Leaders Performance Podcast

They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions, but does that hold up in the world of elite sports performance?“The issues I've seen here, they're very rarely – almost never – [a result of] things getting missed,” Simon Rice, the Vice President of Athlete Care at the Philadelphia 76ers, tells Teamworks' Director of Athlete Performance Andrew Trimble and Leaders Performance Institute Editor John Portch.“Where we run into slight problems is everyone trying to do the right thing with really good intentions,” he continues, citing the hypothetical example of three practitioners on the Sixers' Health & Performance group prescribing the same loading plan to an athlete and inadvertently tripling their load.“It often comes back to communication and it comes back to this idea of fitting the puzzle pieces to fully support that player.”It takes mutual understanding and trust between athlete and coach, as Simon touched upon in the recent Teamworks and Leaders Special Report, entitled High Performance Unpacked: Interconnected Performance Teams, and it was a theme he expanded upon in the first episode of our new three-part series.Elsewhere, Simon also talks about the role of the performance director as a cultural leader [4:00]; the importance of establishing what's best for the athlete right now [15:30]; the work of the Health & Performance group with external clinicians [34:00]; and how his team can give athletes confidence in their bodies through its joint decision model [55:00].Listen above and subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and Overcast, or your chosen podcast platform.

Lachlan Penfold's time at the Golden State Warriors was eye-opening in numerous ways.Chief amongst them was his realisation that joy is crucial in a high performance environment.“Joy in a professional sport? That's a bit strange,” thought Penfold, but it was one of the team's trademarks and no-one embodied it better than their Head Coach Steve Kerr and illustrious point guard Steph Curry.“The player that embodies it better than anyone in world sport is Steph Curry in terms of just the absolute joy he gets from playing the game, from training the game,” Penfold continues, “not only from his perspective, but from seeing his teammates have success and do great things, the joy that he gets really invigorates a sporting team.”It has fed into his work with the Melbourne Storm, who reached the NRL grand final in October. No doubt they'll go again in 2025, inspired by the family environment described so vividly by Penfold [10:00]. We also spoke about his approach to training and recovery [17:30] and the importance of individualised work [22:30]. Last up, we discussed the year ahead [28:10].Listen above and subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and Overcast, or your chosen podcast platform.

Flo Laing does not miss a beat in explaining what she's most excited about heading into 2025.“It's got to be the World Cup,” says Scotland women's Lead Physiotherapist.The competition will be hosted across the border in England and starts in August. Laing says it has been the Scotland team's “north star” for several years.During the course of our conversation – the second of three in this Keiser podcast series – we spoke about her work in women's rugby at a time where the sport is starting to capture the public's imagination and performance standards are rising faster than ever for the women players who compete [4:00].Elsewhere, Laing discusses her leadership style, which is very much about putting people at ease [18:00]; she also talks about the most pressing issues in female athlete health [28:40]; as well as the transferable skills she's learned from her time working for Sport Scotland [12:30].Listen above and subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and Overcast, or your chosen podcast platform.

Duncan French, the Senior Vice President of the UFC Performance Institute, is describing the aftermath of a bout.“If an athlete has gone through the fight pretty well and won, then it might be a very simple kind of cool down in one of the back rooms in the locker room and just do some light work to bring themselves back down again,” he says of the victor.“If an athlete's had a pretty significant amount of trouble, that's a very different strategy.”Mixed martial arts is, as he adds, “a sport of consequences”.It's all in a day's work for French, who oversees the UFC's Performance Institutes based in Las Vegas, Shanghai and, most recently, Mexico City.There have been some teething troubles with the Mexican facility [4:40], but French took it all in his stride, as he tells us in the first of this three-part Keiser Series Podcast focused on some of the challenges faced and lessons learned by members of the Leaders Performance Institute during 2024.French also discussed his evolving leadership style [6:20]; the personalisation of fight preparation plans [19:30]; and his use of data to inform those strategies [28:30].Listen above and subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and Overcast, or your chosen podcast platform.

Dan Jackson is the General Manager of Player Development & Leadership at the Adelaide Football Club, but he is quick to dispel any notions that he is a guru.“I can't teach leadership,” he tells the Leaders Performance Podcast. “I can help unlock what's already in there.”On that note, he is certain that leaders are not born. “Leadership is 100 per cent made, but it's made from a very young age.”Beyond the origins of leadership, Dan spoke to Henry Breckenridge and John Portch about the importance of prioritising others [10:40]. “Great sustainable teams are built in environments where everyone's looking to help someone else out,” he adds. “When you fill someone else's bucket, it fills yours.”Also on the agenda were the importance of humour and enjoyment [22:00]; the argument against ‘refreezing' culture [48:30]; and the practical steps that help leaders to manage team operations [32:00].Henry Breckenridge LinkedInJohn Portch LinkedInListen above and subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and Overcast, or your chosen podcast platform.

Kitman Labs ensured Bayer Leverkusen knew what it took to win the German Bundesliga.They demonstrated to Dr Karl-Heinrich Dittmar, Leverkusen's Head of Medical, the optimal range of player availability to top the table during a meet in Dublin, four or five years before Die Werkself actually won the title.“I kept this data; and last year we did it,” Dr Dittmar told the Kitman Labs podcast with evident pride. It turns out the data scanned almost perfectly across the numbers posted by the club during their unbeaten title-winning campaign.“They found out what we need from the medical point of view, from player availability, and it was perfect – the data predicted what would happen in the future.”It demonstrated the value of clean, consistent datasets – something that has given Leverkusen an edge over more celebrated rivals – and something that Yael Averbuch West is trying to build in her role as GM at 2023 NWSL champions Gotham City.“We're still in the data collection stage in the women's game,” she tells the podcast, while also explaining that the work to bridge that gap is well underway in this corner of New York City.In the third and final episode of this series, West and Dr Dittmar are joined by Kitman Labs Founder Stephen Smith to discuss how data strategies can help teams in their quest for greatness.Elsewhere, the trio discuss a range of topics, including why learnings tend to emerge as data collection grows ever more sophisticated [17:30]; the importance of a centralised system for consistency [24:15]; the balance between using data to unearth ‘hidden gems' and jumping on something misleading [33:00]. Episode one is available here and episode two is available here.

You may have a great performance structure for your men's team, but simply cutting and pasting that to your women's team does them a disservice.That is the view of Arianna Criscione, the Head of Football Operations at Mercury/13 and Como Women. “It's not enough,” she tells this Kitman Labs podcast. She explains that there are a range of services, from nutrition to psychology, that need to be tailored to women players.Criscione continues: “You also have to have access to medical [support], but a lot of clubs don't have access to a gynaecologist, which is a major part of the female body and really needs to be addressed a lot more.”Dentistry is another area of oft-neglected consideration. “If you have an off-bite, that can actually affect your structure and how you're running, which could cause injury.”It is, as Sarah Smith says, about “making sure that we have a good foundation of support around our athletes.” Smith, who is the Director of Medical and Performance at Angel City FC in the NWSL, joins the conversation alongside Stephen Smith, the Founder of Kitman Labs.In addition to discussing holistic female player development [10:45], the trio delve into bridging the gap in data and understanding in women's football [15:45]; how talent identification is evolving [20:15]; as well as the existing disparities in data collection [28:10] from club to club and league to league.This is episode two of a three-part series. Please go back and check out episode one, where the Leaders Performance Institute and Stephen Smith spoke to Paul Prescott of the International Football Group and Morten Larsen of Danish Superliga side Aarhus discussing talent pathways in the Premier League and beyond.Listen above and subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and Overcast, or your chosen podcast platform.

More than 77 per cent of professional contracts in the Premier League and EFL are held by homegrown players.It wasn't always thus. “English clubs were basically funding talent development models in Spain or in Brazil because English talent wasn't seen to be at the same level as players from those countries,” Paul Prescott, the Managing Director of the International Football Group, told this Kitman Labs podcast.That situation persisted until recently and is starting to change in part due to the introduction of the Elite Player Performance Plan [EPPP] in 2012.“We are seeing that some of the decisions that were made maybe 10-12 years ago are beginning to bear fruit,” added Prescott, who was joined by Morten Larsen, the Head of Methodology & Development at Danish Superliga club Arhus, and Stephen Smith, the Founder of Kitman Labs.Aarhus share the Premier League's emphasis on talent development, albeit in different circumstances as Larsen explains [5:30].“Denmark is a small country and the league is a small league,” he says. “So there's only one thing we can do to compete with the other clubs in Europe.”Elsewhere, Smith sets out the differences in approach between leagues and clubs [16:25]; Larsen explains the impact of data on decision-making processes in the Aarhus academy [24:10]; and Prescott ponders whether EPPP was an outcome or a catalyst [36:30].

The 2024 StatsBomb Conference took place at Old Trafford in Manchester in October and the Leaders Performance Institute was in attendance.We spoke to the great and the good of the football analytics world, including three people speaking that day, about their thoughts on data & analytics in football, from recruitment and time management to analysis and AI.Coming up for you, we have:Liam Henshaw, a Data Analyst & First Team Scout with Hearts, who discusses his efforts to balance two roles at the Scottish Premiership club, and the constant need for context in application.Will Thomson, a Data Analyst with Hudl StatsBomb, whose research is guided by the nuances of football.Sam Gregory, the Director of Data Analytics at US Soccer, whose senior teams are preparing for World Cups in 2026 and 2027, including an edition on home soil in the men's competition.Simon Farrant, Director of Strategic Growth – Sports Data & Officiating, at Deltatre, who spoke about recruitment in the context of game models and team strategies, where compelling stories are a must.Listen above and subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and Overcast, or your chosen podcast platform.

Predictably, when Sport Wales formed its Female Health & Performance team, some asked why there was no male equivalent.The truth is that male physiology and psychology has long been viewed as the default across sport.“For so many years we haven't thought about females as being different,” says Esther Goldsmith, who works for Sport Wales, on the latest episode of the Leaders Performance Podcast.“When you think about it, it doesn't make sense because it's obvious we're different.”This lack of understanding or consideration makes one ponder just how much potential is being left on the table by female athletes. The menstrual cycle, for example, was seen as a taboo and was historically not taken into consideration when female athletes trained, performed or recovered.In seeking to redress that imbalance, Sport Wales is empowering female Welsh athletes from the grassroots through to podium potential with the support they need to succeed.“We're just trying to open up some of those conversations and improve the comfort and awareness of the athlete in order to help,” says Dr Natalie Brown, who works alongside Goldsmith.Both spoke of Sport Wales' efforts to normalise conversations about a whole range of female health issues (10:00) including pelvic floor health and stress incontinence (36:00), while busting common myths along the way (21:00).Goldsmith and Brown also discuss the importance of encouraging behavioural change through meeting the athlete where they are in their beliefs and values (15:00); helping coaches with any potential discomfort as they learn and become aware of the needs of their athletes (31:00); as well as the question of sports bras in a market without universal standards (26:00).They offer useful tips for any sports organisation regardless of their budget or level of resource but the important thing is to start having the conversation. Now.More from Sport Wales:How Sport Wales Is Enabling Female Athletes to Succeed on the World Stage‘Female-Specific Considerations Should Be Part of Normal Practice'Female Athlete Health: Five Top Tips When Discussing the Menstrual Cycle and Other IssuesListen above and subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and Overcast, or your chosen podcast platform.

Alex Hill works with a range of sporting organisations. He sometimes stuns them into silence too.On one such occasion, Hill, the Co-Founder and Director of the Centre for High Performance, compelled senior leaders at the Premier League to confront its own demise.“I said: ‘at some point people will not want to work for you'. Now that feels impossible at the moment,” Hill tells the Leaders Performance Podcast.How did that observation go down?“It was quite a quiet room,” Hill says. “At the moment, they're lucky they've got the pick of the best talent, the best physios, the best scientists – but that might not be there forever.”Hill spent 13 years studying organisations that have out-performed their peers for over 100 years, including the All Blacks, Eton College and the Royal Shakespeare Company. The result is his book Centennials: The 12 Habits of Great, Enduring Organisations.“If you want society to support you long term, your impact has to be much broader than just creating role models,” he continues. “Why don't you take the learning from being at the cutting edge of mental and physical performance and share that?”Hill believes that the British national governing bodies competing at the Olympic and Paralympic Games could feed those lessons back into the community in the form of a “spin-offs division” similar to that of NASA (another centennial).“This spin-offs division [could be] designed to take that learning and feed it into all of society so that the whole of our country develops.”It is just one idea Hill shares during the course of a conversation full of advice for sporting organisations. He spoke of the New Zealand All Blacks and their readiness to embrace failure [40:20]; finding smarter ways to attract money and talent [10:45]; and why a diverse talent pool can make an organisation more relevant to a broader swathe of society [17:15].Henry Breckenridge X | LinkedInJohn Portch X | LinkedInListen above and subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and Overcast, or your chosen podcast platform.

“I've been told I give really good hugs.”So says Lindsay Mintenko, the Managing Director of USA Swimming's National Team, in the second episode of this new series of the Leaders Performance Podcast, which is brought to you by our Main Partners Keiser.“Just being able to sit with an athlete; sometimes you don't even have to talk,” she continues, “it's just so they know you are there.”It is difficult to imagine many of her predecessors demonstrating such empathy with athletes whether they're a multi-medal winner like Michael Phelps or Katie Ledecky or a swimmer who came agonisingly close in some of sport's most competitive trials. The top-two finishers are guaranteed a spot on the roster; those in third – who would likely medal with other nations – are almost certain to miss out.“After the trials, our main job is to make sure our athletes are focused on Paris, but we don't always take a step back and look at those who came third by a hundredth of a second. That's a tough place to be; so we really need to make sure that we do a better job of looking out for those athletes afterwards.”It is perhaps no surprise that USA Swimming is currently the only national governing body in the US to have an in-house licensed clinician on staff. This has happened on the watch of Lindsay, a two-time Olympic gold medallist in the 4x200m freestyle. She is the first former athlete and first woman to serve as Team USA's Managing Director, but as she tells Henry Breckenridge and John Portch, it is not about her but serving her athletes and their coaches. Lindsay also spoke about her role being analogous to that of a general manager in the major leagues [8:00] and the importance of providing a challenging but safe environment [17:40]. Elsewhere, she elaborates on the importance of providing mental health support for her athletes [29:50] and explains how her swimming career began when as a six-year-old Lindsay fell out of a tree [5:30].Henry Breckenridge X | LinkedInJohn Portch X | LinkedInListen above and subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and Overcast, or your chosen podcast platform.

Michael Bourne has a sports science background, so it is no surprise that he places a premium on critical thinking.“It is core to me,” the Performance Director at the Lawn Tennis Association [LTA] tells the Leaders Performance Podcast, which is brought to you today by our Main Partners Keiser.Critical thinking is a skill that also served him well in roles at UK Sport and the England & Wales Cricket Board amongst others before he took the reins at the LTA in October 2020 (with Covid restrictions still in place).“But,” he cautions, “leadership for me is about change and progress, and you can have the greatest thinking and the greatest ideas in the world, but if you can't drive and implement change, then it's for naught.”It starts with taking stock. “As a leader, make sure that you are ensuring everybody else is confronting those brutal facts and you've got to be ahead of that,” he says, adding that he too must be open to feedback.“It should be unacceptable in a high-performance environment to know there is a challenge and to take no steps to do anything about it.”In the first episode of this new series, Michael explains his mission-driven and people-centred approach to helping produce British tennis players with the means to compete with the world's best [33:10].During the conversation, we also touch upon the challenges the LTA faces and the benchmarks set [8:30]; his belief in the unique qualities of British tennis [14:30]; why the flow of information cannot be taken for granted at the LTA [38:30]; and the enduring power of the Lion King to move him [49:30].Henry Breckenridge X | LinkedInJohn Portch X | LinkedInListen above and subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and Overcast, or your chosen podcast platform.

Harjiv Singh, a performance and development scientist at the Orlando Magic, is another example of a practitioner who suffered their own debilitating injuries.Hot on the heels of Andrea Hudy, who recounted her own story of ACL troubles in episode one, Harjiv told the tale of a pickup basketball game that ended with him tearing his ACL and meniscus while also suffering an avulsion fracture.The 16 months of rehab stoked an interest in sports science that not only led him to the NBA but, since January, roles at the Grand Rapids Rise women's volleyball team, as Director of Performance Science, and the University of Michigan, where Harjiv teaches out of the Human Performance and Sports Science Center.John Portch and Joe Lemire could not have wished for a more engaging guest on this finale to this People Behing the Tech podcast series, where Harjiv delved into the sports science principles that define his work.He also shared his thoughts on training drill design [15:39] and the transferability in competition – a relatively new area of enquiry. “It could be as simple as, in basketball, you're putting a defender in front of you,” he says. “But it can also be as complex as the angle and the approach of that defender, the people in the vicinity of the athlete, where the athlete is starting from, their position on the court. And that's merely the introductory part of this.”Then there's his thoughts on the “neglected” cognitive component to ACL injuries [6:41]; the need to know your audience when visualizing data [27:38]; and his ability to ask applied questions in the lab at Michigan.Check out episode two:Five Years on from the USWNT Introducing Menstrual Cycle Tracking, Sports Science for Female Athletes Remains Under-Developed. So What Can Athletes and Practitioners Do about it?Joe Lemire LinkedIn | XJohn Portch LinkedIn | XListen above and subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and Overcast, or your chosen podcast platform.

When the US women's national soccer team started tracking their menstrual cycles, it was seen as groundbreaking.At least part of their success in claiming back to back World Cup titles in 2019 was attributed to the fact they could adjust individual training plans and nutrition based on the data.Ellie Maybury was part of the USWNT backroom team that introduced this initiative and, more than half a decade on, tech support for female athletes doesn't seem to have progressed as much as she'd have hoped. At least in soccer.“A lot of the technology we have absorbed into the women's game has come from the men's game or men's sports environments,” she tells the People Behind the Tech podcast.“And maybe some of the processes and metrics that come with that get transferred as well.”Maybury, who recently founded Soccer Herformance, a performance consultancy for female soccer players, is in the hotseat on episode two of this series.She addressed the issues that hold back female high performance, from managing the lack of objective datapoints [4:50] and the importance of education for athletes who often misunderstand their own bodies through no fault of their own [26:20], to the need to take athletes on a journey while remaining honest about the limitations of research at the present time [17:00].Check out episode one:Paige Bueckers Proved Her ACL Injury Was Behind her at March Madness, but, as Andrea Hudy tells us, Questions Must Still Be Asked about the Injuries that Afflict Female AthletesJoe Lemire LinkedIn | XJohn Portch LinkedIn | XListen above and subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and Overcast, or your chosen podcast platform.

Paige Bueckers' stellar performances at this year's March Madness proved that her ACL injury is long behind her.She returned to action in November 2023 after 15 months out and drove UConn all the way to the Final Four of the NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament.Behind the scenes, Andrea Hudy, the Director of Sports Performance (Women's Basketball) at UConn, was critical to Bueckers' convalescence and is working (while pursuing a PhD) to ensure there are fewer such occurrences in the future.“My passion is trying to understand why people get hurt or the story behind their injuries and keep them strong and resilient for what's unexpected or the challenges ahead,” she tells The People Behind the Tech podcast.Andrea speaks from her own experience of injury as a varsity volleyball player. Indeed, when anyone says she “played without an ACL” for six years – as Andrea tells Joe Lemire and John Portch – it makes you sit up and take notice.In the first episode of this new series, we discuss the questions that still need to be asked about female injury occurrence rates [18:00]. We also touch upon Andrea's career in college athletics, which took in tenures at Texas and Kansas before she returned to UConn three years ago for her second spell [8:40]. Then, we broach her willingness to experiment with new technologies while concurrently seeking better insights from existing datasets [11:40]. Finally, she tells us why she can occasionally see herself as a modern, real-life Icarus [26:30] and much more besides.Listen above and subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and Overcast, or your chosen podcast platform.

David Dunne describes a perennial problem for practitioners in elite sports.“There's a fundamental mismatch between what practitioners can deliver and what athletes actually want and desire,” he told Joe Lemire and John Portch on the People Behind the Tech podcast.“So we pivoted towards the COM-B model.”During this episode we spoke at length about Hexis' continued growth following a successful seed round, technology's ability to influence the evolution of the practitioner, and the fundamental union of academic rigour and those so-called softer skills.COM-B was a major part of that conversation. It has been integral to Hexis' growth. The company used it in tandem with elements of design thinking which, as Dunne explains, stems from his time working for teams including Harlequins and Ryder Cup Team Europe. The model is a framework for understanding and changing behaviour. It was developed by Susan Michie, Maartje van Stralen and Robert West in 2011. The model posits that behaviour (B) is a result of an interaction between three components:Capability (C): this refers to an individual's psychological and physical capacity to engage in the activity. It includes having the necessary knowledge, skills and abilities.Opportunity (O): this encompasses all the factors outside the individual that make the behaviour possible, including social and physical environmental factors.Motivation (M): this includes the brain processes that direct behaviour, such as habits, emotional responses, decision-making and analytical thinking.Listen to the full conversation.Joe Lemire LinkedIn | XJohn Portch LinkedIn | XListen above and subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and Overcast, or your chosen podcast platform.

“Everything is based upon the game for us,” said Ryan Alexander.“Understanding how the physical demands and fitness is going to be interpreted on the field as it is going to relate to the technical and tactical execution of a certain style of play.”Alexander, the Director of Sports Science at Atlanta United, was speaking to John Portch and Joe Lemire on the People Behind the Tech podcast ahead of the new MLS season, which began in late February.He also spoke about the club's groundbreaking work with i-Brain Tech, a neurofitness training aid that has transformed their skills and cognitive training and led to players having “higher levels of conversations with their technical coaches."Elsewhere, Alexander explored:Finding the level of confidence in the data to challenge or support [9:30];Knowing when to take calculated risks with players [18:00];How i-Brain has been integrated into the players' training plans [27:00];His efforts to meet players and coaches at their 'level' when it comes to data [35:30].Joe Lemire LinkedIn | XJohn Portch LinkedIn | XListen above and subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and Overcast, or your chosen podcast platform.

At November's Leaders Sport Performance Summit at the Oval in London, a coach was overheard saying: ‘I have a team looking at AI but I have no idea what they do'.Gary McCoy is the CEO of Peak AI, which has been shortlisted in Sports Business Journals' list of the 10 Most Innovative Sports Tech Companies of 2023.Peak AI uses psycholinguistics to enhance performance and Gary has a firm view on that coach's comment.“If you don't know what they do, go and lead them because they probably don't know what they're doing either,” he tells Joe and John on the latest edition of The People Behind the Tech podcast.“Artificial intelligence and data, as a general staple in sports, needs guidance,” he continues, “it needs transactional guidance to evolve the athlete.”Gary spoke at length about the need for coaches to fully engage with AI and also dipped into a range of areas, including:Preventing the injuries that may be a consequence of practitioners “asking the wrong questions” [20:00];The need for the sports industry to develop a collective ethos for using AI [23:00];The significance of an athlete's cognitive load on their ability to train and perform [30:30];Why analysts who better understand performance will better understand how data transacts [46:50].Joe Lemire LinkedIn | XJohn Portch LinkedIn | XListen above and subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and Overcast, or your chosen podcast platform.

Ben Baroody is a big believer in psychologist Michael Gervais' idea that the apex of well-being and performance is human flourishing.“It means a lot to us,” he tells Henry Breckenridge and John Portch on the Leaders Performance Podcast, which is brought to you today by our Main Partners Keiser.“The aim and approach of all of our programs, processes, and our building blocks, is based on the foundation of the human psyche, the psychology of healthy minds and lives. And we try to take that evidence-based research and build it into baseball frameworks and development for the rest of the organization.”As the Texas Rangers' Director of Leadership & Organizational Development, Player Enrichment Programs & Mental Health says, the goal is to unlock potential versus extracting performance.“That's what we're striving towards. It's an aspiration that's ever-evolving,” he says,Elsewhere in this episode, we cover:How the Rangers have been the ‘victims of buzzwords on a wall' [10:30];The balance of challenge and support in the Rangers environment [23:00];How Ben's development as a leader helped him to identify imbalances in his own life [30:15];Character development practices at the Rangers [37:30].Henry Breckenridge LinkedIn | XJohn Portch LinkedIn | XListen above and subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and Overcast, or your chosen podcast platform.

“How do we design tech and tech solutions to almost combat [other] tech solutions and distractions?”The question is posed by Brian Cunniffe of the UK Sports Institute [UKSI], who is Joe Lemire and John Portch's first guest on The People Behind the Tech podcast for 2024.Brian, a performance lead at the UKSI who works primarily in canoeing and who also served as the British and Irish Lions' sports scientist on tours of Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, is discussing the power in gamifying training, particularly for younger athletes.“There's a slight irony in there but how do we bring it back to the stuff that matters, not just for players but for staff as well?” he continues. “How do we help coaches on a journey to understand not just the stuff that players have completed but maybe some of the decisions that we need to take on a journey and learn from that so that we're not replicating or duplicating and can be more efficient with our time?”Elsewhere, Brian delves into:The reasons why he is not driven to be a domain expert [6:00];The mismatch of the tacit knowledge of coaching and the newer objective of monitoring athletes [13:00];The under-appreciated importance of design thinking and bringing people on a journey [18:00];The performance promise contained in epigenetics [31:00].Joe Lemire LinkedIn | XJohn Portch LinkedIn | XListen above and subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and Overcast, or your chosen podcast platform.

Lydia Bedford, the Head Coach of the Brentford men's under-18s team has some firm coaching advice.“There's no shortcuts, even though everyone seems to want them these days,” she tells Henry Breckenridge and John Portch on the Leaders Performance Podcast, which is brought to you today by our friends at Keiser.“Time on the grass, working in different environments, working under different people as leaders will help you to understand what it looks like for you.”Bedford, who has also coached with underage women's teams at the Football Association [FA], Leicester City Women in the WSL, and served as an assistant coach at Arsenal Women, talks enthusiastically about her first six months Brentford.In her new role she is a pioneer. One of the few women coaches operating at the top level of the men's game. Elsewhere in this episode, she delves into the importance of her mentors, who include Mo Marley, the current Head Coach of England Women's under-23s.Bedford recalls a time at an FA training camp when, at Marley's side, she encountered the senior women's England squad. She says: “Every senior player that walked passed her gave Mo a hug and I was like ‘I want to be Mo, I want to have that impact'. But actually, the more I worked with Mo, whilst I love her to bits and still have tremendous respect for her, how Mo leads is not how Lydia leads.“You learn loads of things, good and bad, from people that you work under and then you find your own way.”Elsewhere on the agenda, Bedford spoke about:Her status as a pioneer in the men's game [12:30];Facilitating challenge and support in an environment where results are less significant [17:00];Her relationship with her assistant Jon-Paul Pittman [30:00];Integrating players who are not used to academy environments [33:30].Henry Breckenridge Twitter | LinkedInJohn Portch Twitter | LinkedInListen above and subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and Overcast, or your chosen podcast platform.

Zendler speaks to Joe Lemire and John Portch about her work with Rimkus and the NBA and NBPA's Wearables Validation Program.“It was scary at the start. It was this white space of do we want this to happen? Can you make it happen?” says Jess Zendler.The Program Manager of the NBA and NBPA's Wearables Validation Program is discussing her first steps in the role with Joe and John on the People Behind the Tech podcast.“Academic-type folks, we don't like to set thresholds that exist for pass-fail,” she continues, as she explained the process of speaking to players and coaches and taking in all the relevant research.“We want this to be rigorous, we want the players to have confidence in these devices, we know they're generally hesitant to wear them and there is pushback.”Zendler also spoke of balancing the need for commercial viability with real-world application, which chimes with her role as a sports science consultant with Rimkus, a worldwide leader in technical consulting and forensic engineering.During the course of the conversation, we also discussed:The process for approving devices on the Wearables Validation Program [12:30];The challenge of bringing research to life in sport [17:10];The Wearables Validation Program's relationship with the NBA and Players Association [21:00];Jessica's role in creating the vision for the increasingly used Quality Assessment Framework for sports technology [28:10].Joe Lemire LinkedIn | XJohn Portch LinkedIn | XListen above and subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and Overcast, or your chosen podcast platform.

Dr Daniel Laby is talking to John Portch and Joe Lemire about his vision training with Liverpool and England star Trent Alexander-Arnold in 2021.He says: “If the question is: ‘are you worse than you should be for your sport?' And knowing what each sport needs, if you have that information you can say how someone needs to train.”Red Bull commissioned the project having been impressed by Dr Laby's consultancy work in the NFL and his burgeoning collection of World Series rings having worked for three decades in MLB.“So if Trent did well, which he did in certain areas [I would say], ‘Trent, you did great. We don't have to give you glasses' but if [instead I said] ‘Trent, your ability to monitor multiple targets at the same time isn't what it needs to be compared to what it should be for someone on average of your level, we have to train that'; and that's what we did with Trent.”Dr Laby tells The People Behind the Tech podcast that the first goal is to help athletes to correct to the required level for their sport, which will differ depending on the discipline.This was just one aspect touched upon during the conversation. Others include:The potential drawbacks of refractive surgery for athletes in some sports [8:00];His work with Manny Ramírez and the 2004 Boston Red Sox [16:00];Balancing research and practice in his work [22:00];The potential for using virtual and augmented reality in vision testing [36:00].Joe Lemire LinkedIn | XJohn Portch LinkedIn | XListen above and subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and Overcast, or your chosen podcast platform.

“The greatest gains in S&C can be made in how you make yourself an integral part of the team,” says Johnny Parkes.“You have to be out there with the team on a daily basis, you have to have those soft skills – I actually call them essential skills – we have to recognise that we have to make ourselves completely valuable to the team.”Johnny, who was recently appointed Associate Head Coach of the men's tennis program at the University of South Carolina's men's tennis program, is the third and final guest on this Keiser miniseries, which seeks to understand the world of S&C through a leadership lens.He is both an S&C and a tennis coach out on the court and, in his dual role, is in no doubt about what it takes to develop the essential skills of which he speaks.He adds: “That might mean going out there for extended periods of time, watching practices, going above and beyond and staying later after an S&C session because a guy needs to work on their hip mobility a little bit more as opposed to just shutting the practice down.”Also during this episode, we discuss:The distinct challenges of coaching youth and adult tennis players [2:30];The need to give the player a voice and shape your coaching cues to them as an individual [7:00];Johnny's comfort in discussing performance topics outside of his domain [14:00];Why the gamification of elite athlete training resembles a PE class [23:00].Previous episode:Emily Hall – Queensland Rugby LeagueJohn Portch LinkedIn | XListen above and subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and Overcast, or your chosen podcast platform.

“You can watch the room change from that lived experience approach,” says Marc Williams, a programme facilitator at gambling harm minimization consultancy EPIC Risk Management.Marc, a former professional footballer who suffered the consequences of gambling harm, will speak to athletes and teams with a view to educating and informing them about the pitfalls and trigger associated with gambling harm.“They can see what we've been through, where gambling took us, and from that they can really relate to it themselves and think ‘wow, this could be me',” he tells John Portch on the Leaders Performance Podcast.Marc is joined by Rachael Jankowsky, the Head of Player Care & Well-Being at Major League Soccer's Chicago Fire, to discuss EPIC's work with the club, which included Marc presenting in front of young players.On today's special episode, we discuss topics including:The beginnings of the Fire and EPIC's collaboration [6:30];The difference between ‘textbook' education and an in-person presentation [10:00];Marc and EPIC's post-session support services [15:30];Overcoming the challenges of low base knowledge and the language barrier [18:30].For those seeking more information on gambling harm prevention, check out EPIC Risk Management's white paper review from February 2023.Listen above and subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and Overcast, or your chosen podcast platform.

Emily Hall enjoys building relationships with athletes as it enables her to better support them and, from time to time, when necessary, call them out.“You have to be able to read your athletes and know your athletes,” says the Strength & Conditioning Coach, who works with various women's teams at Queensland Rugby League, including the U19s.“[You need to] have those relationships with your athletes so you can say the right thing or make the right call in those situations,” she tells this Keiser Series Podcast.In episode two of this series, we speak to Hall, a proud Wiradjuri woman, about topics including:Helping young athletes to juggle sport and other commitments [7:40];Enabling athletes to develop a sense of responsibility and autonomy [10:00];Why it is important for an S&C to show up at 100% even when athletes are flagging [16:00];Supporting athletes of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander backgrounds [21:00]. John Portch LinkedIn | XListen above and subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and Overcast, or your chosen podcast platform.

When Conor McGoldrick joined John Portch for this Keiser Podcast, he spoke of learning from other disciplines and how that happens in both an unstructured and structured way.The Head of Strength & Conditioning at Red Bull's Athlete Performance Center in Salzburg is describing the learning opportunity provided by the interdisciplinary work that goes on around the organisation's 850-plus athletes across four football clubs, two hockey teams, and approximately 250 sporting disciplines.“The unstructured way is almost like a child and you are learning just by being there from practitioners who are better [in their field] than you,” he says.“Then there's this more structured approach where you actively seek opportunities to observe and have questions asked of you; and I think with that understanding it makes that interdisciplinary work easier.”Conor is the first guest on this three-part series looking at Strength & Conditioning through a leadership lens.On the conversational agenda were:Athletes' biggest S&C concerns [9:00];Knowing when to keep your counsel [12:15];The link between behaviours and success [21:50];The gamification of training [25:00].John Portch LinkedIn | X Listen above and subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and Overcast, or your chosen podcast platform.

Joe Rogowski has seen the NBA from all sides.He spent two years as an S&C at the Orlando Magic, a further six years as Director of Science & Research at the Houston Rockets, before spending almost nine years at the National Basketball Players Association [NBPA].Since 2022, he has served as Chief Medical Director of the National Basketball Retired Players Association [NBRPA], a non-profit organization comprised of former professional basketball players of the NBA, ABA, Harlem Globetrotters, and WNBA.Rogowski was at the NBPA in 2015, the year the league introduced its wearables committee and his views were informed by his time in Orlando and Houston.As he tells Joe Lemire and John Portch, he worked with players wary of wearables as well as those mor willing “guinea pigs”, as they refers to them, such as retired Magic point guard Jameer Nelson.Rogowski would ask himself of the latest devices: “Is it practical? Is it something that you can wear in a practice? Is this something that I can consistently do? Or is this a one-time thing and you collect the data and move on?“I had plenty of those devices that actually changed how I think about training these guys or how I'd help them with recovery. But it is a sale because, with the players, you only have so many asks.”Rogowski recalls those moments working with players as well as:The holistic management of load in the NBA [13:30];Knowing what to say – and what not to say – to players [21:20];His interest in cardiology and its importance for athletes, both current and retired [27:00];His role at the Sports Tech Research Network [31:20].Joe Lemire LinkedIn | X John Portch LinkedIn | X Listen above and subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and Overcast, or your chosen podcast platform.

“Serial winning coaches don't just want to get ahead – they want to stay ahead,” Professor Cliff Mallett tells the Leaders Performance Podcast.“But they know that staying ahead means having healthy relationships of mutual trust and care with the people that they work with.”Cliff and his colleague Sergio Lara-Bercial join Henry Breckenridge and John Portch for this episode to discuss their new book Learning from Serial Winning Coaches: Caring Determination.In an extended chat we delve into:Why Serial Winning Coaches are the ‘outliers amongst outliers' [7:00];How coaches should approach developing ‘care' and ‘determination' with their athletes [31:00];How Serial Winning Coaches can help us to inform the identification, recruitment and development of the next generation of coaches [39:30];Why coaching is about striving, surviving and thriving [45:00].Learning from Serial Winning Coaches: Caring Determination is published by Routledge.Henry Breckenridge Twitter | LinkedInJohn Portch Twitter | LinkedInListen above and subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and Overcast, or your chosen podcast platform.

Collier Madaleno recalls the story of a defensive lineman that had put on weight during the pandemic when college football was brought to a halt.“He used that next year to really focus on nutrition,” she tells Joe and John. “[He] got down and dropped his body fat percentage by 7%, lost 45lbs [20.4kg], and he was a first-round draft pick.“He just did such a good job at buying in and it made him a faster, more explosive person. He never lost any muscle mass, which meant he was really focusing in on eating enough of just the right things so that we were able to retain that muscle and focus on losing that fat.”Collier's pride is palpable, particularly as a native of Athens, Georgia, and long-term Bulldogs fan. “It's so much fun to see them buy-in and then say ‘C, I feel so much better in practice'. ‘C, I didn't know I could have this much energy'. It's probably the most rewarding part of my job.”In this edition of The People Behind the Tech podcast, Collier lifts the lid on her work as the Director of Football Performance Nutrition at the Georgia Bulldogs, who retained the NCAA national championship in January.During the course of the conversation, we covered:How student-athletes are introduced to performance nutrition on campus [6:00];The importance of team leaders buying into her work [11:00];The question of recovery and inflammation [21:00];How Collier stays current in her work [22:30].Joe Lemire Twitter | LinkedInJohn Portch Twitter | LinkedInListen above and subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and Overcast, or your chosen podcast platform.

The rise of Toulouse FC has been both fast and meticulously planned.Le Téfécé were Ligue 2 champions in 2022 and, last season, won the Coupe de France – their first major trophy in 66 years.Toulouse also finished 13th in their first season back in Ligue 1 – well clear of the relegation zone. Not that Damien Comolli, the club's President since 2020, is resting on this laurels.“Everyone said ‘well done on staying up' but we're not interested in staying up – we never mentioned staying up – we said we want to finish as high as possible,” he tells the Leaders Performance Podcast.“There are games that we feel we should have won and could have won. We lacked this cutting edge, this winning mentality at times, we should have got more points, we should have finished higher than 13th in the table.”Damien Comolli has overseen the Toulouse's resurgence under new owners RedBird Capital Partners, but he couldn't have done it without his ‘truth teller', the club's Head of Strategy & Culture, Selinay Gürgenç Comolli, and Julien Demeaux, Toulouse's Head of Data.Both Selinay and Julien joined Damien for this episode, which is brought to you by our Main Partners Keiser.The theme is Toulouse's upwards trajectory and what it is going to take to help establish the club at the vanguard of European football.On today's agenda:Damien on the importance of having a ‘truth teller'How he is working to prevent Toulouse being a ‘one-season-wonder'Selinay on the importance of the club's strategic committeeJulien on the comparative immaturity of data usage in football Henry Breckenridge Twitter | LinkedInJohn Portch Twitter | LinkedInListen above and subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and Overcast, or your chosen podcast platform.

“When a club as big as Racing come to you and say ‘we want you, there is no plan B, you're our No 1 man' then it helps persuade you”.Stuart Lancaster, the new Director of Rugby at Racing 92, agreed to join the Parisian club last September while enjoying his seventh season as Senior Coach at Leinster. It meant a fresh challenge for the man who also coached England at the 2015 Rugby World Cup.Says Lancaster: “For the first time, really, my head was turned a little bit by the opportunity to try something new in a different country, in a different competition, the Top 14, and to try and build something as successful as Leinster but in a completely different context”.He discusses his move at length in today's episode, which is brought to you by our Main Partners Keiser. During the conversation with Henry and John, he also touches upon:His efforts to sell change to the existing players and staff at Racing [9:40];Why he will need to be more hands-on in year one than he has been at Leinster [19:30];His belief in the enduring value of coaching [25:20];His relationship with Dallas Cowboys Defensive Coordinator Dan Quinn [36:30].Henry Breckenridge Twitter | LinkedInJohn Portch Twitter | LinkedInListen above and subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and Overcast, or your chosen podcast platform.

“With technology now, we're starting to understand movement in a way that we didn't really understand before,” Keke Lyles tells Joe Lemire and John Portch.The Director of Performance at Uplift Labs was on the pod to discuss how the company's AI can reduce injury risk in athletes.There is no better candidate to delve into injury prevention and mitigation than the man often credited with saving Steph Curry's ankle.We made a whistlestop tour of his work at the Minnesota Timberwolves, Atlanta Hawks and, of course, the Golden State Warriors.Also on the agenda were:How the stress of a season can affect movement quality, tissue quality, and range of motion [14:00];The often misunderstood elements of load management [17:00];Keke's jump from the world of sport into the tech space [31:20];Why he believes the next performance frontier will be in player development [34:30]. Joe Lemire Twitter | LinkedInJohn Portch Twitter | LinkedInListen above and subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and Overcast, or your chosen podcast platform.

Mark Gannon, the CEO of UK Coaching, feels that it is about time that coaches were perceived as people too.UK Coaching is an association that connects and supports approximately 180,000 coaches from grassroots to elite level through its UK Coaching Club.“Coaching is all about the right environment,” he tells the Leaders Performance Podcast. “So we've got psychologists, nutritionists, that sort of athlete support personnel that we wrap around the athlete and I think what we need to start thinking about now is that coaches are people too and how do we wrap the same sort of support, differently, around the coach?“If you work for a financial organisation, you've got a head of culture or people or HR, and there's certain things in place in your work environment. Well, that shouldn't be any different in our sector, maybe in our sector there's a bit of catching up to do.“It's twee, but people are your greatest asset and the more that we can look after people and the more we can make the environment the right environment, the more people are going to succeed.”Ahead of UK Mental Health Awareness Week, which runs 15-19 May, Henry and John caught up with Mark, who discussed how teams and organisations can better help their coaches. He also touches upon:The notion that we all tread a fine line when it comes to our mental wellbeing [9:00];The perennial question of job security and its impact on coaches [10:30];UK Coaching's work with partners to help identify changes of behaviour in coaches [18:00];How coaches can protect their own wellbeing [25:00].Henry Breckenridge Twitter | LinkedInJohn Portch Twitter | LinkedInListen above and subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and Overcast, or your chosen podcast platform.

“When I took over the Head Physician job at the New England Patriots, I saw a very unique opportunity to provide medical leadership at the next level,” says Dr Matthew Provencher.“Fortunately, we had a great coach in Bill Belichick, great ownership in the Krafts, Jonathan and Robert, and I really talked to them around the facility about providing a competitive medical advantage and how we would do that.”Provencher, who served as the Patriots' Medical Director between 2013 and 2016 – earning a Super Bowl ring in 2014 – is the latest guest of John Portch and Joe Lemire's on the People Behind the Tech podcast, which is brought to you by the Leaders Performance Institute and SBJ Tech.Provencher is one of the foremost orthopaedic surgeons in the world and has treated elite athletes from across the globe at the Steadman Clinic in Vail, Colorado.In a wide-ranging chat, we also explored:His time in the Navy and his work developing US Special Ops' Tactical Athlete Program [5:00];Working with multidisciplinary staffs at sports teams [13:30];How useful the use of tech and data have been in providing medical care for athletes [20:40];How the nature of injury occurrences have evolved in recent years [28:30].Joe Lemire Twitter | LinkedInJohn Portch Twitter | LinkedInListen above and subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and Overcast, or your chosen podcast platform.

“Student-athletes in the United States are four times more likely than the average college student to have a gambling problem.”It's a startling revelation from Mike Huber, an advisor with our Partners at EPIC Risk Management, on this Gambling Harm Prevention edition of the Leaders Performance Podcast.“Taking it a step further,” he continues, “we ask the question in our sessions ‘why do you think that is?' And the reasons that come up from a lived experienced perspective, a research basis, are the personality traits of an athlete. The competitiveness, the ego. Sometimes it's injuries when they have downtime.”The reasons why athletes gamble – in the US and beyond – are manifold, as we discussed during this episode, where Mike was joined by Ben McGregor, EPIC's Director of Sports Partnerships.Over the course of our conversation with Mike and Ben, we covered:The reasons why gambling harm is often misunderstood in sport [7:30];How EPIC helps people from understanding the issue to offering help [18:00];The importance of supporting staff members in gambling harm prevention [20:30];Using interventions to limit the impact of gambling harm [31:30].For those seeking more information on gambling harm prevention, check out EPIC Risk Management's white paper review from February 2023.Listen above and subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and Overcast, or your chosen podcast platform.

Scott Hann recalls the euphoria and the relief of watching his charge, the artist gymnastics gold medallist Max Whitlock, claim two golds and a bronze at the 2016 Rio Olympics.“Then, all of a sudden, you get home and you're hoovering the floor in your living room and it just hit me. What was it all for? What's happened?” he tells the Leaders Performance Podcast.Whitlock, who won a further gold at the delayed Tokyo Games to make it six Olympic medals in total (he won two bronzes at London 2012), recently went public with his mental health struggles and, here, Scott explains that his mental health has also suffered as a consequence of his work.“After the Olympics, nobody's holding you on a pedestal, no one's coming around and helping you with anything now. It's done and you're on your own. It was really hard.”Scott's efforts to safeguard his mental health is just one of several topics on the agenda, which is today brough to you by our Main Partners Keiser.Also up for discussion are:What makes an Olympic champion athlete ‘coachable' [6:30];Dealing with big decisions that went wrong in major competitions [23:40];Where he goes for self-development as a coach [30:00];His role as a technical advisor with British Gymnastics [33:00].Henry Breckenridge Twitter | LinkedInJohn Portch Twitter | LinkedInListen above and subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and Overcast, or your chosen podcast platform.

"The conversation has grown," says MT Eisner, "but curiouser and curiouser: has the conversation grown because I'm in that circle or has the conversation genuinely grown?"The US Applied Performance Specialist Manager at Kitman Labs would like to think it's the latter. "Within Kitman, we talk about it consistently, within the other organisations that we're helping [we ask] ‘how can we assist with this?'" she continues."We had this organisation want to now start tracking menstrual cycles, starting to do X, Y and Z with their athletes. 'Who else is doing this? What conversations are you having? Who can we tap into?' and so forth."In addition to the increasing focus on female athletes - and the development of female practitioners - our conversation also covered:How MT would test new female-focused performance ideas on herself in the first instance [7:30];Why she says 'the grass isn't always greener - it's fake' in sports performance [21:00];Sitting down with practitioners to develop workflows [24:00];The future of training science and equipment science [36:00]. Joe Lemire Twitter | LinkedInJohn Portch Twitter | LinkedInListen above and subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and Overcast, or your chosen podcast platform.

Daniel Guzman believes that genetics plus training equals performance.“Our genetics are just a code that says ‘here's how your genetics express here whether that's cardiovascular or it's cellular or it's your body composition or whatever it might be and here's how we need to influence your environment',” he tells Joe Lemire and John Portch on the People Behind the Tech Podcast.“‘Environment' being how do you train? How do you recover? What stresses do you have in your life? All of that stuff influences our genetics.Although our genetics never change, they can be expressed on or off. Kind of like a dimmer switch at any point.”After more than a decade as a performance coach, taking in roles at the LA Galaxy, US Soccer and LAFC, Daniel joined 3x4 Genetics as the Head of Enterprise Sales in late 2022.The Seattle-based startup believes its ability to analyze a person's genes, whether they are an athlete or not, enables them to recommend lifestyle changes. In the case of athletes using its GENEFIT program, that might mean diet, training, recovery or other forms of preparation.He anticipates a time when elite teams routinely call upon a geneticist to inform their performance.During our conversation, Daniel also discussed:His use of data in athlete programming and why it's always part of the bigger picture (10:30);What an athlete might learn about themselves when undergoing gene analysis (23:00);The unique way that GENEFIT integrates physiological and genetic data (29:00);How 3X4 Genetics uses feedback from athletes and coaches (36:30).Joe Lemire Twitter | LinkedInJohn Portch Twitter | LinkedInListen above and subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and Overcast, or your chosen podcast platform.

As Lorena Torres Ronda explains, there is a big difference between say the NBA and international tournament play in basketball.She has experienced both, including a spell as Performance Director at the Philadelphia 76ers and, most recently, as Performance Coordinator at the Spanish Basketball Federation, a role she has held for two years.Lorena is also a Performance Advisor for the Leaders Performance Institute and, as such, we were delighted to welcome her to deliver an instalment in our Performance Perspectives series, where she reflected on her contribution to Spain's success at the 2022 men's FIBA EuroBasket Championships; their fourth triumph.Hers was a dual role during those three weeks in September that combined S&C work with player load monitoring. It was vital that she prioritise, as she tells the podcast.“Of course, you see things and my mind is like, ‘we could do this or that' and ‘it would be good to improve speed or agility' – that's my emotional side,” she says. “My rational side knows that in three weeks you're not going to improve tremendously in certain qualities because physiologically you don't have time.”Elsewhere in this episode, she discusses:The development of Spain's feedback system;Harnessing the legacy of the nation's basketball history;Preparing for the worst during a tournament;How the performance staff connected to the team's vision.Lorena Torres Ronda Twitter | LinkedInListen above and subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and Overcast, or your chosen podcast platform.

“My staff is, by far, way more educated, smarter than me. They all have these niches that they're really good at,” says Brandon McDaniel.“When I need to be able to understand something, when I need to be able to communicate something, when I need to be able to have that conversation with our front office or coaching staff, whoever that might be, they're the ones that I'm going to in order to get that information.”McDaniel is the Vice President of Player Performance at the LA Dodgers and the first guest on the People Behind the Tech Podcast, a new collaboration between SBJ Tech and the Leaders Performance Institute.During the course of the episode, he also talks to SBJ's Joe Lemire and Leaders' John Portch about topics, including:The tech he uses in his own life [1:00];How he seeks to test, trial and implement tech in a team environment [10:00];Exploiting ‘windows of opportunity' in athlete monitoring [16:00];How analytics departments can play a role in scouting and development [29:00].Joe Lemire Twitter | LinkedInJohn Portch Twitter | LinkedInListen above and subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and Overcast, or your chosen podcast platform.

“I've spent a lot of time in professional sports and often been one, if not the only female, in those particular organisations,” says Matti Clements, the Acting Director of the Australian Institute of Sport. Her observation is all too common in such a male-dominated industry with certain roles, such as psychology, often presumed to be a more natural fit for a female practitioner than, say, a strength & conditioning role. Matti, for her part, is a psychologist by training but has served in a series of senior managerial roles – becoming a pioneer in the process – and has shifted perceived wisdoms in the fields of people, culture and wellbeing. As such, she was an ideal guest for the latest edition of the Elite Performance Partners (EPP) Industry Insight Series Podcast where she spoke to Dave Slemen, EPP's Founding Partner, about her career journey and her thoughts on the evolution of psychology and wellbeing in sport. She continues: “Over time, I got a bit more comfortable with ‘what do I bring? Why am I here? So what is the role that I'm being asked to fill and how do I utilise my strengths in that role?'” Over the course of the conversation, Matti also spoke about: How being a leader differs from working as a specialist [4:30];Parallels she sees between psychology and marketing [8:00];The current shift in thinking around coach wellbeing [20:00];Building cultures of psychological safety [28:00]. Listen above and subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and Overcast, or your chosen podcast platform.

“I often talk about the difference between fixing broken and creating awesome,” Rachel Vickery tells the Leaders Performance Podcast.The performance coach, who guides and supports high performers to excel, lead and thrive in high pressure and high stakes environments, is discussing the importance of preparing athletes for the high pressure scenarios they face in competition.“You don't need a ‘get out of jail card' in the first place if you haven't ended up in jail in the first place," she continues.“Performance under pressure is less about what happens in the moment of pressure, it's more about ‘what have you done?' everywhere else that's led you into that moment.”In the course of our chat, Rachel, a former gymnast who works across the worlds of sport, military and medicine, to name a few, explores:The importance of helping athletes to build buffer and front-loading strategies to deal with human stress responses [6:00];The need for awareness and understanding of those stress responses so that athletes don't feel they are ‘going crazy' [13:00];The role of imposter syndrome in feeding arousal states during competition [23:00];Why it is necessary to aim for excellence rather than perfection [28:00].Check out Rachel's website here.John Portch: Twitter | LinkedInListen above and subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and Overcast, or your chosen podcast platform.

High performers in both sport and business tend to overcomplicate things, on the other hand, they cannot just assume they can go it alone.Dan Lawrence, the Head of Performance at Matchroom Boxing, watched his former boxer, the now-retired George Groves, learned this in real time.“Yes, he had a team. He had myself, a conditioning coach, we had his head coach at the time,” Lawrence tells the Leaders Performance Podcast. “He was steering the ship at that time, whereas I don't think that was the right way to go.”In fact, “you have to have a cohesive team working with one sole goal”.Here, Lawrence discusses his work in combat sports while also touching upon: The reasons why people over-complicate human performance [6:00];The differences in working with boxers and footballers [10:00];Working smarter, not harder [13:00];How the role of the S&C is evolving [23:00].Dan Lawrence Twitter | LinkedInJohn Portch Twitter | LinkedInListen above and subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and Overcast, or your chosen podcast platform.

“Innovation isn't about what we know; and defining it would be challenging everything we know,” says Ben Williams.“One thing I do believe is: to harvest a culture of innovation we need human engagement and we need collaboration.”Williams, who serves as the Ineos Grenadiers cycling team's Integrated Performance Lead and the Ineos Britannia sailing team's Head of Human Performance, is our very special guest on this Science in Sport Industry Insight Series podcast.He sat down with SiS Director of Performance Solutions, James Morton, to discuss his varied professional background and the approach to innovation he has cultivated in each of his roles in sport and beyond.Also on the conversational agenda were:The need to normalise ‘silly' questions inside your organisation [12:30];Why the America's Cup could be sport's most unique performance challenge [15:00];His transition into cycling (combining his work in sailing) [19:00];Whether the next gains will be made in ‘training science' or ‘equipment science' [23:30]. James Morton LinkedIn | TwitterBen Williams: Twitter | LinkedInListen above and subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and Overcast, or your chosen podcast platform.

“The most important thing when stepping up from being an individual contributor to being responsible in a management position is that it's not about you any more,” Max Lankheit, the San Jose Earthquakes' Director of High Performance, tells EPP's Founding Partner Dave Slemen.The duo are discussing the traits needed when stepping into a leadership position for the first time.“The important thing that people need to understand, in my opinion, is that you can only hunt one rabbit at a time,” adds Lankheit.“So either you can work on your skills or help others work on their skills.”Max, a former youth athlete and acting student, talks to Dave at EPP about his non-linear journey to the top of elite sport amongst other topics.EPP are a performance consultancy and search firm highly regarded across sport and, for this episode, Dave poses the questions that cover:The non-sporting elements of Max's background [2:30];Why the stigma around ‘manipulation' is undeserved [10:00];The importance of the environment in helping people to thrive and reach their potential [25:00];The difference between purpose and values, vision and objectives [35:20].Dave Slemen Twitter | LinkedInMax Lankheit LinkedIn

Former England, Lions and Saracens lock George Kruis played at two Rugby World Cups, won three European Cups and four English Premierships during a distinguished playing career.Those 14 years spent at the thick end of the game have imbued him with a number of skills as he now turns his attention full-time to his CBD and wellness venture, Fourfive, which he co-founded with former Saracens teammate Dom Day in 2018.Fourfive is the official wellness provider to a number of sports organisations and is going from strength to strength, yet Kruis saw himself at a disadvantage for all his talents away from the pitch.“Most people who start a company, their background will be in finance, it will be marketing, it might be in product development, it won't necessarily be in your ability to catch a ball in the lineout,” he tells the Leaders Performance podcast.Kruis hung up his boots in June having ended his playing career with the Saitama Wild Knights in Japan and came into the Leaders studio to discuss how he prepared for his post-playing career while still at the top of his game.During the course of our chat we discuss:Why Saracens' approach to player care was transformative [4:30];How ‘tough love' has gradually been replaced by ‘calculated culture' [11:20];What English rugby does well and what could be done better to prepare transitioning players [28:00];His advice for current players [30:30]. John Portch: Twitter | LinkedInListen above and subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and Overcast, or your chosen podcast platform.

“You've got to listen to these young people,” says Rod Ellingworth.“A lot of experienced people have been through life but they're not perhaps listening to these young people enough. You've got to listen to their ambitions and, when they say things, there's a lot in there. And if you ask the right questions, open questions, getting into the guts of it really, really getting under their skin about how they want to go from A to B, I think you can learn a lot from people. “Try to follow people's ambitions and dreams. And as long as you've got the programme and the space, you can keep working with people, because the talent will come through.”Ellingworth is a former cyclist who now oversees talent identification at the Ineos Grenadiers and, in this latest edition of the Science in Sport Industry Insight series, he sits down in conversation with his former colleague James Morton, the Director of Performance Solutions at SiS.Both men spent five year working together under Ineos' previous guise, Team Sky, and here they delve into advice for talent spotters as well as:Why it is important to ‘throw grenades' at young riders when it comes to developing their resilience [14:00];Geraint Thomas' champion mindset [16:00];The importance of creating programmes that excite youngsters [18:30];Misconceptions around fuelling and weight loss [26:30]James Morton LinkedIn | TwitterJohn Portch: Twitter | LinkedInListen above and subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and Overcast, or your chosen podcast platform.

Former middle-distance runner Pippa Woolven was not aware that she was suffering from RED-S – relative energy deficiency in sport – until well afterwards such was the lack of general understanding of the condition at the time.“It took several years to recover and the scars of that experience will forever remain,” she tells the Leaders Performance Podcast of her experiences of RED-S while competing in the US college system in the 2010s.“I'm lucky enough to say I'm in a healthy place now and I hope to help other people avoid the same pitfalls.”Woolven is the Founder, CEO and Director of Project RED-S, an initiative formed by a group of athletes, parents and partners whose lives had been impacted by a condition that is still relatively unknown and misunderstood.Joining the conversation was James Morton, the Director of Performance Solutions at Science in Sport, who was part of a research project that revealed some time ago that just one in 23 of England's Lionesses squad were consuming the correct quantities of carbohydrate.The duo discuss the reasons why athletes succumb to RED-S and the ways in which the condition can be both treated and prevented.They also touch upon:The causes of low energy availability [7:00];Team culture and the role of coaches in preventing RED-S [16:00];The role of parents in educating young athletes [24:00];How athletes can support team-mates in their fuelling [27:30]. Pippa Woolven LinkedIn | TwitterJames Morton LinkedIn | TwitterSarah Evans LinkedIn | TwitterListen above and subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and Overcast, or your chosen podcast platform.

“Our mission statement is probably a good place to start,” says Phil Church, “and it's to increase the number of English-qualified leaders, which is managers, coaches and technical directors, working at the highest levels of the game.”Church is the Senior Professional Game Coach Development Lead at England Football Learning, which oversees the Football Association's [FA] education pathways for youth and senior coach development and technical director development.He joined the Leaders Performance Podcast to discuss the FA's suite of programmes and courses as it works towards fulfilling England Football Learning's mission statement.Within that discussion we also touch upon:The selection process for the courses [8:00];Talent mapping with a view to adding support and value for learners [12:00];Programmes for graduates to continue their CPD and to meet the needs of the game [17:40];Why diversity and inclusion still needs attention at the FA [28:00].John Portch: Twitter | LinkedInListen above and subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and Overcast, or your chosen podcast platform.