Performance Science

Strength Training for High Performance Sport – An Overview

It was not all that long ago when the words “strength training” and “gymnasium” conjured up images of muscle hulks and Arnold Schwarzenegger – that is before he become the Governator!

However, in recent years, strength and conditioning has gained acceptance as an applied sports science and is respected as a profession in its own right in many high performance sporting systems around the world. It has become a fundamental and integral aspect of the training and preparation of elite athletes in a wide range of sports.

This article will cover some of the contemporary issues in strength training for high performance sport and suggest some practical applications for the practicing coach.

The basic issues: Strength training or no strength training? (more…)

By Wayne Goldsmith, ago

Put Physiology Last…and See What Happens.

It’s all the same. All over the world, in every sport, when coaches write training workouts they think in terms of the big three physiological variables only: volume, intensity and frequency (how much, how hard, how often). But what if there was another way? What if instead of writing training sessions based on the physical aspects of performance, coaches and athletes built their training sessions and programming around the mental side of performance. This article challenges coaches and athletes to look at putting physiology last when they design and deliver training sessions and to think about what might happen if they looked at things differently.

By Wayne Goldsmith, ago

Performance Science and Why it’s time has come.

 

“In short science has its limitations. Western science is characterised by
reductionist principles; but we reach a point at which the reduction becomes
disassociated from the phenomena it is trying to explain” P.Jones 1998

It’s time.

It’s time for the Sports science industry to seriously change the way we do business.

It’s time we let go of  the outdated, simplistic single cause / single effect model of research and embraced a genuine integrated, multi disciplinary approach to solving performance problems.

It’s time for Performance Science to come of age. (more…)

By Wayne Goldsmith, ago

What’s the difference between Medicine and Sports Medicine?

 

I was recently asked to talk to a group of students about high performance sport. We discussed all the “usual” topics: talent identification, sports science, elite coach development and sports medicine.

One of the students asked me, “Is there a difference between Medicine (as in general practice medicine) and Sports Medicine as it exists in high performance sport”? (more…)

By Wayne Goldsmith, ago