For this week’s staff training, we de-camped into the labs to learn more about EMG (electromyography) – a way of recording and displaying the electrical activity in muscles. Our guide along the journey was Dan Gordon, a Paralympic World Record holding athlete who has also been a consultant physiologist for the UK Athletics Paralympic Squad (amongst others).

[warning - photos contain a disturbing depiction of male physicality :( ]

If you’ve been reading the blog for a short while, you’ll have seen that each week we ’shut up shop’ to get together for staff training – and that we regularly have guest speakers to deliver on areas of their expertise.

This week our guest speaker was Dan Gordon, world record holding Paralympic athlete and exercise physiologist.

Dan has competed as a GB athlete in three sports (swimming, track & field and cycling) and still holds a world record in track cycling. He has worked as a consultant physiologist to athletes from a diverse range of disciplines including GB Paralympic endurance runners, GB Lightweight rowers, GB cyclists, ECB/MCC academy cricketers, ultra-marathon runners and ultra-rowers. He has also been a team manager for GB VI track & field at a European level and his latest book “Coaching Science. (Active learning in sport)” was released in March 2009.

Our staff training session saw us decamp into Dan’s labs to learn about ‘EMG’ (electromyography) in more detail. If you’re not familiar with what EMG is, then it’s basically this – by carefully placing electrodes on the skin around a muscle, and by using a boat-load of computer-powered signal analysis, you can display various characteristics about the electrical activity of the muscle you’re observing.

This is all very exciting, because you can record the activity synchronised with video and categorically prove which muscles are (and aren’t) working at any given point in time during a movement.

If you were eating your food at the same time as you opened the photo of Andy flexing his enormous gun then I apologise – but what’s interesting about that photo is that during the session we wired up both of Andy’s biceps and you could visibly see on the computer screen traces that his right arm was fatigued (compared to the left) from all the showboating. Clever stuff eh?!

We’ve got some interesting plans to use this technology in some groundbreaking ways so watch this space!

PS: CAPTION COMPETITION – If you’ve got any humerous suggestions as to what you think Dan’s thinking in the last photo, then I’d be delighted to hear them (best submission wins a core cambridge t-shirt :)

We’d like to take this opportunity to say a massive ‘congratulations!’ to the winners of the 2010 Xchanging Oxford vs Cambridge Boat Race – Cambridge!

(If you’re – quite rightly! – wondering what took us so long to post this, the 2009-10 “wash up” meeting was held today, which is the first time that everyone’s back in the same place after the race, and the first opportunity for us to grab photos! =)

We’ve been involved in the Strength & Conditioning for Cambridge University Boat Club for three seasons now, but this last year was the first time we have had the opportunity to design and implement a complete year-round programme…

In actual fact the day was a double victory for Cambridge Boat Club as Goldie (which is kinda sort of a ‘2nd boat’) won their race too versus Oxford’s “Isis” boat.

What made the Blue boat’s victory extra special for us was the fact that it was a win from middlesex station – which means that the crew has to be strong enough to hold on for the middle 2/3rds of the race on the outside of Surrey bend before launching the attack to win.

We believe another key factor was that there were some of the guys in both crews who we have worked on our S&C programme over three years – which means that their physicality is a result of the structure that’s been put in place to graduate them to that point. (Despite popular myths to the contrary, athleticism doesn’t happen overnight!)

Chris Nilsson, Chief Coach, Cambridge University Boat Club, said “Supplementing Core Cambridge’s S&C coaching into CUBC’s on-water training was a key part of the 2010 Boat Race wins. By integrating our on-water coaching with their land-based S&C training we produced stronger, fitter, injury free athletes who went on to win the races.”

“Many thanks for your support and hard work to help us achieve all of the above. All of our guys appreciate it and know they were all the better for your programme.”

Here’s to 2011!

All of the above photos are copyright Getty Images.

We’re delighted to announce that Cambridge United Football Club have agreed a contract with us to provide the Strength & Conditioning support for CUFC’s whole club structure (Scholars, Development squad and Seniors) throughout the offseason, pre-season and in-season of 2010-2011.

Whilst the headline fact is that Cambridge United have asked us to provide strength & conditioning coaching for the forthcoming season, we’re really excited because the reality goes somewhat further than that – the club have approached us with a really clear vision of how they want to build the club from the ground up over the next few years, with the focus of growing new talent via their youth academy structure.

To be approached in this manner is obviously music to a Strength & Conditioning coach’s ears because it gives us an opportunity to set up a multi-year academy designed to progressively develop a player’s “physical literacy” from junior athlete through to their ‘graduation’ as a senior player.

With this in mind we’ll be putting a system into place whereby the young athletes learn movement patterns and develop basic strength – and by the time they’re ready to play for the seniors, they have an outstanding strength and fitness base to build upon with their senior skills.

Another major bonus point is that Martin and his coaching team are looking to integrate a full-season S&C plan into their coaching structure. This methodical approach is what every fitness coach dreams of, and will soon lead to the reduction in injury and improvement in performance that the club are looking for.

“It’s brilliant to have Core Cambridge as part of the team going forwards.” said Jez George, Director of Football at Cambridge United, “They will be working with us to develop the performance of all of the players in our club – from the young scholars right the way through the development squad to the seniors.” “Core Cambridge have a massive role to play in helping us to develop the club from the ground up over the forthcoming years.”

Martin Ling, Cambridge United Manager, said “We’ve been hugely impressed with Core Cambridge’s professionalism and expertise when they’ve done pieces of work at the club in the past few years. This agreement gives us the opportunity to implement their methods for the whole of the club across the whole of a season.”

“We’re massively excited about this opportunity to implement a club-wide strength & conditioning plan from all the way from grassroots to professional,” said Ed Hallam, Director of Performance at Core Cambridge, “To excel in the modern game, it’s not enough just to be able to play football; you need to be a highly qualified athlete. Martin and his team have given us the remit to lay all of the foundations required for an outstanding academy system that should lead to profound improvements in performance and reduction in injury over the forthcoming seasons.”

Our work will start in just a couple of weeks, straight after the last game on 24th April, when we’ll be putting in place a plan for the players during the offseason. The next step after that will be working on the six-week pre-season plan with the rest of the coaching staff ready for when the players come back to training from the summer.

We are very excited to announce our 2010 rugby offseason training camp!

Introduction

Every rugby player knows that the offseason is the time to make gains. In-season, you’re simply trying to stay on the pitch – if you can maintain your start-season performance throughout and not get injured then you’ve done your job.

…and then you step back on the pitch for your first game of next season and absolutely dominate your opposite number.

We’ve used our extensive rugby coaching experience to design (what we believe is) the ultimate offseason programme for a rugby athlete. We’ve taken the techniques used by professional players and made them applicable for any rugby player from Colts through Seniors.

Everything is planned out for you – six training sessions a week, your food, your supplements, your mobility and core work, the lot. All you have to do is train, eat, sleep and repeat.

The camp focuses on the six key areas of strength, power, speed, fitness, injury prevention and health and uses a mixture of weight training, strongman metabolic sessions, pitch running, lactate tolerance work, killer contact, grappling training and ball-in-hand drills.

The skills you learn during the camp – the freeweights technique, how, what and when to eat, core stability and injury prevention – will stay with you for the rest of your rugby career.

Training Package Contents

By signing up for this camp you will receive:

• A 15 week training programme specifically designed to create the ultimate rugby athlete.
• 49 sessions at our high-performance facility consisting of three training sessions per week during the camp and four lifting technique sessions in the pre-camp – all in very small groups to ensure coaching quality.
• A fully periodised training plan detailing 3 additional sessions per week that you can perform at your own gym and training ground.
• A comprehensive food guide teaching you what you need to eat and when in order recover fast and maximise your gains – in a healthy way.
• A calorie requirement calculator to remove the guess work from knowing exactly how much you need to be eating to fuel your recovery without gaining fat.
• A food log to help you track progress and stay on target.
• A complete plan for pre-, post- and peri- workout supplements to help you to understand which supplements can help, and when they should be used to get the maximum effect.
• A pre-hab programme to increase your flexibility/ mobility, to speed recovery from the intense training, and to reduce injury during the camp and into the next season.
• A core stability programme that will ensure that you’re strong enough to resist contact and to apply force quickly into the ground.
• Full body composition tracking so that you can track your fat loss and muscle gain during the camp.
• A report of your physiological testing results so that the hard work and effort that you have put in is rewarded with a precise measurement of your newfound improvements in speed, strength and fitness.

Training Plan Structure

The 19 weeks are structured around three key phases, using a mixture of freeweights sessions and metabolic drills.

Wk 1-2 [Pre-Camp] Lifting Technique & Squad Selection
This phase develops optimal lifting technique and familiarity with the warm-up and pre-hab techniques required to cope with the higher-intensity phases to follow. [Two sessions per week at Core Cambridge]

Wk 3 Initial Testing
Your ‘start’ statistics are captured – strength, speed, fitness, body composition – so that you’ll see just how far you’ve developed. [One session at Core Cambridge]

Wk 4-8 Strength Endurance / Hypertrophy
This phase creates the base needed for the following phases, where strength training and metabolic conditioning become much more specific to rugby. Work capacity is increased, and any muscle lost during the latter stages of the competitive season will be regained. Metabolic conditioning methods include strongman training and running drills. [3 sessions per week at Core Cambridge and 3 sessions at your home gym/pitch]

Wk 9-13 Max Strength Development
Now that a sufficient base has been developed to tolerate more intense training, loading is increased to push strength levels as high as possible whilst inducing functional hypertrophy. The lifting becomes more specific to rugby. Metabolic conditioning becomes a mixture of strongman, killer contact, and ball-in-hand work. The intensity of this phase sets the platform for the following phase of explosive lifting where performance peaks in time to step on the pitch for pre-season. [3 sessions per week at Core Cambridge and 3 sessions at your home gym/pitch]

Wk14-18 Strength / Power
This phase is focused on developing an explosive athlete. Now that you can produce high levels of force, you will learn to unleash that force quickly. Rugby-specific lifting is introduced. The new levels of strength and power that you can develop is carried into explosive performance on the pitch during your club’s preseason training & games. [3 sessions per week at Core Cambridge and 3 sessions at your home gym/pitch]

Wk 19 Final Testing & Results
The final testing day quantifies the increased performance that you can feel. Your scores are ranked with your fellow athletes, and the final results of your efforts are revealed. [One session at Core Cambridge]

FAQs

I’ve never really done free weights before – is that a problem?
It really shouldn’t be. The first two weeks are a pre-camp which fulfills two purposes: one, everyone gets the opportunity to learn the correct lifting technique in a non-competitive environment and two, we get a chance to assess every athlete and to group them into similar levels of ability.

We spend our lives teaching people who’ve never lifted before, so it shouldn’t be a problem to instill correct technique quickly, and each session will be actively coached in very small groups so that you’re never putting yourself at unecessary risk.

That said, if there was an athlete that we felt simply wasn’t ready, then we’d take relevent steps with the athlete concerned to consider withdrawal or extra education.

Your schedule runs into August & September – what about my club’s pre-season training?
No problem. We’ve designed the whole programme with that in mind. We know exactly the type of training your club will be doing for pre-season, and our plan is structured to make sure that it all fits together and complements one another.

I’m going on holiday – what if I can’t commit to the full 19 weeks?
Then you’re going to have to work around it (and lay off the Mr. Whippys =).

Our reputation lives and dies by the results we get for our athletes, and if we’re going to put our name to the programme, then you’re going to have to commit to completing it – 100% from start to finish. No excuses.

The best practical suggestion is to find a gym where you’re staying on holiday, and/or talk to us and we’ll absolutely help design you a programme to be doing whilst you’re away.

Aww man, this looks sweet – but I live miles away. What if I can only make one session a week?
Cool! – then e-mail us and let us know that.

We’re considering a one session a week camp if there’s enough people interested. It’d be a similar format but with more stuff planned for you to go away and do in your own time.

So who’s it for? Can anyone do it?
Yes – absolutely anyone from Colts upwards through Seniors (so from 16+ realistically) who wants to improve their performance for next season. You don’t have to be affiliated to a club, development group or squad – but most will be.

My son is only 16 – is it really safe for him to be doing weights?
If he’s in the hands of a competent team of experts then – Yes, absolutely. He’ll be learning fundamental movement patterns that’ll reduce his risk of injury by giving him the strength to maintain his posture.

(If he’s gurning out weights in his garage unsupervised then possibly not =)

What are the exact session dates so I can plan?
Pre-camp starts 03 May. Testing starts 17 May, The main programme runs from the week of 24 May to the week of 30 August.

How much does it cost?
£22 per week per player – paid in two installments of £187 or one (discounted) installment of £335.

This looks awesome!! How do I sign up?

Just let us know you’re up for it! – send an email to info@core-cambridge.com with your name and contact phone number. We’ll collate all of the e-mails together and will send you everything else you need to know.

If you want to find out more information about the programme, meet the coaches as well as the other guys who’ve signed up for the programme, we’re holding an opening evening at our centre on the 28th April – when you send us the e-mail we’ll send you the details in an invite!

Go write the e-mail now!

Last weekend Ed took part in the latest Rowing Ireland land-based training camp. Sadly, because he was back-to-back non-stop coaching the athletes, he didn’t actually get chance to take photos of the guys in action (hopefully next time) – but he did snap some pics on his phone of the places that he visited on his journey.

The camp was a 3-day tour catching up with the various athletes at each regional centre to assess and teach lifting technique, answer questions, sort out any niggles and re-programme.

The weekend started off in Cork at the National Rowing Centre.

The coaches then moved to Dublin for a day at the Irish National Boxing Centre. You can imagine that this is a pretty high-profile facility as it’s where they train their their national and Olympic athletes, and Boxing is one of Ireland most succesful sports.

The final day was at the University of Limerick, which houses the Irish National Strength & Conditioning Facility. This set-up is pretty legendary as it features lots of high-class athletes as well as people like Gerard Hartmann (who’s worked with everyone from Usain Bolt and Paula Radcliffe downwards and collaborated on the Nike Free running shoes). The gym shown in the photos is also used by Munster RUFC (one of the top Rugby Union squads in Europe).

Having seen these photos, I’ve only got two questions – how does one manage to visit three international performance centres and not capture a single athlete? :) — and how on earth do you go about running the inside lane of the bend on that warm-up track? :)

…stay tuned sportsfans…