Dr Fergus Connolly - Elite Team Sport - Conference Notes - BSMPG 2013

The$Art$of$Applied$Sports$Science$for$Competitive$Advantages:$7$Principles$
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Applied Sports Performance
7 Principles for Competitive Advantage in
Elite Team Sport
Key practical lessons from Applied Sports Performance in Elite teams in the NFL,
NBA, Rugby Union & European Soccer.
This talk was first delivered at the Boston Sports Medicine and Performance Conference
on the 18
th
of May 2013, by Fergus Connolly.
Introduction
“Regardless of team or sport; each organization worldwide is attempting to
address the very similar issues...”
Content
• Sports Science - The Role and the Deliverables
• Technology - What it can do and what it won’t do
• People - Stakeholders, Communication and Absorption
• Profile - Team Sports, Differences and Challenges
• pR4 - What exactly Recovery is and how I use it
• ETTO - The Practical Application and Balance
• Future - What you need to prepare for

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Elements
8 sample Modules used onsite with clients and teams for elite team
performance
• Integration
• Archangel
• Optimise - Integration
• The 22 Hours
• pR4 - Recovery
• Mentorship Program
• Praxeology
• Programming

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Sports Science
What is & what is the role of Sports Science?
(a) Injury
(b) Performance
(c) Support
Why use Deliverables?
(d) Accountability
“Do you know the financial cost of an injury?”
NFL - Example
Adjusted Games Lost (AGL) - metric that quantifies how much teams were
affected by injuries
(1) Injuries to starters, injury replacements, and important situational
reserves impact a team more than injuries to bench warmers
(2) Injury effects should be adjusted for whether or not a player was out,
doubtful, questionable, or probable.

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Average team AGL this past season was 64.5
An average NFL team these days suffers the injury equivalent of four
important players missing the entire season.
There is a clear correlation with keeping players available and potential for
success.
Essentially you need (to aim for) a AGL less than 32.
What is the complete cost?
(a) Salary divided by 18/19 or 16 to estimate value simply by games
missed.
(b) team success and position or possibly championships and
(c) merchandising for that star player such as jersey sales etc.
(d) additional load on teammates
AND ... I've not even touched on the ...
(i) concussion debate or
(ii) the value of injury prevention to the athlete and their own career
earnings!

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“Dancing is a ‘contact’ sport - Boxing is a collision sport”
Reduce Injury or Improve Performance?
Improving performance means, by default, reducing injury risk and
probability.
“The Expert is the Professional
- regardless of domain.” (The Coach, Player, S&C, Athletic Trainer, cleaner)

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Informed Decision Making
By facilitating data and integration information, informed decision making by
experts will be improved in the right environment.
However, all data provided must have some education included, to
ensure INFORMED decision making.
Decision Making is a trainable skill
Your Applied Sports Science Program
1. Injury Reduction –
Assist in the identification of training and preparation trends that lead to
injury and provide both evidence and solutions to the prevention of injury.
2. Performance Improvement –
Assist in the improvement of primarily physical,(though with respect of
technical and tactical) development and the optimization of players on-field
performance.
3. Decision Support –
Provide key necessary information to the experts (Coaching, Strength &
Conditioning, Rehabilitation, Medical) in their area when they need it.

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Applied Sports Science Program
- Must be founded on Scientific Basis.
o Bridge the academic/practice gap.
- Approach must constantly be delivering in two stages
o Instant straightforward deliverable and report
o Complex longer term, slower research
- An Applied Sports Science Approach must serve 3 masters
o Coaches – Giving useful information they can use in a practical
setting
o Players – So they see ‘some’ feedback and value from their
input
o Owners – Reporting of short and long term goals

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Technology
"Tech very rarely fails-the failure occurs during implementation or
the application"
“A hammer is Technology”
“Technology VERY rarely fails. The failure occurs during implementation or
the application.”
Technology- Useful Interesting and Useless

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The delivery of a High Performance Team depends on the
(a) skill & experience of the Craftsman
(b) variety of tools available in the tool box
(c) his level of organization ...
(d) and lastly the quality of tool.”
“Michelangelo could paint your wall with a yard brush ... some
painters couldn’t paint the Sistine chapel by numbers”
“CMJ, OP, GPS, HRV, POMS ... None of these answer questions -
They simply help you ask better questions.”

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“In elite sport the aim should be to progress to monitoring athletes.
The test is the Game.”
Biological Expression
Time, data, analysis and context
"Not everything we measure is important and some things we can’t are"
“You can measure ‘the heart’, but you can’t measure ‘heart’.”
Caveat Emptor - Buyer Beware
Pathway, people and problems - All technology in team environments has a
pathway of development.
It cannot be rushed. Plan the Assessment ergonomics. Have a hierarchy of
assessment technology.

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Art – Dealing with People
“Human Performance is a People Business.”
Start with what's useful
Avoid the ‘interesting’
Lose the useless.
Communication – It’s good to talk

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Backroom Bandwidth
The majority of athletes come to pro sport with barely a second level
education. Almost all coaching staff come from the retired players - even
many owners. Meanwhile in the middle of this coaching mix we have
extremely well educated physiotherapists, S&C’s, Scientists.
And we wonder why communication might be an issue?
Placebo Training - Sugar or Prozac?
Dr. David Antonuccio, David Burns, William Danton, Psychiatry & Behavioral
Sciences at the University of Nevada
If you measure average you'll get average.
“What matters is not how smart you are ... but what your players
know ...

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Leadership
... leaders get their message across ... through “charisma” - that mysterious
ability to capture the subordinates’ attention and to communicate major
assumptions and values in a vivid and clear manner ...”
Bennis & Nanus 1985, Leaders. New York: Harper & Row; Conger 1989,
Learning to Lead, San Francisco, Jossey-Bass; Leavitt 1986, Corporate
Pathfinders, Homewood IL, Dow Jones-Irwin
“You can make an athlete faster, stronger, quicker. You can give him
a better personality, even make him better looking ... but you can’t
give him more experience.”
We are working with people
“... being able to confidently deal with the unknown ...”
Sport – Understanding Winning
“In the beginning there was a game”
“The impact and value of physical components on game results vary from
sport to sport.”
The game model and game structure dictates everything. This is the basis on
which all departments are built
You don't want to “Train like Tarzan and play like Jane”
“You can’t treat everyone the same, but you have to treat everyone fairly.”

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rP4 - Recovery
Recovery, Regeneration, Restoration, Resilience
“In many sports, at the highest level the difference is not purely
physical or fitness, it’s the ability to execute an action under
extreme duress - extreme psychophysiological fatigue.”
“Recovery is a complex concept. It is multifactorial, multidimensional and
multi-phasic ”
Generally recovery is considered in 3 forms (for simplicity sake).
These are directly reflective of 3 types of fatigue
Structural – Bone, Muscle, Tissue
Neural – CNS fatigue, Central Governor (Theoretical)
Metabolic – Substrate, Fuel, Energy expenditure

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Conclusion
It is impossible to predict injury.
It is possible to suggest the probability of injury - and the probability of
reoccurrence
How do you prove it? Wait for it to happen?
“And, if you can predict injury ... just before the weekend can you predict the
lotto number for me - should be infinitely easier”
“Sport is a business. The Business of Winning”
“If I asked people what they wanted ...they’d have said a faster
horse.”
Henry Ford

Dr Fergus Connolly - Elite Team Sport - Conference Notes - BSMPG 2013

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