When Bianca Rech shares a decision with FC Bayern’s players, she knows instantly how it has landed.“You feel it,” says the Director of Bayern’s women’s programme. “You already know when you look at their faces. You’re like ‘I think she doesn’t like it’, ‘yeah, she likes it’ and ‘she needs a bit of proof’. It’s like sometimes I see myself sitting on the other side.”The ‘other side’, as Bianca tells Teamworks’ Andrew Trimble and Leaders’ John Portch, refers to her transition from a Germany international and Frauen-Bundesliga regular to a senior leader of the German champions, whom she represented on the pitch for four years.“It’s so much harder now when you sit on that side now,” she adds, reflecting on how she used to feel as a player. “I see myself sitting on the other side, like, ‘oh, maybe I have to talk to them again’.”In this third and final episode of our special series with Teamworks, Bianca touched upon several of the major themes that emerged from our recent Special Report High Performance Unpacked: interconnected performance teams.She spoke of her role in helping to transform the Bayern culture on and off the pitch [37:00]; keeping the athlete at the centre of the performance jigsaw [14:30]; the importance of sports psychology [31:00]; and the thoughtful integration of technology [21:00].Listen and subscribe today on iTunes (https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/leaders-performance-podcast/id1124488318?mt=2), Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/show/4EKIUuWYk5SWWqRWRQfw3z?si=epSPBhLdREOwtHiGYJnvEg), Stitcher (https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/leaders/the-leaders-performance-podcast) and Overcast (https://overcast.fm/itunes1124488318/leaders-performance-podcast), or your chosen podcast platform.Episode One: Simon Rice, the Philadelphia 76ers (https://leadersinsport.com/performance-institute/podcasts/teamworks-podcast-problems-can-emerge-simply-because-people-have-the-best-intentions-simon-rice-philadelphia-76ers/)Episode Two: Miranda Menaspà, the Australian Institute of Sport (https://leadersinsport.com/performance-institute/videos/teamworks-vodcast-the-next-step-is-ensuring-practitioners-have-the-critical-thinking-skills-to-use-tech-correctly-miranda-menaspa-australian-institute-of-sport/)

They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions, but does that hold up in the world of elite sports performance?“The issues I’ve seen here, they’re very rarely – almost never – [a result of] things getting missed,” Simon Rice, the Vice President of Athlete Care at the Philadelphia 76ers, tells Teamworks’ Director of Athlete Performance Andrew Trimble and Leaders Performance Institute Editor John Portch.“Where we run into slight problems is everyone trying to do the right thing with really good intentions,” he continues, citing the hypothetical example of three practitioners on the Sixers' Health & Performance group prescribing the same loading plan to an athlete and inadvertently tripling their load.“It often comes back to communication and it comes back to this idea of fitting the puzzle pieces to fully support that player.”It takes mutual understanding and trust between athlete and coach, as Simon touched upon in the recent Teamworks and Leaders Special Report, entitled High Performance Unpacked: Interconnected Performance Teams, and it was a theme he expanded upon in the first episode of our new three-part series.Elsewhere, Simon also talks about the role of the performance director as a cultural leader [4:00]; the importance of establishing what’s best for the athlete right now [15:30]; the work of the Health & Performance group with external clinicians [34:00]; and how his team can give athletes confidence in their bodies through its joint decision model [55:00].Listen above and subscribe today on iTunes (https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/leaders-performance-podcast/id1124488318?mt=2), Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/show/4EKIUuWYk5SWWqRWRQfw3z?si=epSPBhLdREOwtHiGYJnvEg), Stitcher (https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/leaders/the-leaders-performance-podcast) and Overcast (https://overcast.fm/itunes1124488318/leaders-performance-podcast), or your chosen podcast platform.

Lachlan Penfold’s time at the Golden State Warriors was eye-opening in numerous ways.Chief amongst them was his realisation that joy is crucial in a high performance environment.“Joy in a professional sport? That’s a bit strange,” thought Penfold, but it was one of the team’s trademarks and no-one embodied it better than their Head Coach Steve Kerr and illustrious point guard Steph Curry.“The player that embodies it better than anyone in world sport is Steph Curry in terms of just the absolute joy he gets from playing the game, from training the game,” Penfold continues, “not only from his perspective, but from seeing his teammates have success and do great things, the joy that he gets really invigorates a sporting team.”It has fed into his work with the Melbourne Storm, who reached the NRL grand final in October. No doubt they’ll go again in 2025, inspired by the family environment described so vividly by Penfold [10:00]. We also spoke about his approach to training and recovery [17:30] and the importance of individualised work [22:30]. Last up, we discussed the year ahead [28:10].Listen above and subscribe today on iTunes (https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/leaders-performance-podcast/id1124488318?mt=2), Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/show/4EKIUuWYk5SWWqRWRQfw3z?si=epSPBhLdREOwtHiGYJnvEg), Stitcher (https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/leaders/the-leaders-performance-podcast) and Overcast (https://overcast.fm/itunes1124488318/leaders-performance-podcast), or your chosen podcast platform.

Flo Laing does not miss a beat in explaining what she’s most excited about heading into 2025.“It’s got to be the World Cup,” says Scotland women’s Lead Physiotherapist.The competition will be hosted across the border in England and starts in August. Laing says it has been the Scotland team’s “north star” for several years.During the course of our conversation – the second of three in this Keiser podcast series – we spoke about her work in women’s rugby at a time where the sport is starting to capture the public’s imagination and performance standards are rising faster than ever for the women players who compete [4:00].Elsewhere, Laing discusses her leadership style, which is very much about putting people at ease [18:00]; she also talks about the most pressing issues in female athlete health [28:40]; as well as the transferable skills she’s learned from her time working for Sport Scotland [12:30].Listen above and subscribe today on iTunes (https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/leaders-performance-podcast/id1124488318?mt=2), Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/show/4EKIUuWYk5SWWqRWRQfw3z?si=epSPBhLdREOwtHiGYJnvEg), Stitcher (https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/leaders/the-leaders-performance-podcast) and Overcast (https://overcast.fm/itunes1124488318/leaders-performance-podcast), or your chosen podcast platform.

Duncan French, the Senior Vice President of the UFC Performance Institute, is describing the aftermath of a bout.“If an athlete has gone through the fight pretty well and won, then it might be a very simple kind of cool down in one of the back rooms in the locker room and just do some light work to bring themselves back down again,” he says of the victor.“If an athlete’s had a pretty significant amount of trouble, that’s a very different strategy.”Mixed martial arts is, as he adds, “a sport of consequences”.It’s all in a day’s work for French, who oversees the UFC’s Performance Institutes based in Las Vegas, Shanghai and, most recently, Mexico City.There have been some teething troubles with the Mexican facility [4:40], but French took it all in his stride, as he tells us in the first of this three-part Keiser Series Podcast focused on some of the challenges faced and lessons learned by members of the Leaders Performance Institute during 2024.French also discussed his evolving leadership style [6:20]; the personalisation of fight preparation plans [19:30]; and his use of data to inform those strategies [28:30].Listen above and subscribe today on iTunes (https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/leaders-performance-podcast/id1124488318?mt=2), Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/show/4EKIUuWYk5SWWqRWRQfw3z?si=epSPBhLdREOwtHiGYJnvEg), Stitcher (https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/leaders/the-leaders-performance-podcast) and Overcast (https://overcast.fm/itunes1124488318/leaders-performance-podcast), or your chosen podcast platform.

Dan Jackson is the General Manager of Player Development & Leadership at the Adelaide Football Club, but he is quick to dispel any notions that he is a guru.“I can’t teach leadership,” he tells the Leaders Performance Podcast. “I can help unlock what’s already in there.”On that note, he is certain that leaders are not born. “Leadership is 100 per cent made, but it’s made from a very young age.”Beyond the origins of leadership, Dan spoke to Henry Breckenridge and John Portch about the importance of prioritising others [10:40]. “Great sustainable teams are built in environments where everyone’s looking to help someone else out,” he adds. “When you fill someone else's bucket, it fills yours.”Also on the agenda were the importance of humour and enjoyment [22:00]; the argument against ‘refreezing’ culture [48:30]; and the practical steps that help leaders to manage team operations [32:00].Henry Breckenridge LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/henrybreckenridge/)John Portch LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-portch-696a4366/)Listen above and subscribe today on iTunes (https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/leaders-performance-podcast/id1124488318?mt=2), Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/show/4EKIUuWYk5SWWqRWRQfw3z?si=epSPBhLdREOwtHiGYJnvEg), Stitcher (https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/leaders/the-leaders-performance-podcast) and Overcast (https://overcast.fm/itunes1124488318/leaders-performance-podcast), or your chosen podcast platform.

Kitman Labs ensured Bayer Leverkusen knew what it took to win the German Bundesliga.They demonstrated to Dr Karl-Heinrich Dittmar, Leverkusen’s Head of Medical, the optimal range of player availability to top the table during a meet in Dublin, four or five years before Die Werkself actually won the title.“I kept this data; and last year we did it,” Dr Dittmar told the Kitman Labs podcast with evident pride. It turns out the data scanned almost perfectly across the numbers posted by the club during their unbeaten title-winning campaign.“They found out what we need from the medical point of view, from player availability, and it was perfect – the data predicted what would happen in the future.”It demonstrated the value of clean, consistent datasets – something that has given Leverkusen an edge over more celebrated rivals – and something that Yael Averbuch West is trying to build in her role as GM at 2023 NWSL champions Gotham City.“We’re still in the data collection stage in the women’s game,” she tells the podcast, while also explaining that the work to bridge that gap is well underway in this corner of New York City.In the third and final episode of this series, West and Dr Dittmar are joined by Kitman Labs Founder Stephen Smith to discuss how data strategies can help teams in their quest for greatness.Elsewhere, the trio discuss a range of topics, including why learnings tend to emerge as data collection grows ever more sophisticated [17:30]; the importance of a centralised system for consistency [24:15]; the balance between using data to unearth ‘hidden gems’ and jumping on something misleading [33:00]. Episode one is available here (https://leadersinsport.com/performance-institute/podcasts/kitman-labs-podcast-what-factors-drive-talent-development-in-the-premier-league-and-beyond/) and episode two is available here (https://leadersinsport.com/performance-institute/podcasts/kitman-labs-podcast-women-players-need-to-feel-safe-and-they-need-to-have-access-to-support/).

You may have a great performance structure for your men’s team, but simply cutting and pasting that to your women’s team does them a disservice.That is the view of Arianna Criscione, the Head of Football Operations at Mercury/13 and Como Women. “It’s not enough,” she tells this Kitman Labs podcast. She explains that there are a range of services, from nutrition to psychology, that need to be tailored to women players.Criscione continues: “You also have to have access to medical [support], but a lot of clubs don’t have access to a gynaecologist, which is a major part of the female body and really needs to be addressed a lot more.”Dentistry is another area of oft-neglected consideration. “If you have an off-bite, that can actually affect your structure and how you’re running, which could cause injury.”It is, as Sarah Smith says, about “making sure that we have a good foundation of support around our athletes.” Smith, who is the Director of Medical and Performance at Angel City FC in the NWSL, joins the conversation alongside Stephen Smith, the Founder of Kitman Labs.In addition to discussing holistic female player development [10:45], the trio delve into bridging the gap in data and understanding in women’s football [15:45]; how talent identification is evolving [20:15]; as well as the existing disparities in data collection [28:10] from club to club and league to league.This is episode two of a three-part series. Please go back and check out episode one, (https://leadersinsport.com/performance-institute/podcasts/kitman-labs-podcast-what-factors-drive-talent-development-in-the-premier-league-and-beyond/) where the Leaders Performance Institute and Stephen Smith spoke to Paul Prescott of the International Football Group and Morten Larsen of Danish Superliga side Aarhus discussing talent pathways in the Premier League and beyond.Listen above and subscribe today on iTunes (https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/leaders-performance-podcast/id1124488318?mt=2), Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/show/4EKIUuWYk5SWWqRWRQfw3z?si=epSPBhLdREOwtHiGYJnvEg), Stitcher (https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/leaders/the-leaders-performance-podcast) and Overcast (https://overcast.fm/itunes1124488318/leaders-performance-podcast), or your chosen podcast platform.

More than 77 per cent of professional contracts in the Premier League and EFL are held by homegrown players.It wasn’t always thus. “English clubs were basically funding talent development models in Spain or in Brazil because English talent wasn’t seen to be at the same level as players from those countries,” Paul Prescott, the Managing Director of the International Football Group, told this Kitman Labs podcast.That situation persisted until recently and is starting to change in part due to the introduction of the Elite Player Performance Plan [EPPP] in 2012.“We are seeing that some of the decisions that were made maybe 10-12 years ago are beginning to bear fruit,” added Prescott, who was joined by Morten Larsen, the Head of Methodology & Development at Danish Superliga club Arhus, and Stephen Smith, the Founder of Kitman Labs.Aarhus share the Premier League’s emphasis on talent development, albeit in different circumstances as Larsen explains [5:30].“Denmark is a small country and the league is a small league,” he says. “So there’s only one thing we can do to compete with the other clubs in Europe.”Elsewhere, Smith sets out the differences in approach between leagues and clubs [16:25]; Larsen explains the impact of data on decision-making processes in the Aarhus academy [24:10]; and Prescott ponders whether EPPP was an outcome or a catalyst [36:30].

The 2024 StatsBomb Conference took place at Old Trafford in Manchester in October and the Leaders Performance Institute was in attendance.We spoke to the great and the good of the football analytics world, including three people speaking that day, about their thoughts on data & analytics in football, from recruitment and time management to analysis and AI.Coming up for you, we have:Liam Henshaw, a Data Analyst & First Team Scout with Hearts, who discusses his efforts to balance two roles at the Scottish Premiership club, and the constant need for context in application.Will Thomson, a Data Analyst with Hudl StatsBomb, whose research is guided by the nuances of football.Sam Gregory, the Director of Data Analytics at US Soccer, whose senior teams are preparing for World Cups in 2026 and 2027, including an edition on home soil in the men’s competition.Simon Farrant, Director of Strategic Growth – Sports Data & Officiating, at Deltatre, who spoke about recruitment in the context of game models and team strategies, where compelling stories are a must.Listen above and subscribe today on iTunes (https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/leaders-performance-podcast/id1124488318?mt=2), Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/show/4EKIUuWYk5SWWqRWRQfw3z?si=epSPBhLdREOwtHiGYJnvEg), Stitcher (https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/leaders/the-leaders-performance-podcast) and Overcast (https://overcast.fm/itunes1124488318/leaders-performance-podcast), or your chosen podcast platform.

Predictably, when Sport Wales formed its Female Health & Performance team, some asked why there was no male equivalent.The truth is that male physiology and psychology has long been viewed as the default across sport.“For so many years we haven’t thought about females as being different,” says Esther Goldsmith, who works for Sport Wales, on the latest episode of the Leaders Performance Podcast.“When you think about it, it doesn’t make sense because it’s obvious we’re different.”This lack of understanding or consideration makes one ponder just how much potential is being left on the table by female athletes. The menstrual cycle, for example, was seen as a taboo and was historically not taken into consideration when female athletes trained, performed or recovered.In seeking to redress that imbalance, Sport Wales is empowering female Welsh athletes from the grassroots through to podium potential with the support they need to succeed.“We’re just trying to open up some of those conversations and improve the comfort and awareness of the athlete in order to help,” says Dr Natalie Brown, who works alongside Goldsmith.Both spoke of Sport Wales’ efforts to normalise conversations about a whole range of female health issues (10:00) including pelvic floor health and stress incontinence (36:00), while busting common myths along the way (21:00).Goldsmith and Brown also discuss the importance of encouraging behavioural change through meeting the athlete where they are in their beliefs and values (15:00); helping coaches with any potential discomfort as they learn and become aware of the needs of their athletes (31:00); as well as the question of sports bras in a market without universal standards (26:00).They offer useful tips for any sports organisation regardless of their budget or level of resource but the important thing is to start having the conversation. Now.More from Sport Wales:How Sport Wales Is Enabling Female Athletes to Succeed on the World Stage (https://leadersinsport.com/performance-institute/articles/how-sport-wales-is-enabling-female-athletes-to-succeed-on-the-world-stage/)‘Female-Specific Considerations Should Be Part of Normal Practice’ (https://leadersinsport.com/performance-institute/articles/female-specific-considerations-should-be-part-of-normal-practice/)Female Athlete Health: Five Top Tips When Discussing the Menstrual Cycle and Other Issues (https://leadersinsport.com/performance-institute/articles/female-athlete-health-five-top-tips-when-discussing-the-menstrual-cycle-and-other-issues/)Listen above and subscribe today on iTunes (https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/leaders-performance-podcast/id1124488318?mt=2), Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/show/4EKIUuWYk5SWWqRWRQfw3z?si=epSPBhLdREOwtHiGYJnvEg), Stitcher (https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/leaders/the-leaders-performance-podcast) and Overcast (https://overcast.fm/itunes1124488318/leaders-performance-podcast), or your chosen podcast platform.

Alex Hill has spent 13 years studying organisations that have out-performed their peers for over 100 years, including the All Blacks, Eton College and the Royal Shakespeare Company. The result is his book Centennials: The 12 Habits of Great, Enduring Organisations.“If you want society to support you long term, your impact has to be much broader than just creating role models,” he continues. “Why don't you take the learning from being at the cutting edge of mental and physical performance and share that?”Hill believes that the British national governing bodies competing at the Olympic and Paralympic Games could feed those lessons back into the community in the form of a “spin-offs division” similar to that of NASA (another centennial).“This spin-offs division [could be] designed to take that learning and feed it into all of society so that the whole of our country develops.”It is just one idea Hill shares during the course of a conversation full of advice for sporting organisations. He spoke of the New Zealand All Blacks and their readiness to embrace failure [40:20]; finding smarter ways to attract money and talent [10:45]; and why a diverse talent pool can make an organisation more relevant to a broader swathe of society [17:15].Henry Breckenridge X (https://twitter.com/HenryBreck) | LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/henrybreckenridge/)John Portch X (https://twitter.com/JohnPortch) | LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-portch-696a4366/)Listen above and subscribe today on iTunes (https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/leaders-performance-podcast/id1124488318?mt=2), Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/show/4EKIUuWYk5SWWqRWRQfw3z?si=epSPBhLdREOwtHiGYJnvEg), Stitcher (https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/leaders/the-leaders-performance-podcast) and Overcast (https://overcast.fm/itunes1124488318/leaders-performance-podcast), or your chosen podcast platform.

“I’ve been told I give really good hugs.”So says Lindsay Mintenko, the Managing Director of USA Swimming’s National Team, in the second episode of this new series of the Leaders Performance Podcast, which is brought to you by our Main Partners Keiser.“Just being able to sit with an athlete; sometimes you don’t even have to talk,” she continues, “it’s just so they know you are there.”It is difficult to imagine many of her predecessors demonstrating such empathy with athletes whether they’re a multi-medal winner like Michael Phelps or Katie Ledecky or a swimmer who came agonisingly close in some of sport’s most competitive trials. The top-two finishers are guaranteed a spot on the roster; those in third – who would likely medal with other nations – are almost certain to miss out.“After the trials, our main job is to make sure our athletes are focused on Paris, but we don’t always take a step back and look at those who came third by a hundredth of a second. That’s a tough place to be; so we really need to make sure that we do a better job of looking out for those athletes afterwards.”It is perhaps no surprise that USA Swimming is currently the only national governing body in the US to have an in-house licensed clinician on staff. This has happened on the watch of Lindsay, a two-time Olympic gold medallist in the 4x200m freestyle. She is the first former athlete and first woman to serve as Team USA’s Managing Director, but as she tells Henry Breckenridge and John Portch, it is not about her but serving her athletes and their coaches. Lindsay also spoke about her role being analogous to that of a general manager in the major leagues [8:00] and the importance of providing a challenging but safe environment [17:40]. Elsewhere, she elaborates on the importance of providing mental health support for her athletes [29:50] and explains how her swimming career began when as a six-year-old Lindsay fell out of a tree [5:30].Henry Breckenridge X (https://twitter.com/HenryBreck) | LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/henrybreckenridge/)John Portch X (https://twitter.com/JohnPortch) | LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-portch-696a4366/)Listen above and subscribe today on iTunes (https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/leaders-performance-podcast/id1124488318?mt=2), Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/show/4EKIUuWYk5SWWqRWRQfw3z?si=epSPBhLdREOwtHiGYJnvEg), Stitcher (https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/leaders/the-leaders-performance-podcast) and Overcast (https://overcast.fm/itunes1124488318/leaders-performance-podcast), or your chosen podcast platform.

Michael Bourne has a sports science background, so it is no surprise that he places a premium on critical thinking.“It is core to me,” the Performance Director at the Lawn Tennis Association [LTA] tells the Leaders Performance Podcast, which is brought to you today by our Main Partners Keiser.Critical thinking is a skill that also served him well in roles at UK Sport and the England & Wales Cricket Board amongst others before he took the reins at the LTA in October 2020 (with Covid restrictions still in place).“But,” he cautions, “leadership for me is about change and progress, and you can have the greatest thinking and the greatest ideas in the world, but if you can’t drive and implement change, then it’s for naught.”It starts with taking stock. “As a leader, make sure that you are ensuring everybody else is confronting those brutal facts and you've got to be ahead of that,” he says, adding that he too must be open to feedback.“It should be unacceptable in a high-performance environment to know there is a challenge and to take no steps to do anything about it.”In the first episode of this new series, Michael explains his mission-driven and people-centred approach to helping produce British tennis players with the means to compete with the world’s best [33:10].During the conversation, we also touch upon the challenges the LTA faces and the benchmarks set [8:30]; his belief in the unique qualities of British tennis [14:30]; why the flow of information cannot be taken for granted at the LTA [38:30]; and the enduring power of the Lion King to move him [49:30].Henry Breckenridge X (https://twitter.com/HenryBreck) | LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/henrybreckenridge/)John Portch X (https://twitter.com/JohnPortch) | LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-portch-696a4366/)Listen above and subscribe today on iTunes (https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/leaders-performance-podcast/id1124488318?mt=2), Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/show/4EKIUuWYk5SWWqRWRQfw3z?si=epSPBhLdREOwtHiGYJnvEg), Stitcher (https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/leaders/the-leaders-performance-podcast) and Overcast (https://overcast.fm/itunes1124488318/leaders-performance-podcast), or your chosen podcast platform.

Harjiv Singh, a performance and development scientist at the Orlando Magic, is another example of a practitioner who suffered their own debilitating injuries.Hot on the heels of Andrea Hudy (https://leadersinsport.com/performance-institute/podcasts/paige-bueckers-proved-her-acl-injury-was-behind-her-at-march-madness-but-questions-must-still-be-asked-about-the-injuries-that-afflict-female-athletes/), who recounted her own story of ACL troubles in episode one, Harjiv told the tale of a pickup basketball game that ended with him tearing his ACL and meniscus while also suffering an avulsion fracture.The 16 months of rehab stoked an interest in sports science that not only led him to the NBA but, since January, roles at the Grand Rapids Rise women’s volleyball team, as Director of Performance Science, and the University of Michigan, where Harjiv teaches out of the Human Performance and Sports Science Center.John Portch and Joe Lemire could not have wished for a more engaging guest on this finale to this People Behing the Tech podcast series, where Harjiv delved into the sports science principles that define his work.He also shared his thoughts on training drill design [15:39] and the transferability in competition – a relatively new area of enquiry. “It could be as simple as, in basketball, you’re putting a defender in front of you,” he says. “But it can also be as complex as the angle and the approach of that defender, the people in the vicinity of the athlete, where the athlete is starting from, their position on the court. And that’s merely the introductory part of this.”Then there’s his thoughts on the “neglected” cognitive component to ACL injuries [6:41]; the need to know your audience when visualizing data [27:38]; and his ability to ask applied questions in the lab at Michigan.Check out episode two:Five Years on from the USWNT Introducing Menstrual Cycle Tracking, Sports Science for Female Athletes Remains Under-Developed (https://leadersinsport.com/performance-institute/podcasts/five-years-on-from-the-uswnt-introducing-menstrual-cycle-tracking-sports-science-for-female-athletes-remains-under-developed-so-what-can-athletes-and-practitioners-do-about-it/). So What Can Athletes and Practitioners Do about it?Joe Lemire LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/lemirejoe/) | X (https://twitter.com/LemireJoe)John Portch LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-portch-696a4366/) | X (https://twitter.com/JohnPortch)Listen above and subscribe today on iTunes (https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/leaders-performance-podcast/id1124488318?mt=2), Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/show/4EKIUuWYk5SWWqRWRQfw3z?si=epSPBhLdREOwtHiGYJnvEg), Stitcher (https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/leaders/the-leaders-performance-podcast) and Overcast (https://overcast.fm/itunes1124488318/leaders-performance-podcast), or your chosen podcast platform.

When the US women’s national soccer team started tracking their menstrual cycles, it was seen as groundbreaking.At least part of their success in claiming back to back World Cup titles in 2019 was attributed to the fact they could adjust individual training plans and nutrition based on the data.Ellie Maybury was part of the USWNT backroom team that introduced this initiative and, more than half a decade on, tech support for female athletes doesn’t seem to have progressed as much as she’d have hoped. At least in soccer.“A lot of the technology we have absorbed into the women’s game has come from the men’s game or men’s sports environments,” she tells the People Behind the Tech podcast.“And maybe some of the processes and metrics that come with that get transferred as well.”Maybury, who recently founded Soccer Herformance, a performance consultancy for female soccer players, is in the hotseat on episode two of this series.She addressed the issues that hold back female high performance, from managing the lack of objective datapoints [4:50] and the importance of education for athletes who often misunderstand their own bodies through no fault of their own [26:20], to the need to take athletes on a journey while remaining honest about the limitations of research at the present time [17:00].Check out episode one:Paige Bueckers Proved Her ACL Injury Was Behind her at March Madness, but, as Andrea Hudy tells us, Questions Must Still Be Asked about the Injuries that Afflict Female Athletes (https://leadersinsport.com/performance-institute/podcasts/paige-bueckers-proved-her-acl-injury-was-behind-her-at-march-madness-but-questions-must-still-be-asked-about-the-injuries-that-afflict-female-athletes/)Joe Lemire LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/lemirejoe/) | X (https://twitter.com/LemireJoe)John Portch LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-portch-696a4366/) | X (https://twitter.com/JohnPortch)Listen above and subscribe today on iTunes (https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/leaders-performance-podcast/id1124488318?mt=2), Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/show/4EKIUuWYk5SWWqRWRQfw3z?si=epSPBhLdREOwtHiGYJnvEg), Stitcher (https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/leaders/the-leaders-performance-podcast) and Overcast (https://overcast.fm/itunes1124488318/leaders-performance-podcast), or your chosen podcast platform.

Paige Bueckers’ stellar performances at this year’s March Madness proved that her ACL injury is long behind her.She returned to action in November 2023 after 15 months out and drove UConn all the way to the Final Four of the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament.Behind the scenes, Andrea Hudy, the Director of Sports Performance (Women's Basketball) at UConn, was critical to Bueckers’ convalescence and is working (while pursuing a PhD) to ensure there are fewer such occurrences in the future.“My passion is trying to understand why people get hurt or the story behind their injuries and keep them strong and resilient for what’s unexpected or the challenges ahead,” she tells The People Behind the Tech podcast.Andrea speaks from her own experience of injury as a varsity volleyball player. Indeed, when anyone says she “played without an ACL” for six years – as Andrea tells Joe Lemire and John Portch – it makes you sit up and take notice.In the first episode of this new series, we discuss the questions that still need to be asked about female injury occurrence rates [18:00]. We also touch upon Andrea’s career in college athletics, which took in tenures at Texas and Kansas before she returned to UConn three years ago for her second spell [8:40]. Then, we broach her willingness to experiment with new technologies while concurrently seeking better insights from existing datasets [11:40]. Finally, she tells us why she can occasionally see herself as a modern, real-life Icarus [26:30] and much more besides.Listen above and subscribe today on iTunes (https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/leaders-performance-podcast/id1124488318?mt=2), Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/show/4EKIUuWYk5SWWqRWRQfw3z?si=epSPBhLdREOwtHiGYJnvEg), Stitcher (https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/leaders/the-leaders-performance-podcast) and Overcast (https://overcast.fm/itunes1124488318/leaders-performance-podcast), or your chosen podcast platform.

David Dunne describes a perennial problem for practitioners in elite sports.“There’s a fundamental mismatch between what practitioners can deliver and what athletes actually want and desire,” he told Joe Lemire and John Portch on the People Behind the Tech podcast.“So we pivoted towards the COM-B model.”During this episode we spoke at length about Hexis’ continued growth following a successful seed round, technology’s ability to influence the evolution of the practitioner, and the fundamental union of academic rigour and those so-called softer skills.COM-B was a major part of that conversation. It has been integral to Hexis’ growth. The company used it in tandem with elements of design thinking which, as Dunne explains, stems from his time working for teams including Harlequins and Ryder Cup Team Europe. The model is a framework for understanding and changing behaviour. It was developed by Susan Michie, Maartje van Stralen and Robert West in 2011. The model posits that behaviour (B) is a result of an interaction between three components:Capability (C): this refers to an individual’s psychological and physical capacity to engage in the activity. It includes having the necessary knowledge, skills and abilities.Opportunity (O): this encompasses all the factors outside the individual that make the behaviour possible, including social and physical environmental factors.Motivation (M): this includes the brain processes that direct behaviour, such as habits, emotional responses, decision-making and analytical thinking.Listen to the full conversation.Joe Lemire LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/lemirejoe/) | X (https://twitter.com/LemireJoe)John Portch LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-portch-696a4366/) | X (https://twitter.com/JohnPortch)Listen above and subscribe today on iTunes (https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/leaders-performance-podcast/id1124488318?mt=2), Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/show/4EKIUuWYk5SWWqRWRQfw3z?si=epSPBhLdREOwtHiGYJnvEg), Stitcher (https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/leaders/the-leaders-performance-podcast) and Overcast (https://overcast.fm/itunes1124488318/leaders-performance-podcast), or your chosen podcast platform.

“Everything is based upon the game for us,” said Ryan Alexander.“Understanding how the physical demands and fitness is going to be interpreted on the field as it is going to relate to the technical and tactical execution of a certain style of play.”Alexander, the Director of Sports Science at Atlanta United, was speaking to John Portch and Joe Lemire on the People Behind the Tech podcast ahead of the new MLS season, which began in late February.He also spoke about the club’s groundbreaking work with i-Brain Tech, a neurofitness training aid that has transformed their skills and cognitive training and led to players having “higher levels of conversations with their technical coaches."Elsewhere, Alexander explored:Finding the level of confidence in the data to challenge or support [9:30];Knowing when to take calculated risks with players [18:00];How i-Brain has been integrated into the players’ training plans [27:00];* His efforts to meet players and coaches at their 'level' when it comes to data [35:30].Joe Lemire LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/lemirejoe/) | X (https://twitter.com/LemireJoe)John Portch LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-portch-696a4366/) | X (https://twitter.com/JohnPortch)Listen above and subscribe today on iTunes (https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/leaders-performance-podcast/id1124488318?mt=2), Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/show/4EKIUuWYk5SWWqRWRQfw3z?si=epSPBhLdREOwtHiGYJnvEg), Stitcher (https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/leaders/the-leaders-performance-podcast) and Overcast (https://overcast.fm/itunes1124488318/leaders-performance-podcast), or your chosen podcast platform.

At November’s Leaders Sport Performance Summit at the Oval in London, a coach was overheard saying: ‘I have a team looking at AI but I have no idea what they do’.Gary McCoy is the CEO of Peak AI, which has been shortlisted in Sports Business Journals' list of the 10 Most Innovative Sports Tech Companies of 2023.Peak AI uses psycholinguistics to enhance performance and Gary has a firm view on that coach’s comment.“If you don’t know what they do, go and lead them because they probably don’t know what they’re doing either,” he tells Joe and John on the latest edition of The People Behind the Tech podcast.“Artificial intelligence and data, as a general staple in sports, needs guidance,” he continues, “it needs transactional guidance to evolve the athlete.”Gary spoke at length about the need for coaches to fully engage with AI and also dipped into a range of areas, including:* Preventing the injuries that may be a consequence of practitioners “asking the wrong questions” [20:00];* The need for the sports industry to develop a collective ethos for using AI [23:00];* The significance of an athlete’s cognitive load on their ability to train and perform [30:30];* Why analysts who better understand performance will better understand how data transacts [46:50].Joe Lemire LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/lemirejoe/) | X (https://twitter.com/LemireJoe)John Portch LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-portch-696a4366/) | X (https://twitter.com/JohnPortch)Listen above and subscribe today on iTunes (https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/leaders-performance-podcast/id1124488318?mt=2), Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/show/4EKIUuWYk5SWWqRWRQfw3z?si=epSPBhLdREOwtHiGYJnvEg), Stitcher (https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/leaders/the-leaders-performance-podcast) and Overcast (https://overcast.fm/itunes1124488318/leaders-performance-podcast), or your chosen podcast platform.