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Jan

Never Lend Books!

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I'd forgotten about these three books!

I let one of my former athletes borrow these a couple of years ago and just before Christmas he popped them round to me! I'd completely forgotten about them. They've not made it into the library that I compiled in the summer but they are crackers. If your Christmas money is burning a hole in your pocket and you are thinking about getting some books, check these three out.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Tough read but well worth it. Probably the first 'self development' book that I ever read. I spotted it on the bookshelf of one of my first mentors, Nigel Stockill. He's a sharp guy and has always offered me great advice when needed.

The E-Myth

Another one of my mentors, Alwyn Cosgrove suggested I read this book when I was thinking about leaving the English Institute of Sport to go it alone. It's a fantastic book and I reckon this is a book that's had a major influence on Alwyn's business model. Well worth a read.

Under The Bar

I bought this book for one of my S&C coaches (I have a Christmas tradition of buying books for my S&C coaches – not very rock and roll but it's all about development!). I took a sneak peak before wrapping it and purchased a copy for myself. Dave Tate brings together his experiences and offers some real pearls of wisdom. If you want to be successful then this is the book for you. One of Dave's rules on education and books is "Don't Loan It!" – I must have missed that bit!

Categories : career, coaching

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Dec

The Biggest Mistake You Can Make As A Coach…

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What's one of the biggest mistakes you can make as a coach?

Getting carried away with the whole 'specificity' thing is, in my opinion a big BIG mistake.

Whilst it's an important concept to understand we've been hijacked by the 'sports specific movement'. Far too many fitness coaches try and please the technical and tactical coaches by including drills that have less to do with strength and power development and more to do with the specifics of the sport itself.

All too often I'm asked by a sports coach if I've experience working or playing in a particular sport. I fail to see what relevance that has on my ability to develop an effective strength and conditioning programme. I'm being employed as a strength and conditioning coach, not a sports coach. If I understand the fundamental principles of training and immerse myself in the sport through a thorough needs analysis of movement patterns etc then I can coach an athlete in any sport and have a positive impact on performance.

I've worked in a wide range of sports (rugby, football, cricket, judo, rowing, wrestling, taekwon-do, squash, badminton, basketball, athletics, cycling, hockey, figure skating, gymnastics, wheelchair basketball, wheelchair rugby, swimming, equestrian, golf, triathlon, thai boxing…the list goes on) and I've only ever competed in one, taekwon-do. The fact that I'd never played netball didn't mean that I didn't know how to improve their fitness. The fact that I was a rubbish football player that couldn't get picked in my god fathers Sunday League team, didn't mean I didn't know how to prepare professional football players. Far from being a hindrance, going into a sport without preconceptions is often a real bonus.

Coaches need to remember this key fact…

Categories : coaching

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Dec

Winter Warmer

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I was pulling out a video of a training sessions for one of my clients and stumbled across this chestnut from my archives. This will get the blood pumping on a cold winters day.

Give it a go and let me know what you think.

Categories : coaching, fat burning, fat loss, functional training, metabolic circuits, Nick Grantham

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Dec

Three Things Every S&C Coach Needs

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I get asked every week by aspiring S&C coaches what they need to do to break into the industry. There's a ton of stuff that they need to do but when you boil it down I reckon there are three essential elements.

Let me know what you think – agree, disagree, or have I missed something?

Categories : career, coaching, fitness business strategies, Nick Grantham

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Nov

Up and Running Workshop – Recovery and Regeneration

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Runners – I know you love a bit of volume in your training and wearing that badge of honour on your chest that says I ran loads this week! Well, find out how I can guarantee to boost your performance next season by getting you to do nothing at all – yes – do less and get more……HEAVEN FORBID.

If you live in the North East of England you need to get over to the best Running Shop in Newcastle – Up and Running – Gosforth on Wednesday 7th December at 18:00 for a FREE workshop (people usually pay good money to hear me talk about this stuff and you'll get it for free plus there's some free mince pies knocking about and 20% off shoes, clothing and accessories……plus free gait anaysis! You would be daft to miss it!)

Categories : elite athletes, functional training, injury, Nick Grantham, Programme design, recovery and regeneration, Recovery Pyramid, seminars

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Nov

Programme Design: Sequencing – Superman just doesn’t get it!

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(now is it pants first then the unitard or unitard first then my pant…..damn if only I'd paid attention to Nick Grantham…)

He may have superhuman strength, be able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, use x-ray vision to see all the good stuff and fly around the world so fast that he can turn back time, but Superman just didn't get sequencing. The guy walks around with his pants over his leggings – never a good look and a fashion fopar that could have been sorted out if he just took some time to work out what order he got dressed in!

I've spent the past six weeks delivering presentations on strength and conditioning and without doubt one area that leaves people scratching their heads is programme design. Now I'm not suggestion for a minute that it's simple, it's not but there are some things that coaches can do to make more sense of the whole programme design process.

I've put together a short video that will give you some simple questions to ask each time you sit down to write a training programme. The answers you give will then help shape the programme and make light bulbs burn brightly, shedding light on some of the more complex issues.

Watch the video and find out why you need to understand what your training priority is, the impact fatigue has on your programming choices and how adopting a conjugated approach will allow you to optimise your athletes training.

Let me know what you think.

Categories : elite athletes, functional training, Nick Grantham, programme, Programme design

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Nov

Swim Strength…

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In the quest for performance, swimmers typically cover thousands of meters in the pool (and I've still not worked out why 4km in the pool is a sensible distance for shorter distance events) with nothing more interesting to do than look at the ceiling or bottom of the pool. But according I'm going to show you how a properly designed land-based strength and conditioning program is essential too, and simple circuits on the poolside are not enough…

Land work for swimmers is becoming increasingly popular, although it is by no means a new concept. Researchers and swim coaches have been expounding the virtues of ‘land based’ training since the late 1970’s ^{(1,2,3,4,5,6 )}However, many ‘land based’ training programmes that I come across simply don’t hit the mark when it comes producing a really positive impact on performance.

Most coaches pay lip service to strength training by simply ‘bolting on’ a circuit session at the end of one of their pool sessions. Although well intentioned, they try and cover everything from injury prevention and rehab through to power development in one 30-minute training session a week. This is better than nothing and can be a good starting point. However, the purpose of this article is to provide you with an overview of some of the key strength and power development strategies that coaches and swimmers can implement to get maximum bang for their buck.

Sport specific vs. transfer of training effect

Before we discuss the areas that can have the largest impact on swim performance, we need to clear a couple of points up. Sport specific work is the best way to get better at that sport; if you want to be a better swimmer, then swim! But how can you make additional gains when you have maximised your swim time? One way is to add ‘land based’ training. However, the big problem is that coaches often fall into the trap of being ‘sport specific’ when designing their strength training programmes.

The main problem with developing exercises that are really sport specific is that you may be in danger of harming the one thing that you want to improve – swimming technique and performance. For example, an ambitious young coach that I once worked with had developed some sport specific drills replicating the swim strokes in the gym – so much so that he even set a metronome to the exact stroke rate used by the swimmer in the pool to perform each repetition of the strength exercise!

But by getting so close to the actual movement pattern in the gym, you may actually start to interfere with the neural patterns being laid down during swim training and actually make the swim stroke worse. If you want swim specific strength therefore, do it in the pool. Research supports the use of resistance devices in the pool such as the use of a tether, or rope with a sponge attached etc⁽⁷⁾. But just lying on a bench in a gym trying to replicate your freestyle stroke to the sound of a metronome is wasting time and effort. What you should actually be thinking about is the ‘transfer of training effect’ – ie what exercises can I perform that will have transfer over to improved performance in the pool?

Where can the strength coach make a difference in the pool?

Research shows that decreases in swimming speed throughout a race are the result of decreases in the power-producing capacity of the swimmer (fatigue) and swim performance^(8). However, whilst this is an important area to consider when developing a swimming strength training programme, my experience working with elite swimmers indicates that there are two main areas that strength and conditioning coaches should focus on – starts and turns.

The training methodology here will not only improve your swimmers explosive power so that they can get off the blocks at the start of the race and explode off the wall at every turn, it will also have a positive impact on power production during the actual stroke, as well as injury prevention and rehabilitation. Research carried out in the former Soviet Eastern Block confirms that explosive strength is vital for the swimmers seeking a fast starting take-off, and strong push-offs with the legs on the turns⁽⁹⁾.

(if you start right….)

How do we improve strength and explosive power?

Almost all muscles are used in swimming, from the top of your head to the tip of your toes. This is exactly how you need to develop the strength and power required to get off the blocks and out of the turns as quickly as possible. Isolation exercises are a waste of time, because this is not how the body works. Box 1 below provides just four exercises that all help develop explosive starts and turns.

You will note that all of these lifts are bilateral. I’ve assumed that you will have already developed appropriate levels of unilateral strength before embarking on these more advanced techniques. If you adopt the increasingly fashionable track start for getting of the block then you will want to include several unilateral versions of the lifts described in this section to increase the transfer of training effect.

Squat (front or back, overhead)

While there are many variations, the basic squat is the foundation for nearly every functional movement involved in developing the all-important ‘triple extension’ required for fast starts and quick turns. Not only do you get all of the benefits of the more traditional back squat but you also start to train the recovery phase of the power clean (another core lift for developing explosive power).

Deadlift

Another great exercise for developing the strength needed to go from a ‘dead’ start, as well as being the start point for the key Olympic lifts such as the power clean. Deadlifts are a simple exercise really, made difficult by over-trying and over-thinking:

Jump Squats

The jump squat is a great exercise in its own right, but can also be used with a conventional squat as part of a squat ‘complex’ or ‘superset’ (ie perform a set of squats then with minimal rest, perform a set of jumps squats). Using complexes allows you to develop the strength qualities of the lower body using the squat and then exploit the explosive properties of the lower limb using the explosive squat. You can use bodyweight or external loads (barbell/dumbbells), just make sure you don’t compromise technique for load.

Stiff-leg Deadlift

This is an advanced lift and requires great hip/hamstring flexibility and the ability to maintain normal spinal curvature. It’s an excellent choice for developing the swimmers posterior chain.

Olympic Lifts

We can’t talk about explosive power development for swimming without discussing the Olympic lifts. A lot has been said about the efficacy of the Olympic Lifts (clean, jerk and snatch), and whether or not they have a role to play in the development of sport specific power.

I like to use these lifts with swimmers, but they are advanced lifts. If you are not confident in the coaching of these advanced lifts you will still be able to develop power using the four lifts outlined earlier in. They are important lifts for developing triple extension but it is important to realise that they are not the be all and end all.

Programming

Simply having a collection of exercises that you can use as a coach to develop your swimmers strength and power is a bit like having a recipe and only knowing the ingredients. What you need to know is how to put it all together – how much of each ingredient should you use, in what order and for how long.

The key thing to remember when putting together a strength program for a swimmer is that it is not your job as the strength and conditioning coach to overload the swimmer with even higher volumes of training. Your swimmers’ strength programs should focus on developing strength and explosive power, which means, high intensity and low volume training. Box 2 (below) shows how these exercises can be combined:

Programme Design Principles

Sets

When developing strength and power, your swimmers should be working low reps, which means they will be able to use more sets. You should be looking at no more than 20 sets per training session, which limits swimmers to around 4-7 exercises per training session (that’s why you need to pick exercises that are whole body to give you maximum impact). Remember you are not ‘isolating’ muscles, so there should not be lots and lots of exercises in this type of programme.

Reps

Your swimmers will be working within the 1-8 rep range. If they are developing ‘absolute’ strength they will work at the top end of the rep range (between 5-8 reps). To improve their relative strength, they will need to be working at the bottom end of the rep range (between 1-4 reps). The total number of reps for a session will be between 12-100 reps.

Recovery

Strength and power development is intense. The very nature of this type of training requires greater recovery periods for the musculoskeletal and neural systems. Anything from 2-5 minutes recovery between sets is acceptable.

Training tempo

Most programmes I see begin and end with the above three programming principles. A lot of coaches neglect the importance of lifting tempo. For muscles to develop strength, they need to spend time under tension (TUT). Tempo is simply a method that good coaches use to adjust the duration of the rep (ie TUT).

It is typically written as a three digit formula: Eccentric: Isometric pause: Concentric. When it comes to strength development the TUT for a lift may look like 2 0 1 (3 second lift with a longer eccentric phase, no pause and a quick concentric phase. If performing an explosive movement you may simply use an ‘X’ to indicate that the exercise is performed as quickly as possible.

Is the use of tempo necessary? Some will argue that it over complicates the programme, but my argument is that at the very least it informs the coach and swimmer how you want the reps to be completed. There is a huge difference in training effect if you complete a squat with an X 0 1 tempo compared to a 3 2 3 tempo. The first will develop explosive strength; the second will develop control and stability!

Summary

As a coach you need to start thinking about how dry land training can influence swim performance, decide on the exercises you are going to use to develop the appropriate strength and power qualities, before finally putting it all together using the training principles outlined in this article. Circuit based training sessions still have a place in the overall swimming programme, but you should be thinking about incorporating some of the lifts outlined in this article into a specific strength and power training session.

References

1. NSCA J; 1 (3): 8–11, 1979

2. NSCA J; 3 (5): 36–46, 1981

3. NSCA J; 2 (1): 24–26, 1980

4. NSCA J; 6 (2): 48–51, 1984

5. NSCA J; 9 (3): 38–41, 1987

6. J Strength Conditioning Research; 8 (4): 209–213, 1994

7. J Strength & Conditioning Research; 20 (3): 547–554, 2006

8. Med & Sci in Sports & Exer; Sept 38 (9). 1635-1642, 2006

9. NSCA J; 8 (2): 56–57, 1986

Categories : coaching, elite athletes, functional training, intensity, Nick Grantham, programme, Programme design, swimming, triathlon

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Nov

I Pity The Fool…

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(I pity the fool that doesn't sign up to Nick and Duncs mentorship programme – urghhh)

OK, I'm sorting out a few bits and pieces before I head down to the UKSEM Conference in London where I'll be delivering two workshops. I'm really looking forward to this conference, it was cracking last year and the line up for 2011 is pretty damn good (no wonder it's Europe's largest sports science and medicine conference).

Anyway, I said last week that I'd finally managed to get Duncan French to fix some dates in his diary so that we could deliver our second mentorship programme.

We ran one back in September 2010 and it went down a storm, so much so that we intended to run another one in 2011 but our schedules went crazy and we just couldn't get three days where both of us would be in Newcastle at the same time. So, we've managed to set a date for 2012.

March 30th – April 1st 2012

(now do you see the link between the date and Mr T's famous catchphrase – I don't just make this stuff up as I go along you know!)

This is going to be the only mentorship programme that we run in 2012 (Duncan is flat out working wonders with Newcastle United and I'll be AWOL between May-August preparing the GB Basketball team for the Olynmpics).

We can’t accept applications for the Spring programme after the 15th January 2012 and the next programme won’t run until 2013, so check out what we are going to cover in March and get yourself up to Newcastle for 3-days of hands on learning, backed up with solid theories and principles.You may even get time to have a night oot on the toon!

If you are thinking about booking on then follow this link for full details of the programme. If you have any questions you can fire them over to me on this e-mail address info@nickgrantham.com

>>>Performance Training Mentorship Programme<<<

I'm not going to do some long sales page – not my style. Bottom line is that if you want to learn directly from two coaches that are out there delivering on a day to day basis rather than a here today gone tomorrow internet guru you'll sign up! Simple.

Here's what the 2010 intake thought of the 3-days.

You'll all know my credentials but if you want to find out more about Duncan check out his website www.duncanfrench.com where you can check out his background and see that he is the real deal!

Categories : career, coaching, Duncan French, elite athletes, fitness business strategies, functional training, Nick Grantham, programme, Programme design, recovery and regeneration, seminars

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Nov

Tool Boxes – Haynes Manuals and Coaching Workshops

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I'm currently right in the middle of a pretty busy speaking schedule which thankfully eases up just in time for Christmas (sorry for saying the C word in November) and I've been beavering away this week, sorting out the next couple of months speaking schedule. You can take a look at how the next couple of months are shaping up and see if I'm going to be visiting a town near you! Anyway I Last weekend I travelled down to London to catch up with Jean Claude Vacassin (JC) and Sebastian Cormier (everyone in London has fancy Dan names!) to deliver a 2-day workshop.

JC and Seb are both based in London (JC – W10 Performance and Seb – Marylebone Physiotherapy and Sports Medicine) and figured it would make perfect sense to organise a 2-day workshop for their colleagues. Day 1 was all about rehab and reconditioning, aimed squarley at the physio's, pilates instructors and sports therapists based at Marylebone Physio (we had a bunch of S&C coaches and PT's in the mix too!) whilst on the second day we mixed it up and looked at Performance Based Training and how to optimise the training process, whether you were working with athletes, or general population. What I liked about this workshop was that it was hosted in a training venue with the coaches that operate out of them. We weren't stuck in a conference facility, we we're in the gym, on the floor, getting stuck in. What a fantsastic venue as well, W10 Performance is the brain child of JC and he's worked incredibly hard since attending my 3-day mentorship programme here in Newastle to revolutionise how he delivers coaching to the great and good of west London. The gym is buzzing nicely and I've come away from the workshop with some useful tips from JC and his team (every day is school day).

Anyway, I'm waffling! On the train ride back to Newcastle I had time to reflect on the weekend and work out exactly what we had achieved. On reflection, the key message that I delivered was this:

I know I'm not the first person to use this quote bit it hits the nail nicely on the head. We spent pretty much the whole weekend talking about training 'principles' and hardly looked at specific 'techniques' (although we had some fun during the Saturday practical looking at some of my favourite training techniques).

Why did we spend so much time on what is often thought to be the 'boring stuff"?

Well, there's no point simply picking up techniques without understanding the principles that allow you to apply them and get results.

Imagine I'm a mechanic and I've been given the task of stripping and rebuilding an engine. Where would I start? Well if I take the approach that a lot of fitness professionals adopt, I would start by picking up lots of training techniques. This is a bit like the mechanic opening up a nice shiny toolbox packed with loads and loads of tools. It looks good, but to be honest I have no idea what most of the tools do or how to use them. Even worse, I focus in on one tool/training technique (heaven forbid you become the kettlebell guy etc)…what is it they say, if you only have a hammer, everything looks like a nail! Sound familiar? I see people hitting the streets on a regular basis with a good knowledge base on all the latest training techniques but without a clue on how to use them.

So here I am with lots of techniques but no idea how to apply them.

(Impressive toolbox!)

The next step is to get some instructions. As a mechanic with loads of tools I reach for my trusty Haynes Manual to work out how to strip an engine. Now, I'm of a certain age where I've actually stripped an engine with my dad on our driveway and I can tell you that whilst the manual is helpful, it's not a bit like real life! The reality is that it's bloody messy, fiddly and never goes according to plan…oh and you always have nuts and bolts left over at the end!

This is the next stage where coaches go wrong. They are still focusing on instructions on how to execute techniques. DVD's, training manuals, equipment workshops etc all add some knowledge to show you how to use a technique, but they still miss the most important thing.

PRINCIPLES.

Coaches understand what to use (the techniques) and how to use them but they fail to appreciate the WHY.

This is what we spent 2-days covering in the Integrated Performance Training workshop. I spoke, at length, about the fundamental training principles because this is the missing link that I'm seeing over and over again in newly qualified fitness professionals. They know what a vibration platform looks like and how to swing off a suspension trainer. They may even know how to follow a programme that they've picked up in a training manual but where they struggle is to understand and appreciate the FUNDAMENTAL TRAINING PRINCIPLES that make sense of everything we are trying to do as a coach. You need to understand WHY you are doing something if you really want to have an impact.

The problem is that learning WHY (the principles) ain't sexy….so why bother.

Well, Ralph Waldo Emerson can tell you why.

The path to being a great coach is to truely understand the fundamentals of your profession – forget about filling your toolbox full of tools – they're no use unless you understand the how's and more importantly the WHY's.

See what coaches think when you spend time to show them the fundamentals…