Below are a collection of thoughts and,
what I hope will prove, useful applied suggestions surrounding presentations made
at the WCSF 2015 in Copenhagen. The
programme was too broad to comment on each session however what I have chosen
below represents, for me, some of the highlights and contemporary issues.
Injury – based
on sessions delivered by:
- · Jan Ekstrand, Injuries in top class football – coaches are more important than doctors?
- · Aaron Coutts, Training and performance characteristics of professional AFL players
- · Laura Bowen, Accumulated work loads and injury risk in elite youth football players using GPS technology
As might be expected, injury and reducing
injury rates, was a popular topic. It
was suggested that the cost of one player being injured for a month at the top
level was approximately €600,000.00,
a cost much higher than robust and rigorous injury reduction programmes. Suggested
strategies to reduce injury incidence can be distilled into three areas, the
first may come as a surprise.
Communication - through a survey of practitioners working in football
environments the most important component of injury reduction was clear and
effective communication. This, at first
glance, may seem like common sense however facilitating effective communication
is a problem facing many organisations both small and large; ironic given the
proliferation of technologies designed to help us keep in touch. No easy
answers to this problem other than a commitment by support staff to integrate
with the coaching team and find ways of communicating in an effective manner. We will pick up the issue of communication a
little later when we look at recommendations for monitoring however perhaps the
interpersonal skills associated with this area of the job are undervalued on
many undergraduate and postgraduate courses.
Changing
personnel and priorities – a bit of information
that all fitness coaches will want to take note of; there is an increase in
injuries when the fitness coach is changed during the season. That should keep at least some of us in a job
if we make it past July! A similar, but
less pronounced relationship was seen for coaches. It was clear that when assessing player
availability some coaches are more successful than others at developing a
culture that keeps players ‘on the pitch’ (data taken from a champions league
club over the past 14 years). My
interpretation of this is that although some coaches (fitness and technical)
are better than others, none purposely design training to invoke injury. More likely, some are better at assessing
what is appropriate for the players they are responsible for. In the same way that a teams technical
ability will dictate how they intend to play, their physical prowess, injury
history and training history will dictate what type (and how often it is
administered) of training is most appropriate.
We all like routine, and many of the
popular periodisation models proffered today suggest a fairly standard approach
to recovery and training. Coaches and
fitness coaches must recognise that it takes time and likely small incremental steps
if the aim is to significantly increase training load. This, in an ideal world would be done during
the pre-season. Periodisation could be
described as the planned and progressive prescription of training; there is no
greater necessity for heeding this advice as when changing a routine players
have become used to.
Training – the first point to make is explicitly linked to the two
above. Where possible, avoid spikes in
training volumes; weeks (and perhaps days) that are significantly different
from the normal routine. If you want to
increase the external load, this must be done gradually and in a planned
manner. The issue is not that players
cannot handle higher loads – more that they need time to adapt and develop a tolerance
to the new stimulus.
Strength is a commonly cited attribute
necessary for success in all football codes.
There was a strong theme at the conference that eccentric training was
often overlooked yet was critical in reducing injury rates, particularly around
the hip, groin and hamstrings.
Undoubtedly, exercises that stress the muscles in this way are necessary
however scheduling their use during the in-season may be difficult, requiring
careful consideration of loads and the cost-risk ratio of their introduction.
Laura Bowen of Southampton FC presented an
interesting method for the quantification of training load. Laura suggested that training load could be
quantified as a percentage of the individuals match load, with, as I understood
it, higher percentages of match load in training linked to injury. This would seem like a novel and useful way
of dealing with the application of load throughout the year. Some questions associated with this approach;
- · How many matches should be used to infer ‘average’ demand and is it the average or most intense match load that should be used as the criterion measure?
- · How many false positives does this method yield? For example, how many players are at risk of injury (according to their external load) but remain available for selection and are these same players the ones that progress to the first team?
In my experience of working with young
professional players and in the absence of GPS data, if playing load exceeds
25% of the training load injury rates appear to increase. Of course we can remedy this by playing the
same number of games yet training more.
A more conservative approach to playing load prescription in young
players is, I think, what is needed especially when they are eligible for
selection in multiple squads.
A key message was that too little training
could be as risky as too much, perhaps debunking the current preoccupation with
recovery, time off feet and less is more.
There are likely individual variations in how players respond to the
same external load however Aaron Coutts suggested the presence of a ‘goldilocks
zone’ in terms of prescribed training that would allow adaptation to occur,
prepare players for competition whilst limiting fatigue. The take home message here along with some of
the work being published from Australian Rugby League would seem to be don’t
wrap the players in cotton wool.
Training, testing and monitoring – based on three sessions by:
- · Barry Drust, fitness training and testing of the top player
- · Aaron Coutts, Training and performance characteristics of professional AFL players
- · Robin Thorpe, Reliability of a range of fatigue variables in elite soccer players
- · Jens Bangsbo, training and testing in football
- · Tim Meyer, monitoring of stress and fatigue in football
Training
The key message in the training of top
level players is that the stimulus and load must be individualised wherever
possible and that in order to achieve this training time must be used effectively. Additionally, there is a growing body of
evidence that high intensity, anaerobic type efforts may be a useful and time
effective modality for increasing soccer specific fitness. A note of caution; data presented by Barry
Drust showed an increase in the HR response with the addition of multiple 180
degree turns during shuttle running; not to mention the increased mechanical
load associate with multiple accelerations and decelerations.
Sport scientists have a crucial role to
play in the prescription and content of training however they must first
understand implicitly what the coach is trying to achieve and what he wants his
players to be able to do on the pitch.
This is often not an easy task and emphasises the importance, as
discussed earlier, of clear and effective communication links. Ask the question ‘what does the player need
to do?’ rather than ‘what should they be able to do?’
Testing
The need to assess physical capacity was an
area of debate with proponents and detractors.
Some of the key points focused on the following areas which sport scientists
may want to consider when deciding if and when to test their players.
- · Is the assessment reliable and able to elucidate changes in performance (more of this in the section on monitoring).
- · Scheduling of tests and whether all players need to included. For example is it only those with a low playing time or returning from injury.
- · Sub-maximal assessments and variations of the YoYo were suggested as being a useful addition to the assessment process.
- · If the assessment is maximal in nature, are the players giving a maximal effort and if not how does this affect the usefulness of the results?
- · If we don’t test how can we assess the effectiveness of our interventions?
Point four is perhaps the most important in
that the fitness (or otherwise) of teams is not explicitly linked to performance
if we consider the only outcome measure of note; winning or losing.
Monitoring
Monitoring of training load and the
response of players to the stresses imposed on them is commonplace in football
and there are a range of apps and technologies designed to help the
practitioner deal with this type of large data set. Given the time required to collect and analyse
this data is it an effective use of practitioners time and resources?
Firstly, as with training, each player will
respond to the stimulus and recover in an individual manner. As such we need time to understand the
requirements of each member of the squad and to be able to draw meaningful
conclusions from the data. For many
applied practitioners time is not something they have a lot of and rely to a
greater extent on intuition and experience.
This maybe unscientific however represents a vital component of the
skill set required to work in sport; the ability to blend experience and
evidence based practice.
Secondly, any measure you use must be
reliable. Robin Thorpe of Manchester
United presented some interesting data on the reliability of a range of
variables associated with assessing player wellness and readiness to
train. Subjective responses to training
and wellness along with the CMJ were both deemed useful in the accurate
assessment of recover however salivary IgA was not, or at least not in the sample
sizes found in football clubs. Aaron Coutts
suggested that in his experience RPE was the most useful tool in tracking
session intensity. Perhaps we are coming
full circle and swapping our laptops for the more traditional pen and paper.
Thirdly, and in this instance we find
ourselves referring back to the first point concerning communication. If we are going to ask players to fill in
questionnaires each morning we have to be sure that we are able to use that
information to inform the content of training sessions. If players feel that their responses are no
more than a sample set for the next research project they are unlikely to
approach the task with any degree of accuracy or consideration. This may have been the case in one data set
presented where only poor correlations were found between physical performance
and measures of ‘readiness to train’ (Jack
Dowling presented some interesting data in this area). Sport science should not be a checklist of
practices that you utilise to satisfy the requirements of others. Rather it is the knowledge of a range of
practices and the ability to select and utilise the most appropriate to achieve
the desired effect for the team you are working with. It isn’t making a difference then don’t be
afraid to try something else in its place.
Time in sport, at least at the top level, is something few of us will
experience so use what you have effectively.
