Dr Philip Graham-Smith has a long and established career as a biomechanist working in academia, professional sport and industry. He is currently Head of Biomechanics & Innovation at Aspire Academy in Qatar and was formerly Head of Department and Associate Head of School for Business and Engagement at the University of Salford. Phil is a Fellow and accredited member of BASES, a Chartered Scientist, an ISPAS Level 5 Accredited Performance Analyst, and a Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist (NSCA). He provided biomechanical support to UK Athletics for 21 years prior to leaving for Qatar in 2013. In the 4 years leading to the London Olympics Phil was consultant Head of Biomechanics at the English Institute of Sport. Phil was a consultant to the footwear company FitFlops from 2006 to 2013 where he helped translate biomechanical data into product design and marketing material. He is also the co-founder of ForceDecks, a technology which has been adopted by over 600 high performances sport institutes and professional sports teams worldwide.
In this episode Phil discusses:
- How his exploration of maths and physics lead to a career in biomechanics.
- The founding of ForceDecks. How a simple question from Alex Natera lead to investigating Single Leg training.
- Why Single Leg training is underestimated in terms of force and load.
- How these results can inform coaches in their progressions and exercise selections.
Listen to the episode in full here!
You can follow Phil’s work via his LinkedIn page, or via his Twitter @PhilipGraham-Sm2 or his Instagram: @philipgrahamsmith .
Check out the work he and Alex Natera did here: https://www.instagram.com/tv/CdDbEXulqNU/igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y= .
To learn more about the LTAD Network check out www.ltadnetwork.com or follow on Instagram: @ltadnetwork or Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ltadnetwork . You can keep up to date with Athletic Evolution via our www.athleticevolution.co.uk , Instagram: @athleticevouk and Twitter: @athleticevouk .
Rob Anderson
Phil, thanks for coming onto the podcast. It’s great to be able to get you on all the way from Qatar.
Phil Graham-Smith
Yeah, it’s great to be here. Thanks very much for inviting me.
Rob Anderson
So before we dive into some of your involvement at spire and for Stax and the other bits and pieces we’re going to chat about take us back, give us the backstory, what was sport and physical activity like for you growing up? What were the ones you liked sport wise and activity wise?
Phil Graham-Smith
Well, football was my biggest passion as a kid. That was the short, stocky little kid. Bit she’ll be and football gave me that outlet to sort of be become athletic really. And it got to the point where so in addition to football, like water polo of all things, I love swimming. My cousin played water polo. So I joined the team, and became quite good at that. Love the physical side of it, love the swim and love the train. And that got me more into training, weights, things like that led to an interest in wanting to do a sport related career. Back in the late 80s. It was PE teaching, I remember a conversation with one of the people that was what really shaped me as a career wise was my former math teacher. And I said to him one day, I wanted to be a PE teacher, and no disrespect to any PE teacher out there. You know, when you sort of dig a hole for yourself, it says it says Smith, you can do better than that. And that’s all I wanted to do or join the army. And he said there’s other careers out there. And you know, sort of got me interested into looking at how, what another thing that I loved was maths and physics. How can I embed that into sport? I’m gonna talk a little bit deeper that you know, there was the origins of the first sport science degrees going on. And that’s when I read about biomechanics, boom, that’s, that’s the thing for me and went to actually start doing a master’s degree in Brantford, left after a year and transferred over to Liverpool Polytechnic as it was, and match it with another major inspiration in my life who was ended up being my PhD supervisor area in Leeds. And biomechanics became my thing. Really? Yeah. So then how many years left? 30 years later.
Rob Anderson
It’s still it’s still your thing. So what were some of the notable stops along the way before you end up in Cata? So when a biomechanics or studying biomechanics take you?
Phil Graham-Smith
Yeah. So Liverpool when it when I graduated in 1992, at Liverpool on sports science, I was very fortunate and timing is everything in life, isn’t it? And I was very fortunate to have the opportunity to apply for the sports science Support Programme project assistant at Liverpool John Moores University, working with the the UK was British Athletics Federation and the gym squats. So back in early 90s, the National coaching Foundation, which no longer exists in the sports courts, UK or something like that now. They managed to get funding for a number of sports science support programmes and athletics and a number of them maybe five, and the one I managed to get recruited to was on the horizontal jumps. So never done a long or triple jump in my life, done all the reading around it, looking at James hairs work in America and eventually formulated a PhD with with Adrian Lee’s and in 1999, I got the PhD having supported some of the best athletes in the world. UK Athletics, working with the likes of Jonathan Edwards, Asha Hansen, who both broke world records, multiple Olympians you know, Chris Tomlinson, Calypso at DOE, Denise Lewis, all these people along the way, who, you know, very privileged to have worked with learn from a lot and their coaches and that’s been a mainstay of my career really working with jumpers. I’m not a jumper myself, but the an interest in jumping is been very evident in my research Not just horizontal jumping, but in jump testing. And throughout the last 30 years or so most of the millions of jump test counter movement drop jumps and things like that. That sort of led to the creation of Fostex. There’s a number of stops between the way, but using force platforms has always been. Sorry, the cleaners is that that was just through the tedious and monotonous work of analysing boss races, then we tried to create something a bit more streamlined. So collecting more data was one thing, which was easy, but process and it was another sort of created a little expelled Excel spreadsheet, I refined it all the time. And I thought one day, well, let’s try and automate it. So that sort of led to the the force Dex programme, I created a little bilateral force plate system embedded in LinkedIn platform, sold a few of them privately, you know, a little entrepreneurship thing that did matter with Dan Cohen that I had not seen for 10 years. We did some work originally in in Manchester United in 2002. And we joined forces around 2012, just around the Olympics time and formulated for Stax, and then it took off time and again, time it was everything. Yeah, of course plates is nothing new. That the time and of embedding those plays into Institute’s and professional teams, that was a time for it. There was there’s plenty of places that had ForcePlates but no one knowing how to use them. So, you know, they I think this was Dec software really did open up a new era for technology in sport in those environments. And, you know, you see now there’s different companies coming along along alongside for stacks, but I think we still got that. Not that I own four stacks anymore, but I think four stacks are still got that competitive advantage or that its competitors.
Rob Anderson
So how did the trip to get out come on the scene? What opportunity presented itself there that piqued your interest?
Phil Graham-Smith
Well, you know, from from being a lecturer at John Mulas, so in 1992, took on the PhD project assistantship. 1997. I became a lecturer there in 2001. And opportunity came to move to Salford and wasn’t, you know, I mean, I was leaving a top ranked university to go to somewhere that had no reputation in sports science whatsoever. But I saw the potential there, you know, is it was more central, I was trying to run a human performance unit in Liverpool, which is on the coastline. Difficult to get into the centre, the location wasn’t right. But when I went to Salford, I saw the potential of it being linked with physio, the School of Health Professions, physio, podiatry, and podiatric clinic, we would be doing gait analysis at Liverpool and saying, I want to get some orthotics go to Salford. So I’m just going maybe sofas, maybe a really good opportunity to create that holistic provision of services to sport in the in the north, northwest of England. So I made that move. It was a big leap of faith, you know, going into a new place that didn’t really have that reputation for sports science. But within a few years, I was crew leader for the sports rehab, did that for a couple years, and then the opportunity came to be head of the department. And at that point, you know, really set about creating that drive for been the identity of Strength & Conditioning in the UK, and we’ve managed to appoint a few key people along the way. And I’m pleased to say that if we’re talking about S&C In the UK, Salford and then the world now I guess Salford is got a really good reputation and I was just pleased to play my part in that. But Aspire came along in late 2012, and I I guess it came about after the post Olympics dip. You know, and I would never have thought about me being, you know, a typical Yorkshire man living in the Middle East. It’s like what you’re thinking of, you know, just sit culturally with me. But Tim Kebbell, Professor Tim Campbell, who was my head of department at Liverpool 10 years before, you know, contacted me and said, I moved out there looking for head of biomechanics, and you fancy it. And I’d been doing a lot of applied work with athletics in the English Institute of Sport, I was a consultant had there for a few years leading up to London. And I thought, You know what, maybe it’s time to put your money where your mouth is, and fully embed yourself into a sport in system. So I went for an interview, it was a weekend before Christmas, in 2012. And on New Year’s Eve, I got an offer. And with lambin, my wife and my daughter timing again, perfect because my daughter was coming to the end of a second year at high school. So it was the year before decisions about GCSEs. Let’s do it. So we went through a year, initially on a sabbatical, so our jobs will catch up. And, you know, it just made sense to stare that, and within another month or two, we’ve been there 10 years now. So the Yorkshire man out of his comfort zone has been blessed in many ways. With an experience in the Middle East. I wouldn’t change for the world.
Rob Anderson
And as is that the first time you’re kind of powers overlapped with James Baker and Alex natira. And that kind of crew.
Phil Graham-Smith
Yeah, well, I arrived, one or two months before Alex. And then just as Alex was leaving, James arrived, and maybe a month or two before and then Alex left. So there was a very short span with the both of them there. And but yeah, I mean, great guys, both of them, they, they certainly bring something to the sport in world practically, which is I think, really important, and they’re practical guys who evidence best, and really try and uphold the principles of good practice and, you know, embedding that, that research element into their programmes and delivery.
Rob Anderson
So, so one of the areas I wanted to touch on was a bit of a collaboration, a number of you did around this kind of single leg and double leg quantification and comparison, how did that first come on the scene? Because and Alex seems to have gone down a bit of a rabbit hole of going, I’m going to try and quantify all these different variations. What What was the first point of conversation where that popped up?
Phil Graham-Smith
I mean, it was interesting, because that that week that Alex came to see me there was another request from another person, I’ll come on to him in a minute. But I’m sat at my desk in the office, and Alex said, federal, can you help me? He says, If I’ve got an athlete who can do 100 kilos, Double Leg Squat? Does that mean he can do a 50 kilo single leg squat? And I said, I don’t think so. I think it’s too much. But why? And Alex is a very much a But why, you know, he wants to know why. Why why? Which is great. Because you know, when you’ve got someone like Alex, who asked the questions, and it puts you in an uncomfortable position of trying to answer it. It helps you grow as well. And it’s something I’ve never really thought of, you know, Alex is the guy in the gym who had a genuine question. If they can do this, what can they do on a single leg says give me half an hour. So I just went to the basics of looking at segmental mass distributions and thought well, in a double leg squat, you’ve got your two, like support in everything above your hips. And if you look at segmental analysis, it accounts for 60 60%, or something of your bodyweight, above your hip, trunk, torso, arms and things. So therefore, if you are on one leg, you’ve got all that plus the weight of the other leg. So it’s a lot more so just looking at the ratios of how much is supported above the hip. Makes it very clear that you’re not going to be able to lift 50 kilos, it’s going to be something less. So we did just put a very loose formula together. And as it happened, we managed to have some data from single leggenda Leg jumping. And when we we looked at this ratio, he actually was very, very close to measurements that we’ve got off ForcePlates. So that’s where it came initially. But in that same week, I also got a request from Mark Jarvis, who was my PhD student, just before I left Salford. And he said, Alex’s asked me a question very similar. And I’m thinking, wow, we’re in the same week, you know, again, just two questions. So there must be something in this. So, you know, sort of kill two birds with one stone this and funnily enough, we submitted this paper to UKSCA, I think it was 2015 or 2016, at a conference in, in the Lamington, spa somewhere. And they put me in the back corner of a room, nobody can see at all it was there it was in the public domain for years. And it wasn’t really until Alex started promoting this through is is means and his social media that it’s really caught a lot of interest. And if it’s one of these things, it’s so obvious how practical it can be. It didn’t require any testing. And I think this is the one thing that we lose sight of at times in sports science. If you can answer 95% of a question, just using basic principles, you don’t need to go to create a research study working in this environment. And this is something that I’ve learned over the last 10 years working in this environment where you’ve got curious coaches be S&C or athletics coaches are whatever, they can’t wait for months to go through a governance process. They want they want something that’s gonna give them a very knowledgeable answer very quickly, so they can snap tomorrow. So this is a prime example of using principles, sound principles, that gives you an answer within half an hour. And then our own curiosity was, well, let’s test it using force pilots. And that’s where Chris Brandner came in. And we started looking at all these other different movements, single leg, you know, step ups, launch all these other things. And, you know, we just collected the data to process it. And I find it quite interesting. I’m not the one that’s applying it in the gym. But it’s it was my service to them, I guess, in looking at how we can apply biomechanics into a what’s the word, a programming context, you know, just to give rough ideas of what loads are put on to get equivalent loads, and, you know, make selections and give that variety of exposure to a lot of different types of lifts, I guess.
Rob Anderson
So when we talk about getting those equivalent loads, what are some of the things you found out when you start mixing and matching? And I guess cost comparing unilateral and bilateral?
Phil Graham-Smith
Yeah, I mean, the equation that we came up with, we did it in terms of body weights, it made it so much easier in the just go into the kilo. But if memory serves me right result, right? If you’re doing a single leg squats without any additional load, it’s the equivalent of doing a double leg squat with a bodyweight load on top of additional load of the bodyweight, and then it goes up proportionally with that. So you think well, wow, you know, what, when you start questioning things, anything, is it really? Is it really that much? And it has to be, you know, and you think, Well, why? Why are we doing a lot of things double leg, when particularly with a youth edge? Why wouldn’t a lot of double leg stuff where the load on the bar has to be so excessive. And you know, you’ve got the compressive forces on spine and one out here. And the added benefits of stability, core control of doing single leg squats. What I want to do model Single Leg stuff. And I think that’s been one of the interesting things that has come out of this. And compounded by the fact that we then went through a pandemic, where we had to start distributing weights out to kids homes. Not enough load to do the bulk things, but enough load to do a single leg. So I mean, it’s like a a Perfect story really, when you reflect back on it out the analysis of that single leg load scenario and the benefits of it, plus being able to resource, the amount of load needed to give to kids to train at home as well, which is quite a nice byproduct of this research, I guess.
Rob Anderson
Yeah, it’s really, it’s funny because this really piqued my interest. I don’t know if you remember, I mean, this would be a good at least 15 years ago, now, probably about many, many moons ago, Mike young kind of had a very famous, a lot of Mike young Mike Boyle, and a very famous kind of video around saying, bilateral squats are dead, like single leg work is a way forward. And people really lambasted him for it. And you know, all the people who are married to barbell back squats came out and gave him what for? And it wasn’t till I was, you know, looking at Alex’s stuff, I thought, You know what, now there’s the data that informed reinforces his perspective, that actually, he you know, he was onto something, there is something there, we just didn’t necessarily someone hadn’t done the maths. They say the segmental analysis or got on a force plate to quantify it. And actually, you’re absolutely right. And in situations where perhaps we don’t want or need axial loading, there’s a completely suitable alternative, we’ve just never viewed it because it’s not as obvious because there’s not an external load added to it or etc. But as you dive into the numbers, I mean, the numbers that Alex said is you said about, you know, body weight, single leg squat being equivalent to an external load or half your your mass in a single squat be equivalent to two times body weight. And I mean, these are some big numbers, you know, being able to do a single squat with your body weight attached, is equal to three times body weight. That’s a huge load.
Phil Graham-Smith
Yeah. It’s phenomenal. And as I said, I think originally, you have to double double check, I think, is this right? And it shocked, shocked all of us really to see, you know, how those numbers stacked up? Yeah. I think it was it was even more interesting getting Chris Brandner to be doing three times bodyweight squats Many ways well up for it, you know, we did it over two sessions. And, you know, it was again, it, it was inquisitive. But you saw where it was going from a practical point of view. So it’s more than worth the time and effort collecting data in the moment. I think that the single double leg work in our segmental analysis works easy. It’s not so easy doing it that way. But looking at the the split squat, and one of the because it’s not just up and down. This is horizontal classes and things. And I guess that’s one little caveat we mustn’t be we must be aware of when we start looking at single split squat against double leg squat is that there are more horizontal forces around and it’s not just about the vertical load, which is, I guess, a limitation of some of that work. We just did it on a vertical axis force plate. But I think what it has shown is over that front leg on the on the split squat is X percent. I can’t remember the numbers exactly. But it is a percentage off the double legequivalent. And it kind of makes sense, as you said with with Alex’s inquisitive mind and the tools at your disposal to go okay, well, we’ve quantified a single leg squat and a back squat.
Rob Anderson
Well, the natural progression is then as you say, to look at quantifying some of these other variations of split squats and lunges and step ups, all those kinds of things. It does, yeah, creates an interesting chain of thought or conversation around some of these variations, doesn’t it?
Phil Graham-Smith
Yeah, for sure. Yeah.
Rob Anderson
So what do you think, as we were kind of saying before, what do you think is some of the practical applications so it’s all nice, and it’s fun and having numbers and being able to quantify things? But do you think this opens up a new kind of lens around exercise selection and variation in terms of when when we’re looking at single leg versus bilateral or the progression of single leg training?
Phil Graham-Smith
You know, I’ve got to be careful here because I’m not, I’m not the gym guy. You know, I’m the bio mechanist with an interest in SMC. So I’m not the one implementing programmes as a buyer mechanism, from my point of view, taking a step out of the gym looking in, I think, you know, as you said about Mike Boyle and coming up 15 years ago, so in double excellent, I think. Yes, I mean, I see now more benefits from single leg work. I never, but maybe. And again, I don’t know if I’m right here or not, but maybe double leg work is a precursor to single leg. You know, I think it might have been seen the other way around before, you know that you do single leg loads, and then you’re going to double but, you know, the big heavy lifts, it’s not necessarily the case, just because the load on the bar is, is smaller on a single leg doesn’t mean that it’s actually less load to the structure of the of the, of the sporting limb. You know, so, I don’t know if that’s answered the question there, but the Shuar what what it sure knows is that double leg loads are absolutely per leg equivalent, are a lot less than doing it on single. And I think that for me is highlighted how those progressions may be perceived now, that that maybe double leg work should precede single leg if you put in, you know, big loads on.
Rob Anderson
Yeah, that’s a really interesting point of discussion. There’s a I remember seeing a study recently, in fact, it was a UK co poster, funnily enough, and it was someone who’s done a study on I think it was split squat, maybe rear foot elevated split, squat, and back squat, and their test. Unfortunately, they were so close to having some really, I guess, more useful evidence was that their test measure was then when I’m back squat. So a group did bilateral squat and group did unilateral. And then their test was did you want to get better? And there was no difference in one of them? And I was like, Oh, I really wish you’d tested a unilateral measure. Because you could have seen potentially this cross pollination effect that actually Single Leg makes you good on single leg and double the double leg or double. And I think, yeah, there’s, there’s something there, isn’t it?
Phil Graham-Smith
I do think so. But you’ve also got to think about the pragmatic aspects of a programme. And if you’re gonna do single leg work you need to do on both legs, so it’s twice the time. And I think we’ve, what it does tell me is that maybe it’s better doing less exercises. But doing them single legged, both legs will have more benefit than, you know, doing multiple more double leg type movements or symmetrical type movements. I mean, the more I work with coaches that aspire, in athletics coaches and S&C, coaches, I think it does highlight maybe some wrong mindsets around what we’re trying to achieve. I’m digressing a little bit here. But I think there’s possibly too much focus around just getting strong versus conditioning. And I think that the title of strength and conditioner has just become strength. And when we look at from a biomechanical point of view, and he says exactly what we’ve done, a smile with jumps coach Martin Brockman and Barry Schiller via our S&C, coach, the three of us work together. What we’ve done is look at the demands of the sport are the events of long and triple jumps and what are the loads being exposed to and it’s single leg work. There’s a massive demand on balance and accepting high forces. How do we condition the athletes to withstand the Lords of those events? And I think double leg work fails miserably. It’s got some part in the programme, but it’s it’s surely not addressing the balance side of things. So I would say that we need to as a as a professional wrestler, see, you know, and again, I’m not an S&C coach in my biomechanics with an interest in S&C. Although I do like to work their guns out
Phil Graham-Smith
I think we need to change the focus to condition fit for purpose. And just remove this fixed mindset in cases of getting on a platform, doing symmetrical double leg work, and snap building in single leg work balance, different perturbations to make them work harder through the core. And I think you can get more bang for your buck in those scenarios, and particularly with with youth athletes as well.
Rob Anderson
I think it’s a really interesting area. And I think my bias probably got challenged during COVID as well, I did a little inner one experiment, because I didn’t have a barbell in my setup, I had a 20 kilo weight vest, couple of kettlebells, sort of 12 to 24 kilos. And so I went down, right, and we did lots of single leg RDL, split squats, single leg squats, pistols, etc. And lots of kind of your classic upper body gymnastics kind of variations of weighted push ups, chin ups, etc. And I think, hadn’t touched a barbell in six months, and then went into the gym, when they just when they read them for Christmas and hit personal bests on everything. And I thought, right, there’s something to this, I’ve maybe put the cart before the horse here and thinking and it’s led to a long term, I guess contemplation in my mind. And it comes back to what you were saying earlier, is how have we got the wrong mindset, because we’ve kind of emerged from powerlifting, weightlifting bodybuilding backgrounds, where we think the barbell is king, as if we’d maybe emerged more from gymnastics, we might have a very different view on actually, you can manipulate bodyweight, and a heck of a lot of different ways to get a stimulus, rather than just very concentric bias reps of double leg stuff, etc.
Phil Graham-Smith
Absolutely. And I’d say this is one of the, the positive outcomes of that, that thinking time, let’s say, from the COVID experience is as bad as it was, I think we can, you know, draw some positives in the fact that it has compromised or perceived, perceived to have compromised training. And the reality is, people start thinking out of the box, thinking differently, what can I do instead of, and in your case, you know, brilliant, you know, it’s challenged the way you were thinking, and it’s probably not just yourself, but 1000s of people, you know, start doing single leg pistol squats, and now you’ve got, if you’ve got the transfer into a better pick up in your in your double leg squat. That’s brilliant. We had a thrower aspire, who without throwing the shotput, for three months, came out of COVID, and through the World Junior standard, without throwing the shotput. But what we did do is focus on showing him videos of himself against the technical model of an athlete that the coach selected. So he was rehearsing things in his mind, he was doing the movements, and he was doing weight training with a certain amount of load, but he would have done some double and single leg work. And as you say, as I said, he came out and through the world unity standard without throwing the shotput. And that, to me, is just phenomenal. You know, you think, Wow. Did we really compromise training? Or are we just got stuck in this mindset of this is what we do, because this is what we do. And I think it’s good to challenge ourselves.
Rob Anderson
Yeah, it that thought process really challenged me and and unfortunately, now I don’t I don’t work in a in a governing body system where you have to perform to metrics. But I do think there is a bit of an issue there isn’t if you’re part of a club or a system or you know, or an organisation that essentially measures your progress as an S&C Coach against how much of a set standard of this test, you know, be it I want to own back squat or a bench press or whatever, then you’re automatically gonna bias your training towards making yourself look good on this test, right? Because that’s, that’s what you’re being evaluated against. But as you say, maybe we’ve lost sight of what’s the actual event? What are we actually training for here? Do we really need a lot of bilateral axial loading? Not really, you know, if you’re not a friend or a rugby player or a powerlifter. Actually, that’s not necessarily a demand of your sport, but we’re adding that onto you.
Phil Graham-Smith
Yeah. And there’s dangers to do in that where, you know, not just from the pure, you know, wet stack that you’ve got a lift or whatever, but it’s, it’s an overemphasis on certain movements. And it’s not being balanced by strength in the posterior chain, for example. And, you know, we’ve just got to be mindful about all these different aspects of what, what builds the athlete that needs to perform. It just reminded me of another little project that we did. Never been published as such, but When we look at the demands of of jumpin in our youth population, we’ve got a lot less susceptible to jumpers knee patellar tendon off the pick. And we’ve had a couple of boys who are going through the growth spurt or just coming out of the back of the growth spurt, and this suffered a bit, and it’s impaired their ability to perform in hydrogen, poor, long, triple jump. So we use again, a COVID, a COVID best project, which gave us the downtime to really sit together as a support team and say, what are the risks of of forming this event? So we’re not just looking at the demands of the sport in, you know, you get 15 times body weight, when you land from up into a step, we’re not just looking at that we’re looking at what are this the risks in terms of injuries, what’s the injury profile, so we took time with our physic physio, and we looked at the major injury sites within jumpers, and one of which was patellar. tendinopathy is why it’s called jumpers, knee spondylitis, Shin pain, ankle pain, you know, various impact related things, and we and hamstrings and various things. So we’ve just looked at those major sources of injuries. And we unpicked it by looking at the mechanisms of around around it. And, you know, some are related to impacts, and some are related to load in specific tissues and the tendons. And we looked at all the risk factors, and there’s some very, very obvious things there that span across all of them doing things, programming things wrong, you know, too much volume and density too quickly. Are they too heavy? Are they recovered? And they’re fatigued? You know, are they hydrated, getting the basics in place? Good warm ups to get the muscles that you know, these things are just so obvious. But yet, we don’t we just take them for granted now and don’t really think about so we just mapped all these things together. And then we thought, well, patellar tendinopathy, what can we do? And we started chatting and started looking at this Spanish squat. And we’re like, Okay, so let’s implement in Spanish squat. And within two sessions, the boys could get horizontal, the, you know, from upright position that they could bend at the knee and they were totally horizontal. And you’re like, Wow, that’s impressive. You know, so they did two legs, you know, how can they do this. So we built a little model, simple little model, to say, what type of load of what position do we need to get them in, so as to get the typical loads of around 350 newton metres around the knee joint that they would experience in a long or triple jump. And it requires single leg. And to go back quite quite far. With the trunk, the trunk is the main driver. And adding load to get those similar loads to that load experiencing competition in actual jumping. So we’ve now got from a little model, which wasn’t too dissimilar to the, the single leg double leg model using segmental loads and things like that, we’ve now got target positions that you can quickly look at when they’re doing the the Spanish squat, you can just eyeball it anywhere 15 degrees, you know, drunken 45 degrees, knee, or thigh. And that was another little useful outcome from COVID. And something useful that we can embed into the gym for conditioning the boys to prepare themselves with loads of experience.
Rob Anderson
Isn’t it funny how so often, we can look for a complicated answer when sometimes there’s a much simpler one, like, like you said, around the integrating warm ups and basic things loading frequency, all those kind of things. And sometimes human nature we almost want to go for it must be something really complex, or like like the bilateral unilateral thing or you’re obviously going to get more with the barbell. There’s actually sometimes we need to sit back and go, Okay, I’ve got these biases or this this, you know, this information. Am I really right or something that I think is really obvious? Is that actually what’s happening or am I overlooking something really simple at my own peril?
Phil Graham-Smith
Well, I mean, there’s that classic story of, of NASA spending millions designing at Penn to work in space and the Russians do She was a pencil, you know? So, you know, sometimes the obvious is, is their face in Yeah, all the time. And I think there’s one thing that was put to me many years ago and one of the EIS training days. And one of the psychologists I forgotten who it wasn’t now, but I ended up buying this book. And it is called nudge. And it really strips back the issues in the problem. And I think there was an example in there about the toilets that she Paul University Schipol airport in Amsterdam, and there was forever smelling of urine. And, you know, this is where we can spend more money, you know, putting more cleaners in to mop it all up. And, you know, when when they looked into it, the problem wasn’t how many times the cleaners go, and it was people can’t aim right. So the answer to it was to inscribe a fly on the urinal. People aim then, and the problem has gone. The problem wasn’t what we think it is about not enough cleaners, it was gotta get your in, right?
Rob Anderson
Yes, that whole thing about, you know, cut down a tree, spend the first four hours sharpening your axe kind of thing? Isn’t it? Like getting to the root of the problem? Is the problem what we really think? Or is that just a symptom of the problem? And I think that we all can fall into that trap quite a lot. Can we have overthinking that problem or Not? Not? Not really thinking through? Okay, but is that the end? Or is there more to it than that? And I think
Phil Graham-Smith
this is one of the dangers, I guess, of working with into interdisciplinary teams or multidisciplinary teams that everyone if you said, this is a problem, everyone will go it’s this it’s this, it’s that it’s whatever in the app, before you know it, you’ve got 1010 different answers. But if you start off by going, what is the fundamental issue? The fundamental issue is urine on the floor? Not how to clean it up. It’s how did it get there? How can we prevent it from getting there? And I didn’t didn’t expect to be talking about you. It’s funny how these things go, isn’t it? Yeah,
Rob Anderson
I told you, it’s always the best fit that you don’t plan for. So what I know, you obviously, you know, four stacks, these kinds of combinations of things going on in terms of little random mini research projects popping up popping out what what’s on the horizon for you in the next sort of 18 months, you got anything coming down the pipeline?
Phil Graham-Smith
Quite honestly, that there’s nothing, there’s nothing set in stone just yet. We have a couple of little projects going on within our respective event groups that we’re working with. As I think I said before, research wise isn’t isn’t some research isn’t a term, I tend to use much now. It’s performance solutions. If there’s a question, we try and answer it in in the most timely efficient way, which may involve a research project and more traditional research project. But a lot of the things we can we can address very quickly. And I quite liked this, this forecast because it is much more streamlined. We’ve got some interesting projects with relays, and how we may be able to embed some GPS type system to quantify change over periods. We’ve had a little look and see around that in the last few years. But now we’ve got a serious relay team to work with. We’ve got some really good long and triple jumpers now, you know, in around the seven metre mark 50 metre mark, so we’ve got a big push next year to try and get them to World Juniors. And the support that we provide to them will will challenge you know, our thought process to try and fine tune technique and things. So that’s something that we’re looking forward to. I don’t know what else it was really, things just evolve, you know, on a daily basis, really, but it’s exciting. It’s exciting.
Rob Anderson
So where can people track you down? Where’s the best place for people to keep tabs on what you’re doing? Is it Twitter? Is it LinkedIn? Is it Instagram? Where do you hang out if you hang out anywhere at all?
Phil Graham-Smith
I tend to look at LinkedIn more often these days. And quite honestly, I mean, I’m on Twitter. I’m on Instagram but I wouldn’t have a clue what my names are. On. video as I rely on Alex to tag me in something and people contact me through that, but it’s something that I hadn’t done if it’s deliberately not got got into too much, you know, I like to keep a fresh mind around things and not get bogged down into that side of things. But I am on Twitter, I am on LinkedIn, I’m on Instagram. So I couldn’t tell you what my address is.
Rob Anderson
Well, I would highly encourage anyone who hasn’t come across the kind of quantification stuff that you and Alex and Chris got stuck into to head across accent here. He’s got some great little, you know, one minute summaries on his Instagram page that a lot of graphics to kind of bring it to life to maybe question some of those assumptions. But thanks so much for explaining some of the stuff today and diving into your experience. It’s been really great to chat.
Phil Graham-Smith
No, it’s been my pleasure, Rob. Thanks for asking me again. Nice to meet you as well.