. Exactly. That's a really common scenario, by the way. That plays out, yes, in your experience.

Jason Weber:

Yeah.

Darren Burgess:

My question then goes back to what the hell are we testing and can we rely on it? So, um, I agree, but for, um, hamstring, we are testing the strength of the hamstring and suggesting that that may or may not have a impact on them being injured, and I think we can all say that hamstring strength and flexibility is pretty well related to injury. So there, so there's some sense in that it's not categorically related. And I'm not drawing breath here, so you're not getting a word in yet, but I'm going to stop in a minute.

Jason Weber:

No, no, no.

Darren Burgess:

Reaction time, drop-jump testing. Motivation comes into it all. How the hell can we tell if Roger is fatigued? Are you taking a breath, All yours, Jason?

Jason Weber:

I'm not. I'm with you, man, I'm with you. I think what you're describing let's just put it in one bucket it's called monitoring correct. We're monitoring our athletes to try and understand are they ready to go? There are inordinate number of means by which to monitor people, some of which we have no idea. We have no idea whether they're right or wrong, and we have these loose associations, some of which are just observational.

Jason Weber:

I think that running X number of meters of high speed is the magic number. You know, there's some limited research. I think it's extraordinarily complicated, darren, but I think we have to keep trying. Yeah, in terms of the sports science hat, what I would say and this is not an answer, but it's a methodology, so we've sort of intimated that there's a couple of points, there's a couple of data points. I think there's going to be more than that. I think what you're looking for for a solid read on a player is being able to describe a single you know situation from multiple perspectives, right? So that means that if we're trying to describe fatigue, we probably want to have three or four things lining up that are supporting the observation that this kid's got too much. Now, it might be a measure of hamstring strength, it might also be. He comes in and his HRV which you've been doing on whatever ring or however you do it is off by a mozza. He comes in. Now I'm a big believer. I'm a big believer Two parts of monitoring.

Jason Weber:

There's data and there's human. You've got to be able to report the human. When you see behavioral changes in an athlete, for instance, they're normally quite gregarious when they come in. They're saying hello, they come in. They're normally quite gregarious when they come in. They're saying hello. They come in, they're really quiet and they're just not saying anything, or the opposite they tend to be normally quiet, then they're snappy and snarly. They go to get the physio and get strapped and the guy blows up at the physio. They're all important indicators.

Jason Weber:

So I think I'm not going to sit here and say I know all the tests that can be done. I don't by any stretch. But I think, whatever methodology you're choosing and I do think we have to continue to pursue this as sports scientists we have to keep going down the path, but you have to describe it from multiple angles. Now, look, I'm going to sit here and say I think there's elements of speed sig in this, and there is, but I created that for the exact same reason.

Jason Weber:

We can't sit on what we've got and say we have force plates and we have Nordbord, therefore we have everything. You know that is absolute malarkey. I would have used a stronger word, but I'm trying not to swear you. Take the force plate, for example. I did jumps and hops for many, many years and I think there's a great place for them. But the reality is players that do it three or four times a week get sick of it, and I've seen plenty of guys who can jump, go mate, I'm not interested and they jump and then all of a sudden you go. Well, all right, the data's down, but is it because he's fatigued or because he's just over it? It's the same thing for wellness ratings for subjective ratings.

Darren Burgess:

I love the way I look People out there are going. No, not my group. My group's an educated group and my group.

Jason Weber:

Give me 100%. No, your group too. Give me 100%. No, your group too. I've got mate. I can name two great Australian athletes who, on wellbeing, gave me a five every day for years on end. And it's like, what do you do with that? Like, how do you even there are players that that's going to work for players that won't. So I don't know that I'm helping anybody here by any stretch, as is typical, in two coaches and a coffee.

Darren Burgess:

We started on hamstring injury in Adam Thielen, the wide receiver. Slash tight end for the Carolina Panthers.

Jason Weber:

I hope he's not offended at that.

Darren Burgess:

We don't believe him In monitoring in the Premier League. But what I will say is this is where it's a real I'm a real advocate for not necessarily external people, but objective auditing of your processes. You don't have to bring somebody in to go. If you've got the money, then yes, please bring somebody in who's not in the mire that you might be by and getting confused and swamped with narratives. But if you don't have the money, somebody take a helicopter view. It might be a physio, it might be the dietician, it could be anybody and say, right, let's just do an audit of our processes to make sure that when we do make these decisions to hand that note to the sporting director and she goes off to the coach or whatever process you guys have, um, make sure it's a good process and they're well, not necessarily researched literature research, but you've done your due diligence on those figures, on that testing data and on those tests that you do.

Jason Weber:

Which means understanding what the effect size of that data is, what the standard error is, all that stuff. So if you don't know what that means, go and Google effect size, standard error of measurement. What I would say say let's do one more hypothetical darren, because this, this fits the bill right. So we've got a player in the afl grand final this week, sydney swans um callum mills, one of their captains. Great player, great athlete, blah blah blah Can't speak highly enough of him. I don't know the guy but plays awesome.

Jason Weber:

Now Callum was out with a shoulder injury earlier in the year. He missed 16 games. Now during that process he also got himself a calf injury. So then he's out for 16 games back-to-back. He comes back in at the end of the season when the Swans were hot, absolutely hot Comes in, he plays six games back to back. At the end of the sixth game, which was arguably one of their hardest of the season, he does a grade whatever 1B, 2a, hamstring in training that week, so conceivably, and I don't know all the nuances, but he's out training, not maximally, they're in the early part of the week and he pings a hamstring.

Jason Weber:

So now we're back to hypothetical. What would we be looking at how could we have prevented that? Now, I don't know what the Swans did and I'm certainly not commenting on what they do. They're a great institution. They do some fantastic stuff, but we're now hypothetical zone.

Jason Weber:

Kid's got. He's had a long period off from injury. He's already had one soft tissue. He comes back in plays six. So his loads are going through the roof week to week and arguably the hardest game of the year he plays in got some good minutes. Then he does a hamstring. That's one where I look at that, compared to where we started with the proximal hamstring, tendon stuff. I look at that one and go, yeah, we should be capable, we should be good enough to detect something there. That's my opinion. I think we've got to be good enough to get that one High value player, super high value player, extremely important time of the year. Now the Swans are deep, right. They got good players coming out of every part of their club. But what if it was a club who has just got in by the skin of their teeth and they need him? He's their number one guy. Now the grand final is going to be on day 18 of what you would argue is a 21-day hamstring. Do you go? Do you not go?

Darren Burgess:

Yeah, remember some of the commentary on that is they were bitten in the past by Sam Reid.

Jason Weber:

Yeah, Sam Reid.

Darren Burgess:

Was it 22? Yeah, they made a call on him and he just couldn't could barely move.

Jason Weber:

He came in. Yes, they played an injured guy, been out injured a long time, put him back in, but he'd also, Sam Reid, had a long string and that's another argument, another discussion a long string of multiple injuries that he couldn't get up it depends on the player Like I went board the listeners with the Stephen May story from the 21 grand final when we managed to get him up.

Darren Burgess:

But it depends on the player, his explosiveness, his mental aptitude for it, his level of doubt. Then you go through the objective testing regime and you know, generally speaking, if he can eccentrically pull what he normally can in terms of the numbers, if his running profile looks the same, if his speed exposure is adequate and if his max speed and max Excel data is good. Then you say, listen, coach, we think this player could play, but you sit down and have a conversation. So I'm sure whoever's involved in that discussion will have a pretty hard time.

Jason Weber:

You might make some moves to get him some less time, like try and start him off eventually and stuff, all of those things are doable.

Jason Weber:

But, more importantly, could we have prevented it? That's my question and I don't know it's sort of rhetorical and I don't know it's sort of rhetorical in what could we do as an industry if you want to call it that as an industry. How do we figure out that we've got to keep this guy on the field and every team comes to it at the sticky end of the year. Mls, major League Soccer, is coming up to that point in the.

Jason Weber:

US Baseball is at that point now. Major League Basecer is coming up to that point in the US Baseball's. At that point now, major League Baseball's coming right up to finals. I've just had one of the Major League teams I work with. They've just sent an old bull, like an older guy, back in Now. We did some speed sig stuff on him and we were like all of us looking at going. This is average. But the staff said look, he's been around for 400 years. He says he wants to go, he feels he can do it. You're not going to say no like to him in that situation, but could we prevent that hamstring? I'd like to say we should be able to.

Darren Burgess:

I'll answer it this way Using international soccer data. And we've got to finish on this because we're over the 30-minute threshold. But the game has got quicker, yep, a lot more sprinting in international soccer and I'm sure most other games are the same. The money in the game has gone through the roof the number of staff on average per club. So people like you and me and sports scientists and strength coaches and physios and doctors and biomechanists and all that sort of stuff.

Jason Weber:

Cultural specialists.

Darren Burgess:

Yes, cultural specialists has gone through the roof, and yet we're spending all this money in staff, and yet hamstring rates have slightly increased, even though we've spending all this money in stuff, and yet hamstring rates have slightly increased, even though we've got all this more research and everything. So there are just some that we just cannot prevent. And could we have prevented Mills, I don't know. Could we have prevented ones that the crows have had this year?

Jason Weber:

I don't know, mate, I'm going, gonna say I'm gonna get on my high horse because I think we we've got to figure something else out that's why I built that's why I built speed sig and I'm not.

Jason Weber:

This is, yeah, it's a gratuitous plug and all the rest of it I don't care, it's my podcast. But but let's take speed sig out, you've, we've, I think. I agree 100 with what you said. We're not the game's changing, but what are we doing to be better? Right? So we need to figure out, like, what's next? I get this question the other day from a dude in a very, very well-paid, high you know level gig. Hey, should I be using exponential waiting on my, uh, acute, chronic workloads? I'm like, fuck man, like you're in a big job, exponential waiting's been around for god knows how many decades. Like, like, why are you asking me this now? Like, where does that mean? As our industry, we're actually behind the eight ball.

Darren Burgess:

I think that's reasonable in part.

Jason Weber:

Some things aren't, mate, I agree. Some things aren't knowable at this point.

Darren Burgess:

We'll do a 2BC and update the loyal 17, 18 listeners on whether Callum Mills played on the weekend and how he was yeah, look my tip.

Jason Weber:

I think they'll play him and I think he'll do okay.

Darren Burgess:

I'm going the other way. I don't reckon they'll play him.

Jason Weber:

You reckon they don't.

Darren Burgess:

I reckon they don't. I reckon they've got enough talent and they were bitten by Sam.

Jason Weber:

Reid, they were bitten by. Yeah, okay.

Darren Burgess:

I reckon they don't.

Jason Weber:

Well, they got through 16 games without him. So you could be right there, but there are a multitude of things to discuss in this space, but I will say I will say I think somehow we've got to keep getting better.

Darren Burgess:

I agree.

Jason Weber:

We've got to get better. I'm not sure I've got ideas about where that is, but I think we need to continue to evolve and be better. And I will say close this out with one point which I think bears real relevance. Mate, you said something probably we go back in episode one or two about you going into a coach's office sticking a piece of paper on the wall and saying, when shit happens, we're going to look at these things. I think that's critically as important as anything. Getting the coach like if you come to coach under pressure and say, hey, here's this crazy metric we've got that, I think is telling us they're not going to listen. But if you've set that up and you've and I always think, mate, when you said that, I thought that was brilliant, but I think that's where your management skills come in.

Darren Burgess:

Anyway, that's for next time, exactly, right.

Jason Weber:

We'll reflect on that more. Mate, you've got maths homework to go and do. I've got an assault bike to go and assault and we'll catch you next week and given that it's already next week, we might have to do something.

Darren Burgess:

A bit sooner. Yeah, we might do something either late this week or yeah, it's been a pleasure, as always.

Jason Weber:

Mate, catch up you too, sir.