Two Coaches & a Coffee

The Three Conflicts of Modern Sports Performance

• Darren Burgess & Jason Weber • Season 2 • Episode 40

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Unlock the secrets to more effective sports performance as discuss the complex landscape of inference versus fact in sports science and conditioning. Ever wondered how missteps in methodology can lead to repeated injuries? This episode promises to challenge your understanding and urge you to adopt a more critical, fact-based approach. As we navigate the nuances of performance monitoring, from eccentric hamstring tests to leveraging GPS data, you'll gain insights that could revolutionize your practice and make injury prevention more precise and effective.

As we further explore, the spotlight shifts to the synergy between medical and performance teams and the vital role of collaboration. Learn from successful models like the University of South Florida, where cross-disciplinary leadership fosters innovation and understanding. We'll unpack the delicate balance of training load management and medical caution, underscoring the need for empathy and leadership. Concluding with a powerful call for reflection, I urge you to consider the conflicts and challenges that lie within sports performance. This episode is designed to inspire growth and practical solutions, setting the stage for transformative professional development in the field.

Sponsored by SPEEDSIG.com

Jason Weber:

Welcome to Coaches of a Coffee. Unfortunately, today we are one coach. I'm Dr Jason Weber. My off-sider, dr Darren Burgess, is not with me today, unfortunately. We're split by distance again. I'm on the road traveling at the moment for SpeedSeek starting to launch a few new products in the Northern Hemisphere, so we're on our way up to the UK and then back through to the US. But today, just a quick, short presentation.

Jason Weber:

I wanted to share some thoughts with, probably, the sporting community. We know that we've got somewhere approaching 20 listeners now, but I'm led to believe that many of those 20 listeners not many, but certainly some are general listening populations. So I apologise for those who might be entertained by Darren and I's banter. Periodically we might have something interesting to say along the way. This one's really dedicated or aimed at my professional brethren the strength and conditioning coaches, sports scientists and, to be fair, not to be fair, but to be honest medical staff. They are very much part of the system that we work in and that's also going to be part of what I'd like to talk about tonight.

Jason Weber:

So the topic in general is what I would call the three conflicts in sports performance. Now, having thought about this a lot recently, I've been trying to really think and dig down into where we're at and what we're trying to do and how can we move things forward. Because clearly, in my role now as a practitioner in private practice with SpeedSig, we're really trying to answer questions, answer questions and something I've pushed for a long, long time is driving sports science to be able to find solutions to problems that we have in industry, in our industry. Now, when you look at, I've been reading a book called the Lean Startup, which is obviously an entrepreneurial book, but it's about it's really more about management and management skills, and some of the things they discuss in there is really looking at a number of businesses that go to market with technology, with a good idea, but they're not specifically answering a question or answering a problem. Now that's what I think we end up with in sports science at times is we don't specifically address a question. We have technology thrown at us and people jump at the tech and then the possibility, but we're not specifically answering questions. So the three conflicts that I see currently in sports performance and it crosses everything from sports science to strength conditioning through medical the first is inference versus fact.

Jason Weber:

Now a lot of what we do in the monitoring of our athletes is inference based. Now, the number one vehicle that we use, gps, is not inference. You are measuring with a reasonable degree of accuracy what the athlete does. They run from point A to point B, how much distance did they do, what speeds, what reps, all that type of thing. That is not inference. That is measuring as best we can say a fact. But it is an inference when we do things like an eccentric hamstring and that's a clearing test for someone to go and run at speed. And I faced that recently. I had a professional soccer team send me some data and we examined, using SpeedSig and some other means, an athlete that had multiple hamstrings and that the core driver and the core API that this group used was the eccentric hamstring to say, look, we're going to get this score up and it's going to infer that he will be ready to run and he continued to strain his hamstring and ended up with five back-to-back. So the inference is that this metric that we have clears somebody to run. Now I'm not going to argue whether the eccentric hamstring has a place or not. That's for practitioners to decide. But the same same thing occurs when we look at isometric contractions hops, jumps. You know, bilateral dual force plates now are buzzed everywhere and we're able to we're supposedly able to detect fatigue. Well, again, we're inferring that the response that we're getting is actually driven by fatigue from a neural perspective.

Jason Weber:

Now, there's been lots of studies on that. I've been involved in some myself and there's obviously, yes, there is some inference we can take and there's some guidelines, particularly when we don't have anything else. And that's one of the problems we face is the inference versus fact. But my concern is that in our industry and this is what I would just throw out to people to think about, and Darren and I always do hypotheticals, so this is kind of the same thing I'm challenging people to think and it's exactly what I'm doing every day is to acknowledge what's inference and what's fact, and I think there is somewhat of a continuum from inference to fact. So I think if we're going to clear somebody to run, I think a multiple hop test is far better and far more meaningful than an isometric. But that's not to say that an isometric contraction isn't earlier in the progressions. So all of those things are relevant. But I think when we start trying to understand exactly what we're doing on the field and prevent injuries, keep our players on the field.

Jason Weber:

I think acknowledging what is inference and what is fact is critical. Now, clearly, there's an undercurrent theme to this and I'm not specifically developing this podcast to spruik speed, speed, speed, but it is unquestionably what I try to do. I try to move from inference which is, yes, we're doing hops and we're doing this and we're doing that when we start to run someone on the field, right, we can get more information about it If we can measure them while they're running. That's as close as we're going to get to the game. Speedsig doesn't work in a game or a training situation per se or a direct, you know, training simulation, but he works on straight line running. So, principles of first principle, rather that can they run, let's at least another piece of information that's along that continuum towards fact. But that's an incredibly important part of what we're doing. I would really think that the sports scientists in the community should be looking at that and should we really understand what is inference, what is fact?

Jason Weber:

The second of our three conflicts is accuracy versus practicality. Now, again, this is an area where, with burgeoning technologies getting thrust in front of us, what is the most accurate thing we can look at what is the most practical. Now, daniel Kellick from University of Western Australia, sophia Nymphos, along with their compatriots at Bath University, published only in the last couple of days a really, really good paper about the force vectors during running, and they did some really cool, uh, statistical parametric mapping. If you want to get in, you get your nerd on. Really, have a look at that. But great paper, great paper and uh, they were re, they were analyzing some of the daf, the data that steffi uh collier out of bath university and ryan aguirre had, um, previously done. That they did in a different way and that was awesome.

Jason Weber:

But in understanding all that and reading it, I probably come to the same conclusion. That I did is when I read JB Morin's work his technical application of force back in 2011. I loved it, I could see it, I understood it, it made sense. There was really, it was elegantly done, but what do we do with it? Because we can't measure in reality, in real world. So, while I could take daniel's perspective from his paper and I listened I loved what jb did back in the day, um, the question is a practitioner is what do we do?

Jason Weber:

What's the practicality of that information? And that's where we end up with particularly performance coaches start to build that into their logic and their philosophical functioning system. I think I did a podcast some months ago describing how to build your own philosophy and write it down and all the rest of it. You can go back and have a look if you are so inclined. But I think the idea that you build that into your philosophy is then how do you apply it? And that's where we end up in what I call water cooler conversations, because you start having conversations about well, hey, you know, according to Daniel Kallik's paper, we've got, as we go, faster. It's clearly got bigger braking forces and there's a bigger difference between braking and the mid-stance in vertical forces. How are we getting that up in the athlete? Is X equaling Y? Again, we're faced with that challenge of great information.

Jason Weber:

But then how do we measure it in the field? Now I can recall some years ago in the AFL I used to send all my ACL reconstructions up to UWA to do three-dimensional analysis of their knee in cutting in running and the data that came back was fantastic detail. But it generally took, you know, up to two weeks to get that data processed and reported on. But by that time the athletes already said okay, I'm ready to go, I'm ready to go. And I remember I stood in the coach's office and the athletes standing there going I'm ready, I've done the test, I don't give an F, I'm going, and the coaches tend to support the players. So the practicality of that test really fell away, despite the fact that the information was magnificent. So, finding that balance between accuracy and practicality, we have to be able to get information that we can use day to day If we're going to go back and inform that.

Jason Weber:

The inference versus fact again, it's just what level of reliability do we have? What's the standard error on these tests that we can get on the field? Now, that probably applies to some of the rugby teams in Australia, probably rugby teams this week doing Bronco tests. It's a shuttle run test that people are doing. Now I really advocate the idea of training. Is testing? Testing is training? The number of times that we see the athletes on testing day and for anybody who gets to watch the video I just made, bunny rabbit ears anyone on testing day they don't go quite so as well as they might have expected or hoped. We see it in the AFL quite regularly where we run a 2K time trial. Now, a 2K time trial is a race, it's not a test, it's not paced. You just go out and crank and so you could run the first k in world record pace and come around in a jog and finish in three minutes and be terrible. So the idea of standardizing everything as much as possible I know the same with a lot of people doing there's a lot of emphasis back on sub-maximum testing at the moment You're seeing that there's quite a few research papers about people doing different variances of it in leagues across the world, and, again, that's a great concept.

Jason Weber:

I think there's some real validity in that. But being reliable is the biggest thing, and making sure that when you're looking at data, you're comparing apples to apples, so to speak, and you've got real confidence that your baseline data that you're comparing to, compared to today's test, is a valid comparison. So then, the last of our three conflicts that we're going to discuss tonight is one that is probably relatively obvious to many, and I've seen this commented on in different places. It's the performance model versus the medical model. I think that is an ongoing conflict that exists across the globe. I see it with my position now, with what I do with SpeedSeed, with my position now, with what I do with SpeedSeed. I'm very privileged to be invited into many environments and to look and see what's going on and have discussions, and people are quite candid. There are some environments that are horrific.

Jason Weber:

Medical and performance staff are literally leagues apart so far apart. It's not funny. In fact, I saw one case this year where an athlete was recovering from an acl reconstruction. The athlete had no exposure to the performance team in the early phases. It had all gone through medical and the medical team handed him over to performance and said off you go, you'll be ready for you know whatever. They had a camp coming up in a couple of weeks and the performance staff just went out, weren't silly, went through some run throughs and just again we're in a position where they're looking at this going.

Jason Weber:

This is just not right and, as it turned out, it was a speed sig client. We were able to measure exactly what was going on and part of the speed sig logic is that if we can measure on the field, we should be able to backtrack and connect it to the other tests that we might have done. So in the ACL you're going to do your isometric tests of all variants, vertical and horizontal. You're going to have your hop metrics. You're going to be able to go through those KPIs and say did this person tick off and there were some failings there? Now that was just a bad system. This person tick off and there were some failings there? Now that was just a bad system. That's not bad people.

Jason Weber:

But even in the AFL this year we know, I know of conflicts where probably not professionally driven per se, but where there's personal ambition driving things, and then that can happen from the performance on medical side. This is not me berating medical by any stretch, but we do see and again the AFL if I use that as an example this year. The AFL had some trends this year where there were teams training once a week and there were some teams training twice a week and there were different ebbs and flows in how people and the results teams got. There was one team in particular that tried to overload change of direction. So not by doing more work in and around the game, they're actually doing overload conditioning work in change direction and caused quite a lot of injuries. So that's where you've got a performance model that's just gone berserk.

Jason Weber:

But on the other side of the equation you get the medical model where the docs, physios, have got the ear of the coach and they're saying like just reduce, reduce, reduce, let's keep him healthy, let's just keep him healthy and get him on the park. Now that becomes that classic perspective where your chronic training load even though not the greatest fan of how that's used, but that's nonetheless it suits the purpose here your chronic training load just reduces and reduces and reduces your training exposure totally across all means are compromised. Now I'm not suggesting for a second that we should in any way brush medical off. Medical is an absolutely critical component of what we do with our athletes and getting them onto the field in every sport and they work equally in balance with performance staff. But I think there's a. Sometimes there's a.

Jason Weber:

I'm often caught being zealots. Most professionals become zealots at some point and a zealot, by my definition, is around about that, probably mid-30s, maybe early 30s, where you think you know it all. You've been around a little bit, you've sort of seen it, you've figured it all out. I was a zealot for a bit, for sure, and unfortunately that's where you do need to have strong leadership around you to say, hey, pull your head in a little bit. You don't know everything. Slow down, cowboy, and let's get back on the path Now. Slow down, cowboy, and let's get back on the path. Now we get that.

Jason Weber:

We see that quite regularly in performance. I see it a lot. I've seen it in medical, where you have doctors or physios who are saying get to a little bit of experience and they start to think they're running the whole shot and they've got the overview of everything. But I think they're finding that balance and so I would encourage people that are in both disciplines medical and performance to work as hard as they can at being empathetic towards the other side and making sure you've got a model in your environment that really works with both a medical and a performance arm.

Jason Weber:

I know there's lots of great. I've talked about some bad ones, but there are lots of great ones. You've talked about some bad ones, but there are lots of great ones. Recently I'll call them out University of South Florida a big university, I suppose, but not a frontline Division I team, but I've had the pleasure of meeting their head strength and conditioning coach, the head of medical services and their rehab and had. The three guys are extraordinarily tight. So a shout-out to those guys down there Terence, kell and Gio Great, great practitioners, but a great program where everybody's working together. Now we see that in America that's quite challenging. I've seen another couple of good ones this year, but I've seen some bad ones where they're just the never. The twain shall meet, we'll do our thing, and then you can do your thing, which I don't personally, I don't believe works. So I would really encourage practitioners from both sides to learn the other side of the equation, which is critically important, and it's critically important from a leadership perspective.

Jason Weber:

If I go back to what I sort of said earlier about the book that I'm reading, you know, lean Startups, which is very much a management book. It's about getting your management skills. Now on Friday this week, darren and I will be getting together to do an extended version, an hour-long version of Two Coaches and a Coffee, which is against our grain, but we're doing it for Exercise and Sports Science Australia, for their high-performance management think tank, and one of the subjects we'll get to there is innovative leadership, and I think this comes back to. I'm not going to sort of spoil any of the bullet points we've got for that, but I would think if you're starting to push into that leadership space. It's how do I bring these people together? And one of the big things for me in getting medical and performance together is certainly professional empathy and empathy, understanding where they're at, understanding how they think. How do docs and physios diagnose, what are they looking at? How do we bring them together? And, I think, the ability to generate an environment where you're cross-pollinating. That's where the leadership needs to be at its best and it's certainly something that, if you're around, we're going to talk about.

Jason Weber:

On Friday we're going to be live with ESSA, but we will publish that podcast in a few pieces, because it's not our thing to do 60 minutes. We know Phil Coles is up there in Boston doing his training thing. He's got his 20-minute routine, so I'm probably getting pretty close to the end of that. I've got a few other people I know ride their bikes to work on this podcast, so we won't make it too much longer. So hopefully, this has been a bit of a thinking spot, a little bit of a brainstorm, a little bit of a whiteboard for people to think of.

Jason Weber:

So, mind, mind, three conflicts. It's both performance that we need to be looking at, inference versus fact, accuracy versus practicality, and performance versus medical Dwell on it right. Part of becoming better at your job is really having the time to sit down and think about what the problems are, what the solutions are and what your opinions are. Where do you sit? Where do you think these things sit? Now? You might, you know, consider that these things aren't worth reviewing. So be it, but you still should spend time, and I also did a podcast on time a little while back back in June, july, I think, or July, august. You need to have time to think and understand. If you're on the treadmill all day, you often don't get time to think and really consider. So have a think after this one, dwell on it, and we thank you very much for hanging out and we look forward to speaking next time.