So I'm sat in my hotel room in London having presented at the UKSEM conference (the largest sports medicine and science conference in Europe) trying to get my head around a thought provoking seminar from Frans Bosch - Are you setting your athletes up for failure using eccentric loading?
At the moment everyone is looking at eccentric loading to help reduce and rehabilitate hamstring injuries but Frans has just thrown a huge curve ball. It's not eccentric loading that we need to focus on. We need to load the hamstrings isometrically.
He presented some very good arguments and I'm going to have a chat with a colleague that is working in rugby and using the techniques with a national team. Once I get a feel for the training parameters I'll let you know what I think.
It was a great afternoon and I really enjoyed listening to Vern Gambetta and Kelvin Giles present. Two coaches that have probably forgotten more than I know! They were easily two of the most passionate speakers that I've listened to in a long time. I think that spending more than 40 years on the floor coaching gives you the confidence to say exactly what you think without worrying what others will think. Superb stuff.
I enjoyed being the warm-up guy for Frans, Vern and Kelvin.