It's been a pretty busy couple of weeks so here's what I've been up to.
I had 48 hours in Cyprus delivering my 1-day workshop on how to effectively integrate strength and conditioning into injury rehabilitation. Antonis from A-Z Physio Health was a superb host and we had a great mix of practitioners ready to learn how to write effective programmes and more importantly how to engage with their patients and make sure the programme actually gets done! We also had a strong representsation from the British Military. I always enjoy working witht the physiotherapists and exercise rehabilitation instructors.
John Noonan nominated me for the whole seven book in seven days with no explanation challenge thingy. I planned to do it properly each day, then figured I would start yesterday on #WorldBookDay - clearly failed so now I've decided just to put all seven up at once! Most of my colleagues seemed to have gone very 'route one' and blasted out loads of technical books or leadership books. I went for books I just couldn't put down. Some strong themes clearly emerged!
I think Nineteen Eighty-Four was the only book I read at high school! There are a couple of cycling books in the mix. The Lance Armstrong book got me back into reading - sorted out the first two days of a summer holiday in Crete and Graeme Obree is a cyslist that I loved watching race and the battles he had with Chris Boardman. Bravo Two Zero...well what a book that is! The final three books, Touching The Void, Between and Rock and Hard Place and Freefall are all books that are incredible tales of adventure...they also go to some pretty dark places. Sorry if you were expecting me to post Supertraining by Mel Siff etc!
I've been having a look at a couple of interesting research papers this week. The first is an old paper from Jill Cook looking at tendon loading.
'Rehabilitation will increase the 'capacity' of your ...insert musculoskeletal tissue here....'
Defining 'tissue capacity':a core concept for clinicians. Br J Sports Med December 2015 Vol 49 No 23
The second paper is bang up to date from Bowen L, Gross AS, Gimpel M, et al. Br J Sports Med - Spikes in acute:chronic workload ratio (ACWR) associated with a 5-7 times greater injury rate in English Premier League football players: a comprehensive 3-year study.
I've been looking at this paper as part of my preparation for the presentation I'll be delivering in April at the PLAE Lab in Loughborough on the 13th April. When you dig around the paper a little you get the key message for me...and one I've been banging on about in football clubs for years...
'training programmes should involve progressive exposure to higher loads to enhance physical capacities while minimising the risks associated with rapid, excessive spikes.'
I was back in Wales mid week to work with Rachel Atherton.
...and finally, I do like a flight with British Airways. Now I'm not some sort of mega entrepreneur but I do like to read their business magazine! I always find something interesting to take a photo of and have a good old read through. I particularly liked the idea of 'generative leaders'...if you want to know more about that then you'll either need to get yourself on a BA flight, or get yourself the Business Life App (probably cheaper!).