Part I – Organizational Structure we went through why the High Performance Model is not a good fit for top down organizational structures. Part II – HPM Model we went through what the HPM actually is supposed to look like. In Part III we are going to review what we can do about it, regardless of it being a good fit for Westernized Settings. 

Referring back to Fergus Connolly’s breakdown for a HPM we have Tactical Preparation, Technical Preparation, Psychological Preparation, and Physical Preparation to think about. Let’s review each and how we can find a medium within an organization. 

First is Physical Preparation. This one is easy, this is for most of us reading this our domain. I would take a pause here…….. And think about how this should be based on Technical and Tactical preparation. If you are breaking down training by how it influences the athlete’s training you are going to have a greater understanding of your relationship with sport coaches and athletes. 

Physical Preparation should include a discussion about Sport Science, or Analytics. There are two schools of thought here, one being what do I do with a limited budget and the other with an unlimited budget. Either way, you have to approach this with the mindset that Sport Science is important and should be incorporated into Physical and Psychological Preparation. 

Lowest hanging fruit is Sleep Quantity, Wellness Questionnaires, Athlete’s RPE, and Coaches Grades. Committing to tracking is hard, before and after practice collecting can be tedious. It also is a great way for the entire S&C staff to be immersed with the sport. A sport like football can easily create silos, no matter how many team meetings the entire staff is  required to attend. If you are a director you should be encouraging staff to connect more with the entire football staff, players, and support staff. Collecting body weights pre lift/practice, collecting Sleep and Wellness information pre lift/practice, collecting RPE post lift/practice should be the collective responsibility of the entire staff. The big one would be getting practice performance from the entire staff, on a simple grade scale (1-4, 1 Bad/2 Average/ 3 Good/ 4 Great). The head coach may need to do this, but could easily be a game changer for being more included in the Tactical and Technical Preparation sides. 

If you have an unlimited budget, you should include more. GPS (make sure it is a combination of Gyroscope and Accelerometer), Heart Rate/Heart Rate Variability, Velocity Based Training, Force Plates are pretty good places to start with a large team. Can you be effective without these tools, yes. Can you be more effective with these tools, yes. It is absolutely more work, and will create a second order problem of storing, interpreting, and breaking down for others. But this will be the lock and key into Technical and Tactical Preparation. 

Anyone that has sat in a football staff meeting understands that it is typically one person talking and about 20 other people listening. There is this hierarchy that is established by who sits closest to the throne, to who sits farthest away from the throne, and finally who is standing on the sides. The ones closest speak more than the ones that sit furthest away. The ones standing on the outside, rarely speak unless there is a random question about something they should know. 

This is that opportunity. For the most part you will present to your coach “hey want to do advanced tracking of the team including….” That will be met with “just dont tell me what I should or shouldn’t be doing.” So you go on your way, learning these systems, tracking and breaking down the data. For the most part it will sit there dormant until something goes wrong and you will have this singular moment to give an oracle-like answer to determine the fate of the entire Sport Science department. 

On the other hand, you start asking the Post Practice Grade questionnaire to the coaches and open the door. The power of comparing a coach’s grade to GPS data, Wellness data, RPE/Workload data, Heart Rate data. “That practice sucked, Tim what the hell happened?” Then meeting that with a report that clearly breaks down pre practice Wellness was all time low, workloads during practice were all time high, we ran more overall and had more high intensity running yardage than we had all year. Then you get the most important question you could ever hope for “so what do we do?”

If I could break down why the HPM does not work in westernized sports – most times the S&C coach does not grasp the moments that are in front of them when they are presented to them. The ol adage luck is when preparation meets opportunity is central to one’s contribution to the other aspects of HPM. When you are faced with a question like what do we do, you better have a good answer. Doing the work and only finding problems is not what Sport Science or the HPM is, it is contributing to the solutions to the problem is the point. 

Here is how I was able to contribute to both Technical and Tactical Preparation. 

Practice Planning

• Q – Tim, we are slower now than at the beginning of the year. What happened? 
• A – Our practice set up from where we do our drills and post practice conditioning is making the team extremely fatigued
• Solution was adjusting where we did Drills, which actually led to adding another practice field, and eliminating post practice conditioning which was something done for 30 years prior to. 

Weekly Planning

• Q – Tim, Why are Mondays so bad on Mondays? 
• A – We are taking away the only day our players have to ‘catch up’ and we do not get as much detail on injuries or limitations for the upcoming week as we would want to 
• Solution was moving Monday practice to Sunday to allow for earlier post game injury appraisal along with accounting for mistakes. Give Monday off, optional work at the facility and have higher intensity practice Tuesday. 

Technical Work

• Q – Tim, Our guys cannot tackle in the open field? 
• A – We are rarely practicing it enough, out of fear that we will injure our starters. 
• Solution was to adjust total practice volume throughout the week along with equipment to adjust for total workloads for starters versus non starters.

The trick of all this was being ready with a solution along with saying something that the coaches could agree to understand and readily agree with. Fatigue is a general term and is not going to resonate with a superior – instead saying we run an average of 5-7 miles during practice will create a much more lasting impression towards the need to change. Morale is also a general term, saying that we have 30% of our team not out for pre practice warm up or special teams period on a certain day due to how we structure the week is much more impactful. Same could be said for certain periods and seeing several starters not participating due to risk or fear means we should adjust our practices accordingly. 

The random out of left field question is only that way if you are not directly involved with the day to day. Being involved with all aspects of preparation is a matter of being present and interested in all aspects of preparation. If you view that as not part of your job, it won’t be. But with that comes an expectation that you should not bitch or complain about not being asked to input. You may think going to meetings or helping with parts of practice are beneath you, but that’s the game. 

I have often found that the most important element to having a more robust contribution, is about simply wanting to contribute more. HPM is a model, not every element of that model is supposed to apply. A better way to think about this would be saying I am trying to provide overall better support to my fellow staff members and athletes. Being more engaged with the process is the answer. HPM is honestly not the point, it is saying can I influence my environment more effectively regardless of what my role is. You are not limited by your position, you are limited by your perceived impact from that position. Break those walls down and get more involved.