FOUR TWO FOUR - MARCH 2007

Butcher is back in the UK after his stint in charge at Sydney which saw the side only just scrape into the finals - and then get booted out in the first round.

After he left, it was revealed he had only organised one proper training session during his whole time in charge.

Terry Butcher orders Caley Thistle players to go easy at training as injuries mount

Feb 16 2011

INVERNESS boss Terry Butcher has warned his players to go easy in training - as he can't afford any more crocks.

Butcher, who only had 16 players in his pool for the 3-3 weekend draw at St Mirren, said: "We can't give the players hard training in case we pick up any more injuries.

"We're going to have to rein it in a little so we give them the best chance to recover from their efforts at St Mirren."

BUT:

Butcher revealed he relied on phone calls and internet chats with his former Motherwell sidekick Maurice Malpas to get him through the hard times. "It must have been like the Samaritans in the early weeks when things weren't going well for either of us," he says.

THOUGHTS

But here is another Terry quote from 4-2-4 which would have got him into deep trouble with us .

Everything was a test and day after day there was another problem but we got through them," he said. "We were like a gypsy club and I felt like a nomad

Ten years ago, athletes of all sports were doing static stretches during warm ups. I'm sure you all had it in PE as a child. The teacher telling us to do our stretches. Within the last ten years or so, just about all the evidence points to static stretching as a warm up protocol increasing the chance of tears and strains and significantly reducing various performance factors such as repeated sprint ability and vertical jumping.

I think that football as a whole has progressed a lot over the last decade or so in terms of attention to conditioning, nutrition etc and Craig Brewster certainly was at the forefront of that movement and I also had a few good discussions with Charlie Christie on the subject.

Getting the balance in football between the necessary fitness to last a 90 (120) minute game with random episodes of high intensity throughout whilst also maintaining the necessary skills and technical abilities is a huge task and different formats seem to work for different managers and teams. On the other hand I wonder if football players in general are regarded enough as individuals as opposed to being part of a group undergoing a "one size fits all" training strategy?

Certainly as an athletics coach with 35 years experience at all levels from primary schools up to Commonwealth Games and other major international champoinships, I don't envy football managers and coaches what is a very difficult task to balance.

I noted with interest the section of Capital Caley's post which I have quoted above. The extreme, almost Messianic fervour with which the "no static stretching" bandwagon was driven through sport a few years ago was intriguing and it was interesting to see the sheer intolerance accorded to anything other than complete agreement with this latest Holy Grail which was going to be the final saviour of sport. As with all its predecessor Holy Grails, this has not turned out to be the case any more than education's current Holy Grail, the Curriculum for Excellenece is going to be a final answer there. Basically this is someone's latest career enhancing bandwagon and the case has, as so often happens, been over stated.

I think the case against static stetching did have some merits with regard to LONG static stretches which understandably can fatigue muscle but I really don't see anything wrong at all with repeated shorter (5-10 sec) static stretches. Also, if this Holy Grail really had genuine Canine Testicle status, I would have thought that its implementation would have caused an instant drop in injury levels and increase in performance levels throughout sport - which I am not aware of having happened.

I used the static stretching as an example - i'm sure this is not the main problem, if a problem at all at ICT. However, you are right in terms of the length. There is plenty of evidence indicating that a dynamic warm up with static stretches <10 seconds is benefical and >10 seconds is detrimental to performance factors. Football has improved a bit in it's methods employed but not anywhere near the rate of other sports IMHO. There are however, football managers who really want to engage in science. From what i've heard, Craig Brewster is one of them - but maybe not the best example considering his record! John Collins, Paul Le Guen as well. I also think that European football seems ahead in terms of science. I have noticed in the past that managers who have a keen interest in science are either main land European (example Le Guen) or have played in main land Europe (example Brewster). This may just be a coincidence though.

Edited October 23, 201114 yr by CapitalCaley