It's fitting that I should start talking about these now given our current situation. It's not some new phenomenon like you might think, it's just rarely spoken about because it's poorly understood. Some of my own clients would have experienced using some form of isometrics but more so from a 'potentiation' perspective and getting them ready for higher velocity work. However, they are ever so convenient for most of us who no longer have access to heavier weights and are keen to maintain, or even build strength without setting foot in the gym again.

Disclaimer: Without certain pieces of equipment we will never be able to optimise these, but with a little imagination we can get pretty close.

If there's a silver lining to be found in anything, I'll find it. Having the extra bit of time during lockdown has been a god send for me (and you). Extra time to absolutely nerd out on reading research papers and brush up on some of the stuff that I haven't particularly looked at in quite a while. Recently I've been looking into isometric muscle contractions and their role in maintaining/developing strength and including them in a programme with plyometrics and speed work. No matter how far I go down the rabbit hole , it all ends up back in one place, The Brain & The Nervous System. In  reality, when we talk about sports performance from a physical and a technical/tactical perspective we can't get away from the fact that The Brain rules everything. This article should help shed some light on that!

In the majority of field sports, the victor is usually the athlete who can get from A to B in the shortest time possible. Being able to get to the ball before your opponent, getting into position quicker, making a 40 yard defensive run to win back possession, all critical moments in a game. These are the moments that can decide whether you're on the winning or losing side, I know which side I'd prefer to be on. Understanding how different factors can affect your overall speed is crucial for developing an effective training programme.

The second most important thing to understand is that there are vast difference between elite level sprinters and field sports athletes. Think about the amount of times that you will reach top end speeds? The likelihood is that you probably won't, and if you do, it will probably be because someone made a mistake on the pitch and you're bustin' your ass to try and recover for them. Everybody remember the time Cristiano Ronaldo raced a Spanish sprinter and was quicker than him around slalom poles? Is Ronaldo quicker than the sprinter? No he's not. But is he more efficient at accelerating, decelerating quickly and then accelerating again? Absolutely yes, and it's what makes him one of the best athletes in the world. Anyways, the point is, that instead of looking at top end speed improvement, the majority of your focus should be in the acceleration phase of sprinting. Everything less than 40m should become your sole focus. Anything outside of that would be a waste of precious training time to produce meaningful improvements in your specific sport. Accelerating, decelerating and changing direction is what will determine your success in your chosen sport. Not becoming a world class elite sprinter.

Now that that little introduction is out of the way, we can get into the meat of the dish. What factors affect our ability to accelerate quickly, what can we affect and what can't we?

Injuries are the worst - at least for those of you who are consistently active and train regularly. It might be an over-exaggeration but that's how it feels. Obviously, there are many things happening in the world on a daily basis that are far worse than being injured for a smaller period of time, but we tend to not think like that.

82 Days & Counting​

So, I've been through the acceptance phase, the worry phase, entered into the denial stage for a while and cycled back through the worry phase again. Finally, I've gone through acceptance again and it's time to put things right, nutrition wise.

So, the initial shock is over. You've been in and out of hospital, the grade A painkillers have worn off and you're starting to get into a routine. You've spent the past few days answering phone calls as the news slowly drips through your various social circles, family/friends and social media. You're inundated with get well soon and best wishes. I AM GRATEFUL FOR EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM! The dust finally starts to settle and reality begins to set in.

When it comes to understanding various things in health and exercise science, there are few basic principles that people must know. One of them is basic energy conversions in the body and how that helps various processes. In this article, I'll aim to both simplify it as much as possible but also give you as much information as I can. Whether you're an aspiring S&C coach or your a student who does science in school you can benefit from this.

Although it is one of the most extensively researched supplements on the market, it still gets a lot of hate. There are numerous myths and fallacies surrounding creatine and most of which are untrue.

In the last blog we spoke about how calorie intake and energy balance can affect weight gain or weight loss. The next important stage of evaluating your nutrition is checking your macronutrient intake. Macronutrients are the groups that food is divided into based on their chemical structure. They are divided into protein, fat, carbohydrates. I have also added in fibre and water into this section as I feel they are just as important in the context of an all-round diet.

The problem people have nowadays is that the media has vilified each of the macronutrients and led you to believe that they are all bad.

"Fat increases chance of heart disease."
"High protein intake can damage your kidneys and liver."
"Sugar is addictive and causes you to gain weight."

Everybody has heard at least one of these in the past. The thing is they simple aren't true. While they originate from some scientific research, they are a prime example of the research being extrapolated incorrectly and a false conclusion being drawn. Each one of them has a place in your diet and I'm about to explain why. None of the macronutrients inherently cause you to gain weight, hence why we spoke about calorie balance first.

Over the next couple of days we are going to explore what really matters when it comes to nutrition. By the end of this series, everything will be a lot clearer and you will finally be able to structure your own nutrition regardless of your goal.

​Below is the different elements of structuring a nutrition programme for an individual, ranked in order of importance from most to least. The most important at the bottom and the least at the top. How many people have you known to ask about what supplements they should be taking, without ever having thought about the important things that precede it. Unless those things are in place and taken care of, then supplements are pretty much null....

When it comes to nutrition there's a tonne of places putting out information, but is it the right information? We have big TV companies producing shows but are they recruiting the right people to share that information. The reason I say this is because how many times have you been told something by someone in relation to nutrition, only for someone else to tell you something else contradictory a mere 60 minutes later? Trust me I hear it all the time. 

There isn't many things I haven't heard when it comes to nutrition from a variety of different people. But don't worry, once you've finished reading this (trust me you're going to want to keep reading), you'll know almost all you need to know about nutrition. Then you can get on with the more important things in life like enjoying yourself and not worrying about whether you can have that chocolate bar or ice cream at the weekend if you're trying to lose fat!

The rise in access to information regarding health and fitness over the last several years can only be described as a good thing right? Yes, to a certain extent. If your an athlete, then it may be doing you more harm than good to pay too much heed to most of this information. What I'm referring to is the tendency for athletes involved in sport to mould their own training programme mirroring that of their favourite insta star or youtube sensation. The problem arises when they start training more like a bodybuilder focusing more on body composition and less on developing the necessary components that will contribute to athletic success. This latest addition to our blog is going to cover one major detail that very rarely gets discussed in relation to athletic development and sports performance, the Force-Velocity curve (below).

When it comes to macronutrients, protein is king. The role of protein in the ​diet is critical for both health and sports performance related reasons, reasons for which do not get discussed enough in the media unfortunately. One of the main reasons for ingesting protein is to stimulate a process called muscle protein synthesis (MPS), which is responsible for the construction of new muscle fibres. It achieves this, along with a whole host of other things but for simplicity of reading and understanding I am going to right this in respect to building muscle.

So you've come to the end of your long season and now your looking at 2 months off and your wondering what you might do. Some people continue to play throughout their off-season, some people take a complete break. Is there a right or wrong thing to do? It depends, if your looking for recommendations on what you can do to fill in the gaps or to get the most out of your break then this is the space for you.

Topics of discussion:
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1. Rise of mental health issues.
2. Benefits of physical activity on mental health.
3. Mechanisms through which physical activity improves mental health.

The first important thing to discuss is that physical activity can take many forms. It does not have to be planned execution of a training programme. It can be spontaneous unplanned activity anywhere that involves physical exertion. Following on from a short discussion on our snapchat recently, it lead to the development of this article to highlight some of the issues that our society now faces. With the explosion of social media, the constant comparisons to instagram stars and the pressure of ones social status with their peers gives exponential growth to the amount of people suffering from mental health issues. Read on below for more.

Landing mechanics are exactly as they are implied, the mechanics of movement during the landing phase of a jump-landing movement. The importance of these are that nearly every sport (bar a select few) involve some sort of jumping-landing manoeuvre. The more prevalent these movements are, the more important correct landing mechanics become. These can also be extended to any movement which follows a land like changing direction or sprinting as your landing sets the foundation for the movement that follows. The following discussion will take you through exactly what you need to know both as a coach and as a players so you can better understand why they are significant.

In part 1 we spoke about what the core was. We gave a detailed outline of the muscles/actions involved in the core musculature to set the foundation for the following discussion. It is recommended that if you haven't read it, you get over and read it right now by clicking here.

The anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) is one of the most commonly injured areas of the knee. For those of you who have sustained one, will know it's a difficult (but not impossible one to come back from). There are roughly 1000 new ACL injuries every year in Ireland. So with approximately an 80% success rate from surgery, that's almost 200 people every year who may not play sport again! Not even beginning to talk about the implication to movement alone, work etc. So let's talk about it in more detail.

The human body contains many types of bone. Long bones, flat bones, short bones and sesmoid bones. For the purpose of this explanation we will focus on one of the long bones of the leg, the femur (or the thigh bone). Bone itself is made up of spongy bone (found within the bone), compact bone (the material that gives bone it's strength) and the marrow cavity found within.

Homoeostasis, is a mechanism within the body that keeps physiological processes functioning optimally. Stressors, are external events which essentially alter the processes in some form. For example, the weather becomes really hot and you begin to sweat. The stressor here is the heat, the homeostatic response is the body producing sweat to act to cool the body down. The human body is an amazing thing, constantly changing and adapting to the external environment to contain and preserve its internal well-being. ​

With any luck you have been following the previous two parts to this series. (Read Part 1 & Part 2). We have covered the benefits of the warm up and outlined how to build your own  effective warm up. 

"But you said that younger players don't need to warm up before activity?"

No, we said they didn't need to perform specific stretching/activation exercises. In the third, and final part of this warm up series we are going to give you some examples of warm up games that you can implement with younger age groups. On the up side, these games also work with older age groups! The great thing about these games is that they are fun. They are not coached which provides the players much needed free play before training. But, there are several benefits hidden within them that make these games invaluable to any coaches tool box.