Just out of curiosity. Several clubs in the top flight and championship have some sort of sport science department or staff, e.g. Hearts, and Celtic who have sports scientists at academy and first team level. Does anyone know who takes the team for strength and conditioning or if we have a "first team sport scientist/S&C coach"

Does this refer to Big Don and davie ?

Aye. I can't speak for Big Don, but I only appreciate the words "strength" and "conditioned" if they are preceded by the word "cask" This would be my core message to the team.

We do.  Club Physios John McCreadie & Stuart Phin both have expertise in, and work with players on, this.

A very important part of any players life. Do our "U20" squad have a professionally supervised strength and conditioning programme built into their "education"?   

A very important part of any players life. Do our "U20" squad have a professionally supervised strength and conditioning programme built into their "education"?   

Agreed - and also a difficult aspect to manage within the context of the year of a footballer or indeed many other team sport players. The problem is that football has no obvious "peak" and players need effectively to be at a high level of performance for the entire season. Apart from a few weeks' pre-season, this leaves little scope to have periods of the year where players can focus on strength or top up endurance which must be a nightmare from a coaching point of view.

Coming from an athletics background where you can identify a relatively small number of targeted peaks, I don't envy the dilemma of football coaches. For instance, when there is a game every weekend (and sometimes midweek) of the season which is no less important than most others, how do you programme in your SandC? At one end of the week you need some recovery from the previous match and at the other you don't want to let it run too close to the next one. The same goes for topping up aspects of running related fitness although games do contribute here, and all of this is on top of the time needed to work on teachical and team aspects of the game.

On the other hand there is the option of "double sessions" which are a perfectly viable consideration for full time professionals with no constraints of a day job to manipulate training requirements round.

Charles, I wish some of your colleagues in the press/media understood the importance of these things as much as you do.  Perhaps you should come speak to John & Stuart and do a piece on the subject?

Charles, I wish some of your colleagues in the press/media understood the importance of these things as much as you do.  Perhaps you should come speak to John & Stuart and do a piece on the subject?

Don, maybe I'm just lucky enough to have had 30 odd years of coaching international athletes, but conditioning and preparation training programmed round competitive priorities is important in anybody's book. I certainly don't envy team sport coaches for the constraints they have to work under by nature of the competitive programme because it's a big juggling match at the best of times.

I certainly wouldn't rule out the possibility of looking at this in a Highland News Sportsview column at some point, although at the moment I am engaged with why, despite teams doing well and clubs bending over backwards to encourage fans through the turnstiles, people are instead sitting on their couches at home, drinkng beer and watching foreign football.

A very important part of any players life. Do our "U20" squad have a professionally supervised strength and conditioning programme built into their "education"?

Agreed - and also a difficult aspect to manage within the context of the year of a footballer or indeed many other team sport players. The problem is that football has no obvious "peak" and players need effectively to be at a high level of performance for the entire season. Apart from a few weeks' pre-season, this leaves little scope to have periods of the year where players can focus on strength or top up endurance which must be a nightmare from a coaching point of view.

Coming from an athletics background where you can identify a relatively small number of targeted peaks, I don't envy the dilemma of football coaches. For instance, when there is a game every weekend (and sometimes midweek) of the season which is no less important than most others, how do you programme in your SandC? At one end of the week you need some recovery from the previous match and at the other you don't want to let it run too close to the next one. The same goes for topping up aspects of running related fitness although games do contribute here, and all of this is on top of the time needed to work on teachical and team aspects of the game.

On the other hand there is the option of "double sessions" which are a perfectly viable consideration for full time professionals with no constraints of a day job to manipulate training requirements round.

Fascinating you focus on the physical side of things Charles. It's evident the manager knows a great deal more than you do.

 

A very important part of any players life. Do our "U20" squad have a professionally supervised strength and conditioning programme built into their "education"?   

Agreed - and also a difficult aspect to manage within the context of the year of a footballer or indeed many other team sport players. The problem is that football has no obvious "peak" and players need effectively to be at a high level of performance for the entire season. Apart from a few weeks' pre-season, this leaves little scope to have periods of the year where players can focus on strength or top up endurance which must be a nightmare from a coaching point of view.

Coming from an athletics background where you can identify a relatively small number of targeted peaks, I don't envy the dilemma of football coaches. For instance, when there is a game every weekend (and sometimes midweek) of the season which is no less important than most others, how do you programme in your SandC? At one end of the week you need some recovery from the previous match and at the other you don't want to let it run too close to the next one. The same goes for topping up aspects of running related fitness although games do contribute here, and all of this is on top of the time needed to work on teachical and team aspects of the game.

On the other hand there is the option of "double sessions" which are a perfectly viable consideration for full time professionals with no constraints of a day job to manipulate training requirements round.

 

Full time players should be able to manage at least two strength based sessions a week you would think, I'd imagine this is the minimum of what they do in the EPL. As for programming the S&C, there would be a lot of focus on injury prevention, reducing eccentric load close to games, and I'd imagine relatively little conditioning sessions if the actual football training they get is enough to keep them ticking over. All of this would probably require someone in a full time position. I'd be interested to know what the average training week looks like and how the season is "periodised". 

 

To be fair a lot of our first team certainly look like they spend time in the gym. Watkins seems to have filled out, plus Warren, Tansey etc. But can't say the same for the players coming through the academy like Christie and Polworth.