Team Hallam S&C Blog Interview
Name: Aden Flannagan
Job Title: Graduate Strength & Conditioning Coach
What sports do you
currently work with?
I’m currently the lead S&C coach for several teams at
Sheffield Hallam including; Swimming, Netball, Men’s American football, Men’s
Lacrosse and Trampolining; in addition to this I also lead Women’s Rugby Union
and Triathlon alongside Lewis. I also deliver one to one support and
programming to several Team Hallam scholar athletes in a number of sports,
particularly Heptathlon, Decathlon and Cricket. Away from Team Hallam I am also
the lead S&C coach for a German American football team, the Potsdam Royals.
I also assist and deliver sessions for the City of Sheffield Swim Club Elite Squad
and the Regional squad.
How did you get into
S&C?
As an undergraduate student, I probably spent most my time
in the weight room, which was mainly due to competing in American football for
the university and the hope of one day making it to a pro team. Once I realised
being 5ft8 that it probably wasn’t going to happen I turned my attention
towards coaching, which led me to get involved with the internship program here
at Sheffield Hallam. After sitting in on the backside of several programs and
being involved with S&C delivery with Team Hallam, the Sheffield Eagles and
Sheffield Lacrosse team, I began to pursue a career in S&C, which has led me
to where I am now.
What is your
philosophy for S&C training?
Although research is forever advancing; practice and
opinions on the correct training method to implement will always be changing but
for me there are three keys to developing successful athletes:
1.
Improve movement
proficiency
2.
Effective programming to
minimise the risk of injury
3.
Maximising athletic
performance capabilities
However, for me attempting to improve any of the above would
be extremely challenging without first developing an effective and positive
coach-athlete relationship. I am a firm believer that by creating a strong
coach-athlete relationship you will create significantly greater results!
Remember being able to engage with an athlete is the key to building a
successful relationship.
Who are some of the
main practitioners you recommend reading?
The number of practitioners that consistently produce good
content is endless, personally I don’t come from a science based background, I
come from a more practical coaching based background. However, there are
several authors that I currently read on and off to keep my knowledge base
growing and more importantly to keep my athletes interested by applying
different training methods to their programming. I currently read a mixture of
books, blogs, articles and listen to a few podcasts, but to name a few:
·
Mike Boyle – NEW Functional Training for Sports
·
Paul Gamble – Strength and
Conditioning for Team Sports
·
Joe Kenn – Coach’s Strength
Training Playbook
·
David Joyce -
High-Performance Training for Sports
·
Baechle & Earle -
Essentials of Strength Training and Conditioning
·
Ron McKeefery – CEO
Strength Coach
·
Mick Hughes – Physiotherapist
& Exercise Physiologist Blog
·
SimpliFaster – Athletic
Speed Development Blog
My advice is don’t just read
S&C based literature, try to read around it, you’ll more than likely always
be working as a part of a multidisciplinary team, it’s important to understand
how they’re thinking and how you can apply certain aspects of their practice,
to your own.
What are your main
areas of interest in S&C?
Working with Team Hallam we have an irreplaceable
opportunity to work with a multitude of athletes of different physical
capabilities from a variety of sporting backgrounds. I’ve developed a huge
interest based around understanding how each athlete moves through different
movement patterns, which could be due to countless reasons including; injury
history, limb length and movement inefficiency. Being able to understand this
and individualise a program to the athlete is always a challenge that I enjoy.
In addition to this I also have a huge interest in the use
of velocity in strength training, which is currently growing in the industry with
accurate technology becoming cheaper to purchase. I’ve been using velocity
measures in strength training for roughly the last 6 months, predominantly with
our performance athletes and focus sports, and it’s showing great results! The
benefits of using velocity enables me to assess an athlete’s strength without
physically taking them to a 1RM, meaning that all loading is submaximal,
therefore reducing the opportunity for injury, which links in with my coaching
philosophy. Finally, the use of velocity measures also allows me to monitor the
athletes daily and adjust their training loads accordingly through some very
basic submaximal loading and estimations based upon the relationships between
load and bar velocity.
What advice would you
give to up and coming practitioners who would like to be in your position?
I’m only just taking my first steps into a career in S&C
but the biggest piece of advice I should have taken is to get involved with as
much as you possibly can; whilst I was an undergraduate student I could have
used my time more wisely to gain more experience. Get involved with as much as
you physically can, whether it is delivery, shadowing or even helping with
testing days!
One thing that you will never get told until you work in the
field, nothing will ever run perfectly, no matter what you learn at university
or read out of a book, things change whether that is the training times or
equipment breaking, always try to have a back-up plan!
Finally, Network as much as you possibly can, it’s a hard
profession to get into, the more people you know the chances are that you’ll
get the job over someone who isn’t known.
Where would you like
to be in 5 years?
There are several things that I would like to achieve in the
next five years, but the biggest thing for me is to keep striving towards leading
my own program. Whether that be in university or professional sport, I’m looking
forward to where my journey will take me.
