But as we've seen from the pilot and the discussion
that I had about some of the other literature
and experience as a coach, if we push through
it and we understand that is part of the process,
oftentimes we will see a favorable outcome. It's
just about understanding the athlete. It's about
understanding the adaptation. It's about understanding
the time course to peak. And if we can do that
as a coach, we're absolutely loving life. Welcome
in Evidence Strong Show. It's my pleasure to
have you. Could you please briefly introduce
yourself? Thanks, Alex. So my name is Lee Bell.
I'm a senior lecturer in sports and exercise
science at Sheffield Harlem University that's
based in England in the UK. From a research and
teaching perspective, I think to summarize my
interest, it would be in strength sports programming
and specifically periodization programming strategies
and tactics. The majority of my research has
been in either overtraining in strength sports
or in kind of deloading and tapering also in
strength sports. Amazing. Okay, we'll be talking
about the paper that is titled Effects of a 5
-Day Back Squat Overreaching Protocol on Strength
Performance, Passive Recovery and Wellness Responses.
And that's a pilot trial. So let's start with
some definitions. What overreaching is? I think
for definition, like this there are two ways
to tackle it there's either a very simple one
if we look at overtraining first i think that's
an easier route into overreaching overtraining
can be used as a verb and it can be used as a
noun and in research we see that that's the case
but also with practitioners we see that's the
case as well so as a verb as a doing word overtraining
is simply just doing more than what we can recover
from so that could be intentional that could
be a programming tactic that might be a training
camp or it might be an impact microcycle where
we choose to ramp up the frequency of training
and that could be in general or it could be for
a specific lift that we think is lagging or needs
a little bit more work it could be for a specific
adaptation that we want to induce typically something
strength related perhaps hypertrophy related
but it might also be accidental as well it might
be a miscalculation of how we're monitoring our
training load relative to our recovery tactics
and in short effectively it's just about ramping
training up relative to recovery capacity as
a noun as an outcome overtraining is used colloquially
often to mean like the overtraining syndrome
and so here to be properly defined by expert
consensus the overtraining syndrome is where
we see a significant that's kind of a vague word
really because it's relative to how we're measuring
it the outcome measure will performance decrement
for a minimum of four weeks and that's really
really important because if we're seeing our
athlete recovers back to baseline so there's
an assumption there that we've got a baseline
measurement if they recover within four weeks
they by definition have not had the overtraining
syndrome. If we see that recovery is lagging
and we see that performance hasn't returned to
baseline within that four -week period, then
that's when we might investigate clinically whether
this person has the overtraining syndrome. So,
you know, much like any other medical condition,
we can't self -diagnose. We need to be sent,
to be referred out to a medical practitioner
to go through a series of checkpoints to then
probably diagnose the overtraining syndrome.
So where the problem exists then is right in
the middle. I said colloquially, people often
call the overtraining syndrome. overtraining.
So now we're using one word, which is both process
and outcome. And again, you know, we see that
in conversations with coaches. Absolutely fine.
A lot of my research is in the language that
coaches use. I have no issues with that whatsoever.
But the origins of the research, which are meant
to be benchmarks to properly define that term,
they use the same colloquial term as well. And
we see that in quite a lot of even recent research,
where they'll use the term overtraining and not
the overtraining syndrome to mean the outcome.
And sometimes the overtraining syndrome to mean
the process. Now, if we were to go to that hashtag
overtraining and we used to look at the first
maybe 100 posts, they would always talk about
overtraining as being a bad thing. But remember,
it's an intentional tactic. It's an impact microcycle.
It's often coaches might call it a red week if
they're using a red amber green rating. It's
a training camp. So if that was always going
to arrive at a negative outcome, we wouldn't
do that as coaches. So overtraining can be a
positive thing if we use it appropriately. And
we know perhaps from my pilot trial, which we'll
talk about. later we know from some of the other
research that for certain adaptations if we ramp
up the stimulus and then we recover we can see
an improvement in performance or in that specific
adaptation so it is an intentional tactic which
can be favorable and we never really see that
in the literature we never really hear it in
discussions that overtraining can be a good thing
if we use it properly so that's our first term
kind of defined then what we come to is we arrive
at overreaching similar sort of thing we've got
a process definition we've got an outcome definition
we have got an expert consensus definition, but
that most light is around the outcome. So overreaching
is where we see a decrease in performance that
lasts. fewer than four weeks. So between kind
of one and four weeks. So we see a little bit
of dip in performance. If we return back to baseline
within four weeks, our athlete was quote unquote
overreached. So again, what we're seeing here
is that that perhaps not necessarily a positive
outcome, but then to make it more complicated,
we need to divide that term up into functional
overreaching and non -functional overreaching.
So non -functional overreaching is effectively
what I've just said there is we're not seeing
any positive outcome. There was no real reason
to undertake. that training. We've returned back
to baseline simply because it's taken us so long
to recover that we've perhaps lost that potential
stimulus and adaptation. Functional overreaching
is where we've seen improvement in performance
relative to baseline. So that's our best case
outcome. We've undertaken a really short and
intense period of training. The athlete's probably
not like that and probably not like the coach
for giving them, for prescribing them that level
of intense exercise. We've then applied some
recovery, but they've come out of the other side
flying. They're stronger, they're faster. can
jump higher perhaps they're more muscular depending
on the type of training but this functional overreaching
is is the best case it's most favorable outcome
now being extremely pedantic how do we separate
functional overreaching from a normal response
to training? And in the literature, that is that
we must, and this is very, very clear, we must
see that initial decrement in performance for
around a week before we see this rebound, or
we might call it a super compensation effect.
If we're not seeing that, then we might just
label it kind of like a progressive overload,
fitness to fatigue kind of response. The last
part of the definition then comes down to the
actual process of overreaching. Again, all that
is, is it's synonymous with overtraining. We
often call an overreach like an impact microcycle
again. So overtraining as a verb and overreaching
as a verb are effectively the same thing. An
overreach is just the type of intentional overtraining.
We end up with these kind of myriad of different
things that we can move around depending on the
context of whether it's intentional, accidental,
process -driven, outcome -driven. But it's really
important that for us as coaches and practitioners
that we understand those words, particularly
if we choose to... to listen to podcasts like
this or read articles or read research papers
because the context of the words are really,
really important. And again, whilst that might
seem quite pedantic for me. understanding the
words we use in sports science is key let me
mirror to you what i've learned and let's see
where what i'm missing so in normal training
we want to apply some stimulus and hopefully
it will drain the athletes so they can adapt
now overreaching is requires that this dip under
before the adaptation has to be for a week and
then they either recover and we achieve super
compensation adaptation and they get better and
that's functional overreaching or they just go
to the baseline and plateau there and we call
it non -functional overreaching because the function
was to get them better we didn't do that so that's
how i understand non -functional if it goes for
so let's say they plateaued at three weeks and
they stay there and we are week four stay there
week five or they go down and can't can't bring
themselves up after four weeks we We call it
overtraining syndrome. Yeah. But again, I use
assumption quite a lot because we have to assume
quite a lot with this research area because understandably,
there's very, very little work that's being done
to intentionally give someone the overtraining
syndrome. In research, we have ethics boards
that stop things from happening that are too
risky. It comes down to an argument about risk
and reward. And we can talk a little bit about
that with our pilot and some of the kind of,
I say loopholes, it sounds very cynical, but...
some of the things that we had to do in order
to get this study off the ground. There are very,
very little. And off the top of my head, I can
think of one study in particular that's used
repeated time points to track the recovery process.
How to put overreaching into context of periodization?
Because I can speak from Olympic weightlifting.
When you prepare for a meet, you have a structure
to your training. It's not linear progression.
It's not, at least not at some point. You can't
do just linear progression for years. So there
is some kind of periodization. Now, how overreaching
and possibly overtraining syndrome fits into
that? Yeah, absolutely. So there are, you're
right, linear periodization models don't lend
themselves very well to incorporating a planned
overreach. There could be an argument if we were
using a summated microcycle approach. So like
your traditional one would be three weeks where
the training load increases. through volume or
through load on the bar, followed by a deload,
then another three weeks. It doesn't have to
be three weeks. Summated microcycles could be
five weeks deload, six weeks deload. It doesn't
really matter. But there are some periodization
models like block periodization, for example,
that give us an opportunity to go for this seven
or 14 day period, we are going to ramp things
up. You will not be in a good place. You will
feel under recovered. You will feel absolutely
fatigued. You will feel sore. But you need to
trust the process that we're layering. on the
stimulus we're creating the adaptation it's just
being masked by fatigue but when we apply the
deload period that fatigue will dissipate really
quickly but we'll retain we'll hold on to those
adaptations if we then are on platform because
we're competition or we're leading into another
block of training our athlete all of a sudden
goes wow i feel in a really good place like i'm
just moving really really well the bar's moving
fast i've got a lot of load on it now we did
some research on this because i come from a coaching
background and the problem that i had with some
of the the kind of the studies where they applied
an intentional overreach was i was looking and
i'm going this is just not how people train in
the real world it's not you can't you can't create
a fictitious microcycle and then go oh wow look
these people were fatigued and then go coaches
you should follow this because the coaches are
ahead of what the sport scientists are doing
so what i did as part of my phd in the early
years was i spoke to coaches you know high level
elite level international level coaches i said
what do you do Like I want to paint a picture
of an intervention that I want to apply in practice,
but I wanted to mirror what you would do. And
I wasn't surprised by this, but there were basically
a million different ways that you can apply an
overreach. And it wasn't like, oh, weightlifting
coaches do it this way and powerlifting coaches
do it this way. It was all about the athlete.
It was all about the individual response kinetics
of the athlete. What do they enjoy to a degree?
What do they respond well to? I mean, we all
know that some athletes just respond really well
to just lots of heavy load. Some respond really
well to lots of volume. A small proportion respond
well to lots of volume and intensity for a short
period. You know, some athletes will just not
turn up to the gym if they've got in the middle
of a cycle. Some will, you'll ask them to just
calm down a little bit. You turn your back and
they're off doing a max again. So there were
all of these different tactics, but effectively
it was, there is a skill component to sports
like weightlifting and powerlifting. So where
possible, reduce the number of accessory exercises
and focus on the pattern, focus on the squat
pattern. and focus on the bench the deadlift
don't completely get rid of the other stuff but
just reduce that down a touch increase volume
within a given period of time a week a session
whatever it might be by doing more sets by increasing
the load by increasing the density so reducing
rest periods potentially depends on the adaptation
that we're wanting to create and whether we've
got another block of training coming after the
overreach or we want to be on platform to then
effectively be on podium so the answer to that
is there's a million different ways to do it
but there are some kind of key metrics that we
want to abide by like lots of volume like reducing
the the number of exercises. We then risk monotony
because the athletes come in doing what they
feel like the same thing over and over again.
That unfortunately is the nature of the overreach.
I think we're clear on overreaching versus overtraining
syndrome. Functional and non -functional, is
there anything else in terms of functional and
non -functional we need to talk about before
we go into the study? There probably is, to be
honest. I think... Going back a good few minutes,
you mentioned about with functional overreach
and we'd need to see the seven day lagging performance
before we see a super compensation effect. And
something popped in my mind there. And what I
was thinking was, well, what if our athlete was
to super compensate two or three days after?
Technically, we can't call it a functional overreach
by definition, but it's still functional. in
nature because that's what we want. And there
is this concept called super compensation kinetics.
And what that is, is that we could take a bunch
of athletes, a small or a large sample. We give
them all the same block of training with the
same relative amount of training load. So obviously
like, you know, if you can lift more than me,
you would lift more than me in the block, that
type of thing. And then we give everyone the
same deload or taper period. And we'll see that
people peak at different time points. As coaches,
we know this already. Again, coaches are way
ahead of us. scientists but we've seen this in
a small number of studies including our pilot
study where some athletes will take 14 days to
reach peak strength so they need a longer taper
period before competition so do i need to give
them a different overreach not really but i need
to give them the overreach further away from
competition otherwise they're still carrying
a little bit of latent fatigue into competition
we see that some stroke most will peak around
seven days but there are a very small and this
for me is really really interesting there are
a very small number of athletes that do not need
a taper at all so they can come off an overreach
or they can come off a training block and they
are straight ready to peak lucky busters oh absolutely
absolutely but how do we know this unless we
use repeated testing and go wow like if you do
a taper that's eight days you're in perfect and
prime position to win that competition But, and
it gets even more complicated, the next time
we try it, at eight days, they're still in the
hole. They're still feeling like shit and they're
just like, I need longer. So now we've got this
like intra -individual layer of variability where
we need to treat every athlete differently when
we apply an overreach and then the taper. But
this kind of like, sorry, an inter -level variability
and then an intra -level variability where the
same athlete might require a different duration
of taper depending on where they are in the competition
cycle. So it becomes very, very complicated and
to me comes right back. to you can't create and
i think when i first started my phd i was very
naive on this i was like you know what i want
to create here a framework where i can give it
to coaches and go follow that and i promise you
now your athletes will be the best they ever
will be in every competition and the more i was
testing the more i was learning i was like yeah
like that that's a stupid idea Because we cannot
remove the coach's intuition from this. So how
do we measure? Again, it becomes problematic.
We often use proxy measures because they're not
invasive. They don't layer on additional fatigue.
They're quick and they're simple. The problem
is sometimes we can rely on those a little bit
too much. Well, certainly we will rely on one
singular metric. So with our pilot study, for
example, what we found was that we were training
people every day and we were training them hard.
They were able to retain that. quite well but
their jumping ability was it just tanked it absolutely
tanked some of the perceptual measures which
are really really important again i i don't think
we can treat an athlete like a number i think
we need to get them involved in the process but
we also need to be aware that what they report
how they feel And the objective measures sometimes
don't measure up very, very well. So, you know,
we had athletes some days coming in. I'm segwaying
into the pilot study a little bit now, but we
had some athletes coming in and they were going,
oh, wow, like, I just can't move today. I feel
so sore. We were like, okay, well, I'll tell
you what, let's see how you're jumping today.
Oh, yeah, yeah, you're not jumping very well.
Like, your jump has decreased by, you know, a
large amount. We get them under the bar. We track
the velocity of their warm -up and that's moving
much slower. And we're like... This is not looking
good for you. And then we go, okay, well, let's
get some load on the bar and see how well the
heavy load moves. Oh, it's moved the same. It's
moved the same velocity with the same load. So
we can use some of the proxy measures, but we
can't dismiss what's happening right up at the
top end as well. And again, same with the previous
interview, it's an issue that we have, and we
sometimes just need to marry up the objective
data. We triangulate it, the objective data.
with how the athlete feels but our experience
as a coach as well and go look yeah we need a
down day today we need a deload day let's just
have a more of a relaxing session lightweight
bit of skill work coming tomorrow we'll hit it
again or we go you know what you're in an impact
cycle you will feel sore do i care that your
jumps are down not really because what i'm chasing
is maximal strength get under the bar stop complaining
and lift now you can do that with some athletes
so they'll go yeah come on let's do it are you
with other athletes and you've lost that trust
with them so whilst we're triangulating the metrics
we we can't can't dilute the coach athlete relationship
as well Again, that's very individualistic. So
I think to kind of sum up the question, yes,
there are different time courses to different
adaptations in the same way that there are different
time courses to chase those adaptations. And
I think that that pretty much covers that really.
It's important about what we choose to measure
and when we choose to measure it and how we use
it as a proxy. All right. So I think it's a good
moment to bring up your study and go through
from the beginning how you set it up. But what
we ended up with was effectively a very challenging
protocol. and I want to be very very clear on
this that whilst the results of the study showed
that I think everyone improved their one rep
max this is not a cycle that I would ever tell
a coach to introduce within a training plan bear
with me on this while I talk through it please
so it was it was five successive days of bike
squats we weren't allowed to do more than five
days each day the athletes used 80 % of their
daily max so a daily max isn't the same load
across the five days we had to use quite an elaborate
velocity tracking approach to go, okay, well,
when you're fresh on day one, how fast are you
moving 80 % of your one rep max? So we tested
them beforehand. What's your max? We had some
very, very strong people on the study. Now let's
look at how quick you can move 80%. You can move
that at 0 .75 meters per second, right? That's
the load you'll use on day one. Day two, what's
the load that you are still moving at 0 .75 meters
per second? So we're looking at daily fluctuations
in fatigue. We did that. Not to be, you know,
sport science -y per se, but to be cruel. To
stop athletes from going, oh, today that's not
80%. That feels more like a 90 % and I can only
do sets of two, you know? So we were basically
engineering a way for people to lift repeatedly
heavy loads with lots of volume. Your protocol
was designed to challenge the athletes. So you
ask them to come five days a week at 80%. You
measure velocity on the first day and then this
velocity was... the mark for 80 % weight for
each consecutive day. And they were lifting to
failure. To failure. And they did five sets each
day. So you can look at that two different ways
and you could say, well, that's only 25 sets
across a five -day period. It's not a lot. But
what you need to bear in mind is that that's
the same lift with no variation. And we know
this from when we train to failure, we are much
more likely to induce a fatigue effect, potentially
soreness. So what we found was that, firstly,
the load on the bar varied each day, as you would
expect. It didn't necessarily get lower. There
wasn't a pattern as such. But what we found was
that day three was the worst day for most participants.
Day three, they came in. And I think you can
attach various hypotheses to this. But in my
mind, what we've got is they come in on day two.
How sore do you feel? And we did ask them this
question. I feel quite sore, actually. Like I
did five sets to failure with a heavy load on
the bar. Okay. Then they come in on day three.
You've got the effects of day one. still bubbling
along in the background but now you've got the
additional stimulus of day two so people were
coming in in day three and they were not in a
nice place whatsoever we even had one participant
that's just said like i'm gonna get through this
because it's like sunk cost fallacy i'm like
i'm day three like i might as well just work
through it but he was just like just don't talk
to me please don't talk to me like just let me
get on with it because i just psychologically
i'm not in a great place mental breakdown yeah
exactly and so like for me for me as a coach
that's where I'd take him to one side and we'd
have a discussion about, look, this is normal,
but you need to trust the process that when we
deload, when we tape, whatever it might be, you'll
feel great. In a controlled environment as a
sports scientist, I'm not allowed to lead the
participants. So I was just kind of like, okay,
that's fine. Anyway, get under the bar, let's
lift. We even had one participant peaked the
load on the bar on day five. Now I have no hypothesis
for that whatsoever because that shouldn't happen
based around everything we know around models
of general adaptation, fitness fatigue. factor
model whatever it might be but we this guy had
a decent increase in load on the bar on day five
now he actually lost his adaptation seven days
later so That's an example there of someone where
we might, and again, I'm not saying we do this
in practice whatsoever, but we might start to
look at that athlete as having minimal taper
period because it may well be that they respond
to previous days of reasonably heavy load that
somehow has a potentiating effect on their performance.
So that could be an example of where we don't
have a long taper because clearly they lost that
adaptation if it's a strength -based competition.
In order to track what was happening from day
to day, We asked questions like, how sore do
you feel? How stressed do you feel? How recovered
do you feel? The responses were just all over
the place. Like there was just no pattern whatsoever.
And I think that harks back to this really individual
response that athletes have. We looked at jumps
beforehand. Jumps were just getting worse every
day for most people. So that appeared to be the
most sensitive to fatigue. But we can't then
go, oh, your jump has decreased by X amount.
We need to just take you off the study because
all of the... participants did experience an
improvement in maximal strength after the taper.
We looked at isometric mid -thigh pull because
there seems to be a lot of discussion around
how we might utilize that to track fatigue. Most
people got better each day. So it seemed that
the back squat protocol would potentiate in the
mid -thigh pull. We know from previous literature,
the mid -thigh pull, the isometric mid -thigh
pull and back squat performance are not correlated
very well whatsoever. So there, there could have
been a bit of a fallacy, a little bit of a mistake
where you went, oh. wow, these are really clearly
correlated. They're not. We had discussions around
whether we wanted to do an isometric squat beforehand,
but this is an example about when we read a study,
we only see the outcome. We don't see what discussions
and problems were encountered along the way.
And one of the issues that we found was that
some participants... we're experiencing a lot
of dons in their traps because they've got a
heavy load on their bike repeatedly. So yeah,
we care about how sore are their quads. We care
about how sore is their lower back. But most
athletes were saying, it's my traps that are
really, really sore. So now you're going, okay,
well, I want you to do an isometric squat. I
want you to push against this bar with your traps
as hard as possible. It's not going to happen.
And all that's going to happen there is you risk
athletes from dropping out of the study. So the
decision we made was not, we feel the isometric
mid -thigh pull. is the best exercise or sorry,
the best test to monitor fatigue. It's the best
that we've got with the logistical issues removed.
And that to me was a big, because the study was
potentially so risky, that to me was how do we
remove risk as much as possible? Now, we had
no participants drop out. Unsurprisingly, we
had a small number of participants opt in. And
I'm using the word athlete quite a lot. None
of them were competitive athletes. For me. The
biggest risk factor was this might affect your
competitive season. Like we might put you in
such a bad state that you have to drop out from
all competitions within that competition period.
So anyone that was a competitive athlete, I went,
you're not coming on the study. So I'm using
the term athlete loosely, but they were well
-trained individuals. So the average back squat,
one rep max. was double body weight and i think
that's reasonably strong so that that was the
protocol the conclusion the end point was back
to what i said earlier about there had only really
been one study before this one that had looked
at tracking maximal strength across a period
of time so i said okay well what we're going
to do is we're going to measure them seven days
after the protocol we gave them like a stock
taper program it was just a very basic step taper
um you can go back to normal training but you've
got to follow this exercise selection and these
kind of like loading parameters to standardize
it, every single participant had improved one
rep max at seven days. And I can't say significantly
because we didn't use inferential statistics
because it was a pilot study. And there are big
problems by using inferential stats when you've
got small sample sizes. We had, I think it was
10, eight participants. So we just reported descriptive
characteristics, but we use smallest worthwhile
change to say, actually, from a coach's perspective,
is this practically meaningful? Every single
participant had... improve their one red mics
to a meaningful level so we go okay that's functional
overreaching but really we can't call it functional
overreaching because we didn't test them immediately
post and at seven days so we didn't experience
the lag effect i don't care if i'm being honest
at this point i don't care what labels we attach
to it they got better As a coach, that's all
I care about. We then tested them at 14 days,
so another seven days afterwards. Most participants
experienced another increase in strength. It
didn't surpass the smallest worthwhile change,
but it's still important in my eyes if an athlete's
adding on an extra two or three kilos on the
bar. If they're a powerlifter, for example, two
or three kilos might be the difference between
finishing first and finishing fourth, potentially.
Some participants have returned back to baseline,
so they'd not been able to retain that strength
adaptation. Now, I think of it like... this what
if i'd not tested them at seven days and tested
them at 14 days those participants that are returned
back to baseline we could say they're non -functionally
overreached because we've not seen an improvement
in performance but because we tested them at
seven days we did see an improvement in performance
they just couldn't retain it for much longer
so they functionally overreach but then they
lost it again so it comes back to this kind of
like really individual super compensation kinetics
effect that to me is where my research will go
next is why why does that happen why do some
people experiences a large magnitude of performance
increase and can retain it for a while, whereas
others will just decrease back. Why do others
not experience an increase? Why has one participant,
after five days of heavy bike squats, only seen
a two kilo increase in one rep max? And then
you go, was it worth it? Probably not. But for
those participants that experienced 10 kilos
on the bar, that's huge. But why did they lose
it seven days later? What could we do to either
retain it if we feel we need to retain it? Maybe
they've got a couple of competitions in quick
succession. Or how do we then go, right, what
do we do with your deload or your taper? I'm
using those words specifically because a taper
would be leading up to competition. The deload
would be leading into another block of training.
How do we now engineer your training where we
don't just focus on the overreach, but we focus
on the relationship between the overreach and
the deload or taper? So whilst we could look
at this study and go, well, you didn't use inferential
statistics and you had a small sample size. I
tell you, please, please, if anyone wants to
question. that they can come on board and be
my head of recruitment because we were recruited
for a year and participants were just going,
oh, I'd like to take part in the study. Tell
me more. No, I don't want to. Why would they?
Why would they? Yeah. We had a very specific
personality of participants wanted to do this
study. Did you have any females participating?
We didn't. But to be honest, that was intentional.
And the reason why it was intentional was because
the whole study was a four -week period. So what
I was conscious of. was that then we would have
to start each female at the same point of their
menstrual cycle that could be problematic so
i in my other research will do research on the
menstrual cycle with female athletes and i and
i hated that i needed to dismiss females from
this study we have actually got we've finished
collecting data now we've got a similar -ish
study where we include females as well but for
this pilot study we wanted to try and remove
as many unnecessary working parts as possible
that seems that as i said that by now sounds
absolutely awful but it's the reality of a controlled
environment study males are very very simple
testosterone is going like this over a period
of time and but because we didn't do this in
the end but the original study was going to be
using blood markers as well it was going to be
very very problematic to have females on and
going we need to now find a reliable way to track
where you are in your cycle standardize it knowing
that cycles are not standardized between athletes
and with the same athlete over period of cycles
in itself, it was just easier for us to go. let's
just use the guys for this study. But then like
a pilot study should do, look at the results
and go, does this need refining before we then
apply it in a randomized control trial fashion?
That will eventually at some point be the next
stage of this. But I think that the pilot achieved
what it wanted to achieve. I have a question
on the smallest worthwhile difference. How did
you go about that? The calculation for that is
actually really simple. It's 0 .2 multiplied
by the standard. deviation score for the sample
and there are yeah there's no clever statistics
or anything like that it's something that coaches
are using more and more now to identify with
different outcome measures what is practically
meaningful now the more data we've got the better
that calculation will be because it's effectively
working on the standard deviation but we we had
quite a heterogeneous pool of participants our
inclusion criteria was quite robust so for example
you couldn't come on the study unless you could
score 1 .5 times your own body mass that was
like the minimum threshold there was a minimum
number of years you must have trained and so
we we had although it was a small sample almost
hesitant to say clones but very very similar
people and there are a lot of really good videos
on youtube about how to calculate small if worthwhile
change for coaches and we use that for setting
targets for athletes as well so we've we've tracked
you as an individual athlete across a period
of time for us to see a meaningful improvement
so not just like a daily fluctuation or measurement
error we need you to improve this particular
metric jump pull push by x percent or by x kilos
we calculated our smallest worthwhile change
at six kilos so if our athletes at seven days
were to improve their one rep max by six kilos
that's smallest worthwhile change but we can
also do it on a group level as well so you can
do it by individual level athlete or you can
do it by group level athlete as well so did you
say all the athletes crossed this threshold at
seven days yeah every athlete had or no sorry
i beg your pardon all but one there was that
one athlete that only got a two all right day
five and then yeah but see this this is really
interesting though because we've got some athletes
that had increased by 10 kilos i think 12 kilos
was the greatest increase i think the the athlete
that increased by two kilos was absolutely delighted
and and you kind of just go yeah but that wasn't
practically meaningful but this was an athlete
that had competed in weightlifting at a reasonably
high level, was a very, very strong guy and had
been trying to improve his bike squat. for months
and months and months and it just wasn't happening.
That two kilo increase for him was just mind
-blowing. I've never seen someone so happy. I
didn't want to crush him by going, yeah, that's
only two kilos. Who am I to do that? But then
the other athletes that were improving by 10
kilos, you go, no, you've got 10 kilos on the
bar. And I'm like, yeah, cool. I'm happy with
that. So it was like, there's such a disconnect
between, again, this metric of smallest worthwhile
change, but then the athlete is an actual human
being and their background is a strength trainer
as well. Yes, we need to... be data driven to
understand what's happening but as a coach we
don't rely wholeheartedly on one data point to
dictate what we do i think You raised an important
point there about if we were to add two kilos
on one of the three lifts in powerlifting. One
of the reasons why I'm saying we wouldn't follow
this protocol in the real world is because we
removed all training from the program other than
the bike squat because we wanted to make it as
monotonous as possible, but also to remove peripheral
things that we couldn't control. So for example,
you know, we've got 10 athletes and five of them
are only doing my protocol and then five of them
are going to the gym in the evening and training
arms. or bench pressing, that's still additional
training load that we would need to factor in.
So for us, in that controlled environment, it
was easy to just go, please don't train. And
again, that... is one of the issues when you
recruit high -level athletes for training studies
is you're telling them to stop doing what they
do every day. I want you to come and I want you
to take part in this study. We've no guaranteed
outcome of getting better. It might even get
worse, but you've got to stop doing your normal
training. And they go, well, I can't do that
because I've got competition coming up in a few
months' time. Why would I do that for you? So
as a sports scientist, we ask a lot from high
-level athletes. And that's why when you look
at most studies that are using competitive athletes,
their observation... So for me as a sports scientist,
I go in and I watch what's happening and I record
some of the results, not me going in to an Olympic
level athlete and going, I just kind of want
to fuck about and find out because the athlete
and the coach will go, why would you do that?
If I win a gold medal, that will change my life.
The sponsorship money alone will change my life.
Why would I do your study that will potentially
ruin my season or even career? And this is the
problem that we have in some of the higher level
kind of studies in terms of recruitment. I agree.
Would you bring it together in some kind of conclusions
for coaches, what they could and should take
from the study? I think there's a level of pragmatism
that coaches can utilize from the findings of
my research in its total, not necessarily the
pilot. The reason why I said pragmatic is I think
now there is a lot of stigma attached to this
big term overtraining and we can unnecessarily
worry about it. And I feel like I'm almost being
condescending because again, I've already mentioned
a few. times coaches were already doing this
but just because an athlete is reporting that
they're fatigued and that they feel sore or that
maybe they're bored with the training program
doesn't mean that we automatically have to stop
and pivot and deload if they are in a training
block where we have a window of opportunity we
might not get many across the season a window
of opportunity to layer on as much stimulus as
possible the unfortunate reality of that is you
will feel tired you will feel sore but we know
this from practice practitioner experience. We
know there's actually some really cool research
out there from, in particular, someone that I'm
doing some work with now, Ketchy Anya Dakey Danes,
has done a lot about how the coach... can steer
the adaptations and you go well how how do they
do that and it's the relationship between the
coach and the athlete so let's say that i'm working
with two athletes i'm really paraphrasing catchy
research here but with one athlete i go we're
going to do a two -week block and you're going
to be doing a lot of volume you're going to be
doing a lot of high intensity work you are going
to feel sore and you're not going to find this
experience pleasant i know based on my knowledge
of physiology of strength and conditioning of
having done this before with other athletes that
when we get to the end of it and we ramp every
everything down you will be cruising you will
absolutely fly you need to have that trust in
me right then we've got another athlete and we
go I'm going to try this 14 -day block. It's
going to be tough. I saw it on the internet and
I have no idea what's going to happen. You might
get injured. Anyway, let's do it, right? Who
do you think is going to get better? Who do you
think has got more chance of positively adapting?
It's going to be the first athlete. We've got
trust. They know the process. There's no unnecessary
stress about, oh, what's happening? Am I going
to get injured? Am I going to get hurt? So hashtag
overtraining on Instagram. It says I'm going
to be broken. And we as a coach have a very powerful
position of steering the adaptations. Now, that
doesn't mean that we can give... someone in a
really bad program and go this will still be
favorable and they'll get better we still need
to obviously use a common sense approach but
for me it all comes down to the coaches is one
of if not the most important players in this
whole game one because they prescribe the training
but two because they can control the relationship
with and it's reciprocal but they can leverage
the relationship with the athlete to at least
give them an understanding of why they are doing
an impact cycle and also when athlete is involved
they apply themselves differently to the plan.
So if you want this hard stimulus to be applied,
they actually have to do the work. So they have
to give their best to make it impactful. Absolutely
correct. I'm a big fan of a constraints -led
approach to programming. And what I mean by that
is that I try to get the athlete as involved
as possible in the programming, organizing the
building blocks of the program. What would be
your key message for coaches? I think in all
honesty, I've probably answered that in the sense
of being pragmatic. So understanding that, you
know, within context of where we are within the
training program, the reality is that some athletes
will be tired and they will be sore at some point
if we are to induce an effect and adaptation.
Sometimes we can immediately worry about that
and we scale training back. But as we've seen
from the pilot and the discussion that I had
about some of the other literature and experience
as a coach, is that if we push through it and
we understand that is part of the program. process
oftentimes we will see a favorable outcome it's
just about understanding the athlete it's about
understanding the adaptation it's about understanding
the time course to peak and if we can do that
as a coach we're absolutely loving life all right
two short questions to finish the first one is
what is your favorite lift favorite lift um as
as an snc coach probably feel semi -pressured
to say the bike squat because we know that the
bike squat has got the most transferability to
performance. And we can do the most with it.
We can load it in different ways. We can use
different velocities and we can chase all number
of outcomes from jumping to being able to run
faster, to being stronger, to gaining muscle
mass. I'll be honest, right? I'm going to go
with preacher curl because I just don't think
there's any shame in training arms. And I'm not
going to justify any more than that. That's what
I'm going to go with. I respect that. It's accepted.
All right. people can find you online if they
want to follow your work or even contact you
or ask a question? Probably Instagram. So my
handle is Lee, so L -E -E -3. E -L -L. I'm not
very active on social media. I tend to share,
if I get a study published, I'll share something
on there, but it's probably where I have most
conversations in kind of like direct private
messages with coaches and with people in general.
So anyone is welcome to drop me a message and
I'll always respond given time. Other than that,
you know, I'm on LinkedIn, I'm on ResearchGate.
Similarly, I don't tend to post a great deal,
but I'm always contactable. Awesome. Thank you
so much for today. My pleasure. Thank you. Thank
you.