Probably the most asked question we get at the Advance Performance Lab is “can I have a specific training programme to target a particular muscle or group of muscles”. Whilst there are varying reasons behind why people want these training programmes, invariably it is because they want to alter their body composition or gain muscle… Read More »Five Top Training Considerations for Beginners

All athletes from young, new athletes to the greatest have a coach, as a coach helps with many aspects of your fitness and personal journey.  So, if you’re looking to improve your fitness, health, and wellbeing, hiring a coach is a great investment.  Here are five reasons why you should consider working with a coach:… Read More »Discover the Top 5 Benefits of Hiring a Fitness Coach

We often post our athletes training at our Performance Lab to raise awareness, education and the importance of youth strength and conditioning. Encouragingly most of the messages and feedback we receive are supportive, which feels great, as I remember a time where strength training and plyometrics were questioned for young athletes.  However, at times, some… Read More »Technical Models: Should We be Forcing Athletes to Move a Certain Way?

AN INTRODUCTION seventy9 Sports Therapy is the new sports injury clinic at Advance Performance, providing musculoskeletal injury assessment, diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation services, as well as sports massage. As Sports Therapists, we specialise in the treatment and rehabilitation of musculoskeletal injuries across the entire activity spectrum. We pride ourselves on the delivery of a high-performance… Read More »Welcome seventy9 Sports Therapy!

THE STRENGTH CODE – IS IT FOR ME? WHAT IS THE STRENGTH CODE? To answer the first question, yes, the Strength Code is for you!  The Strength Code is a training programme/journey for everyone.  No matter your age, ability, starting fitness level or goal, the Strength Code will work for you.   STRENGTH TRAINING FOR EVERYONE At our… Read More »THE STRENGTH CODE

Advance Performance Run Hub – Are you strong enough to run?  So, runners…. they are an odd bunch, aren’t they?? J  Firstly, a large majority of runners seem scared stiff of the gym and lifting weights (and scared of becoming stiff!), even though there is a huge body of evidence (refs) to support strength training and the… Read More »The Run Hub

It is frequently reported that players and athletes require a high level of agility to play and to perform in their sport (Horicka et al. 2014). And, from watching a host of sports (individual sports, tennis, badminton, and teams’ sports, football, hockey, rugby, netball) this seems intuitively true. Taking a step back and considering this… Read More »Youth Sport – A Review of Agility and Change of Direction Training

Supporting and encouraging children (children under peak height velocity) and young people (growing through or above their peak height velocity) to play and participate in sport has well-established wellness and health benefits, including, general fitness improvements (Baranowski et al. 1992), social inclusion, motor skill(s) development, and increase in self-confidence (Howie et al. 2020). With youth… Read More »Youth Sports – Preparedness and Readiness to Reduce Sport Specialisation and Overuse Injuries

The ability to jump, sprint and to change direction quickly are athletic qualities which are desirable for all athletes, as these athletic qualities are key elements which can help in sporting performances. Collectively and traditionally, these athletic qualities or movements (sprint, jump and agility) fall into a family of drills known as plyometrics, as plyometrics… Read More »Plyometrics – Pre and Post Peak Height Velocity

A major part of a Long-term Development Programme (LTAD) for sport coaches and trainers is the management of each athlete, and if a team sport, the whole-team, or squad. This management includes asking athletes to attend sport practice sessions, be fresh and ready to perform for weekly competitive games, along with the guidance in the… Read More »Athlete Development- Monitoring Training Loads

Sports like netball, hockey, lacrosse, football, and rugby, to name a few, have very specific technical sport skills, and with the aid of the sports coach, can be practiced, trained, and developed. From a fundamental point of view these specific technical sport skills require a range of physical capacities and skills.  For example, throwing a… Read More »RFD – Run Faster and Jump Higher

It is well known that strength training stimulates a series of adaptations, that will aid both male and female athletes, for example, increase in rate force production (RFD) (Aagaard et al. 2002), RFD is linked and correlated with many athletic movements, jumping, cutting, and sprinting. Neural and neuromuscular changes (Marshall et al. 2011), and movement… Read More »Strength Training: The Female Athlete

In the blog Netball – The importance of Physical Preparation, I stated that a Long-term Athlete Development Programme (LTAD) comprises of: Additionally, within the strength and conditioning spectrum, I highlighted three main aims or objectives. 1) prepare the player for the sporting demands, 2) identify and minimise injury risks, 3) develop physical capacities which may transfer… Read More »Knee Injuries and ACL Risks.  What Can We do to Keep Our Players Healthy and Playing their Sport? 

Netball is a dynamic sport, which requires the players to be able to repeatedly jump, hop, leap, sprint and to change direction (Comfort & Jones, 2017), with the latter often referred to as cutting. Collectively, these physical attributes are known as the Sporting Demands, and as a netball coach, it is essential that we review… Read More »Netball – The Importance of Physical Preparation

This article will investigate and explore bodyweight (BW) training as a strength protocol for young elite athletes and provide evidence based, practical recommendations for young athletes starting a youth strength and conditioning (YS&C) programme in conjunction with a long-term athletic development (LTAD) framework. Firstly, this article is not about health or the health-related benefits of… Read More »ARE THE INCLUSION OF BODYWEIGHT EXERCISES A VALID PROTOCOL FOR DEVELOPING STRENGTH IN ELITE YOUTH ATHLETES?

The media is constantly stating that children and young people are becoming less active, unhealthy and generally sedentary (Guthold et al. 2010, Pate et al. 2011, Prentice, 2006).  Furthermore, the World Health Organisation (WHO) frequently release global figures that reflect this statement, plus, the rate of overweight and obesity in children and young people are… Read More »CRITICAL REVIEW OF PHYSICAL EDUCATION. PRIMARY TO SECONDARY SCHOOL IN THE UK: IS IT TIME FOR A NEW APPROACH?

As we currently don’t have access to gyms or training facilities, there have been many questions asked around what should athletes be doing to ensure they stay at pre lockdown levels? One option, which doesn’t require a gym, is to practice sprints. Ever heard the old adage “speed kills”? If you have ever played full back against… Read More »What we need, is speed!

Yes, that’s right, this is yet another blog on how to recover from exercise however, it might not be quite what you think… Firstly, a recap on training and the process of training. Training causes a ‘stress’ on the system as a whole, and possibly specific stress on subsystems (a subsystem could be a muscle… Read More »Recovery

Ever since we started training our first athletes over six years ago, our philosophy has been built on an athlete-centered approach.  To envision the Advance Lab philosophy further, we created 3 pillars, Prepare, Progress and Perform, which are also the foundations of a Long-term athlete development (LTAD) programme.   Training young athletes is really a learning and… Read More »The Three Pillars of development at Advance

After a recent blog regarding body weight training (which ruffled a few feathers), people have been in touch to ask, ‘what about sit ups, planks and other bodyweight exercises to train your core?’ ‘core stability is important isn’t it?’ First of all, make yourself a coffee, sit down, belt up, and turn off your phone, as this… Read More »Abs and Core – I think you mean strength training?!