A

In this episode of the Training Science podcast, I sit down with Nick Grantham, lead strength and conditioning coach at Newcastle United, to explore what strength training really looks like inside the demanding reality of elite football. Drawing on almost three decades of experience across Olympic sports consultancy and professional football, Nick explains why the key challenge is no longer whether footballers need strength, but how to deliver a meaningful stimulus within congested schedules, limited training time and constantly changing player availability. We discussed his concept of of nano dosing, moving away from waiting for the perfect gym session and instead identifying small opportunities to distribute strength work across the week. Nick shares insight on minimum effective dose training frequency, intensity, exercise selection, post match lifting and the different strategies required for starters, subs and non selected players. The conversation also examines how Nick initializes strength programs, integrates testing into training, the balances development against maintenance and combines performance data with practitioner experience and direct conversation with players. Ultimately, this episode is about flexibility, preserving the fundamental principle of strength and conditioning while adapting their delivery to an environment that is unpredictable, congested and constantly disruptive. Hey Nick, good to see you. How are you this morning?

B

I'm really good, Martin. Thank you very much for inviting me to come and speak to you. It's been a little while since we've spoken to each other.

A

Yes, yes, as often too long between the catch up we've all been busy and actually you know what reignited my willingness to have another chat is because I helped my FOMO of having missed your talk at the sportsmith Conference lately in la, but also tidying this up to the chat we had because we caught up in Sweden a few years ago. You also gave a very good talk in Germany about the work you're doing in the gym and I've always had this formal not having enough from Nick, so I said it's a good time to bring you back on the stage. So yeah, long intro, but yeah. So you've been busy over the summer, right?

B

Yeah, it's been a busy summer. It's been good. I spent some time in Sweden with the guys at 1080 doing some sports clinics and talking to software engineers about the software side of their product and what we need from a football perspective to make it really fly for us and work for us in the field. So giving those practical examples to the engineers. And then as you said, I was very fortunate to be invited out to Los Angeles to speak at the sportsmith Conference. Rob always puts on a really great conference and it was an honor to sort of once again be out there on a Saturday closing the Saturday session out. So yeah, it was. I think it was well received. So it was good.

A

Yeah, no doubt. And that's definitely going to be the topic around the strength and your approach of the things today. But maybe would you just give us a bit of a background because like, people know what you do right now at Newcastle, but I know you have a very long and important career in other sports as well and everything. So I'd like just to have a quick snatch up of your journey so far, if you don't mind.

B

Yeah, so if we keep it nice and quick. So I've been lucky to spend the last getting on for 30 years now working in high performance sport. Started off predominantly in Olympic sports, so working for national governing bodies. And then I worked for the English Institute of Sport for a number of years before going out and working for myself as a consultant for about a decade. And then whilst I was working as a consultant, I started to work in an environment that I said I would never work in, which was football, because I was an Olympic sports person and football was the antithesis of everything I sort of believed in. But it's funny how it kind of grabs you. And sport is sport. And over the years spent more time working in professional football teams and national teams at age group level until my most recent appointment here at Newcastle, where I've been coming up to seven years now, which in professional football is a long time. So lead strength and conditioning coach for the first team, looking after those players and helping them prepare for mobile competitions and helping bring the strength conditioning program up to the level that's required to be able to compete across multiple competitions domestically and within Europe.

A

Yeah, that's awesome. And as I said, that's definitely going to be the main topic of the chat today. But also. And maybe we keep that for a bit later in the chat. You've done a lot around that as well. Of course. You have a book. I've been following your newsletter. So you've been busy on more. Not academic, because proper publication maybe not, but you have a voice. I always also admired your ability to put your thoughts together. Listen to a lot of podcasts, you've done some mentoring. So you've been outside of the gym definitely a lot.

B

Yeah, I think that really came from when I first started working. I started writing articles for Sports Injury Bulletin and Peak Performance way back in the day in their magazines. And then really when I was working as a consultant it was to keep myself working. And I've always. I looked someone like you in terms of like the proper academic work, but also been able to translate that into usable information. I wouldn't class myself as an academic, but what I think I am good at is finding unusual analogies and ways of getting the information across in a more practical way. So, yeah, like you say, I've published books and articles in and around strength, conditioning and performance. Probably in a more layman's language, I think.

A

Yeah. And was it part of the consultancy be for you to be more seen, I would say, or you would have done that anyway.

B

Yeah, that's an interesting one. I remember talking to Duncan French about this when we were at a conference and we were saying, why are we the ones stood on the stage talking? Because honestly, I'm not sure why I'm the one that gets asked. I don't think I ever set out to do that consciously, but I do enjoy it, you know, it's another form of coaching. So for me, my work is about helping people realize their potential. Whether that's an athlete realizing their athletic potential or whether it's helping coaches and aspiring sports scientists make their way in the field. Whether that's through the technical X's and O's and explaining that in a manageable way or working on those more sort of developmental career, mentorship type insights.

A

Yeah, but as you said. Yeah, that's probably why also people call you and maybe not others because they read what you have to say. And plus, as you said, the connection being in the trench, all this practical experience makes the perfect balance. You wouldn't like in the type of conference or the type of stuff we are interested in. We don't really care about those purely academic because it's always a bit disconnected. So you want people like you to bring. To bring the field and bring some depth and some thought. So I think it's the best way to do it. That's why I think both of us, we try to approach that.

B

Yes, absolutely. I think we share interest.

A

No, definitely. So on your innovation, I don't know if it's innovation, but of course we can start with this. But the word that cracked my interest when you started to say that. It's not even microdose, but now we are nano dosing and I thought that's a nice way. Start with that. But I might actually go back a little bit further, but about the term. So how did you come up with this term?

B

Okay, so this is. This is a bit embarrassing because it was a joke. We were sat in the office at the club and just being bombarded by microdosing. Every. Everyone's talking about microdosing. And really good work in that space. And this term kind of cropped up and we were deep in the middle of the Champions League and I was like, wow, I would love the time to microdose. I don't even have time to do that. We have to nano and pico dose. And it was kind of a tongue in cheek throwaway comment. But I think that is the actually the reality of what we're faced with and what I've had to learn and how I've had the transition from working in Olympic sports across four year cycles. We've really planned the perfect plans can be put in place where I've had to adapt and I think I've only really come to peace with that recently is that in professional football time is scarce. It's a really scarce resource. So to try and wait for the perfect plan is you're never going to be able to deliver it. So what we're always waiting for are those winning those moments, those nano and pico moments that in isolation don't really feel like a very substantial training dose but when you. The cumulative effect across the season is actually beneficial to the players. And it's taken me a long time to like I say be at peace with that. So yeah, that's. It came from a joke but it is founded in actual sort of scientific principles of what we're doing.

A

Yeah, no, no, I like it. And often stuff come from a discussion at the office. I have a few even title of papers that came from discussion with the colleagues and like the. I don't know, I had one. Houston, we still have a problem about sports science being in orbit. That's a chat with Ben Simpson and Mathieu Lacombe back in those PSG day and I was taking like those. I was telling them that those our colleagues were in orbit and how that we dropped the title like this. So I mean, yeah, long story was

B

always provocative and I like that. I think that's sometimes that's what you need to do. So yeah, I'm probably similar.

A

Yeah, no, no, it's cool. So I love it. And also having. So having not listened to your SportSmith talk, but having read your last newsletter, I like the way you frame it. You say almost that you went through a grief and you had to accept that you wouldn't be able to do those perfect four or five sets of more repetitions and this kind of stuff. And you say actually you should take that as a chance because there's still a chance to do something. That's the angle. I like the Angle where you said you change your mind as well about that, about complaining, then you're happy because it's more, it's better than nothing.

B

Yeah. One of my favorite authors is Brene Brown. And Brene Brown talks about the messy middle. And I know our first Champions League campaign, it felt like I was in the messy middle. And it felt like I was always wanting to try and deliver the perfect program and what I traditionally thought to be an appropriate strength stimulus. But because of the nature of the games every three to three and a half days and the competing time demands on the players, it just felt that every time I wanted to ask for the perfect program to be delivered, the answer was no. And probably with good reason because I was probably asking for too much. So it was almost reframing that and learning from that campaign and saying, look, the answer can't be no. Well, let's understand what we need to deliver, how we need to deliver it, and what are the opportunities within the day and the week to actually do that. And I think like you say, that grief is. It was almost letting go of what I believed was program design and just realized that actually we can win these moments, these small moments within the week. And the accumulative effect is, is going to be as good, if not better. So let's just find ways of dripping this work into the prayer. So the overall volumes may be the same across the season and you just go for that high frequency approach rather than the volume.

A

Yeah, that's a very good point about the total volume. That's something also you presented in Germany about the number of strength sessions. So I'd like to dive into that as well, if you don't mind, but maybe just let's go a little bit back as a start. And the question I have because, yeah, of course we're going to talk about strength overall, but maybe, you know, I can start with a bit of a naive question because, I mean, it's naive but it's still sometimes debated is do we really need strength to play football today?

B

Okay, that's a great question. I think so. When I first started in football, strength and power development was very much a novelty. Sometimes it still feels like that, but I think strength is an absolute non negotiable now. I think the game has changed. You know, we can look at, if I just look at one simple metric like sprint distance. Sprint distance over the last five seasons has increased year on year in the Premier League, it's gone up by 13%. And if you look at our team in particular, we've got up 22% across the five years. So we know that speed is a real differentiator in the game and to develop that, strength and power are intrinsically linked. So I think it's a very physical game in the epl. It's fast, it's dynamic. You have to be strong and powerful as a player. Now, technically and tactically, absolutely, you've got to be really gifted. But I think those qualities of speed, strength and power are really important. So I think we're sort of moving beyond that debate of do footballers need strength? I think the real debate now is how do we apply that strength stimulus in a congested season? I think that's the real question now. And I think that's where maybe strength and conditioning coaches have done a bad job. I include myself in that. Where we held onto these perfect programs and trying to deliver that probably did a poor job and we didn't meet the sport in their context. And I think that's where I've become much more relaxed now of. Let's have a look at the week. Let's look at the planned unpredictability within that. This is the stimulus I want across the season, across the week. How can I deliver that in a probably a more subtle manner? We're not just pitching everything on one strength session during the week now.

A

Yes. Yeah, maybe. And again, just before diving really into the stimulus and this kind of thing, if I just go through my line of thoughts when I asking, I said because I'm biased as you, that I believe it's important. But, you know, you still have. We have colleagues in maybe more south of Europe, you know, they don't really believe too much into that and the football is enough. The demands are so important because, you know, and also you have some studies backing up that if you look at fasciculence, sprinting also increases fasciculence. You have so many axial details that you maintain, you know, So, I mean, we have to admit people, biased people like the two of us, we have to admit that there are still other practitioners and a lot of players going through those academies and this kind of school of. Of conditioning overall, they go. They go through and even have good careers, very good, excellent carriers without having lifted. I think this is still a fact.

B

Yeah, absolutely. So I think. I think one of the key things is people's understanding of what strength is. So I know certainly when I've worked with colleagues and we said we're going to do a strength session, immediately everyone thinks about lifting heavy weights and we're in the gym. I think what we're seeing now with technology that's been more advanced is there's lots of other ways of providing a strength stimulus that isn't just lifting weights. So we will use something like motorized resistance to use resisted sprints or assisted decelerations. That will give the player that doesn't like traditional strength training a really good strength stimulus that's specific to the sport. The other thing that I would say to the proponents that, and you're right, people have great results without doing strength work, context is always king. So in my current context of working in the EPL where it is a very physical game where you are battling every three and a half, four days. So I think strength really matters in my context within the EPL because it underpins our physical qualities and the movements we want to see out on the grass in a game. Acceleration, deceleration, change direction, aerial duels, being able to close space down, hold play up. So in our context, the EBO is very physical. And for other clubs that I've worked at, we've seen when we've brought players in from other teams across Europe, sometimes there's a transitional period where they have to get used to the physicality of the EPL compared to their domestic leagues that they've played in. So I think it's absolutely fine for there to be debate and question about whether strength, what we believe to be strength, is important in football, globally. I think it's always about the context that you're working in. And in my current context, I think it's, it's a differentiator between success and failure.

A

Excellent. Yeah, no, I like you, of course, you point out the importance of context.

C

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A

You mentioned a lot of performance related factors. Would you tie that to injury profile and injury risk as well?

B

Go on, explain your question a little bit more. Martin.

A

Sorry, do you think it's part of also your injury mitigation strategy?

B

Yeah, so I think there's a little bit of a false distinction that takes place between injury prevention and then strength and conditioning or performance and the two are somehow different. For me, if you have a good global holistic performance based program that should help mitigate the risk of injuries, it would be foolish to say that I can reduce or prevent injuries. We play a contact sport, we have increasingly congested fixtures and demands on the players are higher than they've ever been. But I think if you've got a good performance based program that includes strength and power development that will certainly help mitigate the risk and increase the longevity of the players as they're working.

A

You know I think I have this discussion with many of my colleagues but when my question about the injury was more also trying to find some sort of causal link of being stronger which means every step is a relatively lower demand plus more the structural aspect of strength back to the weather fasciculus is one factor among many others. You know. But I'm on more the you see where I'm Coming from, you know, having. Yeah. Stronger baseline, better structure. That. That was the kind of the line of my question also.

B

Yeah, I think, you know, certainly if you looked at say the lower limb ankle, calf complex, if we can make those, if we can develop those strength and power qualities within that, then in terms of economy and running efficiency, every like, say every foot strike is going to be more efficient. You're not going to be, for want of a better term, leaking energy through other parts of the system. So I think, yeah, you want to make every game feel as easy as possible. And I think players that have a good foundation of gross athleticism and global strength and power will be able to cope with those demands season on season.

A

Yes. Yeah, that was my point. My point being, as I said, a bit biased, saying that you win on both sides. You know, you started with the performance side. I see also the supporting the health, the cash career and these kind of things as a way to have another reason for that.

B

So I think one of the things that. One of the distinctions we now make is health and performance. So we talk about and we have certain players who will start to bucket players and say, look, we have player x, they are 30 plus. And what we're looking at now, are we trying to. Are we trying to push, push the ceiling higher? Are we going for that, the gap in the game, Are we trying to make them better?

C

Or.

B

Or actually, is this about making sure that next 18 months of their career they're available every game? So that then changes the dynamic of the program. It's still performance. But what we're now trying to do is think about minimum effective dose. The work that Vladimir Jovanovic has done in terms of exploring. Well, if we just want to maintain health, which still impacts performance, maybe we can have a looser program, slightly more flexible prescription. We're looking at adaption rather than pushing. And that was one of the things I talked about at sportsmith was. And that's where I became more comfortable of. When we've had our performance reviews within the department, we've asked ourselves during this block, are we actually trying to push performance with this player or are we just trying to hold and maintain with the minimum effective dose? And across the squad, there'll be some players that you are trying to push much more structured, much more of a progressive program because of where they are developmentally and how they're being used in terms of the match demands. But there'll be other players where it's just like we just need them to be good to go on Saturday and we don't. We're not looking for personal bests every time they. They do a test.

A

Yep, that makes total sense. And again, can't agree more with having this disinterest approach. You started to answer my question about those buckets and what are the main, I would say, test assessment you're looking at, or benchmark, in terms of relative strength or whatever you're going to discuss in terms of measurement, to say, okay, this is enough, we need to develop more. Because I think the example of the older player that don't want to push, it's kind of a first obvious one, you know, but then it's more how much is enough versus how much is not enough.

B

Yeah. So I think in terms of when we're monitoring, the way we take, we sort of have a layered approach to our testing and monitoring and a periodized approach. So that's something I picked up from when I worked in netball, was for years you would just do all the tests every quarter and it made no sense because some of those physical qualities you weren't actually training. So you're either going to get a poor result, which is. Or no improvement at all. So we bookend our season, so probably three to four weeks at the start and three to four weeks at the end, we will go through a whole battery of tests with the players. So from our simple strength diagnostics, like our typical groin squeeze, hamstring ISO, to our jump battery of counter movement, jump, drop, jump, single leg drop jump, we'll collate that information so we kind of get a snapshot at the start and at the finish, and then based off of that, we'll then go into our individual development plan and that's where we then look at training becoming tested. So we now have so many opportunities to collect data on our players, both on the pitch and in a gym, that rather than having six weekly or quarterly testing days, we just added into the training week. So there's an expectation from the people within our department that when it's appropriate, a player will perform some sort of exercise or test that collects and puts a number next to it. And then we're having reviews every sort of 10 to 12 weeks where we're really trying to. It's not like a pass and fail, it's just looking at, is the program helping them adapt and helping them work. And as you said, do we need to increase the volume, decrease the volume? What's the, what's the goal for this phase? So when we were in our. We had a period, a 68 day period where we played 19 games. So we played every three or so. That's not a period to be pushing the ceiling and be heading for performance. That's a period where you say, look, minimum effective dose. What is the minimum dose that can survive this congested period? And let's make sure we deliver that without too much of a drop off when we come outside of that period and we then go into maybe one game weeks or you know, a more favorable period. Okay, well now maybe it's time to actually be able to push this player and work on a specific quality. So that was a long rambling question. I'm not sure if I answered everything. You can dig in a little bit more if you want.

A

Yes. Before we go to the minimum dose and everything, just on the. You mentioned those individual plans and having this overall testing battery where you test most of the main muscle group and so on. Any insight into again as I said, what is enough or what is not

B

enough in terms of the benchmarks, What's a good benchmark or a poor benchmark?

A

We could spend a lot of time on each test benchmark, but is it kind of within squad? You're using your experience, you're using an interview individual approach of that, you know, because otherwise everything could be improved at some stage. We have to make some priorities also.

B

Yeah, yeah. So we will look. So from that battery test we've now got seven years worth of club data. So we only really look at our data. We're not comparing ourselves with other teams. We will look at our benchmarks. Our benchmarks are rolling. So they are always improving or changing with the improvements in players fitness, but also the squad. So the benchmarks we had in 2019, we don't look at those now we use 25, 26 benchmarks. So they're always changing. And then what we will look at is we try and avoid. There will always be some comparison between player A and player B and even within position. But the conversations we'll try to have with as coaches to the players that we look after is it's you against you. So I can give give a couple of examples of why that's important. If we've got a player whose physical qualities are probably below our benchmarks, but for them that's kind of where their genetic ceiling may be sitting. They might be an older player, they might be part of the squad to be used for training, not necessarily a starter. Then if I compare them to the rest of the squad, it's going to be demoralizing. So I look at their Benchmarks and say, look, let's work and set targets we think are achievable for you. And it may be just hold and maintain that level. If I then go to another player who I can think of, a player that's got really good physical qualities is an athlete and the numbers that that player pushes out. We've had colleagues that have come in from track and field, running Olympic programs, and they said, we've not seen numbers like this in our horizontal and vertical jumping athletes. These are phenomenal numbers. Now for that player, we had three or four seasons where we were getting incremental gains, and then we kind of plateau, and that becomes quite demoralizing for that player who's really focused on improving all the time. And I just tried to reframe it with him and said, look, you are by far and above our best player athletically. I think we're not that I want to put a limit on you, but I think we're close to that sort of that ceiling for you. So now, rather than having a personal best as being a better result, we reframe it. That my personal best is going to be within, let's say, 10% of your actual personal best. So I don't expect in this season to see you get better. I just want you back now to be able to hold and maintain that level of performance. So hopefully that sort of gives you the insight of how we try and look individually with the players.

A

Yeah, yeah, it's about that. Because you can't just apply. You cannot expect the same for everyone. That's my point. I wanted to hear from you. Yeah, no, perfect.

B

And that's the challenge with 26 players, or 25, 26 players in a squad is. I think when I first started, we did have generic programs. Our playing squad was a certain level physically. So pretty much give them anything in terms of training, they're going to get better. And we saw year on year, month on month improvements as the squad changes, as new players come in, as their physical preparation gets better. We went to sort of collective individualization. So that sort of bucketing of players into groups. And I think now in the last 18 months, two years, we're really getting to groups of individualization and actually what's right for that player. And again, that's contextual. That's because of the situation and the playing group that we have now.

A

Yeah, awesome. I mean, that's definitely how we've worked in the few clubs I've been recently. So I think that's the very line of having this Collective base and then you just dive, dive further. And some of them might need more information than others, depending on where they're coming from and their age, their project and so on. So no total sense. Okay, now, so you mentioned already a few times and I want to hear more from you as well about this minimum dose and the minimum stimulus you need to give them. So I understand you're coming from what looks ideal on the side is what is available achievable. And then you find middle ground in this case, even though you said you don't like the messy middle. So how do you define that from your experience? What is a minimum? It's one lift, one session, two sessions a week or three. Or is it reps or volume, as you said?

B

So I think this goes back to. I think the first thing I'll say, I'll sort of preface this with I don't think strength conditioning yet is doing a good enough job of analyzing the data, collecting the data in a granular level and analyze it in the same way that we do our on field metrics. That's something that we're going to change this season, I know for sure because we want to look at our data in the same way forensically that we look at the alpha. This work dates back to my time at West Bromwich Albion when I first went in and we were trying to establish, you know, with our performance tests, was there a correlation between the amount of sessions that the players completed and it was no surprise to me, but it was a surprise to some of our staff and coaching staff that actually, yeah, we could see a relationship. So players that trained less than once a week come sort of November. February started to detrain. So we actually started to see a drop in performance, which is not great because that's usually when you've got the most fixtures and that's when you need players to really be stepping up. We then saw players that trained once to twice a week. We were getting. I'll have to go back, you're testing my memory now, but around about 5% improvement in performance. And then we saw that the players that trained twice or more a week, we're getting about a 10 to 12% improvement in performance. Performance metrics can't measure that on the grass, but in terms of the raw materials. So what we saw was that gave us kind of a bandwidth of between 51 and 70 training sessions in a domestic 40 week season, which equates to about twice, twice a week. Right. So we, that's kind of where I've settled. So I want a session every seven days. Really. Now, when we went to European fixtures, the congestion meant that we then stretched it out to every 10 to 14 days. So I become a little bit more relaxed there. But that 51 to 70, I think where I got stuck and what I've learned, where I got stuck was even in congested periods, I'm still trying to deliver those twice a week as optimal as my maximum tolerated dose. Where I've come to realize is I can take that dose, those, those training sessions, those 51 to 70 training sessions, the content of that, and spread it out across the week so the overall volume is the same. So let's say I had six exercises in my strength program. My strength session might be two exercises, but in the rest of the week I put the other four exercises, maybe in pre training, maybe some resisted sprints in a transitional period from the pitch to the gym. So that idea of just always trying to focus on one strength session, one power session in the congestion is really difficult to hit, but you can spread it out in those moments throughout the day.

A

Okay, so that's something I would say new to me about the idea of splitting the volume, but just I need to also acknowledge that I stole your id. You know, when I saw you, I listened to you in Dortmund. That's why the first time I had some numbers when you said roughly those 50 to 70 sessions a year and those two sessions a week. I like this dose response analysis. And that's the stuff we've done on, as you were saying about the pitch, the metabolic conditioning, these kind of things. And I wanted to verify your two sessions a week in the context of rehab. And that's analysis we've done with some colleagues in Asbetar, and Anisha Washi was the leader on that. And we looked at quadriceps hamstring strength improvement during post ACL reconstruction. And guess what? One was not enough and two was the minimum threshold. But that's very broad because it's sessions. And of course, we did not have the capacity to go into the content. But I think it's a good start to talk about those number of sessions. It's a first steps.

B

Well, I know, I think, as I said at the start of my answer, strength and conditioning, I think, has been quite poor at really analyzing the data that they collect. And I know that's something that's a big push for us at the club next season is to get very granular, so we can then answer those questions that you want. And I think I'd love to Come back and give you some sort of publication in the future where we can actually say, look, this is the dose response. So we're not just talking about sessions now, we're talking about the volume of the work, the intensity. So we work on three things. Attend, adhere, adapt. So what's the attendance? We then link that to adherence. So how much the program have they actually done and then what are the adaptations that we're seeing? So I think that'll be a really neat piece that I think at the end of the season we'll be able to look at.

A

Oh yeah, that would be awesome. Yeah, we discussed overall volume and that's your project. But I'm sure you can give us some insights already. Especially you mentioned intensity. And if we think about strength, if we think about power at some stage, it's not enough to go slow and light. So are there any key minimum intensities or it's a number of lift at a given intensity that you believe are still necessary to get through this minimum dose?

B

Yeah, I think what we work on as a rule of thumb in terms of lifts, we want them to be hitting 90% of their maximum working of their working max. So we don't do a 1 RM, we just work on what's the maximum they've listed within a typical training session. Typically within our pre season, that's when we can push the hardest. And then we will be looking for players to achieve 90% of that at least every seven to 10 days in a domestic season. If we go into a Champions League season, we're looking at every sort of 10 to 14 days. Just the reality of what we're looking at. We feel that that gives us enough of a strength stimulus. I start to get nervous once we go over that 10, 14 day period because then to try and give an appropriate stimulus, you're then gonna, it's gonna be somewhat novel to that player again and you're gonna have some associated muscle soreness which we don't really want to get. So. Yeah, yeah, that sweet spot of every seven to 10 days.

A

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, especially what you say about soreness. You don't want to lose the adaptation and then start again. So that's no brainer. So I think that's probably also the first time I see it. I hear it frame like that a bit like you're chasing maybe a type of maximal speed exposure on the pitch that you want them to frequently. So that would be the analogy in the gym of having hit a 90% something.

B

Yeah, I think Very much, very much. That sort of, that link between the two is, is pretty clear I think.

A

Okay. And are there lifts that, that will always have to be in the program? I'm thinking more about deadlift, a trap bar, those, those easy and safe lifts versus others or you rotate or is it player dependent?

B

If, if you ask me two or three years ago, I probably would have said there's definitely exercises that have to be in the program. I'm a lot more relaxed now. Like how can we get the stimulus? So for the majority of our players we will look at some sort of unilateral lift. It might be a rear for elevated split squat. Split squat, we might go for other players into a bilateral lift. So typically trap bar deadlift is where we go. I've moved away from squat based patterns mainly because of challenges with loading. Players seem to be able to cope much better with the trap bar. But as I said before now with the advances in things like ISO inertial technology and my personal favorite, the motorized resistance, we can get really good loads through things like 1080 cable and their sprint too in terms of assisted decelerations or eccentric overloading. So I don't worry too much about the exercises now. It's just what's the tool that is going to land with the player the best.

A

Yep, that makes sense also.

C

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A

The practicality of finding those opportunities in a congested period. I think there is always some more some room for work in the gym with subs. But then what about the starters with it? Because if you. Again if I go back to the analogy with the speed exposures for players playing twice a week, that's something we don't have to chase because it comes from the match anyway. So I won't be chasing much more on that side. So what's the situation in the gym then for those guys?

B

So. So again I think it goes back to our understanding of what strength actually looks like. So a strength stimulus can be an isometric stimulus. So post match. So again we will look at our players, we'll look at starters, we'll look at the players that have come off the bench, we'll look at players that haven't been used and they're all going to have slightly different sort of programs. One of the things that we've done much more is our post match lifting, particularly at home. And I think what you're looking for there is it may be one lift, one primary compound lift or for a starter if we know that that starter is getting towards that 14 day period where we start to get a little bit nervous about not having a strength stimulus. It may be just some simple two or three exercises, but done isometrically and an isometric hold, which in isolation on its own is not a huge stimulus, but it bridges the gap. So that when we do then present them with a strength stimulus, when there's less congestion, they're not going to have any of those negative effects of muscle soreness or fatigue. So yeah, it can be a range of strategies from post game, pre training, transitional periods where players are walking off the grass to go into the gym where we can grab them and do some speed work. Just try and find the moments throughout the day.

A

Okay, now that makes a lot of sense. So yeah, you have a definitive strategy. Of course you have a strategy. I mean, I mean you have a hierarchy in terms of those strength stimulus based on how aggressive they are, probably. And that's why you go from isometric, which is the safest, less aggressive, up to probably concentric, heavy and eccentric. I guess.

B

Of course, yeah. I think the challenges that we had before where we were kind of looking at all of the players the same and then we were just forgetting that on any given match day there's going to be players firstly that don't travel, five players that don't travel, then you're going to have your substitutes, but four of those aren't going to be used. So in any one week you'll have players that are certainly on more of a recovery trajectory, but you've got players that can take more of a maintenance and then more of a developmental approach. So during, during the week it's just about understanding where's that player at in terms of their training and play and load and what's the sort of effective stimulus we can give them. For a starter, it's probably going to be an isometric stimulus. For a sub that's being used, it might be a maintenance dose, one or two exercises working within their working max. And then for a player that's unused or didn't travel, that can be more of a developmental stimulus and a full session.

A

Yes. Yeah, no, totally agree with this. In my experience then the challenge is to keep track of that because there's so many moving pieces. As you said, it's further than just telling. Yeah, let's get this player stronger. For the next three weeks it's about finding not only because now you're talking not only about the windows and the time, but also the what that matches the time and the moment.

B

Yeah. And I think that's where as you said, there's almost a hierarchy of, we do like a flow diagram and a decision matrix and it's, you know, if, if player. We've got some decision matrices that help speed up our, our thought process so that we know that, you know, if they've had X amount of match minutes, if they've played in this game, when was their last training stimulus? Okay, here are the two options. So it just helps with that conversation when we're meeting as a department to say this is how the player's being used in this game, this is where we think they're going to be used in the next game and then we can come in with our, well, this is their training dose. So far we would really recommend this intervention and then we have a discussion around whether that happens in full or in part. But again, certainly this last season, more often than not, the answer is right, this is something we can do. Let's make sure we keep the dose going.

A

Yeah. No, Awesome. I can't agree more with the approach now. I think that that tells us a bit the way you work in terms of planning and again finding those opportunities and you have your decision tree about what is more appropriate then. And I've been through that trying to chase those opportunities and so on. And then unfortunately we know that that's football, an injury happened, then the question is whether, I mean there's this. Often when you do, you know, you do your injury review or maybe we did not do that, we should have done more of this. But sometimes also you say, oh, maybe we've done too much and players, they needed to recover, but we were, because we were chasing those max speed exposure, because we were chasing this max strength. Maybe we just didn't let them a chance to recover. And the overload came not only for the matches but the work that we put on top of it. And then we said like we're a bunch of idiots if we did too much. It was not needed, they just had to recover between matches. What's your take on that or how you try to monitor this and not to go on the other side of them doing too much.

B

So I think that's where you have that multidisciplinary approach with, with our performance and medical staff having good conversations on a regular basis. So we'll have our post match sort of check in. So anyone that's taken part in the game, whether that's a starter or a sub, they'll go through in the immediate days following the game, they'll go through a health screen. We'll see what comes out of that. We've also got our ongoing monitoring within the gym and out on the grass where we're looking at training and match loads and then we combine that with your simple wellness on a daily basis. So I think it's kind of triangulating all that information and then having a conversation and using your experience. It's that kind of evidence based practice, isn't it? It's understanding what's the science tell us, what's the numbers that are coming back from our wellness and from our performance metrics. But then most importantly, what does our experience as practitioners tell us? And that's how we try and then come to the conclusion that yeah, we're going to push or no, we're going to maintain or actually we're going to drop off and let them have some more recovery. So I think we've got much better at that over the years.

A

Yeah, no, and I like the fact that you started with this multi, not only disciplinary, but having a lot of different practitioners involved in making the decision because it's never one way or the other. Then you mentioned wellness, you mentioned. Sorry, the, the data as well.

B

Yeah, yeah, I think the data and the science is all well and good and I think we can look at all of that information. We can take blood, we can, we can look at everything. And then sometimes I'll have to plan in my head of what we're going to do. And you just, you see the player walk into the gym, their body language is not what it usually is. You might have a conversation with them and that's where just that relationship, looking them in the eyes and your experience just says, you know what? Today's not the day. We're gonna, we're gonna wait and we're gonna, we're gonna go again later in the week. So there's that trust that you build up with the player over an extended period of time of when to push and when to hold. And sometimes our players, the players that I work with will look at me when I say, oh, we're not gonna do it today. Like why not? I said, well, if I'm telling you we're not, there's a, there's a very good reason because you know that I like to get as much training as possible. So yeah, it's trusting each other.

A

Yeah, no, awesome. And in terms of, just curious in terms of data or tools. So yeah, you mentioned the wellness, you mentioned the outputs over the session when you collect strength. As you said, the motorized sprint. I'm sure you have encoders, these kind of things. Any other marker you have experience with or stuff even you'd like to try more.

B

I think we're probably gonna. We used velocity based training quite a lot when I first came in to drive intent within. The players didn't really dig down deeply into the metrics that it was producing. So we're going to go into a new system this season and I think we'll still use it to drive intent within the weight room. But what we'll actually be able to get now is the, the metrics into our athlete management system and actually be able to look at, okay, what are the loads, what are the volumes, the intensities? Are we hitting what we think we are in terms of that adherence piece? So I think that we're probably going to go full circle with our velocity based training work and then link that into also what we're seeing out on the grass with things like the 1080 for our motorized resistance work. And I think movement analysis piece as well will be interesting in terms of sprint. So looking at how we break down our linear and change direction work from a movement piece, I think we've got the kinetics. I think it's now looking at the kinematics and matching the two up.

A

Yeah, that's cool. But any other, I was just curious about any other markers because before you said yes, you mentioned the blood. I have a pretty strong experience with creatine kinase. That was back in my days in Paris. We were pretty heavy on monitoring this and that would just show that sometime when it was so congested, players value will actually not drop because they would just keep producing ck. And it was a way for us to say, well there's no way we're going to add the work because yeah, they just can't digest the load. And when CK were coming down, maybe there was a way to say, okay, maybe now the muscle is some sort of ready to get more load. So that's something I've used in the past, I've used no more recently in the context of rehab, low frequency fatigue, which I found pretty interesting also about low tolerance. That's why I'm just asking your experience with other tools, for example.

B

Yeah, I think we've looked at blood, I mean we've looked at over the years at all sorts from sleep diagnostics, heart rate variability, bloods. I think they're all, they all have their place. What I would say is, and again speaking some of this is anecdotal but also experiential. I think anecdotally speaking to someone like Ben Rosenblatt, when we looked at all of the sophisticated strength diagnostics, bloods and a sort of a standard wellness, what was the correlation? And when push comes to shove, often a really well conducted wellness questionnaire done face to face talking to the players is as insightful as all of these other more complex sophisticated diagnostics. And I think often it's a much more it, it's in the moment. Whereas sometimes it feels like a lot of our markers that we collect are somewhat retrospective and you become an expert after. After the fact.

A

You were just mentioning how wellness, how good wellness can it be when it's well done? And I think it's a. Yeah, I

B

don't know if you. Yeah, so yeah, I think wellness when it's done properly, when it's done face to face, when you have trust in the players responses is as impactful as all of the other sophisticated metrics. And I think it's often it's much more real time. Whereas a lot of those markers require analysis and are somewhat retrospective and rear view facing if you like. And you become an expert after the fact that yeah, their blood markers are up and they've got signs of a early onset upper respiratory tract infection while the conversation, the player tells you they've got a sore throat and they look like they've got got a mild illness. So yeah, did we need the blood markers? Usually it's just confirming what you already know.

A

Yeah, no, I think I can't agree more as well. Sometimes it's again, context dependent. I think that's a story that I've told a few times. In Paris, players were way more happier to give their finger to get a blood pre can and we were relying a lot on that and maybe we were not having those discussions for various reasons and then the blood became the medium but in other contexts a better ability to discuss this thing with players and then you don't need those fancy tools. So again, the context often drives the decision about the tools to use.

B

Absolutely awesome.

A

Okay, so yes, I think we went deep a little bit into your definitely very detailed approach of strength training. I like the fact that we started by going through a bit your vision of not even your vision, the evidence suggesting the importance of strength and then definitely going through the challenges and the practicalities of how you can implement that in sometimes the chaos of the Premier League and finding those opportunities. I like the fact that you mentioned the hierarchy about trying to really find the best content, depending again on the context, on the player, on the needs. I Think we discussed also the fact that it's definitely not a one size fits all. So that was probably the main point. I really wanted to hear from you and I think you did a great job answering all those questions. Is there anything that I've missed or overlooked and you wanted to share before we wrap up?

B

I don't think so. I think just like the key thing to come back to what we talked about at the start is that the fundamental principles, the first principles of strength and conditioning and strength and power development, I don't think they've ever changed. I think the. And I don't want you listeners and viewers to take the view that I don't write a periodized program. I still write and look at what the season is going to hold for us. I think the challenge is understanding the environment in which I want to apply that plan. And it's about being much more flexible. And I think someone like John Kiley wrote that seminal paper about periodization and was the first person to really shout about the old methods maybe aren't the most appropriate. And I think that's it. I think the real skill isn't right in the perfect program anymore. I think it's about consistently delivering a meaningful stimulus in an environment that's constantly disruptive.

A

Yes, I think it's a good point. I'm glad you insist on that. Or maybe I think this is how you frame it at the start as well. You almost reverse engineering, instead of starting with what you like to do, you start with what is feasible and you go backwards. And in this context, then what can I do? And then maybe you change a bit the exercise, you change exercise selection, you change intensity to still get back on your feet and having some sort of stimulus given the constraint you have from the environment.

B

You said it much better than me, Martin.

A

No, no, no, I've been through that and I've been bugging my head as well against wall, not willing, not being flexible enough as a start. So, yeah, we've all been through that.

C

Okay.

A

Amazing. I think I'm very, very happy with how the chat went. Definitely an immense, very deep thank for your words, for everything you shared, not only by myself, but also on behalf of Paul and the HIT science team. So, yeah, thank you. Thank you very much for all those very insightful details on your work. Nick, thank you so much.

B

Martin, as always, absolute pleasure to speak to you.

A

Thanks for having us on and hopefully we see each other very soon in person. Thank you.

B

Look forward to it.