Sam is a strength and conditioning coach and performance consultant who has worked for Wasps and Ealing Trailfinders. He’s consulted with Kenya 7’s and many individual pro-players from NFL to bobsleigh.
Here’s what they covered:
Sam’s background and why he is so passionate about speed development
Why rugby coaches should approach speed as a skill to be developed in the same way as passing or tackling
The basics that underpin speed and sprinting
The difference between speed development and speed expression
Heuristics and cues for coaching acceleration and maximum speed
The benefits of Extensive Plyometrics for developing a base of tolerance and teaching speed
Programming speed training into weekly and monthly cycles of rugby training
The importance of consistency in programming drills and exercises
How to blend multi-directional speed with basic acceleration training
Why you should avoid too much competition and racing in speed development
How Sam developed Speed Golf and how it teaches players to understand “Slow is Smooth and Smooth is Fast”
Common mistakes in speed development
How Sam programs gym training to support speed development and the Rollover Principle for weekly planning
Moving from working for a pro team to becoming a freelance coach
Developing streams of income within a freelance business
How Sam is using the lessons from his time in coaching to develop other coaches through his mentorship
Dave Collins is a Professorial Fellow at the University of Edinburgh and director at Grey Matters Performance Ltd. As an academic, Dave has over 350 peer review publications and 70 books/chapters. As a practitioner, he has worked with over 80 World or Olympic medallists plus professional teams and performers. He has coached to national... MORE
Alan Dymock is Features Editor of Rugby World Magazine. He specialises in long-reads and detailed studies, as well as stories of far-flung events and quirky characters.
In this Deep Dive, we discuss Alan's features on pain killer and performance-enhancing drug use in rugby. MORE
Jamie Taylor PhD is the former head of Academy at Leicester Tigers and now working with Grey Matters as a Senior Coach Developer and the English Institute of Sport as the coaching and curriculum lead. He is a coach, coach developer and researcher in coaching science with a particular focus on talent development MORE
Si Nainby talks in depth to William Wayland
William is a certified strength and conditioning coach and owner of Powering Through Performance Gym in Chelmsford, Essex http://www.powering-through.com/.
He works with a wide variety of sports and athletes including rugby, motorsports and the PGA European Tour. His background is in applied sports science. MORE
Si Nainby talks in-depth to Jamie Taylor PhD.
Jamie is the former head of Academy at Leicester Tigers and now working with Grey Matters as a Senior Coach Developer and the English Institute of Sport as the coaching and curriculum lead. He is a Coach, Coach Developer and Researcher in Coaching Science with a particular focus on Talent Development.
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