Today I am delighted and privileged to welcome a man who needs little introduction - Mr Kelvin Giles @kbgiles. Kelvin is CEO of movement dynamics sports consultancy, a former PE teacher who went on to be UK National and Olympic Track & Field Coach. He spent 30 years in Australia’s high performance sport environment and was Head T&F Coach at the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra as well asHead of the Athletic Development department at the Queensland Academy of Sport in Brisbane. He spent 6 years at Brisbane Broncos Rugby League team as Director of Performance and also led the Australian Rugby Union’s Elite Player Development section. He's also coach to 14 Olympic and World Championship athletes over a 40 year career.

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In this Episode you will learn:

- How has training and general physical activity changed over the last 30-40 years?

- What are some fundamental issues that we see today with regard to the physical activity of young people?

- What role does PE in school play and how it should be changed

- What are some of the best practices a coach can have and how can others implement them?

- What are the four pillars of competence?

- How can you structure a session to hit these fours pillars - what does this session look like?

- How warm ups should be structured

- What is physical competence and how can young athletes achieve it? 

- Fundamental movements, what are they and how do they relate to sporting success? 

- Kelvins assessment process (Physical competence, muscular skeletal and health and well being)

People and Resources mentioned in the show:

- Vern Gambetta - GAIN Network

- Mike Dalgleish

- Frank Dick - Winning Matters / Sport Training Principles

Kelvins Products:

- Physical Competence Assessment Manual

- This isn't a textbook

- An Introduction to Athlete Development

- Movement Efficiency for the Developing Athlete 

Today I am excited to welcome Dr. Jon Oliver @DrJonOliver  to the podcast. Jon is a hugely influential voice in the field of youth physical development and has produced over 50 peer reviewed journal articles, as well as 5 professional publications. Additionally, Jon edited 'Strength and Conditioning for Youth Athletes: Science and Application'; an outstanding resource that I can highly recommend. 

Jon currently works at Cardiff Metropolitan University as Reader in Applied Paediatric Exercise Science. In todays conversation we discuss but a fraction of his work; specifically a recent international consensus 'Position Statement on Youth Resistance Training' and the highly regarded 'Youth Physical Development model: A New Approach to Long-Term Athletic Development'. 

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In this Episode you will Learn: 

1. Who is Dr. Jon Oliver

2. What the international consensus on youth resistance training is and the reasons for putting it together.

3. The key developmental neuromuscular adaptations that occur during childhood / adolescence.

4. How coaches can use this knowledge to guide their training programmes. 

5. About Jon's recent research in to ACL injury risk is elite female youth soccer.

6. What the the Youth Physical Development model is.

7. How coaches can use this model effectively and monitor appropriately.

8. How the model for males and females differs. 

9. How could the YPD be altered to fit a child who is either an early or late maturer?

Jon's work which was discussed in the show: 

Lloyd, R. S., Faigenbaum, A. D., Stone, M. H., Oliver, J. L., Jeffreys, I., Moody, J. A., ... & Herrington, L. (2013). Position statement on youth resistance training: the 2014 International Consensus. British journal of sports medicine, bjsports-2013.

Lloyd, R. S., & Oliver, J. L. (2012). The youth physical development model: A new approach to long-term athletic development. Strength & Conditioning Journal, 34(3), 61-72.

Lloyd, R. S., & Oliver, J. L. (2013). Strength and conditioning for young athletes: science and application. Routledge.

De Ste Croix, M.B.A, Priestley, A, Lloyd, R.S & Oliver, J.L. (in press). ACL injury risk in elite female youth soccer: changes in neuromuscular control of the knee following soccer specific fatigue. Scand J Med Sci Sport

General Topics / people / research discussed: 

• Greg Myer

• Dr. Rhodri Lloyd

• Austin Healey's drastically uninformed views on youth resistance training HERE

• Sports Coach UK - How to Coach the fundamental of movement

• Ido Portal animal movements for warm ups

• Robert Malina - Growth, Maturation and Physical Activity

• Balyi, I., & Hamilton, A. (2004). Long-term athlete development: trainability in childhood and adolescence. Olympic Coach, 16(1), 4-9.

• Armstrong, N., & Barker, A. R. (2009). Oxygen uptake kinetics in children and adolescents: a review. Pediatr Exerc Sci, 21(2), 130-147.

Brentan Parsons - Strength and Conditioning manager at Shanghai Sports Institute. 

Today I am welcoming Mr Brentan Parsons, who is the manager of strength and conditioning at the Shanghai Sports Institute. In this episode we talk about strength and power development pathways for youth athletes, in particular volleyball players. We also discuss life working in China and Thailand, giving our experiences of working in Asia. 

This episode is a prequel to a talk that Brentan is doing at the Australian Strength and Conditioning SEA conference on 21st and 22nd of April 2017 which can be seen here

Links from the episode:

Brentans twitter

David Sutton - Lead S&C Shanghai Sports Institute

Today I was lucky enough to be able to speak to another member of the GWS Giants team…Lachlan Wilmot @lachlan_wilmot. Lachlan is head strength and power coach at GWS Giants and has fulfilled that role since the launch of the club around six years ago. In this episode we discuss Lachlan’s ideas around long term athlete development and specifically around the concept of ‘Boys to Giants’, which Lachlan will soon be presenting at the Australian of Strength and Conditioning associations prestigious conference. 

In this episode we discuss the optimal journey of young Australian football players from the start of their professional journey all the way through to the elite level. Lachlan shares with us an incredible amount of information around the development strength and power attributes in players as well as his ideas around the professional development of coaches and the sports science and medicine team within the sport. 

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In this episode you will learn: 

• Who is Lachlan and what was his journey to becoming part of the world class department at GWS Giants

• What is Lachlan presenting at the ASCA conference, an overview of ‘Boys to Giants’

• When developing an athletic development programme for a start-up AFL club; what are the fundamental requirements that you advise clubs to begin with?

• How should coaches design a LTAD philosophy for the sport and what are some of the key principles in your clubs philosophy?

• What are some of the key strategies that you use to try and ensure your players are ready for the demands of playing in the AFL?

• With regard to strength & conditioning, what are some key mistakes that you often see in the sport and how can these be replicated?

• How do you programme pre-season and in-season strength and conditioning for 18–23 year old athletes to prepare them for the AFL?

• Which internal and external training load monitoring strategies do you find the most useful for clubs who are just starting or have low budget or inexperienced staff?

• How would you advise younger s&c coaches to get involved in working in the AFL?

Resources of Interest from the Episode

Lachlan's Twitter | Facebook | Instagram

David Joyce Books - High Performance | Injury Prevention and Rehabilitation

Team Builder

Ultimate Athlete Concepts

Charlie Francis

Neil Collins @_neilC_ is the academy sports science lead at Wolverhampton Wanderers Football Club, which is a category one academy of the English Championship club Wolves.

[Correction...in the podcast I introduce Neil as the Head of Academy Sports Science, this is my mistake as Neil is actually the lead sport scientist] 

Neil is responsible for the optimising the long term athletic development of the club's youth athletes, with a view to successfully developing athletes capable of playing for the clubs first team. We cover a lot of topics in this episode, especially the development of u7-u16 players to get them as ready as possible for the demands of elite first team football.

In this Episode you will learn:

• Who is Neil Collins and what did his pathway look like to get into professional sport

• Long Term Athletic Development - Philosophy and implementation

• How to increase s&c contact time with academy players

• How to go about introducing strength and conditioning concepts to young players

• How to monitor training load within an academy setting

• How young coaches can get in to professional sport

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