James Langford - Physical Performance Coaching

When most athletes think of trying to format drills that are going to increase the speed of their footwork, they automatically go to this idea of how fast can they move their legs and their feet.

This often leaves them with either drills like the ones shown above or a variation of different ladder drills. The idea is that because they're moving their feet quickly, this is going to carry over to better footwork and more evasive footwork during competition or on the mats.

The problem with these exercises and these drills, however, is they are not intense enough to create any meaningful structural change around the lower limb, so there's not going to be any increase in some key characteristics, such as force output, speed or rate of force development which would in turn mean the lower limb & foot can operate at a higher output.

Equally, with these drills being pre-planned and there being no anticipatory element to it, they will not help develop the skill of sport-specific footwork in response to a partner or an opponents movement and your resulting reactions to this.

I also sometimes hear athletes and coaches refer to these as being ankle conditioning drills. Whilst I do understand that that could be a benefit in a sport such as Taekwondo, which has a high volume of hopping And movement as part of the sport and its training, I truly don't believe drills like this offer any further additional conditioning that is beneficial.

if anything, I personally believe they do the opposite: provide a junk amount of volume, which will just equate to higher loads around the foot and ankle and increasing the risk of overuse injuries with minimal reward.

Do you agree or disagree? Let me know.

I have said it time and time again but being more specific is not always better.

When I refer to programmes in this context, I'm referring specifically to training templates.

In other words, a template that you buy off a coach that then has zero adjustments, zero input from the coach, and that is built generically for a sport.

The thing with the template is that it is built by a coach for a specific sport, factoring in only the requirements of the sport. However, there is zero input on anything that is specific to the athlete.

The specificity of a programme to each athlete is one of the most important parts when it comes to creating the correct adaptations to then allow the athlete to progress physically in a way that's going to improve performance in the sport.

At least with AI, you can not only give information about your sport, but you can also give specific information about yourself, such as previous injuries, training schedule, equipment availability, and more.

This is why, in my opinion, the only type of coaching that actually makes sense and the only type of coaching I do is bespoke in-person or online coaching.

means that each athlete gets an individualised programme that is built specifically around their sport and their needs, whilst also getting weekly check-ins and changes to the programme specific to what they need based on their training load changes, their training structure, injuries, or otherwise.

So if you're tired of constantly following programmes that just don't seem to be specific to you or that are difficult to adapt, drop me a message with the word 'COACHING' And let's have a chat about getting you up and running with a proper Strength & Conditioning program.

This doesn't even just apply to combat sport athletes. This rings true for most athletes.

There is this misguided belief that when we suddenly stop being able to increase weights on an exercise, it's because we've hit a plateau. Therefore, we need to change the exercise or completely change our programme to continue progressing.

What most people fail to recognise is the influence of coordination.

Coordination is essentially the ability to perform the technique of the exercise effectively. It's how well we can coordinate ourselves to perform the exercise we are trying to do.

Imagine comparing the first time you did a back squat to the 1,000th time you did a back squat. You're going to be much more efficient the 1,000th time than you are the first time.

When we take an exercise out of a programme, even though we might have done it for a long time historically, when we reintroduce it, there is always going to be a little period of relearning the exercise that will take a number of weeks.

This is why we get those rapid improvements in strength in the first few weeks of a programme. It's not because we are actually getting stronger or we are improving physically. It generally tends to be because we are just getting more effective at performing the exercise.

It's once these rapid improvements stop that we actually can really begin to build and develop adaptations.

However, what most people do at this point when those rapid improvements stop is begin to change their exercise or change their programme.

This gets fighters stuck in a cycle of never really improving physically because they are always just improving coordination and then changing the exercise before they can really begin to drive adaptations.

Although we want to change programmes and develop physical qualities from block to block, where possible we want to try and keep the movements as similar as possible. This might mean progressing something from a back squat to a box squat, but we're generally keeping the movement patterns similar to minimise the effect of coordination.

Static stretching is just another tool in the toolbox.

Can it provide great benefit?

Absolutely.

But only if used at the right time for the right reason.

Which often in combat sports….

Is not the case.