Systems thinking in sport

During a conversation with a colleague I was challenged as to the relevance of ‘systems thinking’ within sport.  My (and I regret to say) uneducated stance was that the theory wouldn’t carry much relevance within the sporting world; the description that followed however was of much greater significance than I originally thought.

Although I still cannot profess to understand the intricacies of systems thinking there is one anecdote that rang true, that of the ‘Trim Tab’.  A Trim Tab, as I understand it, is a small component that attaches to the rudder of a ship, or propeller of a plane, and facilitates the fluid movement of these often massive pieces of machinery, improving the manoeuvrability of the vessel.  Essentially this is a very small addition that has a significant, positive effect on performance.  There are many scenarios in sport where the addition of a hypothetical Trim Tab may be preferable to more wholesale changes when performance levels are not as we would have hoped.  Some may argue this sounds a lot like the pursuit of marginal gains however I would suggest otherwise.  Marginal gains apply in situations where performance is ‘good’ however small, incremental improvements are needed to become ‘great’, the accrual of 1% improvements over time.  Systems thinking and the analogy of the Trim Tab suggests that small changes can have a large impact on underperforming teams and individuals – more of a tipping point to use the analogy of Malcom Gladwell.

When we encounter players and/or teams that are underperforming, how often do we in the first instance try to make a large change to an aspect of their preparatory or completive routine? This may take the form of extra training, a change in dietary habits, a new and innovative intervention or, in some cases, removing an individual from the team, as often happens within professional team sport.  These may be valid courses of action, however, do we first consider whether small tweaks can be made to what we are already doing?  When trying to help an individual learn a new skill I have seen an array of approaches taken including the use of video analysis, biomechanical profiling and additional practise hours.  Very rarely however have I seen people maintain the training environment yet try different coaching cues, be they visual, auditory or kinaesthetic.  Subtle alterations in the way we deliver our message may be all that is required to bring about a long and permanent change in behaviour and should perhaps be the first port of call.  This is just one example; however I can think of many more that would make this post rather longer (perhaps some are thinking it is too long already!)

This is also true in paradigms of thought.  Within team sports there appears to be a reliance on external markers of training load, predominantly through the use of GPS, whilst internal load, especially monitoring via the use of heart rate has fallen out of favour.  This is not meant to be a critique of new technology, more an acknowledgement that its adoption has signalled a paradigm shift in how we prepare athletes without, to my understanding anyway, the identification of a genuine problem with the old method (In the case of heart rate, yes there were aspects of performance it was unsuitable for quantifying however there are still a range of training practises where its use is valid).  A wholesale change when a small ‘tweak’ or indeed addition may have been more beneficial.  We see this in a range of scenarios; for a period, Olympic lifts were ‘in vogue’ irrespective of the sport you were taking part in; however we are now seeing a move back to callisthenic-based exercises.  I recently learned a football club had installed a ‘play area’ for young athletes to encourage them to jump, climb and swing rather than conducting S&C in the gym environment.  The shift in training practises associated with developing strength and power represented a fundamental change rather than making small adjustments and improvements over time.  I can attest to personal experience in this instance.  A couple of years ago I attended an excellent two-part course developed and delivered by a physiotherapist and movement specialist.  After the course had finished I found my programmes taken over by exercises and techniques I had only recently learned.  As good as these new approaches were they certainly should not have replaced in totality what I was doing before; after being presented with an alternative I had forgotten all the good things that were going on previously.  There is no doubt that advances in technology and our understanding of the training response have helped athletes and coaches; there is perhaps a danger however that we have forgotten the benefits and qualities of the processes and procedures employed before their introduction.

When considering making a change to your personnel and/or training/completive routine, start with a simple question; what can we improve.  Once you have answered this question you can move onto aspects that can be changed in instances where improvement is not possible.  This may help to identify all the things that are working well, even in instances were performance is compromised, of which there will be many. This may be difficult in an industry that seems more and more driven by technology, gadgets and gimmicks resulting in a pressure to keep up to date with current trends.  Remember, most of what you are doing will be effective, if it wasn’t you wouldn’t have started using it in the first place.  Musing over how practises can be improved may be a far more productive use of your time than pursuing an alternative.

Catapult conference - Twickenham Stadium 17th May 2016

Below are my notes from the recent Catapult conference in London.  They are by no means extensive but do, as I see it, address some of the main areas of discussion.  There was an insistence at the start of the day that Chatham House Rules should be applied and so I have omitted the two sessions in which only one person spoke and have not attributed any of the content to specific panel members.

Broad themes

Is technology limiting what we do?

Whilst technology has undoubtedly enhanced how we train and prepare athletes, there was some discussion which suggested to me that practise was being limited by what we can measure rather than what we can do.  When trying to push the boundaries of performance there has to be scope to try new techniques and approaches that we are not yet clear how we can measure or assess.  To give an example, we were prescribing high intensity interval training long before our ability to measure the speed or player load via GPS or in fact intensity via the heart rate response.

In business there is a term that suggests ‘what matters gets measured’.  In sport perhaps this has been reversed and what we can measure, matters.  Sport and performance therein cannot be distilled into numbers.  As successful as the Moneyball concept was, a common theme in the book is the ability of Billy Beane to sell his message to the players, a tacit unmeasurable (?) skill.

Skill set of young practitioners

There were lots of conversations regarding the skill set required of young practitioners and some bemoaning of the fact that few demonstrate the soft skills required to work in sport at the highest level.  Whilst this may be a valid concern, perhaps this is a problem the industry has created. When I first began working as a sport scientist I got the impression that clubs and organisations were only just beginning to organise the discipline into a viable career path (not all that long ago).  Because of this there were a lot more opportunities to be involved with coaches, athletes and professionals in other areas of the business.  I found this to be the case in both an institute and professional sport setting.  As the industry has become more organised, largely by practitioners who have transitioned into managerial roles, the jobs I see advertised are more discrete in nature.  Practitioners are employed as S&C coaches rarely stepping out of the gym, or data analysts pouring over spreadsheets on their laptop.  If we don’t give people the chance to develop the skills identified as being important we should not be surprised when they are not able to display them.  Having the chance to spend time with the head coach is invaluable in understanding the context of how your work can improve performance.  How many young practitioners get the chance to do this on a regular and sustained basis?

Technology is somewhat to blame; when I started there were limited options in terms of monitoring training.  Polar heart rate monitors were the norm however this was by no means as time consuming to collate and analyse as GPS nowadays allowing more time to interact with coaches, athletes and other members of the support team.  Perhaps the tasks we ask practitioners to engage in now reduce this ‘socialising’ time? 

Although not perfect, at Oriam we provide dual roles for young practitioners whereby they have a supervised role with one of our more senior squads combined with an autonomous role with a junior squad, be that at the student or amateur level.  This seems to be a good way of providing supervision combined with the autonomy to make (safe) mistakes and learn from doing so.  In this sense I wonder whether people looking to carve out a career in sport would be better starting at a smaller organisation where they have more responsibility than at a bigger club where they occupy a small role in a large department?

Are academies working?

The draft system in the United States and Australia means that young athletes can be signed to a professional contract at the age of 18 and go straight into the starting line-up of the first team.  This is very different to the controlled environment that institute and academy development programmes run in the UK, however is it better?

One comment made by a panel member regarding a young player was that, ‘they will be ready in 6-12 months’.  I have heard this a number of times however rarely with a detailed plan of what exactly it is they need to achieve in that time period to prove their worth. Is it an increase in physical precocity or simply a greater exposure to training and competition?  The issue with the latter is that academy competition is no acid test for how a player will perform in the first team and as such recruiting players proven in a comparative competition, often from overseas, is more appealing.  I certainly don’t have an answer to this issue other than to highlight the number of occasions in sport that young players have been thrown in at the deep end as a result of circumstance (injuries etc.) and have thrived.  Perhaps we need to trust young players more to make the step? (appreciating that this is difficult in a results based industry).

A final point on this issue is that having looked at the squads already named for this summer’s Europeans I think England are the only team who have selected all their players from the same league (happy to be corrected if I am wrong).  I am not commenting on whether this is good or bad, simply that young players, if not getting the opportunity they want in the UK, may look to leagues abroad to get first team experience.  This seems, as it always has, to be a strategy adopted by players from other countries plying their trade around the world. 

Notes from panel discussions

Is performance enhancement on international duty a realistic goal?

This was an interesting panel discussion with the general consensus (as I recall) being that you can make meaningful improvements during international breaks and camps providing you have effective links with the clubs players are being selected from.

Some interesting comments…

How can we make the international environment as familiar to the athletes as possible?  This rang true with my own experiences and objective handed to me when I became involved with an international team; try to, wherever possible, recreate the club environment.  Easier said than done when you have athletes from different clubs (and leagues) however perhaps a useful aim.

Should international competition be the pinnacle of a player’s career?  If so how do we schedule sufficient recovery between domestic competition and international games?  Clearly this is a wider question for the governing bodies of sport however does pose a real issue when playing international games at the end of the regular season without sufficient rest.  This has long been a problem for football however scheduling in sports such as Rugby League and Rugby Union seems to have alleviated the issue to some extent.  For example the state of origin clash in Australia and the Rugby Union world cup happen in the middle of the domestic season.

Strategies to return players to their clubs in the same (or better) state as when they left.  There will be an element of subjectivity here, not least in the player’s enjoyment of the camp, and perhaps also success (winning versus losing).  It would be interesting to see a comparison of match performance in subsequent domestic games amongst players who played during the international break and those who were in the squad but were not selected.  If anyone has this data or is interested in collaborating to answer the question I would be interested in making contact.

Resilience – this was a common theme of the day and despite being an intangible aspect of performance is hugely important both for the athlete and coach.  There was some discussion around planned ‘speed bumps’ in which coaches schedule obstacles and barriers for their players (for example dropping them from the squad).  I haven’t experienced this personally (having usually been dropped because of a lack of talent rather than to build resilience) however would suggest that it becomes increasingly difficult the more important a player is to the team.

As suggested above, to get the most out of international camps there should be a clear dialogue between coaches, medics and sport scientists to ensure clarity in focus and content.  Whilst great in theory I wonder how often this actually happens?  Whenever you have multiple groups inputting into an individual’s development there is the potential for conflict, this is as true when dealing with a PhD student who has multiple supervisors as it is for an athlete.  If consistency in message cannot be reached one of the coaches must concede, whether this should be the international or domestic coach is debatable.  From my perspective you are better having a consistent message that may not be optimal than an inconsistent message, even if one of the conflicting points of view is right.  In instances where there is a battle for supremacy in terms of message it is usually the athletes that suffers.  Coaches, medics and sport scientists must learn, if they are not responsible for the player long term (i.e. on international camps) to, where conflict arises with the club, keep their own counsel.

The point was made that with the professionalisation of coaching and sport science/medicine that we are too keen to ‘give something’ to the athletes for whom we are responsible when in certain instances we may serve them better by ‘taking something away’.  This ties into the sense that the most important thing was bringing together a cohesive group of athletes who genuinely ‘wanted to be there’ and have a shared objective.  Like so many aspects of the discussion this sounds nice in theory and, whilst not impossible to implement, in practise could prove easier said than done.

There was some discussion on how National Governing Bodies (NGBs) could support individuals working within the clubs.  In one example it was apparent that the full time staff were employed by the NGB yet the club coaches and support staff were all part time, despite the latter having much more contact with the players on a weekly basis.  This is not too dissimilar to my experiences with a female sport in Scotland.  It seems strange that the full time staff would have the least contact with players, whilst part time roles were created for their ongoing and long term development. 

Do great teams require great players?

My initial reaction to this question was yes, absolutely.  Teams who achieve greatness must be, by definition, comprised of great players.  It seems the discussion comes when we consider what constitute greatness.

Some interesting comments…

The concept of momentum was discussed and winning being a habit.  Most of us in sport recognise this when we see it however I for one still find it hard to objectively quantify.

There was some interesting discussion around the draft system and salary cap in other sports.  Melbourne Storm (NRL) were mentioned in light of their salary cap being made up principally of three players but this not having a detrimental effect on performance or team cohesion (perhaps worth mentioning that two of their premierships and three of their minor premierships were removed from the annals for salary cap breaches). Given the publicised ‘marque’ or ‘franchise’ player in other sports I wonder whether acknowledging and celebrating the fact that some players in football are paid significantly more (and cost more to sign) than others in the same team would stop this issue being a source of friction in the changing room?

‘Round heads in round holes’ – I though this captured the importance of getting the right people in the right places at the right times.

Clarity of message – linked to the above and vital in ensuring you have a shared and common purpose that each player understands their role in achieving.

Difficulties surrounding due diligence in football, especially with the transfer window.  Can we really understand whether a player will fit into the club before we sign them and are the processes we have to determine this robust enough?

There was some discussion around the idea of team cohesion and a core group of players being within the same team for a long enough period to develop a genuine understanding on the field of play.  There were some statistics regarding successful teams in the Championship having a more settled starting XI however I’m not aware of any research in this area. This would be in disagreement with research suggesting squad rotation to be beneficial during congested fixture periods, as are commonplace in many leagues.  There were some anecdotes from Rugby and successful teams such as Harlequins and Saracens building their teams over time – this would seem to be supported by the success of the England RFU team in 2003 given the length of time they had played together and experience of high pressure international matches.  There were a large number of the world cup winning team in the Lions side that beat South Africa in 1997 from memory.

One thing that this session highlighted was the importance of player transfer and squad assembly.  One of the take home messages for me was that all practitioners should have a good grasp of the business of the sport they are in, at least at the basic level.  Understanding which players are likely to be released and why, likely targets for future years, budgets and salary ranges for me would help in developing the softer skills required to manage individuals over the course of a season.

Do injury prevention plans really work?

For me this is somewhat of a misnomer; we can never know whether we have prevented an injury.  All we can do is implement strategies and analyse how injury rates compare with our peers and that of previous seasons to assess whether incidence is up, down or stable.  Prevention would imply that we knew more injuries were going to happen than did based on the interventions put in place; this is a constant unknown.  Much was made of this week’s report indicating the number of injuries and total days lost at each of the Premier league clubs, congratulations to Swansea and Leicester who had the healthiest squads.

There was some healthy discussion on the direction sport science was taking.  Are we employed to:

• Reduce injury rates and keep players on the pitch?
• Push the boundaries of human performance
• Both?

Some of this discussion was on the back of comments in the media that sport science was making athletes less resilient, an opinion I have heard a number of times within sport.  I think, and this was argued well by the panel, that it is not sport science per se making players less resilient, rather the lack of autonomy and ‘home comforts’ that exist within modern day academies.  For me sport science has to be a balance between enhancing performance whilst mitigating risk factors associated with injury (and illness); the important note is that without addressing the latter we will rarely impact the former.

It was acknowledged that there are some individuals who are non-responders; there are those who you can throw the kitchen sink at and still come back for more whilst other players/athletes struggle to complete a basic level of training.  Most of us will have encountered individuals in both camps and wrestled with how best to address the issue.  This is where an effective line of communication with the coach is key and establishing what he or she needs from the player.  From there we can set realistic and achievable goals whilst, if necessary, recalibrating their opinion on what is possible.  For example, if we have a player who requires modified training each week it is perhaps unrealistic to expect them to play in 40+ games per season.  For the more robust player we may need to reign ourselves in as well as the individual to ensure that we focus not on volume but quality, training that addresses areas they have greater and need scope for development in.

There was a strong message that when it comes to modifying and/or planning training that an evidence based approach is more appealing to technical coaches; show me the numbers to support your rationale. This is a good example of how sport science can, in the mind of coaches at least, be beneficial.  An important point to consider is the reliability and validity of the data we collect.  There has been information published recently regarding the broad spread of values reported from different GPS devices used on the same person doing the same activity.  We also know that the positioning of the device can have an impact on the values reported.  When it comes to wellness and RPE, consideration should be given to the range of scores each player is likely to give when calculating individual cut off points and ‘red flags’.  In this instance it may be that technology has outstripped our ability to truly understand the numbers and how they relate to performance.  This may be one of the biggest challenges facing sport scientists in the future. 

When identifying whether to train or recover, from a personal perspective the important question is, will we be better prepared with:

• An extra session focusing on shape and tactics (set pieces etc) OR
• Feeling fresher having performed one less pitch session. 

Usually the answer is the former and reinforces the comment made by one panel member that decisions regarding training load are never made in isolation.  Sport scientists must understand the context of their decision and the impact it is likely to have on the individual, team, club and coach.  Whether we expose young sport scientists to this decision making process and the implications our choices have is debatable.

Finally, there was a strong theme that players themselves had a responsibility to manage themselves, being honest in their appraisal of readiness to train and compete.

How specialised do support staff need to be?

This was an interesting session with some different perspectives from individual and team sports.  The general consensus as I interpreted it was:

• Practitioners need to be critical thinkers and good decision makers.  Difficult to assess at interview but crucial none the less.
• A coach I know has a more eloquent set of criteria for his support staff: ‘FIFO’ – fit in or f&*k off.

I did get the sense during the debate that, as in so many industries, we were managing for managing sake.   There was some discussion regarding how we assess effectiveness and the implementation of KPIs.  For me coaching does not fit neatly into these categories and if we really value interpersonal skills we must recognise that quantifying personal relationships is often tacit in nature and unmeasurable.  To put that in context I had a chat with a friend recently who coaches at a high profile Super League club regarding whether playing in Australia makes British players better.  In terms of their objective markers of performance, tackles, line breaks, support runs completion rate, the data would suggest not.  In terms of their ability to make decisions and perform consistently in high pressure, competitive situations then probably yes.  The latter however does not lend itself to commonly used measurable metrics.  I would argue that the skills good coaches and practitioners have are similar in nature and no matter how innovative you think your recruitment or management system is, you are likely unable to quantify the nuances of what makes them effective.  As in so many instances, it really comes down to an opinion.

One thing that did strike me during this session and having listened to the views of a high profile coach earlier in the day is that perhaps sport science is a discipline that sits within coaching and as such, should we be looking for coaches who specialise in sport science?