A

Welcome back to the podcast today. Very happy to welcome Christian Claren. Christian has built a really interesting journey across elite European football over the last 15 years, starting in Danish academy football, then spending almost a decade at FC Mitteland during one of the most successful period of the club history before moving abroad to Spartak Prague where he worked through Champions League league football and consecutive league titles. More recently, Christian was head of performance at the VFL Wolfsburg in the Bundesliga and he also worked with the Danish national team during the Euro24 campaign in Germany. What I personally find very interesting with Christian is the combination of a strong practical field experience, a very clear training philosophy around speed, power and intensity, and also a very pragmatic approach to monitoring and player management in high performance football environments. In this cover session we go through his evolution as a practitioner and a leader. The difference between the Scandinavian and Central European football culture, how he structures physical preparation in elite football, how he uses jump profiling and neuromuscular monitoring, how he's managing dense schedule and player freshness, and also some honest reflections on leadership, pressure, instability and learning from difficult periods in professional football. I really enjoyed this discussion because Christoph brings a very grounded and practical perspective from the inside of top European environment. So without further ado, let's get into it. Hey Christian, Very good to see you. How are you today?

B

Good morning Martin. Nice to see you as well and thank you very much for the invite and the opportunity. Opportunity to speak a bit on your podcast.

A

It's awesome. Very, very happy to have you. As I've often introduced the chat, I always put a bit of a context of how we've met and the relationship I have with guests. So I would say that we don't know each other very, very well but we managed to see each other a few times already at some stage. You were in a camp, I think you were with Praga at that time, camp in Marbella and I think you reached out, visited our family in Optimo and I was very glad that we kept the relationship because then I could visit you in Prague as well with my son. We're there for a bit of a holiday dance trip with my daughter and it was a very good opportunity to visit you. And yeah, we kept in touch. You've done a great job in different high level clubs, European football as well. And I thought that was definitely the right time because I think you had a bit of more time recently. So that was, I said that's the, that's the moment to, to catch Christian. So yeah, long introduction but if you don't mind. Yeah, I like to hear a little bit your, your journey as a, as a whole, introduce yourself and then, yeah, we'll dive into your career. And there's a lot of specific question that I like to hear from you as well.

B

Yes, and like you said, you're absolutely right. I have more time now. The, the modern term is that, that I'm between jobs. So basically I'm without a job, I'm out of, out of contract. So there's plenty of time to do things that normally is a little bit hard to fit in when you're inside working for a club team and, and quite busy. But yeah, my journey in football, very shortly I started in academy level. I think a lot of practitioners start there and then build their way up. I was lucky that one of my professors at my Danish university was connected to a football team. He was in charge of the men's first team and he asked me if I would like to support him and help with the academy part. So I started with under 17 football in Denmark. Was there twice a week helping a little bit off the pitch. And then from there it built up to, to working full time in the club. A Danish team called unfortunately just got relegated from the best Danish league this season. Then I moved there after three and a half season, working my way from academy into first team to FC Midduland in Denmark. Spent a lot of time there, almost 10 seasons. And then I had the opportunity to go outside Denmark, which was really nice. I wanted to try that. We, in Danish terms, we did a really good work with Magellan and the club achieved their first titles, championship and cup and also qualifying for European group stages, Champions League and Europa League. That was quite nice. And then I had the option to go out with the Danish coaching staff to, to the Czech Republic, to Sparta Prague. And I was there three seasons and again a really nice experience. First of all, it was nice going outside Denmark and leaving my home country, outside my comfort zone. So there was no goodwill, there was no friendly relationships. You knew no one except for maybe the few Danish coaches who went there. So that was a great experience. And then of course we, we did a, a very good job again at that club. So the experience also got really good because football is decided by results normally. So if you deliver good results, okay, the experience is also a little bit better. So we had some, a great spell with winning the title two years in a row going into Champions League and that was really nice. It was also nice to try a completely different culture compared to the Scandinavian Scandinavians. We are quite calm, quite flat structure. And the Czechs are a little bit more, at least when it comes to football, a little bit more emotional engaged into it. So you really feel the upside and you also really feel the downside also because Sparta Prague is a massive club, to be honest, and especially in that part of Europe, it's a really, really big club, really, really big fan base. So you really get the atmosphere of a, of a big, big team. And while I was in Sparta, I had the option to go with the Danish national team preparing for the Euros in Germany. So that was a really good experience as well. And from there, after three really great seasons in Sparta, I went to Germany, to Volksburg in the Bundesliga. And that was like the, my personal final thing I would like to, to see working in one of the big, big leagues in, in Europe to see how that was. So I had the luck and the possibilities to, to work outside my country, work inside a big league, work for the national team and also be lucky enough to work with teams who did well and was part of the highest level of European club football in the Champions League. So that's my football journey and right now I'm doing nothing.

A

I'm sure you're going to be soon very, very busy, no doubt. But definitely, yes, in those kind of. If you put together Sparta national team Wolfsburg, it's a block of four or five years where you've been really, really busy and at the top of, top of, top of the sport. So I think, yeah, you're just coming out from a very, very dense, high level pair of work, which that's what I want to hear from you, definitely. And I'm sure, yeah, maybe just before we dive back into those stories, I'm curious to know how have you used your time being out of the club? Because we were also discussing that offline. You know, it's, yeah, it's, it's tough. You're. You're busy when you are in those clubs, in those environments. So what's the, what have you done the last two, three months?

B

I have spent a lot of time with my family, which, which is not always, always an option when you're inside, inside a club working. Especially if you are working with teams with a really busy schedule. So if you play the domestic league or you play and you play in the cup and you play in Europe and the schedule is really, really busy and you have a lot of national team players, you have to speak and coordinate with national teams, it's extremely busy. So I spend a lot of Time to time with my kids and my wife done really simple and nice stuff like having dinner with your family, cooking breakfast for your kids, watching them do their activities outside school when they play football or in Denmark handball is a thing. Is a big thing when they do their sports. That's been really nice. Then I've been educating myself a little bit so I'm participating In the Danish Fas Fitness UEFA Fitness, a license course they're doing right now and then some other small stuff just to keep myself active and not just one big long holiday.

A

Yeah, I'm sure. And do you feel you have you had had enough? I mean two, three months is enough to. To update yourself or you think maybe you get a few more months. There's a specific project you really wanted to. To learn from or was just more catching up. Yeah. Being sure you were on the top of main topics or.

B

Yeah. So I, I for sure it's also a little bit trendy right now also because of some of the work you've been doing. Martin. But I need to catch up on my, my. Sure. Because like a lot of other practitioners maybe I. I used heart rate and I used it quite intense for the last three, four seasons maybe. But before that I also got a little bit caught up in the GPS norm was that I relied heavily on GPS data and forgot a little bit about the internal. The actual training load response. So I've been trying to look a bit more into to heart rate and how to be. Can I use it a little bit smarter, maybe more advised. So that, that part I've been looking into and then yeah, of course it's been nice just to speak with some colleagues as well because I find it personally really hard to find. I don't know if energy is the right word but to actually be really outgoing and networking when I'm inside a team because I'm so into the daily work that I also need to give myself some recovery time and then I don't prioritize to catch up with colleagues as much as I should maybe. So I had some, some nice talks as well. So that. That's the main part I've been looking into to at the moment and then I've been reflecting a little bit on my own. What is my, let's say, leadership style? How would I approach it once I go into a new job? Because some things have been really good and of course there's also been some bad stuff and I think it's always good to reflect on your own approach once in a while to see what did actually work well and what could work better next time I go into a job.

A

Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. And when you, when you mention reaching out to friends, colleagues, peers, that's exactly also what, what I've done. Especially when I got sacked from, from leo, which was the middle of the season or even start of the season. So you're like, okay, there's probably at least six, nine months before I get eventually maybe another job. So having a plan and I think I've probably reached out to 100 people a bit everywhere, you know, like you just. Yeah. Do we have 30 minutes to catch up? What about. What about. And it's good because as you said, you don't do that the rest of the time. You just caugh on the, the daily, the daily routine. And it's impossible. So nothing. That's also the beauty sometimes of, of being. I would say being sacked or not not being working from a season to another because you have more time, as you said, family and this reflection. So it's. It's almost sometimes a win as well. Especially normally the, the clubs, at least they pay you off at least until the end of the season. So you're not like having to start to wash dishes to make sure you still keep paying the rent in the school. So that's almost a privilege for a few months. I had this recent discussion with Jan Lemmer, a good friend, Jan who was in Monaco and he got let go a few months ago and he went exactly through exactly the same. Was roughly the same time as you and he's been enjoying also his time as you said, family. I want to disclose everything but yeah, they want on a prolonged kind of a break, holiday day with the kids. And he's been doing his network bit and he's probably like you just now as we discussed, probably discussing with other clubs and he would get back into probably this crazy life. But anyway, long, long introduction, long segue. But I was curious to know how you've managed this transition. But maybe I would say you mentioned a little bit your. The story, the journey. And maybe I'll start with something that I've seen in Prague when I visited the club. And I'm sure we can tie that back with what you were doing in Norway and after facilities, club facilities. That was very interesting to see that you guys were actually training in this old stadium.

B

Yeah.

A

Which I found very, very special. And maybe you'll be able to tell the listener better how the setup how was organized. And I'll be curious to know how you have adapted to this. It's not a typical training ground. So can you just tell us a little bit more with the structure and then I'll have also more question off the back of that.

B

Yeah. So the, the training ground is located inside a massive old stadium, if I recall it correctly. It's, it was built mainly for, to do military parades and stuff. The Czech Republic was once Czechoslovakia and was, well, that's occupied I think by the Soviet Union and they, they used it for, for the parades and showing off the way I, if I remember correctly. And it's massive. I, I, There's, I think it could, it could be more than over a hundred thousand spectators or whatever you call it to, to watch this and then inside that Sparta build a building, a modern one. So when you come from the outside it looks quite old, a little bit worn down and there's some regulations that they can't modernize the facilities because of the historical events that happened there. It has to stay like original but inside. So I remember the first time when I, I drove there. You, I come up a small hill and I look at this and it looks like a really, really old stadium.

A

And I thought, yeah, same for us. I thought the, I thought the taxi didn't drop us at the, the right place. You know, when you arrive and then you see the logo, you say okay, yeah, I'd be around. Yeah.

B

Then you come in the main gate, open up and then there's a quite new building, modern building, modern facilities. So that was a really cool experience walking in through the gates the, the first time. And then inside they have, which personally I like. It's, it's quite nice. They have everything inside the building. So you have the first team on the top floor, then you have the second team and then you have the academy in the same building which means that the under eight boys are basically in the same compound as the first team players. And that was, that was also quite nice I think because if you do it the right way, there's a quite short way between the first team and the academy which should make it easier to develop the talent. Right. And then you have a lot of football grounds inside the, the big old stadium because it's so big. So I think is there 8, 9, 10 pitches inside, maybe some dedicated for the first team, some for the second team and then the rest is for the academy. That was quite nice. And then the first team have a separated floor where there's only access for first team staff and first team players. So it's still a little Bit separated but inside the same place. So that was. That's quite nice. And for the size of the league, they have quite good facilities to be honest.

A

Yeah, no, definitely. But yeah, super, super interesting. So I'm glad we just like. I think there's a lot of people probably that they don't know this specific setup. I think it's worth the story and I enjoy to seeing that as well.

C

Hey, team sport coaches, this is the one you've been waiting for. Dr. Martin Bichite's brand new course Metabolic Conditioning for team Sports is now live at hitscience. In just four focused hours, Martin distills his latest research so you can see build repeated effort capacity without pointless mileage. Pick the hit format that matches each of your players profile and dose your sessions precisely. No more over or under training. You get lifetime access, full course handouts, a hit Science certificate and CEUs all for just 299. You won't find this value elsewhere so head over to the hitscience website, hit the pop up and enroll. We'll see you on the inside. Hey everyone, just want to let you know about something cool we've built into Athletica. It's called Athletica U. So this isn't another training app. Add on. It's a structured education series designed to give athletes, coaches and practitioners a shared foundation in endurance training principles. In our Certificate 1 Foundations course, we walk you through the essentials. Base training, build training, balancing volume and intensity, fueling and hydration recovery and how to interpret your own training data. So what makes this different is the integration in each principle. You'll learn how to get experience directly through your athletic appliance. It's science and practice training as both the classroom and the lab because we all learn best by feeling and doing. So if you're interested in how we can better scale best practice coaching and bridge science with applied sport, you'll want to take a look. You'll find everything over at Athletica AI. We'll see you there.

A

So when you, you guys arrived. So you, you moved with, if I'm right, the coaching, coaching staff that you worked with previously in, in Denmark and then you guys arrived. So what was the, the setup like in terms of the team that move together, assistant coaches and yourself?

B

So it was. I worked with a head coach before in, in Denmark, Brian Priska. He, he's. He's actually back in Sparta now, but he went from Midjand and then he was in Belgium and he's had fine art as well. And now he's back in Sparta. So I went down with him and then he brought a Danish assistant coach and head of a analysis. He was not Danish, he was English, but he worked in Denmark for, for quite some time. And then me. So us four, we went down there in the beginning. And then there was a small change in, in the winter because the first assistant coach went back to Denmark to become a head coach. And then a new assistant coach came in who I, I worked with before. So by Christmas it was a small group where everybody worked together before. And then of course we, we had the local stuff, Czech, Slovakians. And then I brought in sports scientists that I worked with before in Denmark as well. Because the department was really not existing when there was one fitness coach from before, the less the rest has left. So we had to build a new department with both science and nutrition and stuff like that. Luckily for me, the guy who stayed Slovakian, Thomas Mali, from day one he just did everything he could to help the new guys come.

A

Met him also a few times and yeah, no, yeah, saying hi to him anyway.

B

Yes, great guy, smart guy, super intelligent, lot smarter than me. So that was really good for me to have a, a really hard working local guy who could also give me good advices especially on the exercise physiology and fitness testing. He's really strong and that was good for me. And then it always helps to have a guy who, who speaks the local language, who understands everything. And if you as a western or northern European guy ever tried being in the more eastern part, the language is completely different. Completely different. So you understand? I understood zero. And after three years maybe I could, I don't know, 100 words maybe, but the polite ones, I could say hello and goodbye and can I please play pay with card and all that simple stuff. The conversation impossible. So that was really good to have to have a local guy who understands the culture, the language and the club. Especially when he just was doing everything he could to help the technical staff and me to, to, to succeed. So that was, that was really good.

A

And I remember from our chat as well, you, like the club gave you this. Not only responsibility of mission like you, you, you, you, you took this, this role of, of head of performance. So kind of which is often also a club based position, you know. And that's something I've kept discussing throughout all the episodes about the coaching staff bringing a fitness guy. And then you have the head of roles, responsibility, ownership are not very clear in this case there was nobody in this position. So you took kind of both roles at the same time.

B

Yeah, I did and to be honest, the first season, your work was only about the first team to make that work, to get all the structures, the workflow, the frameworks running. And once that was working really well, we implemented for the second team and then we start working with the academy as well. So my title enrolled was Head of Performance. But in, in the first season, my main work was with the first team, so I had the title of head of Performance. I operated maybe a little bit more as a head of first team fitness or whatever you want to call it. And then year two and three was, was really more overseeing the whole club and organizing new staff members in and out and frameworks and stuff like that. So that it evolved drastically to, to be honest, and it was a club role for me because the, the head coach I joined, he left after two seasons and then a new coach came in who was Danish as well. And, and, and when they decided to unfortunately terminate the second coach's contract, they still kept me. So it was not like I was connected solely with a coach. So it was a club role in the end for me.

A

Yeah. And from all your experience back in, back in Denmark, what are the main, the key things that you really brought with you? I'm now diving a bit more into your coaching training philosophy. I understand the difficulty about the context and I think I'm glad that you mentioned the language and all this kind of stu stuff, but I'm sure there's a few, few things you really believe in that you had developed already back in Denmark and you say, okay, now if I'm going to Sparta, at least I want this to be operating because that's what I believe in, for example.

B

Yeah, so I always trained for speed, power, intensity, focus. That, that's been my main topic. Maybe that's also why the heart rate thing went out a little bit for me because yeah, at that point, and maybe I'm a little bit smarter now, I did not see how heart rate added a big value to when I was training with focus on speed, power and intensity. So that's always been the main framework for me. Make sure a lot of focus on Excels, D cells, high speed running, sprinting, supporting football trainings with a lot of intensity and density, not fast trainings basically. And that, that's the philosophy I like. I also think it makes good sense for, for the teams I worked in at least. And then of course it was quite easy going from Denmark to the Czech Republic because I knew the technical stuff, because the technical stuff will always be the main drivers of how will the training actually look on the pitch. So we need a really good collaboration and understanding on of how, what and when we should train. So it was implemented really fast. But, but that's the thing I've been focusing on always to be honest, just

A

to be a bit more, if you can dive a little bit into that. So you said okay, intensity, acceleration, high speed. So that's really the quality type of work. Neuromuscular. So I guess that through gym, gym prep, pitch, post, pitch. Could you take us a little bit through your like our typical day or especially if it's a date, there is a more emphasis on this physical capacity maybe.

B

Yeah. So we, I, I try to structure everything around that concept that we try to train with a lot of speed and intensity. So it's from the nutrition part that needs to, to, to muscle development, fast recovery from the nutrition, from the supplementation, from the hydration into the prep before we go on the, on the pitch. So we make sure that the players are actually ready to already from the warm up to work quite intensive because the warm up is preparing them into normally intensive games on the pitch. Depending on where we are in the micro cycle, if it's big spaces, small spaces, whatever fits into your context to the gym work that should hopefully support these isolated components. So there is some maximum strength lifting, there is some plyometrics, there will be some eccentric work, there will be some isometric work throughout the week. Yeah. And then one of the main focus for me is how efficient are we on the pitch? The time on the pitch it for me is never, it's never been a goal or target to spend a lot of minutes on the pitch but actually to be as efficient as possible, keep the density really high. So everything is prepared, set up from the drills from straight from the warm up into whatever the next exercise is to the next exercise, to the next exercise and have a good communication with technical staff. Of course there, there must be space to explain the tactical concepts, but can we be as efficient and fast as possible? So we keep the, the rhythm and the flow of the training as high as possible because that would also produce intensity in terms of meters per minute or whatever you want to look at for your training session. And that's always been quite important for me.

A

Okay, now excellent. And so you mentioned a lot of different elements into your gym work. You mentioned plyos, max strength. So I think especially in the context of football, of course, you know, max strength is not the same as max strength work for rugby or you know, other team sports. So how have you built this scene? I don't know if for example, if we talk about Prager, you know, if those guys were doing some, some sort of a heavier lift before. I'll be curious to know how you've, you, you, you, you implemented this and how much, you know how much or how heavy, for example.

B

Yeah. So you can always discuss different concepts and, and, and some of it are really heavily backed by science. Some of it is maybe a little bit more not heavily backed. Personally I, I like velocity based training because I like the feedback part for the players. So you're absolutely correct. If I say we train maximum strength and I take in the SNC coach for the, the English rugby team, he will probably look at me and say are you sure that we are doing maximum strength training? But in the, in a football context I would argue that we did because maximum effort is not always only with the barbel. Right. Because we also do quite a lot of sprint training. We do a lot of plyometrics, we do lot of Excel Diesel that also builds into it. And of course maximum strength is an important component in my opinion in football, but it's not, it's probably not the most important component. So it's, it's, for me it's more to support that the players can actually handle some of the really hard XL diesel components. But I use VB velocity based training to make sure that we, we lift with intention and effort and we, it's not a big volume, it's not a big load. We will do simple matched if we have the time. Match day minus four is what I like to do. Two, three sets. In some big lifts it could be a trap bar deadlift, it could be a Bulgarian split squat which will probably the, be the two main lift or it could be a pin squat if that's where we're going. And then we will do some support work around that. Then on the minus two we'll go a little bit faster, we'll do some bounding, we'll do some jumping, maybe even some loaded jumping. And then personally I like on the match day to do a priming session if it fits into your context. And then we have a little bit of a loaded unloaded jumping. Yeah. And then on the +1 ISO work, upper body work. And that's basically how it, how it flows. And then we all know if you play a lot of games and you travel a lot, the gym is not for adding extra fatigue and heavy load on the players. It's more to maintain tendon health and some recovery. Based exercises and then to be honest the maximum part goes away because in my opinion there's no, no time if you have to play. Exactly. There's no space. You have to play midweek, you have to travel, you have to play in the weekend, you have to play again enough new players who, who are in this program also play with the national team. So it's more try not to. To put extra fatigue in the players but also try to make sure that they can handle the. The work related demand from the games. Right?

A

Yeah. No, very good. I'm glad you mentioned VBT as well. And that's of course another approach I've been very, very keen to use and also leverage and I think this is how also I realized that's what spending one more time in Lille and Lyon. How different. Sorry. The difference that you can see in between players that are able to cope with higher loads, especially the top trap bar. Trap bar deadlift. That's probably the safest entry to that. You have players they're happy to load 100, 120, 140, 160 kilos to get some, some slow movement which would be targeting a bit more toward the maximum strength and others 60, 80 kilos that's the max they can do because they just don't want to load. And for those guys it becomes a power training but you cannot just get into the load that is enough. So we've been trying to do more compounds lift adding other exercises before supersets to try to reach those recruitments. So I don't know any take on the variability of players response or strategies those that are not able to lift for example.

B

So for me it's. I think in the beginning of my, let's call it football career I. I spent a lot of time focusing on the methodology and the framework and what was correct and we need to do this kind. And I, I think I shifted also into understanding how to get the player buy in a little bit more because some football players are afraid of lifting. Definitely some have been told that I don't know why they will get slow and they will get injured and you will be unathletic if you do stuff in the gym. And there's also cultural difference in. In the Scandinavian and UK part. It's. It's a completely normal and integrated philosophy for most fitness coaches to. To use real gym work, let's call it that actual lifting. And when you move to other parts it's. They have a little bit more focus on some resisted work and balance and, and stuff like that they are not so much into the lifting and they are concerned it will affect. So it's also to show the players that it's. First of all it's safe because all football guys are afraid of getting injured, which is a fair. Secondly, it will not have a negative effect on your performance. That's also what they are afraid. So the way we implemented in the new club is in the preseason we practice everything new so we build it up slowly and progressive showing the players that is actually quite safe and they actually feel okay. And a lot of them found out, especially with the tendon part, they actually felt better when they start doing meaningful lifts in the gym. And then what I like is, that's also why I like the VBT because you have a direct feedback to the players. And all football players are a little bit competitive. Right. So if you can provide direct feedback to the players, either they compete a little bit with themselves or they compete a little bit with their surroundings, can they actually lift a meaningful weight a little bit faster? Now we go outside the target, we put a little bit more load and in that way I think we, we got I would say 99.5 player buy in. Of course there's also always once or twice where a player is really not up for it and then you just have to work around it and manage them. So I, I really like VBT to get that, that atmosphere inside the gym that when we're here, we're not here for a long time but we actually do meaningful lift with good intentions and quality.

A

No excellent and I think linked to this idea of the quality and of course as you said before, with the congestions, it's always very difficult to fit those sessions and make sure. And that's also why there is so much, let's say interest into monitoring the response, the freshness, the muscular fatigue and so on. And I know you guys have been leveraging, doing a lot jumps, jump tests, right?

B

Yeah. So I use CMJ for some simple reasons. I think it's easy to implement, it's non invasive for, for, for the players because they jump every day when they're on the pitch. They are quite used to it then I think of course it can never know. No data set or data collection can stand alone. So it's part of the layer of monitoring the players combined with the wellness questionnaires, the internal load, external load, hydration. Maybe you collect biomarkers, whatever you do inside your team, maybe you use some of the muscle testing as well from Nordboard or Force frame or whatever equipment you prefer to use. So it's part of the, the part of the puzzle to try to understand the, the players a little bit. But we use cmj and then we combine it with the player's wellness and then we combine it with the isometric, isometric strength on the adopters from a squeeze test to get an understanding to compare the players with their own baseline. And it's, it's the changes inside the, from, from the baseline and, and from the. What looks normal that we are looking for. And then I also got smarter. So in the beginning with cmj, we just looked at the jump height based on flight time. Okay. Then I also get a little bit smarter. People look more into it. We find out maybe you can still have a good jump height, but you just change your technique technique. So you are probably still fatigued from a neuromuscular perspective. Then we try to look into peak power. And then finally we got into the eccentric phase, some displacement of the hip and stuff like that. Did they cover up their fatigue by changing the jump technique? So that, that's like the, the way I, I approach it. And then the next thing, like I said, cmj. So besides, fatigue is also. We actually do some jumping unloaded with maximum intention and effort because they also get the way we do the direct feedback from, from the iPad when we do the jump. And, and the players also like that. And we get a little bit fun as well. Who can jump the highest and gets a little bit competitive and, and that's always good. And then finally, if the player should buy whatever reason, get injured. It's always nice to have some data from before the injury. Right? So it's nice to have a lot of CMJ data, not just a little bit in the preseason, a little bit end of preseason, but actually a lot of data points weekly. We did it. And then you can actually look left, right side, whatever you want to do. Landing phase, how do you absorb the forces and stuff? So it can be used in a lot of smart ways. So I like it because it's so easy to implement.

A

Yeah, no, definitely, as you said, it starts with the player's bay. And depending again on the context, the player you have, the generation, the age, the culture, it's sometimes easier than in other context because it still requires maximal intent. That's why also the scheduling and finding the right days to do it is probably also part of getting the outcome you want. So in your case, when would you use the jumps or where do you place them in the microcycle?

B

So we have it on the we did it on the match day because we did the priming session in, in the morning. So the context I was in with the squat, it was normally that you, you came in, had a breakfast, you did a priming session and then you went to the hotel for, for the relaxation and the pre match meal. So you had basically a whole day. Other teams, they decide to meet each other directly at the stadium. Some just meet for pre match meal so it has to be context based but that's the way we did it. So we, we did it as part of our priming session because it's just an unloaded jump. So we did on match day and then we did it on match day plus one and there's always considerations on plus one because some players, they can't jump, they had a knock, they had a angle twist. You can also, that's also reality if you, if you lose a game, the motivation is, is quite low.

A

Exactly. Yeah, exactly.

B

So for me it's explaining the players a lot that we are doing this not just to collect the data or to be really smart sports scientists but we're trying to do this to help you to perform as high level as possible and this will benefit you throughout the season. And once you get that, that and actually show the players we are active using the data to plan your, your training week or your, your gym sessions or then I found it quite easy to, to, to get a buy in and then sometimes okay, we will miss a data point in the set because a player is just, we're not going to have a massive fight over a cmj jump on +1. If you lost the day before and you're tired, fatigued and you have to travel. Okay that's, that's where I think we go a little bit away from the textbook work and then accept we're human beings. Exactly. So we did on match day, match day plus one and then we would normally do it after a day off as well. If we had that in the morning before we went out to get like some kind of freshness idea of the players, can they actually perform and how, how are they looking? So probably two or three times per week we would have the, the CMJ part in and then individually if they coming back from injuries, return to play or, or maybe we missed a data point on a player. This, we need to get some data in. Okay. Then we would collect an extra cmj.

A

Yeah, I was about to ask. So I think yeah, you went through of course being of course being flexible on the use of a plus one again. Being on the context. What about the match day measurements? Because we had the same question challenges back in Lille, where we are doing a lot of jumps, a lot. We were doing that often on a minus 1, part of the activation, part of the decision on minus 1. But for various reasons, if some players would actually be below the average, they would start to freak out that they would not be fresh enough for the game. But when it was minus one, we're like, don't worry, you still have 24 hours, so don't worry, you will have recovered. But now if it's game day, game day, you're below. See what I mean? So you don't want to start to stress players.

B

No, no. But that's why we did everything in the preseason. So we did the preseason games like we would do a normal game. So we did the priming session and the jump session, showing the players. It's a little bit like the whoop data, right? Some players, if they look at their whoop data or aura data, whatever they, and it's a little bit off, they get afraid, I can't train, I can't perform. And then with a good discussion and dialogue saying, we use the numbers to be informed, but not driven by them. Because we, we all know that I for sure have seen CMJ data where the player is not driven, performing at his maximum level for whatever reason, and he goes out and he plays from a physical perspective a really, really top game. So it's, it's to inform the players also that there will always be outliers, positive or negative. But what we're looking at is a trend over time. So if you have a declining trend over, over time, we have to modify your training probably because of fatigue normally in our system, not because of D training. So probably they are. They played a lot of games, traveling a lot. So it's more the trend than the isolated single point. That, that's why I think when you do your testing, if you do just a little bit of preseason, end of preseason, whatever you do, there's so many things that can be wrong on that single day or perfect on that single day that the numbers are basically just outliers. So I never tried in a competitive game that the players were afraid of not performing because they were jumping one or two centimeters lower than what they normally did.

A

Yeah, I think that's exactly the right way to frame it. Looking at trends, understanding overall response to the training, response to load. Because just back on this example where you would say, and we all seen that player is, I would say oh, few centimeter. Or maybe it's 90% of his reactive strength index, his eccentric velocity or those markers and say, no, don't worry, you can play. And then the next week you would say, actually you're also 90% of your usual. Now we're gonna change training, we're gonna adjust training because we're afraid of injury. I say, yeah, but you let me play 90 minutes the other day when I had the same deviation from my norm. So this is where sometimes we have to make sure we have the right, we tell the right story to the players. Otherwise we can be shooting ourselves a bullet in the foot without those measurements for sure.

B

And I also think normally in my experience that players are not always too concerned about being modified in the training week. As long as they can play in the week, in the weekend.

A

Yeah, but that would be the argument of a player that does not want to jump. And those guys are very clever. And he will say, why you want me to jump now? Because I'm gonna play anyway. And well, fair point. So not very good. So just maybe just to close the loop on the monitoring. So you said jumps, you said you. Some squeeze as well. Would they be aligned at the same time as the jump? You would pair them or it would be another timing.

B

So the squeeze we will not do on the match day because I, I don't like players to do maximum isometric work on the match day. It's just my personal preference. It's, it's a little bit strange, I think. So the isometric we will do on the plus one and then we will compare it to. We will normally do it on the minus 4 or something else where we do the, the force frame. So it's not a hundred percent textbook correct, I think, but more from, from a practical perspective. So on the plus one we do the squeeze and the jump and the wellness questionnaire, of course. And then we compare the jump and the wellness from the day before, normally 24 or 36 hours before. And then the fourth frame we look at how is it compared to, to the training week, hopefully after a day off, if we have it. And then it's mostly the trend. We look to see if, if the players have a big drop on the strength part as well.

A

Okay. No, it makes sense. Maybe the, the last comment I, I could make on the, the strategy of the, the germs were the squeeze at plus one. And I understand completely the, the, the rationale behind that is to evaluate the, the response of the game and how much the, the, the fatigue or the impact of the game on the other side. And that's probably what we're just working on. Another extension piece of the. The paper we wrote with my good friend Karim Ad there when we talked about the. The monitoring quadrant or load the response and what we're suggesting and that's also reflecting a bit more our practices is that try to have to match the. The monitoring tools in relation to the types of day and focus on the day. So basically just back to your point. Plus one. It's. It's supposed to be more a recovery day. So we would favor non active non type of tests that don't require an effort. This is where for example back in my days at PSG we are doing a lot of CK for example CK +1. You're already recovering so we don't want to ask you to perform a maximal effort on a day you're supposed to recover. And often as you said, you just don't want to produce a maximal effort because you're tired. So we would would prefer and use the jumps. Definitely the minus one is good way. It's a good time because you're. You're activating maybe the minus four. If you're doing a lot of stuff in the gym, you're already very active. So that's, that's our. Where we used to place the. The jumps on days where the demands were already high. And a plus one or maybe a minus two if your microcycle dynamic is to reduce the load on the minus two we would, we would swap up with more passive non aggressive types of measurement. Just a comment but again there's no right or wrong. But that's, that's our call.

B

I fully understand the context. I. I like the squeeze on the, on the plus one as well because it's also a screening tool for me because if the players say I don't want to squeeze because I have pain in my ductus and groin, you know already, then we know okay, we have to. To flag this player and, and. And some players will try to avoid sharing this information because they're afraid they are not going to play the next game. But if, if it's we I always integrate isometric work on the plus one anyway because in the, in the tight schedules it's really hard to get the power strength components in. But we can probably do some isometric work without too much mechanical load probably. And therefore we. It's a natural component to have isometric work for the adductors as well. And it's also like I said before, the screening tool so if the players say, I can't squeeze today, I have too much pain, or I feel a lot of pain when I squeeze, then we know the medical staff, visual staff has to get a little bit more involved with the players and we can actually hopefully be a little bit more proactive this way and get a little bit more information.

A

Yeah, no, excellent. And I'm glad you point that and you mentioned that from the start squeeze should go always with a pain or at least sensation. And that's probably a test that is very, very. There's a dual response to a squeeze, which is always a balance between pain, discomfort and the force production. And of course I've just been discussing that more and more with also endacking with my colleagues in Aspetar and he's a world expert in growing and he keeps saying that just looking at the strength, enough strength alone is not enough and it's always a balance between both. So yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that. Makes total sense. Excellent. So I think most of the topic we just discussed now about your approach of strength, your approach of the monitoring, you said that we were kind of discussing and I went about the things that I've heard you talking about your time in Prague, but then when you moved to Voisborg, did you, did you have the same approach of the things or you had to modify again based on the context, based on all the factors, or roughly you just kept implementing the same.

B

Volksburg was a little bit different case because the program was different, because the team was only, I say only competing in the Bundesliga and in the Cup. So there was no European game. So there was a little bit more training days available, a little bit less match load. On the other hand, the, the. The team was trained in a quite different way and maybe also from a physical perspective, a little bit inconsistent way because there was often a change in, in the technical stuff in Wolfsburg prior and still, which means that, that all coaches have different approaches to, to how they like to train. Some like to train long training sessions, maybe not with a lot of intensity, but a lot of details or tactical. Some. Some coaches like to train extremely fast, short time on the pitch. Some technical or head coaches like to have the players in the gym. Some don't like it. And, and, and, and there was no performance department at Bolsburg, so they did not have a head of performance or performance director or whatever you call it. So everything was a little bit in, in the same flat structure, which means there was no clear framework for how do we train physical capacities. As a club but a lot determined by. By the head coach philosophy and can work for sure. But it also means there was no consistency in how other players used to be trained. And then some players did a lot of power work by themselves. Some players did not do it all that kind of stuff. So it was a quite complex physical situation to jump in. Then when I arrived the. The idea from the club side was they wanted to build a performance department and that's why they brought me in. And they liked the philosophy from a fitness perspective that I represent on the speed and power. And the German Bundesliga is quite physical. There's a lot of high speed and sprint meters and a lot of duels in. In the league and it's quite important that you. You can do that. And the games are extremely close and very competitive. Of course there is this season. Bayern is exceptional and in. In a league by themselves. Not only in Germany, but they. They were also doing quite good in Europe. Right?

A

Of course.

B

So they were. They were an outlier in the league. But.

C

But.

B

And then of course you have a few teams that a little bit better and a few teams that are a little bit worse. But in general the games are extremely competitive and really close and it's never given if you're going to win or lose to be honest. And so you have to. There's no easy games. That's what I'm trying to say. So. So the club wanted a strong physical profile and so they hired a whole new technical staff and me to. And the coach was also. His style was more based around speed, power and intensity. Short time on the pitch with a lot of speed when we trained. So that's what they wanted to implement from a club perspective. So we. We tried to integrate what. What I did in. In Denmark with. With FC Magellan and also with. With Sparta. So we implemented quite a similar structure and then you know better than me. Martin. It adaptations into changes take quite some time. Right?

C

Yeah.

B

So if. If you. If you want to have a completely new physical profile training approach, you. You probably need quite some time and you need some consistency inside your. Your club up. And every time you change a head coach or a sporting director or a CEO or GM or whatever the title is, it changes a little bit always. So so it was. It was hard to do something on a consistent level to. To be honest. Yeah. Like we did in Sparta. So on the mind and match day we also did the priming session before we went on the pitch and. And solely based on Bundesliga match data. I'm not always A big fan of just looking at match data isolated because it's always based on context. How is your style of play? How is your opponent doing? How many games do you play? But for sure we had a big lift from the data last season on the high speed and sprinting data to this season. At least the time I was there, we, we made a massive jump and we were in the top three or four in the Bundesliga on the physical output. Then, then, then the football coach will say yeah, yeah, but is it just because you're chasing the ball? Yeah, maybe that, that could be an option. So we also have to look into context. But at least we had the physical capacity to deliver really high sprint and, and high speed meters in the games.

A

So that will be your least, the least bad KPI to say at least as you said, we're able to deliver. Now are we delivering? Well, that's another point that is more difficult to assess. But no, get your point exactly because

B

everything is connected, right? So I really don't like if I just say yeah, but we are delivering the physical output. If the team is not successful, then it's not important how the physical output is. To be honest, it's a problem if we are not successful and we can't deliver the physical work. Okay, that is a problem from the performance department. But as a performance department we can't hide behind our numbers and say yeah, but look, we're delivering a massive physical output. So we've done our job. Now everything is connected. Right. So you have to look a little bit more into to the broader context in my opinion.

A

Definitely. Maybe on your shorter experience in Vosberg and again feel free to, to comment on, share on what you are comfortable with because I know it's, it's always a bit, could be a bit sensitive but my comment on the, the fact that you so exited the club a bit before the end of the season. I was mentioning Jan Lemaire in Monaco happened to Karim when he was in Troy happened to me of course as well when I was in New. You know, so even our jobs. So those club guys head of performance are now more and more let go during the season, which I thought would not happen. You know, we know coaches, we know coaches. A few loss in a row you get, you need to save this, you need to save the club. Find a solution. So coach are replaced mid season. But people like our profiles. I was expecting at least, you know, let them finish the season and let's discuss, you know, what can be done. So any comment on that? I mean you don't have to comment on your specific, specific case, but I'm just. Yeah, that's. This is happening now. Head of performance are getting let go during the season.

B

Yeah. So personally I, I have no hard feelings towards Volsbruck and, and decisions that were, were made that for me that's part of the, the industry we're working inside. There is a, a risk of losing your job. Then we all know that you also get some benefits that you would not get outside this industry for some most a financial part of it. So that's for me, I knew the day I left Denmark the risk of me or possibility of me getting fired at one point would be a lot higher. So for me that's just part of it. That's no issue for me. And my guess is it will probably not also be the last time I will try to lose my job. It's the first time I ever got fired is also the first time that I left a club with the feeling that I did not deliver a job that I was happy with or that I was, let's say, done with. So that's the main part for me that I was unhappy that I did not finish what I was hired for. Then of course there are circumstances that made it quite difficult. So the sporting director who actually hired me me was fired after three or four months. Then the CEO who indirectly hired me as well was also released before me. So the two guys who hired me to implement and build a new performance department, their visions and it was their ideas and their framework. They were fired before me. And of course then it becomes a little bit difficult to actually work and, and, and continue the, the idea based on, on, on their framework and then other parts was changes in technical stuff. So there were maybe three head coaches this season I think in Wolfsburg. So it's, it's also, you know, what we do as a performance or fitness coach or whatever you are, is always relationship based. So you need to have some kind of relationship with the technical stuff. And it can be in my opinion, a little bit challenging to, to build a good and strong working relationship. Two or three months and then a new one comes in and then you change all the time. So that's, that's, that's for sure also a little bit challenging conditions to, to work in. But that's part of football. Like you said, it happens all the time. And. Yeah, and then you can always discuss in football, do we actually give coaches and maybe also performing guys enough time to do their job? Because if you change all the time and you have new directors and you have new head coaches and you have new performance managers who, who are often the main drivers of the direction of the club, along with the head of scouting or whatever. Academy directors. If you change consistently, it seems a little bit hard to achieve good stuff.

A

Of course. Of course it's impossible.

B

That's my opinion and I tried in Denmark to work. And the guy who's the. I'm a little bit doubt if he's the CEO now or his actual title, but. But he's been in the club for. Since the day the club started, basically. So he's been driving along with other people in the club, the direction of the club for, for 20, 25 years now. And, and that creates consistency. Then if you also have people who are doing a qualified job and they are consistent, well, then I think logically you get a good end result, right?

A

Definitely. Yeah, I think there's a bit of a balance, but of course you need stability to have time to build things, because as you said, you cannot change everything in three months. So you need the stability. And I have a lot of examples of. Through my consulting work and the network, I've seen clubs where you have staff that have been 5, 6, 8, 10 years in the same club, and there's no way they're all doing a better job than the average other clubs where they just keep changing. However, on the other side, you also need a little bit of change, a little bit of, you know, you need to keep a core stuff that kind of build and keep the momentum. But if it's just the same core stuff, they just circulate in the same bubble and they are not exposed either to novelty, change and so on. So it's kind of a subtle mix, maybe. I think you can almost take the example of. That's always something. I always remember when back in his days, Ferguson in Manu, he was saying that he was always changing a few players every year. I think three, four new players every season, keeping the same squad, adding some. I think it's same for staff. You know, you always. Maybe if every second season or every season there is maybe one new physio, one new sports scientist, and then they come and go and then you, you build up. So it's probably something in between. That's my take.

B

I think you're right because it's always nice to work with people that, you know for a longer period and, and maybe you also, on a personal level like them, but there's also the, the fear or the downside that you get a little Bit too comfortable, too relaxed and. And you also get afraid to maybe challenge the environment and each other enough. And if you do the same stuff, if I did the same work I did 10 years ago, I don't think I would be able to work at high level elite European football. That would be impossible. So you have to constantly evaluate yourself, evaluate your environment, evaluate your. Maybe even your colleagues, even though it can be a little bit unpleasant sometimes. And then you have to take the property. Respectful, of course, discussions to actually drive performance. Because that's the main part. The main part is that we are hired by a team or club to deliver high performance at some level, no matter what job you're doing. And sometimes that takes a little bit of discussion and talks before you can get to that part.

A

Yeah, no, completely agree. That's a very good point. Maybe as a way slowly close the chat. We have not mentioned your time with the national team, the Danish national team. I was mainly curious to see because that was a topic I've discussed with many guests and I don't think it's. We won't take the time to re dive into the detail of the role and so on. But at least I'll be curious to know how you manage your time as well. Because at that time you were both employed by Praga and you were also. So how. Because you know, there's no. Finally you have this weekend during the international break. I can finally relax a bit now at this time with the national team. So how did you manage that as well?

B

I think a really key thing if you want to work in elite football is you need to be able to know how to handle yourself, how to take care of yourself. Because you will work a lot of hours, you will work a lot of days without days off. You will sometimes miss a little bit of sleep, you will miss time. If you have a family, social life, you will. You will miss all those parts. So how do you handle yourself inside those periods to present yourself in a good way and don't get. There's a lot of papers on burnout among staff and turnovers and stuff. So it is a real thing inside our group or profession in football that people get burned out and stressed and, and leave football as well. So you need to find ways to. To handle yourself and, and accept these periods. So, and for me personally, like a lot of other I. I like to exercise. So exercising a lot was, was, was, was the tool for me. And then I can say that's a demi cap. But if you want to engage in this business, you need to make sure that you have a family that accept that this is the terms meaning wife or husband, girlfriend, boyfriend, whatever you have, they need to be aligned and you need as a, as a couple and pair to agree. This is what we do now. And therefore my wife will accept that I will have a four day summer holiday before I join my team after the Euros, for instance. Because if you have to feel a little bit guilty about not being home

A

and you feel a little bit possible.

B

Exactly. So then you lose your focus. So for me that was really important to have a really good supportive wife. And we have three children and the first one was, was born the same year I started in football. So they don't know anything else than, than that working inside a football team. So they're quite used to it. And then handle yourself whatever you need to do. If you need to exercise, if you need to do other activities, if you need to go hunting, read books, maybe younger guys play PlayStation. What do I know? It's not my generation to do that, I think. So find ways where you can, you can handle yourself and feel good and operate even though you have to. To work quite a lot and then get your sleep.

A

Yeah. No. Excellent. Excellent. I had almost developed a model which I call the flush model, which is a way to. When. When the, the. There's. There's. There's too much. It's not only accumulating but there's too much stuff accumulating. You have to find a way to, to keep flushing so you, you remain on the, on. On the top of the, of the ways and the flush. As you said, exercise, family, finding, finding your. Your. Your happiness into what you're doing and knowing what, what you do. And, and sometimes I was like, I need to flush. Give me two hours. I need, I need to flush to get back on. On track. So.

B

And then one thing I, I learned over time is I think a lot of people who go in to the line of work we do that they like to be organized, they like to have control, they like to things to be inside. But I also learned I can't control everything and if, if I can't control it then I should not waste my time on it. Do something else. Keep the frustration time low and actually work on the stuff that I can actively affect.

A

Excellent. Yeah. Contact me more. Contact me more.

C

Hey team, big news. We have just launched the new Athletica athlete app, what We've been calling App 2 and it's the closest thing yet to having a sports scientist in your pocket. So this isn't Another static training plan. It's an AI coach that you can actually talk to. Ask it how recovered am I today or should I change this session? Why is the week set up as it is? And it answers based on your training files, your history and your load response over time. Under the hood, it's powered by the same hit Science principles that we talk about on the show. Show individualized interval training, critical power and pace, HRV guided load management and polarized training distribution. On top of that, you get a completely new sleek interface and a full training experience. Integrated community in app help and Athletica U education built right into the platform so that you understand the why behind every session, not just the what. There's very little out there that can read and analyze your files, keep tabs on your recovery and coach you using proven sports science. But that's exactly what we've built in Athletica's new app 2. Head on over to Athletic AI and check it out today with a free trial. Hey team. At hitscience, we've learned that the best knowledge doesn't just come from books or labs. It grows through conversations with other coaches, practitioners and athletes in the field. And that's why we've created the Hitscience community, a global space to connect, share and turn sport and coaching science into practice. Inside you'll find find free courses, applied discussions and a worldwide network of professionals who push each other forward. So don't just keep up with the science, be part of shaping it. Join the HIT Science community today for free. Simply access through our website, our socials or click the link in our show notes. Look forward to working with you on the inside.

A

I think yeah, it's going to be time to wrap up. I'll let you maybe finish with anything you wanted to share. Maybe. I mean we could have spent definitely more time but anything else you wanted to add or something I should have asked or any last comment and then we'll close of it's good for me.

B

Martin, I will just again say thank you for inviting me for this talk. Pleasure. It's. It's. It's great. I am very happy that people like you. Where I read your articles, I read your books, I follow what you post and I think it's, it's inspirational. It's nice that you take your time to speak with me. That's, that's, that's really, really great and I thank you very much for that.

A

No, my pleasure. It's been good. I'm. I'm glad. Yeah I caught you in more quiet period and yeah, as we're discussing online, there's a few roles probably in the pipeline. So I'm just wishing all the best for the summer and I'm sure you'll let me know quickly when things develop and if not, more time for the family and for personal development and onto the next. So I think whatever an option or the other, you'll have a good summer for sure. But no, thanks for your time and chat soon. Thank you.

B

Bye bye. Thank you.