☕️ S&C Daily — What the Athlete Needs

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A case study in the International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance followed 19 elite female rowers preparing for the 2024 Paris Olympics across 16 on-water sessions. After each one, athletes and coaches separately rated training quality on the same scale, and researchers recorded and analyzed the coach-athlete debriefs.

Coaches scored sessions equal to or higher than their athletes on every measure, with gaps up to 3.5 points. Technical talk dominated the debriefs, ahead of mental and physical themes. Sessions with comparable training load drew very different sentiment, which the authors say shows load alone "does not capture the full experiential nature of training."

Writing for SimpliFaster, Nicholas Coleman sorts high school athletes by one number. Dynamic Strength Index divides peak force in a countermovement jump by peak force in an isometric mid-thigh pull. Below 0.60, the athlete needs more plyometrics and jump work. Above 0.80, more maximal strength. In between, both. His example: a junior football player who squats 405 pounds with an 18 inch vertical does not need more squatting.

At the hospital where he works, Coleman retests every six to 10 weeks. One track athlete held at 0.80 after 10 weeks, but his isometric peak force rose from 2,185 to 2,322 newtons and his ballistic force from 1,748 to 1,858. His rule when both tests improve and the ratio does not move: stay the course.

A Bayesian network meta-analysis in Sports Medicine Open pooled 37 studies comparing traditional sets with cluster sets and rest-redistribution. All three alternatives preserved mean bar velocity better than straight sets, with cluster sets showing the largest effect (SMD 0.60) and intra-set and inter-set rest-redistribution close behind (0.41 and 0.42).

Cluster sets ranked first, but in head-to-head comparisons the three showed no clear difference, and the authors say the gaps "may not be practically meaningful." Exercise type and intensity did not change the results. Their advice is to choose based on "practical considerations and training context." Every included study measured acute effects within a session.

Matthew Mayich, a 21-year-old sophomore defenseman who transferred to Arizona State from Clarkson this offseason, remains on life support after collapsing near the end of an Aug. 20 team workout. The school's initial review, released Tuesday, assigned no responsibility for what happened. It found the hockey staff got permission for ex-Green Beret Tim Ziesel to address players but never submitted his training activities to the school's strength and conditioning coaches.

Ainsley Johnston is the new director of sports performance at Purdue Northwest. She previously assisted with workouts for 15 Division I programs at Indiana, where she also founded Girl Gains, a women's strength training organization.

Jim Kramer, NDSU's football strength and conditioning coach from 2004 to 2025, will be inducted into the Bison Athletic Hall of Fame on Oct. 2, one of seven individual honorees.

Dartmouth College

USA Lacrosse

Philadelphia Union

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