Mauricio Pochettino has revealed that Tottenham Hotspur want talks with the Football Association over Harry Kane’s participation in the European Under-21 Championships and believes the striker needs a month off this summer.
England manager Roy Hodgson is poised to call Kane up to the full squad for this month’s games against Lithuania and Italy, but FA technical director Dan Ashworth has claimed Gareth Southgate wants the 21-year-old to play for the Under-21s in this summer’s tournament in the Czech Republic.
Join the leaders in Sports Medicine and Performance Training this May 15-16th in Boston for a multidisciplinary seminar that has more basketball content available than teams in March Madness!
A friend recently asked me “HOW do I enjoy the process?” She is getting back into dating and, frankly, fearing/hating the disappointment of the excitement-rejection cycle. When listening to her latest recount of a guy who may or may not be too-good-to-be-true, I – admittedly in my therapist voice – suggested she “enjoy the process”. She, rightfully, questioned what exactly that is and how exactly to do it.
Fair enough! So let me try to explain. First, here are my basic steps to enjoying the process… then I’ll explain what I mean.
This study provided the basis by which professional development needs can be addressed and add to the applied sport psychology literature from an under-researched sport domain. The current study endeavored to utilize qualitative methods to explore the specific techniques applied by the strength and conditioning professional. Eighteen participants were recruited for interview, via convenience sampling, drawn from a previously obtained sample. Participants comprised 10 participants working within the UK, 3 within the USA and 5 within Australia offering a cross section of experience from raging sport disciplines and educational backgrounds. Participants were interviewed Using semi-structured interviews. Thematic clustering was employed utilizing interpretative phonological analysis to identify common themes. The practitioners referred to a wealth of psychological skills and strategies that are used within strength and conditioning. Through thematic clustering, it was evident that a significant emphasis is on the development or maintenance of athlete self-confidence specifically with a large focus on goal-setting. Similarly, albeit to a lesser extent, there was a notable attention on skill acquisition and arousal management strategies. The strategies used by the practitioners consisted of a combination of cognitive strategies and behavioral strategies. It is important to highlight the main psychological strategies which are suggested by strength and conditioning coaches themselves in order to guide professional development towards the specific areas. Such development should strive to develop coaches’ awareness of strategies to develop confidence, regulate arousal and facilitate skill and technique development.
… I went to Australia last year, actually December of 2013 and spent a lot of time looking the AFL clubs. Sat down with Darren Burgess there, Richmond Tigers, Essendon and some of the different AFL clubs and saw their, I guess, high performance model.
I came back and reformed our department, which is now myself as a sport science performance manager and Chad Kolarcik is our head strength conditioning coach. Ravi Ramineni, who is actually a legend. He’s our head of analytics, data analyst with the club. As well as, a crew of very, very highly talented interns.
So it’s a real department, I think. That’s the difference. [audio, 46:39]
It’s a beautiful game, but for David Tenney, it’s a science. Tenney is heading into his second full season as the Sounders FC Sport Science and Performance Manager, but he’s been with the club for seven years, serving as Fitness Coach from 2009-13. He is well-known not only within MLS circles, but in the greater sports world, as well. For nearly half a decade, he has organized a workshop that gathers a wide range of sports science experts in Seattle to talk about developments in the field.
“It’s been unbelievable. We started with 35 [attendees] four years ago. Last year we had 125 people from eight or nine different countries – speakers from all over,” Tenney said as he and his staff prepare for the 2015 MLS season. “Even right now, we have attendees from the NFL, NBA, EPL and some top NCAA teams.”
When the Vermont Stars head into competition, they do so against the toughest opponents they can find as a Tier I team.
Before the puck drops, however, the Stars have a system that they believe maximizes player development while keeping the schedules manageable for the 14U and 12U girls and their families.
When we spoke last April, Kegan Schouwenburg’s company SOLS, which makes custom 3-D printed orthotic insoles by scanning customers’ feet, had just completed a $6.4 million Series A funding round. Fast forward less than a year, and this New York-based startup just raised another $11.1 million in financing.
Qualitative and quantitative feedback are two ways in which a coach can assess an athlete in both a learning and performance environment. Qualitative feedback is purely sensory and is often subjective in character. A coach observes his or her athlete for movement deviations, listens for inconsistent stride/stroke rhythms, etc. It can also come in the form of how the athlete “feels” during a movement. The information generated from this type of observation is qualitative because it focuses on and describes a particular quality of the task or the athlete. Quantitative feedback, on the contrary, is a numerical form of measurement that extrapolates specific quantifiable data such as speed, time, pace, jump height, force, etc. Quantitative data is inarguably a very objective form of feedback for the athlete, making it a reliable method for performance comparisons.
In this age of technology, we as coaches find ourselves overwhelmed with the surplus of electronic tools available to use with our athletes.
Each morning, before heading out to training, every Portland Timbers player puts on a specialized vest under his practice uniform. Inside the vest, heart rate monitors and GPS pods immediately begin collecting data.
Nick Lewis, an analyst hired by the Timbers, compiles the data into simple spreadsheets that include a range of information about each player, from distance covered during practice, to heart rate variability to sprint counts.
… The philosophy behind this oasis of bold modern youth development is in the name; aspiring to be not just competitive, but the best.
Most top European clubs have made use of the facilities, while some of the foremost names in the sport such as Lionel Messi, Edgar Davids and Kevin Keegan have been drafted in to offer inspirational talks and coaching clinics to fire up the graduates. The facilities are unparalleled around the world with seven luscious training pitches, each with their own stands where youth tournaments are regularly held, with the centre piece of the complex the world’s largest multi-purpose dome, containing a 5,500 capacity indoor artificial surface, swimming pool and 1,000-seater auditorium where talks from luminaries are delivered.
All the coaches are foreigners, mostly from key European footballing nations, while the director of the academy is former Real Sociedad player and youth coach Roberto Olabe
National Football Post, The Agent's Journal blog from
When you hear Mike Mayock and Rich Eisen talk about how much bigger and faster the players are getting each year, you have to wonder where the comparison should stop from players of the past.
The whole reason why drills, schedules and formatting of the Combine remain the same is so evaluators can always compare to the prior years attendees. However, this thinking/formula is flawed now because the evolution of training and preparing for the Combine has accelerated so dramatically over the last fifteen years.
… There’s something very Gattaca about the direction of player evaluation and development.
Sloan offered a platform for companies like Catapult (a paying sponsor of the conference, but a company whose technology is being used increasingly by NBA and NFL teams) to trumpet wearable technology as a means of tracking not just movement but also fatigue and body vitals.
This sort of technology is emerging against a backdrop where, more and more, teams are trying to figure out how best to manage rest, playing time, and even travel schedules to best position their teams for sustainable physical success through the full course of the season.