Today I catch up with Christian Woodford, Performance Coach and Director of Woodford Sports Science Consulting. Christian has become a leader in athlete rehabilitation and development over the last five years working with individuals to reach their personal best.
Christian Welcome!
The way you address athlete development appears very different to other strength and conditioning coaches I have come across. Why do you think this may be and where have you gained most of your insight into your techniques?
I don’t think I do things “differently”, I just do things that are PROVEN and I know work. Athletic development in Australia is not very well understood, especially compared to the USA, and as such, many athletes and coaches do not understand properly periodised strength and conditioning programs. In this day and age, every one with a social media account is an “expert”, so my drive is to educate and empower all athletes and coaches to what athletic development is about, but also what it’s NOT!
You have spent a lot of time in the United States who are arguably the world’s front-runners in athlete development. How do their systems and processors compare to that commonly seen in Australia?
The USA model for athletic development is superior because mainly of the understanding of what coaching strength and conditioning is. Think of their “mainstream” sports: baseball, gridiron, basketball etc. These sports require development of neuromuscular qualities such as; strength, power, speed etc. You only need to look at their high school system where they hire strength and conditioning staff to oversee the physical preparation of their student-athletes to understand why they have athletes run a 4.4s 40 yard sprint! They strength train compound movements (lift heavy and light for power), sprint, jump, throw and push heavy things. They understand from a YOUNG age how vital preparation for sport is outside “skills” training. Australia is far behind mainly because of the lack of understanding on the importance of physical preparation outside of sport – it’s just not ingrained in our culture like it is in other countries. It’s 2017 and we still have teams that only static stretch before training. Moreover, there are still many athletes and parents who believe that strength training will make you “bulky” and “slow”. The only way we can develop higher performing more efficient athletes is by educating the importance of physical preparation. This education has to start at the junior level by the parents who have such a huge potential to positively impact the culture of their clubs.
Many endurance athletes would benefit from regular strength sessions. For those competing in Ultra-marathons, marathons and multi-sport endurance events how often do you believe this should be and where is their time best spent?
Endurance athletes NEED to strength train while completing their endurance based training. If you look at strength and endurance training they are on opposite ends of the metabolic continuum. Strength training is anaerobic (without oxygen), and endurance is aerobic based (depending on work: rest ratio) meaning they do not go well together (concurrent training). It’s very important then to understand the appropriate loading parameters (sets, reps, rest periods, exercise selection) to maximise endurance performance. Properly implemented and programmed strength training leads to improved endurance performance. Heavy load – low rep (strength) and light load (power) training develops CNS efficiency and prolongs time to fatigue which equates to improved running economy. These are driven by “neural” adaptations and have little to do with the muscle itself. If you are an endurance athlete strength training WILL improve your performance.
With the AFLW competition beginning this year, there was a disproportionate number of knee injuries that took place in the short season when compared to the longer season of the male counter parts. Could this have been foreseen and what do you believe is the answer to preparing for this next season?
Females have a higher chance of ACL injuries due to a number of reasons; q angle of the pelvis and menstrual cycle for example. But I believe the reason the AFLW has such high proportion of ACL injuries is due to minimal contact time to prepare the players combined with increased intensity of the game. Many are not prepared for the stress of going from playing at the amateur level to playing at the highest level in Australia. This should change next year as clubs get a better understanding of what is needed for these female athletes.
With evidenced based medicine and practice being the gold standard within the allied health industry and therefore the risk of practitioners and professionals to be funnelled into one way of addressing injuries or the over-lapping of “scope of practice” – where do you believe hand over should occur regarding an injured athlete?
It’s a hard one because so many “practitioners” think they are a jack of all trades. Here is my rule; if your area is physio stick to diagnosis and EARLY stage treatment (low level activation and mobility) then pass the athlete onto the performance coach for mid to end stage return to PERFROM programming. There needs to be OPEN communication with both professionals so the athlete has smooth transition from all phases of their rehab program. Remember it’s about the athlete NOT us.
Until Next Time,
Jackson McCosker Christian Woodford
Director/ Chief Editor B.App.Sci (HONS)
FootNotes Publishing 