In the traditional model of sports preparation, every individual exists in isolation. The strength coach worries about pushing up the gym numbers. The athletic trainer concerns him or herself with return to play and reinjury. The sport coach cares about the scoreboard. In theory this approach works. If everyone plays their role, the win is guaranteed, right? Wrong. It can be argued that this approach has not only led to sub-par performance and results on the field, but actively contributed to unnecessary injury, dysfunction and losses. The model has to change. At the heart of the shortcoming of traditional sport prep is the generalized nature of the stress response. All forms of stress whether physical or non-physical, real or imagined, resistance training, rehab or sport practice, tap into the limited physical capacity of the athlete to tolerate stress. When that capacity is exceeded, athletes perform worse, are exposed to increased risk of injury, and ultimately may die. To exist in a silo is to ignore the fact that every other stressor in the athlete’s life directly impacts what recovery resources are left for each athlete stakeholder.

The “My numbers are ok, so everything is ok” approach serves only the practitioner in question. We have to change, by adopting an athlete centered approach that places the performer at the heart of every decision, generally termed a high-performance model.

Enter the high performance model

The term high performance began being used in the 1980s regarding business management structures. Adapted to the sports world, we can use these structures to synchronize the efforts of strength and conditioning, athletic training, sport psychology, technical and tactical preparation, and academics in order to provide the best experience for our student athletes and help to manage their experience, management and adaptation to stressors to maximize health and performance. Rather than getting their pound of flesh, every practitioner that touches the athlete views his or her contribution in relation to, and its potential implications on, the program as a whole. To best understand the high-performance model, Dr. Fergus Connolly and Cam Josse’s concept of the four coactive model should be considered.

Taken from their series of books titled The Process, the four coactive model is the four interdependent elements of player preparation– tactical, technical, psychological, and physical. Tactical coactive refers to a player’s game sense or their decision-making ability on the field. Technical coactive refers to how players understand their position and how it relates to those around them. Psychological coactive refers to a player’s mindset and knowledge of their opposition. Physical coactive refers to the biomechanical, strength, and power qualities of the athlete.

For this article I have watered down each of these coactives, if this is something you want more of, I highly suggest purchasing all volumes of The Process. In such a system coaches understand that stress anywhere leads to stress everywhere for the athlete. Take for example the athlete who is currently playing a new position, got dumped by his significant other and is in the middle of a stressful academic period. The subjective stress experience of these events eats into the athlete’s finite tolerance for any planned tactical, technical or physical training loads. Implement such a plan without modification, and what might normally have been a productive training cycle can suddenly turn suboptimal or even disastrous. The high-performance model makes major changes to the way business is done in sport due to (in part but not limited to) the centralization of data collection, processing and sharing, holistic view of stress and stress management, design of practice scripting and load inputs. In this model there is one person who acts as the chief of staff and oversees all of the performance staff- ideally including but typically excluding the head sport coach.

The role of the high-performance manager is to facilitate and direct the collection, procession and sharing of athlete data, promote conversation and collaboration, and to help the staff manage the athlete’s experience of stress as a collective. Each member of the team considers the impact of their work in the broader scheme of the program not isolation, actively adjusts their planning as new information becomes available, and works proactively to help keep the athlete healthy, on the field and performing at their best when it is needed.

Successful high-performance models

Perhaps the most prominent example of how successful such a model can be is the University of Alabama Football Team. Drs. David Ballou and Matt Rhea, hired in 2020, had worked together previously at Indiana University and IMG Academy, where they leaned heavily on a data informed, athlete centered approach. This model led to an undefeated season and a national championship at IMG, helped turn Indiana football from a laughing stock of the Big Ten to an 8 and 9 win program, and this year helped Alabama to an undefeated, National Championship winning season, and a Heisman trophy for Devonta Smith. You’re thinking to yourself “but players win championships”. You’re absolutely right, they do. But in order for them to win championships they need to be on the field and feeling good.

Ballou and Rhea have been credited with helping to keep more of Alabama’s best players on the field, something that the prior strength staff were criticized with failing to do. One media outlet remarked “Heading into the 2020 season, the Crimson Tide had zero major injuries heading into the season — far different than in years past, where it almost seemed like an annual tradition for a key Alabama player to go down just days before the start of the season.” Alabama football does it, they won a national championship and went undefeated. If you adopt a high-performance model, will you too go undefeated and win a championship? Well, the athlete centered approach is certainly a powerful one, but it is only going to allow you more fully tap into your organisation’s potential. You need talent and you need masterful sport coaches, which Alabama have had in abundance for two decades now. Nonetheless consider the 2019 Crimson Tide, just as well-resourced and coached, that limped over the finish line, passed by the Ohio States, Clemsons and LSUs of the world. Arguably one of the differences in 2020 is the new performance staff’s ability to maximise player availability, increase practice time, to better prepare tactically and technically and minimize the negative impact of fatigue on a week to week basis. In the thin margins of elite competition, small hinges move big doors, and the changes are evident for all to see.

Roadblocks to high performance

When (not if!) you choose to implement a high performance approach with your organization, the biggest barrier you are likely to encounter is ego. Ego is at the heart of the existing, broken system. “I am the best at my domain, let me do my job! Why should I tear up the plan I wrote and give up my time to somebody else?!”. Rather the high-performance approach is all about making a temporary, individual sacrifice to the ego to serve the greater benefit of the team, namely winning, which is ironically the biggest ego booster of all. Even if you are fortunate enough to work with a team of Buddhist monks, devoid of ego, it can be a taxing logistical challenge to adopt an athlete centered program. Where previously each member of the team had to consider one or two metrics, listen to one or two voices, you’re now drinking from a fire hose. Trying to factor in the thoughts and opinions of the ATC, the sport coach, the psychologist, the dietician, the sport scientist etc. it is easy to quickly succumb to analysis paralysis, and revert to the easier, old way of doing things, especially when the team is losing. More to come on this in future articles.

Where to from now?

I hope that you’re sufficiently persuaded by the theoretical arguments for a high performance approach, and the successes of those in the field who best exemplify it. If we truly serve the athletes like we say we do, we owe it to them to put them, and winning, at the centre of every decision we make. Over the coming weeks and months, I’ll be expanding upon these concepts to provide you with a framework to gradually implement such an approach. For now, start to ask yourself the following questions and collect the following data to establish a starting point of where you’re at: For you as the strength coach:

• Starters’ games missed
• Average time to return from injury
• Rates of reinjury
• Number of and average time lost to soft tissue injuries
• Relevant physical performance metrics for the sport and position

For you as a member of the integrated performance team:

• Are you speaking everyday to other athlete stakeholders like the ATCs, sport coaches and psychologists?
• Are you collecting and sharing relevant data with these same people?
• Are you planning training in advance and adjusting according to the above data?
• Are they doing the same with you?
• Is any individual acting as the communication hub with members of the team? (hint: if they don’t exist, it’s going to be you)
• Do you have frameworks in place for when disagreements occurs? (hint: they will).

This will be a work in progress and might feel extremely difficult at first, but I promise you this is the beginning of a hugely productive professional journey!