Avsnitt
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David Dunne describes a perennial problem for practitioners in elite sports.
“There’s a fundamental mismatch between what practitioners can deliver and what athletes actually want and desire,” he told Joe Lemire and John Portch on the People Behind the Tech podcast.
“So we pivoted towards the COM-B model.”
During this episode we spoke at length about Hexis’ continued growth following a successful seed round, technology’s ability to influence the evolution of the practitioner, and the fundamental union of academic rigour and those so-called softer skills.
COM-B was a major part of that conversation. It has been integral to Hexis’ growth. The company used it in tandem with elements of design thinking which, as Dunne explains, stems from his time working for teams including Harlequins and Ryder Cup Team Europe.
The model is a framework for understanding and changing behaviour. It was developed by Susan Michie, Maartje van Stralen and Robert West in 2011. The model posits that behaviour (B) is a result of an interaction between three components:
Capability (C): this refers to an individual’s psychological and physical capacity to engage in the activity. It includes having the necessary knowledge, skills and abilities.
Opportunity (O): this encompasses all the factors outside the individual that make the behaviour possible, including social and physical environmental factors.
Motivation (M): this includes the brain processes that direct behaviour, such as habits, emotional responses, decision-making and analytical thinking.
Listen to the full conversation.
Joe Lemire LinkedIn | X
John Portch LinkedIn | X
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“Everything is based upon the game for us,” said Ryan Alexander.
“Understanding how the physical demands and fitness is going to be interpreted on the field as it is going to relate to the technical and tactical execution of a certain style of play.”
Alexander, the Director of Sports Science at Atlanta United, was speaking to John Portch and Joe Lemire on the People Behind the Tech podcast ahead of the new MLS season, which began in late February.
He also spoke about the club’s groundbreaking work with i-Brain Tech, a neurofitness training aid that has transformed their skills and cognitive training and led to players having “higher levels of conversations with their technical coaches."
Elsewhere, Alexander explored:
Finding the level of confidence in the data to challenge or support [9:30];Knowing when to take calculated risks with players [18:00];How i-Brain has been integrated into the players’ training plans [27:00];His efforts to meet players and coaches at their 'level' when it comes to data [35:30].Joe Lemire LinkedIn | X
John Portch LinkedIn | X
Listen above and subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and Overcast, or your chosen podcast platform.
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Saknas det avsnitt?
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At November’s Leaders Sport Performance Summit at the Oval in London, a coach was overheard saying: ‘I have a team looking at AI but I have no idea what they do’.
Gary McCoy is the CEO of Peak AI, which has been shortlisted in Sports Business Journals' list of the 10 Most Innovative Sports Tech Companies of 2023.
Peak AI uses psycholinguistics to enhance performance and Gary has a firm view on that coach’s comment.
“If you don’t know what they do, go and lead them because they probably don’t know what they’re doing either,” he tells Joe and John on the latest edition of The People Behind the Tech podcast.
“Artificial intelligence and data, as a general staple in sports, needs guidance,” he continues, “it needs transactional guidance to evolve the athlete.”
Gary spoke at length about the need for coaches to fully engage with AI and also dipped into a range of areas, including:
Preventing the injuries that may be a consequence of practitioners “asking the wrong questions” [20:00];The need for the sports industry to develop a collective ethos for using AI [23:00];The significance of an athlete’s cognitive load on their ability to train and perform [30:30];Why analysts who better understand performance will better understand how data transacts [46:50].Joe Lemire LinkedIn | X
John Portch LinkedIn | X
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Ben Baroody is a big believer in psychologist Michael Gervais’ idea that the apex of well-being and performance is human flourishing.
“It means a lot to us,” he tells Henry Breckenridge and John Portch on the Leaders Performance Podcast, which is brought to you today by our Main Partners Keiser.
“The aim and approach of all of our programs, processes, and our building blocks, is based on the foundation of the human psyche, the psychology of healthy minds and lives. And we try to take that evidence-based research and build it into baseball frameworks and development for the rest of the organization.”
As the Texas Rangers’ Director of Leadership & Organizational Development, Player Enrichment Programs & Mental Health says, the goal is to unlock potential versus extracting performance.
“That’s what we’re striving towards. It’s an aspiration that’s ever-evolving,” he says,
Elsewhere in this episode, we cover:
How the Rangers have been the ‘victims of buzzwords on a wall’ [10:30];The balance of challenge and support in the Rangers environment [23:00];How Ben’s development as a leader helped him to identify imbalances in his own life [30:15];Character development practices at the Rangers [37:30].Henry Breckenridge LinkedIn | X
John Portch LinkedIn | X
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“How do we design tech and tech solutions to almost combat [other] tech solutions and distractions?”
The question is posed by Brian Cunniffe of the UK Sports Institute [UKSI], who is Joe Lemire and John Portch’s first guest on The People Behind the Tech podcast for 2024.
Brian, a performance lead at the UKSI who works primarily in canoeing and who also served as the British and Irish Lions’ sports scientist on tours of Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, is discussing the power in gamifying training, particularly for younger athletes.
“There’s a slight irony in there but how do we bring it back to the stuff that matters, not just for players but for staff as well?” he continues.
“How do we help coaches on a journey to understand not just the stuff that players have completed but maybe some of the decisions that we need to take on a journey and learn from that so that we’re not replicating or duplicating and can be more efficient with our time?”
Elsewhere, Brian delves into:
The reasons why he is not driven to be a domain expert [6:00];The mismatch of the tacit knowledge of coaching and the newer objective of monitoring athletes [13:00];The under-appreciated importance of design thinking and bringing people on a journey [18:00];The performance promise contained in epigenetics [31:00].Joe Lemire LinkedIn | X
John Portch LinkedIn | X
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Lydia Bedford, the Head Coach of the Brentford men’s under-18s team has some firm coaching advice.
“There’s no shortcuts, even though everyone seems to want them these days,” she tells Henry Breckenridge and John Portch on the Leaders Performance Podcast, which is brought to you today by our friends at Keiser.
“Time on the grass, working in different environments, working under different people as leaders will help you to understand what it looks like for you.”
Bedford, who has also coached with underage women’s teams at the Football Association [FA], Leicester City Women in the WSL, and served as an assistant coach at Arsenal Women, talks enthusiastically about her first six months Brentford.
In her new role she is a pioneer. One of the few women coaches operating at the top level of the men's game.
Elsewhere in this episode, she delves into the importance of her mentors, who include Mo Marley, the current Head Coach of England Women’s under-23s.
Bedford recalls a time at an FA training camp when, at Marley’s side, she encountered the senior women’s England squad. She says: “Every senior player that walked passed her gave Mo a hug and I was like ‘I want to be Mo, I want to have that impact’. But actually, the more I worked with Mo, whilst I love her to bits and still have tremendous respect for her, how Mo leads is not how Lydia leads.
“You learn loads of things, good and bad, from people that you work under and then you find your own way.”
Elsewhere on the agenda, Bedford spoke about:
Her status as a pioneer in the men’s game [12:30];Facilitating challenge and support in an environment where results are less significant [17:00];Her relationship with her assistant Jon-Paul Pittman [30:00];Integrating players who are not used to academy environments [33:30].Henry Breckenridge Twitter | LinkedIn
John Portch Twitter | LinkedIn
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Zendler speaks to Joe Lemire and John Portch about her work with Rimkus and the NBA and NBPA’s Wearables Validation Program.
“It was scary at the start. It was this white space of do we want this to happen? Can you make it happen?” says Jess Zendler.
The Program Manager of the NBA and NBPA’s Wearables Validation Program is discussing her first steps in the role with Joe and John on the People Behind the Tech podcast.
“Academic-type folks, we don’t like to set thresholds that exist for pass-fail,” she continues, as she explained the process of speaking to players and coaches and taking in all the relevant research.
“We want this to be rigorous, we want the players to have confidence in these devices, we know they’re generally hesitant to wear them and there is pushback.”
Zendler also spoke of balancing the need for commercial viability with real-world application, which chimes with her role as a sports science consultant with Rimkus, a worldwide leader in technical consulting and forensic engineering.
During the course of the conversation, we also discussed:
The process for approving devices on the Wearables Validation Program [12:30];The challenge of bringing research to life in sport [17:10];The Wearables Validation Program’s relationship with the NBA and Players Association [21:00];Jessica’s role in creating the vision for the increasingly used Quality Assessment Framework for sports technology [28:10].Joe Lemire LinkedIn | X
John Portch LinkedIn | X
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Dr Daniel Laby is talking to John Portch and Joe Lemire about his vision training with Liverpool and England star Trent Alexander-Arnold in 2021.
He says: “If the question is: ‘are you worse than you should be for your sport?’ And knowing what each sport needs, if you have that information you can say how someone needs to train.”
Red Bull commissioned the project having been impressed by Dr Laby’s consultancy work in the NFL and his burgeoning collection of World Series rings having worked for three decades in MLB.
“So if Trent did well, which he did in certain areas [I would say], ‘Trent, you did great. We don’t have to give you glasses’ but if [instead I said] ‘Trent, your ability to monitor multiple targets at the same time isn’t what it needs to be compared to what it should be for someone on average of your level, we have to train that’; and that’s what we did with Trent.”
Dr Laby tells The People Behind the Tech podcast that the first goal is to help athletes to correct to the required level for their sport, which will differ depending on the discipline.
This was just one aspect touched upon during the conversation. Others include:
The potential drawbacks of refractive surgery for athletes in some sports [8:00];His work with Manny Ramírez and the 2004 Boston Red Sox [16:00];Balancing research and practice in his work [22:00];The potential for using virtual and augmented reality in vision testing [36:00].Joe Lemire LinkedIn | X
John Portch LinkedIn | X
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“The greatest gains in S&C can be made in how you make yourself an integral part of the team,” says Johnny Parkes.
“You have to be out there with the team on a daily basis, you have to have those soft skills – I actually call them essential skills – we have to recognise that we have to make ourselves completely valuable to the team.”
Johnny, who was recently appointed Associate Head Coach of the men’s tennis program at the University of South Carolina’s men’s tennis program, is the third and final guest on this Keiser miniseries, which seeks to understand the world of S&C through a leadership lens.
He is both an S&C and a tennis coach out on the court and, in his dual role, is in no doubt about what it takes to develop the essential skills of which he speaks.
He adds: “That might mean going out there for extended periods of time, watching practices, going above and beyond and staying later after an S&C session because a guy needs to work on their hip mobility a little bit more as opposed to just shutting the practice down.”
Also during this episode, we discuss:
The distinct challenges of coaching youth and adult tennis players [2:30];The need to give the player a voice and shape your coaching cues to them as an individual [7:00];Johnny’s comfort in discussing performance topics outside of his domain [14:00];Why the gamification of elite athlete training resembles a PE class [23:00].Previous episode:
Emily Hall – Queensland Rugby League
John Portch LinkedIn | X
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“You can watch the room change from that lived experience approach,” says Marc Williams, a programme facilitator at gambling harm minimization consultancy EPIC Risk Management.
Marc, a former professional footballer who suffered the consequences of gambling harm, will speak to athletes and teams with a view to educating and informing them about the pitfalls and trigger associated with gambling harm.
“They can see what we’ve been through, where gambling took us, and from that they can really relate to it themselves and think ‘wow, this could be me’,” he tells John Portch on the Leaders Performance Podcast.
Marc is joined by Rachael Jankowsky, the Head of Player Care & Well-Being at Major League Soccer’s Chicago Fire, to discuss EPIC’s work with the club, which included Marc presenting in front of young players.
On today’s special episode, we discuss topics including:
The beginnings of the Fire and EPIC’s collaboration [6:30];The difference between ‘textbook’ education and an in-person presentation [10:00];Marc and EPIC’s post-session support services [15:30];Overcoming the challenges of low base knowledge and the language barrier [18:30].For those seeking more information on gambling harm prevention, check out EPIC Risk Management’s white paper review from February 2023.
Listen above and subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and Overcast, or your chosen podcast platform.
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Emily Hall enjoys building relationships with athletes as it enables her to better support them and, from time to time, when necessary, call them out.
“You have to be able to read your athletes and know your athletes,” says the Strength & Conditioning Coach, who works with various women’s teams at Queensland Rugby League, including the U19s.
“[You need to] have those relationships with your athletes so you can say the right thing or make the right call in those situations,” she tells this Keiser Series Podcast.
In episode two of this series, we speak to Hall, a proud Wiradjuri woman, about topics including:
Helping young athletes to juggle sport and other commitments [7:40];Enabling athletes to develop a sense of responsibility and autonomy [10:00];Why it is important for an S&C to show up at 100% even when athletes are flagging [16:00];Supporting athletes of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander backgrounds [21:00].John Portch LinkedIn | X
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When Conor McGoldrick joined John Portch for this Keiser Podcast, he spoke of learning from other disciplines and how that happens in both an unstructured and structured way.
The Head of Strength & Conditioning at Red Bull’s Athlete Performance Center in Salzburg is describing the learning opportunity provided by the interdisciplinary work that goes on around the organisation’s 850-plus athletes across four football clubs, two hockey teams, and approximately 250 sporting disciplines.
“The unstructured way is almost like a child and you are learning just by being there from practitioners who are better [in their field] than you,” he says.
“Then there’s this more structured approach where you actively seek opportunities to observe and have questions asked of you; and I think with that understanding it makes that interdisciplinary work easier.”
Conor is the first guest on this three-part series looking at Strength & Conditioning through a leadership lens.
On the conversational agenda were:
Athletes’ biggest S&C concerns [9:00];Knowing when to keep your counsel [12:15];The link between behaviours and success [21:50];The gamification of training [25:00].John Portch LinkedIn | X
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Joe Rogowski has seen the NBA from all sides.
He spent two years as an S&C at the Orlando Magic, a further six years as Director of Science & Research at the Houston Rockets, before spending almost nine years at the National Basketball Players Association [NBPA].
Since 2022, he has served as Chief Medical Director of the National Basketball Retired Players Association [NBRPA], a non-profit organization comprised of former professional basketball players of the NBA, ABA, Harlem Globetrotters, and WNBA.
Rogowski was at the NBPA in 2015, the year the league introduced its wearables committee and his views were informed by his time in Orlando and Houston.
As he tells Joe Lemire and John Portch, he worked with players wary of wearables as well as those mor willing “guinea pigs”, as they refers to them, such as retired Magic point guard Jameer Nelson.
Rogowski would ask himself of the latest devices: “Is it practical? Is it something that you can wear in a practice? Is this something that I can consistently do? Or is this a one-time thing and you collect the data and move on?
“I had plenty of those devices that actually changed how I think about training these guys or how I’d help them with recovery. But it is a sale because, with the players, you only have so many asks.”
Rogowski recalls those moments working with players as well as:
The holistic management of load in the NBA [13:30];Knowing what to say – and what not to say – to players [21:20];His interest in cardiology and its importance for athletes, both current and retired [27:00];His role at the Sports Tech Research Network [31:20].Joe Lemire LinkedIn | X
John Portch LinkedIn | X
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“Serial winning coaches don’t just want to get ahead – they want to stay ahead,” Professor Cliff Mallett tells the Leaders Performance Podcast.
“But they know that staying ahead means having healthy relationships of mutual trust and care with the people that they work with.”
Cliff and his colleague Sergio Lara-Bercial join Henry Breckenridge and John Portch for this episode to discuss their new book Learning from Serial Winning Coaches: Caring Determination.
In an extended chat we delve into:
Why Serial Winning Coaches are the ‘outliers amongst outliers’ [7:00];How coaches should approach developing ‘care’ and ‘determination’ with their athletes [31:00];How Serial Winning Coaches can help us to inform the identification, recruitment and development of the next generation of coaches [39:30];Why coaching is about striving, surviving and thriving [45:00].Learning from Serial Winning Coaches: Caring Determination is published by Routledge.
Henry Breckenridge Twitter | LinkedIn
John Portch Twitter | LinkedIn
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Collier Madaleno recalls the story of a defensive lineman that had put on weight during the pandemic when college football was brought to a halt.
“He used that next year to really focus on nutrition,” she tells Joe and John. “[He] got down and dropped his body fat percentage by 7%, lost 45lbs [20.4kg], and he was a first-round draft pick.
“He just did such a good job at buying in and it made him a faster, more explosive person. He never lost any muscle mass, which meant he was really focusing in on eating enough of just the right things so that we were able to retain that muscle and focus on losing that fat.”
Collier’s pride is palpable, particularly as a native of Athens, Georgia, and long-term Bulldogs fan. “It’s so much fun to see them buy-in and then say ‘C, I feel so much better in practice’. ‘C, I didn’t know I could have this much energy’. It’s probably the most rewarding part of my job.”
In this edition of The People Behind the Tech podcast, Collier lifts the lid on her work as the Director of Football Performance Nutrition at the Georgia Bulldogs, who retained the NCAA national championship in January.
During the course of the conversation, we covered:
How student-athletes are introduced to performance nutrition on campus [6:00];The importance of team leaders buying into her work [11:00];The question of recovery and inflammation [21:00];How Collier stays current in her work [22:30].Joe Lemire Twitter | LinkedIn
John Portch Twitter | LinkedIn
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The rise of Toulouse FC has been both fast and meticulously planned.
Le Téfécé were Ligue 2 champions in 2022 and, last season, won the Coupe de France – their first major trophy in 66 years.
Toulouse also finished 13th in their first season back in Ligue 1 – well clear of the relegation zone. Not that Damien Comolli, the club’s President since 2020, is resting on this laurels.
“Everyone said ‘well done on staying up’ but we’re not interested in staying up – we never mentioned staying up – we said we want to finish as high as possible,” he tells the Leaders Performance Podcast.
“There are games that we feel we should have won and could have won. We lacked this cutting edge, this winning mentality at times, we should have got more points, we should have finished higher than 13th in the table.”
Damien Comolli has overseen the Toulouse’s resurgence under new owners RedBird Capital Partners, but he couldn’t have done it without his ‘truth teller’, the club’s Head of Strategy & Culture, Selinay Gürgenç Comolli, and Julien Demeaux, Toulouse’s Head of Data.
Both Selinay and Julien joined Damien for this episode, which is brought to you by our Main Partners Keiser.
The theme is Toulouse’s upwards trajectory and what it is going to take to help establish the club at the vanguard of European football.
On today’s agenda:
Damien on the importance of having a ‘truth teller’How he is working to prevent Toulouse being a ‘one-season-wonder’Selinay on the importance of the club’s strategic committeeJulien on the comparative immaturity of data usage in footballHenry Breckenridge Twitter | LinkedIn
John Portch Twitter | LinkedIn
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“When a club as big as Racing come to you and say ‘we want you, there is no plan B, you’re our No 1 man’ then it helps persuade you”.
Stuart Lancaster, the new Director of Rugby at Racing 92, agreed to join the Parisian club last September while enjoying his seventh season as Senior Coach at Leinster. It meant a fresh challenge for the man who also coached England at the 2015 Rugby World Cup.
Says Lancaster: “For the first time, really, my head was turned a little bit by the opportunity to try something new in a different country, in a different competition, the Top 14, and to try and build something as successful as Leinster but in a completely different context”.
He discusses his move at length in today’s episode, which is brought to you by our Main Partners Keiser. During the conversation with Henry and John, he also touches upon:
His efforts to sell change to the existing players and staff at Racing [9:40];Why he will need to be more hands-on in year one than he has been at Leinster [19:30];His belief in the enduring value of coaching [25:20];His relationship with Dallas Cowboys Defensive Coordinator Dan Quinn [36:30].Henry Breckenridge Twitter | LinkedIn
John Portch Twitter | LinkedIn
Listen above and subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and Overcast, or your chosen podcast platform.
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“With technology now, we’re starting to understand movement in a way that we didn’t really understand before,” Keke Lyles tells Joe Lemire and John Portch.
The Director of Performance at Uplift Labs was on the pod to discuss how the company’s AI can reduce injury risk in athletes.
There is no better candidate to delve into injury prevention and mitigation than the man often credited with saving Steph Curry’s ankle.
We made a whistlestop tour of his work at the Minnesota Timberwolves, Atlanta Hawks and, of course, the Golden State Warriors.
Also on the agenda were:
How the stress of a season can affect movement quality, tissue quality, and range of motion [14:00];The often misunderstood elements of load management [17:00];Keke’s jump from the world of sport into the tech space [31:20];Why he believes the next performance frontier will be in player development [34:30].Joe Lemire Twitter | LinkedIn
John Portch Twitter | LinkedIn
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Mark Gannon, the CEO of UK Coaching, feels that it is about time that coaches were perceived as people too.
UK Coaching is an association that connects and supports approximately 180,000 coaches from grassroots to elite level through its UK Coaching Club.
“Coaching is all about the right environment,” he tells the Leaders Performance Podcast. “So we’ve got psychologists, nutritionists, that sort of athlete support personnel that we wrap around the athlete and I think what we need to start thinking about now is that coaches are people too and how do we wrap the same sort of support, differently, around the coach?
“If you work for a financial organisation, you’ve got a head of culture or people or HR, and there’s certain things in place in your work environment. Well, that shouldn’t be any different in our sector, maybe in our sector there’s a bit of catching up to do.
“It’s twee, but people are your greatest asset and the more that we can look after people and the more we can make the environment the right environment, the more people are going to succeed.”
Ahead of UK Mental Health Awareness Week, which runs 15-19 May, Henry and John caught up with Mark, who discussed how teams and organisations can better help their coaches. He also touches upon:
The notion that we all tread a fine line when it comes to our mental wellbeing [9:00];The perennial question of job security and its impact on coaches [10:30];UK Coaching’s work with partners to help identify changes of behaviour in coaches [18:00];How coaches can protect their own wellbeing [25:00].Henry Breckenridge Twitter | LinkedIn
John Portch Twitter | LinkedIn
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“When I took over the Head Physician job at the New England Patriots, I saw a very unique opportunity to provide medical leadership at the next level,” says Dr Matthew Provencher.
“Fortunately, we had a great coach in Bill Belichick, great ownership in the Krafts, Jonathan and Robert, and I really talked to them around the facility about providing a competitive medical advantage and how we would do that.”
Provencher, who served as the Patriots’ Medical Director between 2013 and 2016 – earning a Super Bowl ring in 2014 – is the latest guest of John Portch and Joe Lemire's on the People Behind the Tech podcast, which is brought to you by the Leaders Performance Institute and SBJ Tech.
Provencher is one of the foremost orthopaedic surgeons in the world and has treated elite athletes from across the globe at the Steadman Clinic in Vail, Colorado.
In a wide-ranging chat, we also explored:
His time in the Navy and his work developing US Special Ops’ Tactical Athlete Program [5:00];Working with multidisciplinary staffs at sports teams [13:30];How useful the use of tech and data have been in providing medical care for athletes [20:40];How the nature of injury occurrences have evolved in recent years [28:30].Joe Lemire Twitter | LinkedIn
John Portch Twitter | LinkedIn
Listen above and subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and Overcast, or your chosen podcast platform.
- Visa fler
