Power, strength, speed, all of these are sort after abilities in a majority of sports around the world, but are we chasing the golden egg before looking after the chicken? Within team sports, one of the most common thread among successful teams is the relatively low changes made to the starting line-up from week to week. This makes sense as it means the coach has his/her best squad available for selection, could this mean availability is perhaps the best ability for an athlete? Soft tissue injuries and in particular hamstring strain injury (HSI) is a leading cause of missed games within numerous team sports around the world, what’s more, ...

Eccentric actions refer to an athlete’s muscle belly that is resisting the act of lengthening; the muscle is exerting force while being lengthened.  Imagine a tug of war against someone much larger than yourself… you are resisting movement, but inevitably losing ground. It’s also been called the yielding action (as opposed to the overcoming action which refers to the actual lifting of the resistance), and more colloquially coined the ‘negative’ in training programs worldwide. Athletes will find themselves doing eccentric training in most free weight exercise. However, and that is a BIG however, because concentric strength potential (the maximal force you can apply concentrically) is significantly lower than ...

We’ve all probably experienced a physical stalemate. Whether that be an arm wrestle or a rugby scrum, despite a lot of effort being applied, there is little to no movement. This type of physical activity can be broadly referred to as isometric exercise, which involves the muscle exerting tension without producing movement or a change in muscular length. In case you can’t quite picture the concept, here are some examples: 1. Pulling or pushing an immovable object 2. Holding a barbell at a fixed joint angle Although it would be fair to say that isometric training doesn’t provide the depth of benefit to eccentric ...